History & local legend
Girty’s Notch was a sandstone formation beside the Susquehanna River near Liverpool in Perry County. Travelers thought the cliff resembled a man’s profile and associated it with Simon Girty, the frontier figure whose support for the British made him a notorious name in American stories of the Revolutionary era.
In the Liverpool treasure legend, Girty was fleeing toward Canada with pursuers behind him. He hid in a cave for three days, then buried his gold there so he could travel more quickly. The story connected the apparent face in the rock with a fortune concealed behind it.
A photograph published in a 1922 county history marked the profile above the river road. The cave was destroyed during highway widening in 1951.
Sources
- The Paw Print, Greenwood School District, The Story of Liverpool: Canals, Natives, Legendary Gold, and Enterprise, local telling of the three days in hiding and abandoned gold
- Harry H. Hain, History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, 1922, pp. 104–105, describes the profile and reproduces Morrow’s photograph
- National Speleological Society, Bulletin 15, December 1953, Perry County entry Girty’s Cave, site and highway work
- U.S. Geological Survey, GNIS 1201337, Girtys Notch, west bank of Susquehanna River
