Bucks
Phantom Buck, Haycock Family Feud
Dear Friends,
Good morning. The midterm election is now history, thankfully. I’ll give you my take on the results next week.
Last weekend was Halloween…or as the Pennsylvania Germans pronounce it, “Hah-lah-eeeen.” Although my last name is of Welsh origin, for 320 years, every male Meredith has married a woman with a German maiden name…including my better half, Mighty Betsy. There must be 99 percent Pennsylvania German blood flowing in my veins. So when I tell a story about the Pennsylvania Germans, I’m not belittling them, I’m basking in my heritage.
My daughter Anne is a wonderful storyteller and gets her screen writing talent from my father. Memories of my father’s story telling always surface at the Halloween season. When I was a kid during the Second World War, my parents often spent an evening at Blocky’s Tavern in Haycock Township. Today, the Tavern near Applebachsville is called The Raven’s Nest. It was at Blocky’s where my father’s favorite story originated.
Have you ever heard of the Phantom Buck? Or, as my father used to kid his Pennsylvania German heritage, the Pee-Hantom-Buck. Father claimed that many of the Haycock Township farmers couldn’t properly pronounce the “f” sound. So, the “ph” sound in “phantom” became Pee-Hantom in stead…rather like tele-PEE-hone.
In those days, Kay and Matt Clark, Vona and Jim Schucker, and my parents were the best of friends. The Clark’s and Schucker’s lived in Haycock Township. Matt and Jim were illustrators; painters who’s art became covers for the Saturday Evening Post and Colliers magazines. Today, you’ll find many of their paintings in Upper Bucks County homes and institutions.
They’d bought adjacent farms on Cider Press Lane during the 1930’s. Each was about 100 acres, with stone homes and large barns. I think that they’d paid about $5,000 for their farms. Real estate was a tremendous bargain in the Great Depression. Every Monday, Matt and Jim would drive to Trenton and take the train to New York City where they’d sell their paintings.
Like the Meredith’s, the Clark's and Schucker's had only one child. Because we were still in the Great Depression, there was no money for baby sitters. When our parents had a night out, it was always at Blocky’s and we kids went along. We weren’t allowed in Mr. Block’s bar room but were relegated to Mrs. Block’s big kitchen and her supervision.
But we could hear my father telling stories to the farmers at the bar. Several years before, there had been a spate of barn fires in Haycock Township. For some unknown reason, the fires always happened around Halloween season. You can understand why the farmers worried, especially around Halloween.
Father played on those fears by suggesting that the fires had been set by the Phantom Buck, a huge deer with a third eye between its antlers. If the Phantom Buck was angry with a farmer’s family, the animal would approach the barn and, just like lightening, fire would shoot out of his head. The barn would go up in smoke.
“How can we kill the Pee-hantom Buck,” one of the farmers asked?
“Only a silver bullet will do,” my father replied.
Within a few weeks, everyone in Haycock Township and beyond told stories of seeing the Phantom Buck moments before a barn caught fire. I doubt that the Phantom Buck is still a legend. Haycock is a lot more sophisticated than it was 65 years ago when I was just 10. Still it’s fun to reminisce about it.
My boy hood friend, John Moyer of Milford Township, remembered my father telling that story at a Cub Scout campfire. John and I remember us kids trembling in our tents during the night, wondering whether the Phantom Buck would strike?
And speaking of tales about
I won’t divulge the names of these two enemies because their relatives probably still live in the area. But in the 1930’s and 1940’s, one of them was the leader of the Democratic Party in Haycock and the other was chief of the Republicans. They were not fond of each other as the following story reveals.
One year in the 1940’s, my father’s newspaper, the Quakertown Free Press, reported that the State Police were summoned to stop a shooting war in Haycock. When they arrived on the scene, the Democratic chief was shooting at his Republican rival and visa versa.
Fortunately, for both families, neither politician was a good shot.
As I remember the incident, the Republican claimed that he was deer hunting. Not only was it not deer season, but he’d climbed a tree to do his hunting. The Democrat told the police that he was hunting bear and used a shotgun to blow the bear, turned Republican, out of the tree. And to no one’s surprise, it wasn’t bear hunting season either.
The State Police arrested no one.
That story of Haycock’s version of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s may have disappeared 60 years later…or maybe not. I just thought that you’d want to know.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith