History & local legend
The ghost story near Union Canal Lock 49 outside Reading recalls the deaths of Louisa Bissinger and her three children on August 17, 1875. Louisa, Mollie, Lillie and Philip crossed the covered Penn Street Bridge and walked out of town along the canal towpath. Near the lock, Louisa fastened a basket of stones to herself and entered the water with the children. All four drowned.
Berks County storyteller Charles J. Adams III connects that tragedy with a scene later walkers have described: three children gathering stones while their mother watches. As someone draws near, the family disappears. Other reports concern children crying beside the path.
Sources
- Berks County Living, interview with Charles J. Adams III, Tales of Haunted Berks from its Famed Author
- Berks County Parks, The Bissinger Suicide, contemporary reporting and Reading Gazette September 11, 1875, p. 20 route
- Berks County Parks, Union Canal Towpath stop 6, Lock 49E
- Berks County Heritage Center, audio guide and embedded stop coordinate
- The Pennsylvania Rambler, The Bissinger Tragedy, visit to the family graves and archival research