History & local legend
The Old Stone House near Slippery Rock occupies the site of a stagecoach tavern that served travelers heading north from Pittsburgh. After the original inn fell into ruin, it was reconstructed in the 1960s as a museum of nineteenth-century life. Stories about the property continued in the rebuilt house.
Dena Richardson grew up nearby hearing those stories from her father and was working at the museum by 2011. Fellow Slippery Rock University student Jen Melnick described hearing footsteps overhead while sitting in the quiet downstairs. She also recounted a tradition of a woman in Victorian clothing appearing in a second-floor exhibit room.
Sources
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2011 interviews with Dena Richardson, Jen Melnick and investigator Tom Harter
- Pennsylvania DCNR, the original 1820s tavern, reconstruction and transfer to Jennings Environmental Education Center
- Slippery Rock University Archives, Old Stone House Collection and restoration history
- Waymarking, coordinates and photographs of the Brady Township tavern, with the Melnick account
- B. P. Stillwaggon postcard of The Old Stone House, New Slippery Rock, Butler postmark April 19, 1912; front and back shown