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History & local legend
The Enchanted Spring near Antes Fort is associated with Wi-Daagh, a Native American leader remembered in Henry W. Shoemaker’s 1912 Tales of the Bald Eagle Mountains. In Shoemaker’s literary telling, a visitor who encounters Wi-Daagh’s outstretched hand beside an oak falls under a peculiar spell: an irresistible desire to return to the same place a year later. The annual visit echoes the hospitality Wi-Daagh was said to expect from visitors during his life.
A physical memorial helped preserve the association. In 1900, George Sanderson erected a salvaged column from Pennsylvania’s fire-damaged former Capitol on the Lochabar estate near the spring. The monument and the spring remain linked in later retellings, including historian Lou Bernard’s account of the legend.
Sources
- Henry W. Shoemaker, King Wi-Daagh’s Spell, Tales of the Bald Eagle Mountains in Central Pennsylvania, 1912, pp. 137–155
- The Hemlock, essay discussing the outstretched hand, anniversary and author’s visit to the Lochabar estate
- Lou Bernard, Pennsylvania Wilds, history of the salvaged capitol column and later ghost tradition
- United States Geological Survey, Large Springs in the Valley and Ridge Physiographic Province of Pennsylvania, table 2, Nippono (Enchanted) Spring
