Petroleum Center Road at Russell Corners Road

History & local legend

Doc Haggerty was a teamster in the Oil Creek region, hauling nitroglycerin used in the oil industry. In 1888, he delivered 1,400 pounds to a storage magazine near Pleasantville. A powerful explosion followed.

John J. McLaurin’s nineteenth-century account says searchers found fragments of Haggerty’s horses and wagon but no remains of the driver. His insurer resisted paying the claim, arguing that without a body he might still be alive. Experts believed the blast had destroyed him completely.

In the ghost story that followed, Haggerty still drives a horse-drawn wagon along the old oil road through the valley. He wears old-fashioned clothing, and the wagon remains loaded for its final delivery. Winter retellings add an echo of the explosion sounding through Oil Creek long after the disaster.