Free Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania by Thomas White

approximately AD 1200. The skull and skeleton were shipped back to the museum in Philadelphia for study, but shortly after their arrival, they were stolen.
    A P AIR OF P ATENT M EDICINES
    Before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, patent medicines were sold almost everywhere. The questionable concoctions claimed to cure or prevent all kinds of ailments. Often, they actually included addictive substances (like opium or cocaine) and had little real medicinal value. A pair of interesting patent medicine advertisements appeared in the Advance Argus , published in Greenville, Mercer County.
    In 1888, an ad appeared for a medicine known as the “Electric Bitters.” It stated that a purer medicine did not exist. For only one dollar a bottle, the bitters could cure all liver and kidney disease; eliminate headaches, constipation and indigestion; and remove pimples and boils. If that were not enough, it could also cure malaria. Sounds like a good deal!
    Another advertisement in 1891 presented a solution to a common problem. Apparently, rich, pretty and educated girls kept eloping with tramps, coachmen and other scoundrels. Luckily for the reader, Dr. Franklin Miles diagnosed the real problem. According to him, the girls were impulsive, hysterical, nervous, unbalanced and subject to immoderate crying and laughing because of their weak nervous systems. But Dr. Miles had the solution. The only remedy that was necessary was a bottle of his Restorative Nervine medicine. He also sold his celebrated New Heart Cure, the finest of heart tonics, for those who suffered from fluttering or shortness of breath.
    M AN P ERFORMED H IS O WN W EDDING C EREMONY
    On June 11, 1913, Dr. Askelon Mercer performed his own marriage ceremony in Beaver County. The doctor was seventy-five years old at the time. His bride, Sarah Calgrove, was sixty-five years old. It was the sixth time that Dr. Mercer had been married. He had been licensed decades before and had performed all of his weddings himself.
    F IREMAN P UT O UT H OUSE F IRE BY H IMSELF
    Joe Baldauf was a fireman from New Castle who took his job very seriously. One morning in January 1925, he was taking a walk along County Line Road near an old cement works. As he passed a nearby house, he realized that there was smoke coming out of its roof. Baldauf immediately rushed into the house and alerted the people inside to the danger. Then he borrowed their axe and climbed to the roof to cut a hole to get a better look and release the smoke. He was able to determine that damage to the chimney had started the blaze.
    In the meantime, the residents followed Baldauf’s orders and started filling buckets of water. They managed to pass the buckets up to Baldauf so he could extinguish the fire. His quick thinking minimized the damage and prevented the fire from spreading. Everything was under control by the time more firemen arrived.
    A F OLDING B ED A CCIDENT
    On March 3, 1909, a bizarre tragedy occurred in Pittsburgh. Charles Murray and his family had just moved into a house on Penn Avenue. They had moved in quickly, and the folding bed that the parents used was hastily assembled. It was temporarily placed on the first floor, until their bedroom was finished. Murray’s daughter woke that night to muffled groans and strange noises. She was frightened and stayed in her room for almost an hour until she decided to go to her parents. When she went downstairs, she saw that the bed was up, and the bottom halves of her parents’ bodies were pushed up to the ceiling. Their upper bodies were pinned between the wall and the bed. She went for help, but her father’s injuries were too severe, and he died. Most of his bones were crushed. Mrs. Murray was badly hurt but eventually recovered. Her husband’s larger body took the brunt of the force and allowed her to survive.
    L IVERMORE —P ENNSYLVANIA ’ S S UNKEN T OWN
    The town of Livermore once stood along the Conemaugh River in Westmoreland