MMR 146 - The Witch of Monongahela External

Following Tony's conversation with Bob Cramer about the Demon of Browsnville Road, today we're talking about a legendary witch that was located just down the road in George's Township in rural PA --- The Witch of Monongahela! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
From an undisclosed location somewhere in North America. This is
your weekly Truth Be Told Minuteman Report. Hey everyone, it's
Robert Hensley, your Truth be Told Minuteman and Happy Halloween Month.
I know I've been absent for a couple of weeks,
but we're back with a fun story playing off of
Tony Show last Friday with Bob Kramer talking about the

(00:25):
demon of Brownsville Road. Just so happens. I've been hanging
out in that part of the country. So another quick
story from Fayette County, Pennsylvania. There is the story, it's
quite a legend around here, the Witch of Manonga Hala,

(00:45):
and the story goes that this old crone lived in
a cabin in Georgie's township that was protected by rattlesnakes,
was able to speak to and communicate with these snakes
that would keep her house, and that she could see

(01:09):
the future, and that she could fly. And not just
that she could fly, not on a broomstick, but she
would rock in a cradle, and she would rock so
violently that she would fling herself out of the cradle
into the sky. Right, not making this that this is
what the story says, and that She was known to

(01:35):
farmers that would cross her path or people who renigged
on something with her, like their cows would stop giving milk,
their crops would fail, blah blah blah, you know the usual.
So here's what's really cool is that the Wit of
Monongahela was real, not in the way that the legend became,

(01:59):
but but in certain circles. And you have to understand
this part of Appalachia. How'd you like that Appalachia is
a folk magic is something that is very prominent here.
Unlike the Salem witch trials, the William Penn the governor

(02:24):
and founder of Pennsylvania, refused to allow anyone to be
tried as a witch because the state was founded like
the colonies were supposed to be founded, on religious freedom,
and so folk healers, mystics, whiches were allowed to practice

(02:45):
here as openly as any other religion was practiced. So
back to the Witch of Monongahla. There's not a lot
of paper documentation, right, it's a long time ago, but
we know that her name was Mary mal Dary. She

(03:09):
went by mal mol Dary, and she from what we know,
was born around seventeen sixty in Germany. She arrived in
America with her husband, who was a Hessian mercenary. Some

(03:30):
writings say that his name was Valentine, others say that
his name was Jacob. We're not really sure, but he
was brought here to fight for the British during the
Revolutionary War. And sometime after their arrival, Mary had a
change of heart, which meant that her husband also had

(03:51):
a change of heart, and they switched asides. So Mal's
husband became one of Daniel Morgan's famous revolutionary sharpshooters. And
it said that he had a special salve that he
would rub on his skin and then he would walk
around in a circle before he had to shoot, and
a lot of people said that he was such a

(04:11):
good shot because of this magic salve that he used.
They had originally settled in Virginia and then Loudun County,
I think, and then ended up here in southwestern Pennsylvania

(04:31):
in an area known as George's Township in the southwest
corner of Fayette County, and Maul had started to kind
of gain her own reputation. It said that she was
able to find anything that you could come to her,

(04:54):
and before you even opened your mouth, she would know
what you lost, where it was located, and if it
was stolen, she could tell you a description of who
took it. There was a newspaper story that ran in
eighteen seventy nine, a few decades after her death, that
recalled that Mary mal Dairy had a penchant for coffee.

(05:19):
She loved coffee. She wore simple handmade clothes, and that
and this is a quote many and miraculous or the
stories treasured in the memory of the oldest inhabitants related
to their fireside entertainment of her actually telling without any
hint the article lost, when and where it could be found,

(05:40):
and if stolen, a description of the thief. So that
is one of the things that one of the many
things that mal Dairy was credited with was being able
to find things. It's also said that she good foresee

(06:03):
the future, and there are stories of there was a
young woman that before mal passed away, had come to
see her and she told this woman that she needed
to be very careful because her fiance would kill her.

(06:26):
And later, after Maul's death, this young woman did get
engaged and her fiance did end her life. So that's,
you know, a little scary. There's some crazy stuff now here.
Here's the thing. There were a couple of men who
ran into Mary in the woods, and they decided that

(06:46):
they were gonna get fresh with her and tease her
about her fortune telling and all this other stuff. And
she in the year was seventeen ninety four. She told
these men she forecast their future, and told them that

(07:07):
they would each die at the end of the news. Now,
within a few months, the first man, whose name was
John McFall, killed a tavern keeper in a drunken rage,
and he was hanged here in Fayette County. And a
few years later, the second man, ned Cassidy, also murdered
a man in a bar fight in Ohio, and he
went to the gallows. And the third man, whose name

(07:29):
did not survive history, ended up in Green County, and
when he heard of Cassidy's hanging, he chose to hang himself.
No one's quite sure whether Mary Maule Darry had magic properties,
if she was really a witch, or if she was
just a folk healer or someone who was very intuitive.

(07:55):
But as far as anyone really knows, from any record
that might be available, she never harmed anyone. They claim
in another newspaper story from the eighteen hundreds that as
long as she had a little money in her pocket

(08:17):
and coffee, she was always contented. So there's a great
book called The Witch of Monongahela, Volk Magic and Early
Western Pennsylvania by Thomas White, who I believe was a
professor at Ducane University here in Pittsburgh. But this was
just another fun story that I thought you guys might
enjoy after reading or hearing Bob Kramer talk about the

(08:41):
Demon of Brownsville Road. So I hope you guys have
a fantastic rest of October. Hoping to have another story
for you this month. I'm on the road. I'm traveling,
but if not, remember that there are many opportunities each
week for new content from Truth Be Told on the

(09:04):
Club Paranormal channel on YouTube. There's minute Man Reports on
Mondays when we have them three pm Pacific six eastern.
Wednesday's Bonnie Burkerd has Truth Control Transformation again three pm
Pacific six eastern, and Tony Sweet has the Original Truth
Be Told same time three pm Pacific six eastern every
Friday and until next time, Stay True