History & local legend
Captain Calvin Blazier’s former house at State Street and Bryan Avenue in Baden later became offices. It was there that Gaylin Katterson encountered an unfamiliar boy while working late one evening with her own children in the building.
Katterson was filing while her children chased one another through the offices. When a boy rushed past her desk, she stood and told him to stop, assuming he was one of them. The child who looked back was about the age of her twelve-year-old, but his clothes were from another time: knee-length trousers, a stiff white collar and hair neatly parted down the middle.
She realized that he was not her son. Recalling the incident to reporter Jonathan Barnes years later, Katterson remembered how startled the boy looked as he stood in the doorway, apparently as surprised by her as she was by him.
Sources
- Jonathan Barnes, Ripples of the Past, author’s republication of his Pittsburgh Magazine Beaver County interview with Gaylin Katterson
- Blogger full-text copy of the same Barnes interview including Katterson’s description, date relative to publication, and the identifying street corner
- Baden Borough, History of Baden, confirms Captain Calvin’s former home at State Street and Bryan Avenue
- Baden Borough, The Front Porch, June 2014, names the house, financial business, Katterson and its oak interior
- Esri PointAddress, 511 State Street, matched with the borough’s identification of the corner
