On episode 26 of Tony Lavorgne's Legends and Lore Podcast, we go on-location to Darlington, Pennsylvania to cover the 2019 Pig Lady Festival, hosted by Tony Lavorgne and featuring the Ohio Paranormal Investigation Team.

The Pig Lady Festival is a fall community celebration of local folklore in the tradition of the Gaelic Samhain “end of Summer” festival commemorated with games, bonfires, and ghost stories.

This year’s festival recreates Samhain with old Irish games like bobbing for apples, a costume contest, a bonfire, and local ghost stories told by paranormal author, researcher, and podcast host, Tony Lavorgne.  The evening included a discussion of the haunting of Gretchen’s Lock with Melissa Rhodes Hornbeck and  Claudia Lewis Esken of the Ohio Paranormal Investigation Team.  The evening ended with a film screen of Gretchen’s Lock, a Josh Menning film adaptation of the Little Beaver Creek legend.

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Special Thanks

This episode of Tony Lavorgne's Legends & Lore Podcast was made possible by the generous support of Michael Kishbucher, author of Legends & Lore of Little Beaver Creek (American Legends), a fascinating exploration into the dark and bloody past lurking beneath the folklore of the Little Beaver Creek watershed in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

The first American frontiersmen hesitantly settled this region in the late 1700s following more than forty years of warfare. Fables like Barbara Davidson, the Pig Lady of Cannelton, sprang from this long, horrific conflict. The legends of Esther Hale, the White Lady of Sprucevale, and Gretchen's Lock rose shortly thereafter, whereas the age of the Indian Rock petroglyph remains hotly debated. Today, most locals know these stories. But few know the purpose of Indian Rock or why Barbara's restless spirit sometimes appears with a pig's head. Using methods honed over twenty years of service as a Department of Defense intelligence analyst, author Michael Kishbucher uncovers the history and potential origins of these and other tales.

Legends & Lore of Little Beaver Creek is now available in paperback on Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble.

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This episode was recorded October 5, 2019 in Darlington Township, Pennsylvania. Host: Tony Lavorgne.  Special guests: Ohio Paranormal Investigation Team.  Featuring the voices of Michael Kishbucher, John Gishbaugher, Dave Holoweiko, Melissa Rhodes Hornbeck, Claudia Lewis Esken, and Tyler Hostetter. Audiography: Kevin Farkas, Dave Holoweiko. Music (available on SoundCloud.com): Peakfiddler (“2013  fiddle tune melody”), Scary Horror Music (“Haunted”), Essa (“Loop 7”), Nicolai Heidlas (“MP3 Klonkey Donkey”), Yugenro (“Motherland”), Konken (bilinsky) and Noiseflowr (Some kind of ambiance”), Angus Nevein (Acrid Ambiance”), Ichiro Nakagawa (“Ambient Samurai_130127-1”), Inscencer, Leo Sharer (“Ambience_leo”). Additional sound (available on Youtube): “This Concludes Our Broadcast, 2008 — Humanity’s last moments caught on tape.”  ©Tony Lavorgne’s Legends & Lore Podcast/The Social Voice Project, Inc. All rights reserved.