History & local legend
A buried-treasure legend places a restless figure beside Swatara Creek near the former village of Swatara in Schuylkill County. Ella Zerbey Elliott recorded it in Old Schuylkill Tales, published in 1906, through an elderly Panther Valley resident who said he had heard it from his father.
In that account, a group of Indigenous raiders acquired gold, and one of them secretly hid part of it beneath a rock along the creek. His companions discovered the deception and killed him. His ghost was then said to return to the stream, searching for the cache he could no longer recover.
The man telling Elliott the story had an unusually practical response: he hoped to encounter the ghost and ask where the treasure lay.
Sources
- Ella Zerbey Elliott, Old Schuylkill Tales, p. 145, the Panther Valley resident’s account
- W.W. Munsell, History of Schuylkill County (1881), Reilly Township, Swatara Village and Swatara Falls
- Jim Cheney, photographs of the gorge and owner’s access request
- USGS, Swatara Creek at the Route 209 bridge near Newtown
