They say death awaits those who see the young man on a white horse in Shotts Cemetery near Ford City Pa.

There is a small isolated cemetery up a lonely country road near Ford City Pa. which has a legend of a young man named Ruben Briney who is supposed to have hanged himself in anguish after losing the love of his life from his white horse on a near by tree

https://hauntsandhistory.blogspot.com/2009/06/ford-city-folklore.html

its  said he has been spotted riding his horse and if you se him you will die like he did. 

Although the grave was a real grave and he may have in fact committed suicide the rest of the creepy tale appears to be more legend than fact. 

The story coming from the epitaph on his grave stone 

"As you are now so once was I, As I am now so you will be; Remember me as you pass by, Prepare to die and follow me."  

How ever if you want to check it out the cemetery is accessible and close to Crooked Creek State Park. 

Which is a big time gathering place for horse lovers as they hold a yearly rodeo. 

http://pennsylvania.hometownlocator.com/maps/feature-map,ftc,2,fid,1187607,n,shotts%20cemetery.cfm

So seeing ayoung man riding a white horse in area is very possible. 

A long abandoned Boat club behind a Springdale Power Plant- Now Lost to History

It was the summer of 1974  as a Boy scout I was participating in a Allegheny Trails Council  Boot & Paddle program which involved taking a weeks long 150 mile trek by canoe from Tionesta Pa to edge of Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River a trip no longer available any more since they closed Camp Tionesta in 1977  in favor of new camp heritage built in Farmington Pa.

We would spend several different nights stopped at uninhabited islands or small parks sometimes  beside a dam or marinas.
But one of those stops was like a ghost town a long abandoned boat club behind the West Penn Power station in Springdale . A small slice of ground a 100 feet wide by maybe 200 yards it was filled with little decaying picnic pavilions bath and changing  houses and picnic tables . It looks to have been abandoned in late 50's I do not even know the name of it and access to it now is strictly by boat as the whole area has changed in the 40+ years I was last there. From the satellite pictures it looks like all the structures have been bulldozed and maybe just couple foundations left .

It might have been called the Springdale -Cheswick Boat Club  but locals I asked know nothing about it even existing. The little picnic groves and beach houses you could see where painted with different nautical symbols and  flags and they where probably made to move after the plant converted from coal to oil as several large oil tanks took up much of the area at that point since removed   Then again after building it the river conditions around the plant may have well changed making it uninhabitable.
I wish I would have been able to afford a film camera to record the trip because so much of what I saw along the trip no longer exists  factory's , Oil wells and  railroad buildings and structures  torn down and industry removed as well as marinas and vacation homes and shacks.  Plus the bad flooding after hurricane Agnes and Ivan wiped out large numbers of homes and parts of towns as well as ice flows from winter freezing.
Unfortunately many of those I took the 2 trips down the river with are no longer with us many of the scout leaders  who would now be in their 80's 90's  having passed on including many of the scouts as well having died young from cancer .You know I have to wonder if it was not from what we encountered camping overnite on this  and the other spots ,including my getting bite by a tick with lyme disease which at time Dr.s did not know what they where dealing with .Plusall the other pollution from the river we swam and bathed in  . Once we got below Oil City the river went from clean to oil slicked and polluted.
It may well have helped contribute to my own bout with cancer. I still every once in a while run into one of the guys I went down river with and every time more and more have passed on.Who have taken these trips.

Im 3rd from left

River map travel guide

Map where we stayed the night behind power plant

Neckercheif Slide your awarded for completing trip

A forgotten African -American Cemetery full of Veterans Graves and a Cemetery full of Mentally ill patients A True Disgrace what has happened to them

I have rode up Cemetery Lane from Babcock Blvd. many times over the years and never realized a now gone road entrance with 2 rusted posts and wire across lead back to an African American War veterans cemetery which has been abandoned and left to rot and be destroyed and looted by vandals
its a disgrace how this cemetery has been left and abandoned  not even a name for it. All because back in the day African Americans where not allowed to be buried with whites what a disgrace .Same discrimination Jews meet when it came time to be buried.Of course it does not surprise me my great maternal grandfather is buried at union cemetery along cemetery lane but my great maternal grand mother is buried at Catholic cemetery up the road because my great grandfather was not catholic he was not allowed to be buried with her.  The African American  cemetery at present is very difficult to get to due to construction going on to expand the masonic lodge above it but the developers have promised to protect the cemetery during the expansion.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/north/2006/02/09/neglected-african-american-cemetery-for-veterans-may-be-restored/200602090419

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njm1/09African-AmericanMilitaryCem.html

http://www.interment.net/data/us/pa/allegheny/african-american-military-cemetery.htm

 There is no excuse why this and several other small cemetery have been let go around the western pa area but it has happened and racism which allowed the segregation is alive and thriving as well as always in area with Pittsburgh being known by blacks as Pittsburgh Mississippi  The most southern northern city and its the truth hate crimes are always in the news in this area.

Whats left of the African American cemetery

To make matters worse all over Pa in fact the entire US not only are there abandoned and forgotten African American cemetery but there are cemetery full of just stones with numbers for those who where paupers whose bodies where never claimed by relatives. and even worse all the cemetery across Pa and US which have interred thousands of the mentally ill with nothing but a number stone for a grave and like the one at the old Dixmont hospital site it has completely gone back to seed and been lost to history. 

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2014/07/17/As-state-mental-institutions-close-cemeteries-are-forgotten/stories/201407170168

The Glowing Tombstone of Giovanna T Cecere

Heard about this story and news article on a Face Book group about the South Side of Pittsburgh which I spent a good deal of time in South Side my dad was born and lived there for a while and I grew up part of my life in nearby Carrick.

As you climb up 18th street  from the south side to Mt Oliver on the last sharp bend on left you will find St Michael's Cemetery I spent several hours there with Boy scout troop 383 putting flags on veterans graves
Not sure the church that started the grave yard still exists St Michael's on South side on 20th street no longer exists the church sits empty and school and convent converted to Condos or if this is a different St Michaels in area .

And so the stroy begins

It appears that with the death of the much loved and at too early an age of 21 of a heart condition that 

Giovanna T Cecere  would be laid to rest but something very special would happen one night  the Pinkish stone marking her grave started glowing 

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=cecere&GSfn=giovanna&GSmn=t&GSby=1929&GSbyrel=in&GSdy=1948&GSdyrel=in&GSst=40&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=44974138&df=all&

Thank you to the dedicated volunteers of www. Find A Grave.com who do all the leg work finding these graves .

Apparently from the article it caused a major stir in the community for several evenings. Even a priest blessing it.  What caused the glow is not fully known was it devine intervention to show how good this women was ? Could it be naturally occurring and decaying radiation  which is known to occur in some quarried stone Possibly. But what ever it was I have not been able to find much out about it.
Most people around then have passed on I knew might know about sadly. I can not find much follow up on the story . But this is one of just many strange occurrences which have happened all over the region. I would like to see it was Gods Hand doing this  Not something natural but we may never know.  If you do go to check out the stone do so respectfully  and remember police do patrol the cemetery and there is a care taker .