The Last Spirit of Fall Brook

The first time I visited Fall Brook I felt an eerie chill pass through me. It was not due to the cold wind that shook the trees or the snow that covered the ground. It was something else. Something I couldn't explain. I had come here to visit the souls who had left their homeland to work the coal mines of Tioga County. I had heard how Fall Brook was once a thriving town. How it had a railroad, a school, a church, and a cemetery. How it was the source of a superior coal that was in high demand for many industries. Other stories told how the coal ran out, the people left, and the town was abandoned and forgotten. I did not expect to experience the ardent emotions that invaded my being when I came here.

Fall Brook Cemetery is located off a state forest road in Ward Township, Tioga County, Pennsylvania. Its fallen and broken gravestones bear witness to the passage of time as no burials have occurred here for over a century. The graveyard rests in quiet abandonment with its secrets buried among the departed. The names of the lives once lived are now etched in moss covered stone. Visitors who venture here may feel the weight of history. Fall Brook Cemetery, now a silent sentinel, cradles the memories of those who danced at harvest festivals, who whispered secrets under moonlit skies, and who weathered many storms. Their stories are like the gnarled roots of apple trees intertwined with the very soil that cradles them. And so, in my humble endeavor to honor these souls, I compile their names as a litany of 67 remembrance. I pen their stories, not as mere dates and inscriptions, but as echoes of love and loss. For they are more than names etched in granite; they are the heartbeat of the community that once thrived here. In this abandoned town, where the wind rustles through forgotten doorways and wildflowers reclaim the streets, I offer my tribute. With each keystroke, I resurrect their voices, weaving them into the fabric of my book. Their legacy, obscured by time, deserves recognition— a whispered promise that they shall not fade into oblivion. And so, dear reader, as you scan the pages of my work, know that it is not just ink on paper. It's a bridge across centuries, a bridge that spans the gap between the living and the departed. For in honoring their memory, we honor our shared humanity—a beautiful tapestry that transcends the boundaries of time and place. "Here lies our past," the gravestones murmur. "Remember us:" Fall Brook Cemetery

Shirley M. Welch is a lifetime resident of Covington, Pennsylvania who describes herself as "a woman of resilience, a lover of history, and a believer in what lies beyond." Now, she can add "author" to her resume. Shirley has always been fascinated with the paranormal and its ghosts, spirits, and stay behinds. She believes that ghosts are lingering souls who defy space and time. From when she was a small child, Welch was drawn to Fall Brook Cemetery. She began by finding the well-hidden graveyard and then spent years unearthing its secrets and history. In her book, she attempts to resurrect the forgotten town and its miners, shopkeepers, and dusky phantoms.