BRANDONVILLE - As with most people, peddler Jost Folhaber may have wanted to be remembered in some way after his death, though being the first person murdered in Schuylkill County was surely not what he had in mind.
However, his claim to fame is being the first known murder in the county must be considered in light of the fact the Schuylkill County didn't exist in 1797, the year that Benjamin Bailey, Morristown, N.J., killed Folhaber.
The site where Folhaber is buried in Mahanoy Township - called "Peddler's Grave" - between Brandonville and Mahanoy City will be the focus of a hike led by Tuscarora State Park Environmental Education Specialist Robin Tracey from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Monday. Hikers should meet at the Pennsylvania Anthracite Miners Memorial, Main and Washington streets, in Shenandoah to carpool to where the hike will begin. Tracey said the hike is two miles round-trip and easy. The walk is part of Schuylkill on the Move, a project of Schuylkill County's VISION and Diakon Community Services for Seniors.
The grave of Folhaber, identified in a metropolitan newspaper headline as "The Immortal Peddler," still draws visitors to the spot in Mahanoy Township for the legend that began 215 years ago.
Tracey has been leading hikes for seven years, and about three years to Peddler's Grave.
"My first time there was during a conservation district hike with John Domalakes," Tracey said. "I thought it was a neat place to bring people. It is a short hike."
Tracey said the hike is a learning experience for many people.
"A lot of people don't know about it," Tracey said.
In 1935, students in Mahanoy Township Senior School prepared a history of Mahanoy Township under the supervision of Leroy MacFarland, the head of the social studies department. The project was published in the Pottsville Republican in January of that year. Each student had a specific topic, with Della Romanavage writing about "A Peddler's Grave (Symbol of First Murder in Schuylkill County.)"
"The 'Peddler's Grave', located alongside the public highway leading from Mahanoy City to Ringtown, across the road from the P.&.R.C.& I. (Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron) Company's upper Waste House Run Dam is a landmark recalling a brutal murder committed there on August 11, 1797," Romanavage wrote. "Then, deer, hare and small game were plentiful on the site of what is now Shenandoah, which was then a dense forest, and the murderer had been stopping at a log hotel on the site of Mahanoy City for ten days previously, engaged in hunting.
"The victim who here met his death by foul hand of the assassin was Jost Folhaber, and his sad end was met by the cupidity of the murderer, and not from any motive of hatred or revenge. Folhaber was a travelling peddler, a resident probably of some part of the mountain regions of Berks or Northumberland County, traveling by horse to Reading and Catawissa. All that is known of him is that he had a wife whose maiden name was Margaret Lindenmuth, and a sister living at Roaring Creek, then included in Northumberland County.
"Bailey, 31, learned of Folhaber and believed he had money and decided to rob him in the woods, and the robbery ended in murder. Bailey was captured, found guilty in court and executed on Jan. 6, 1798."
Bailey was hanged in Penn Square in Reading. Although usually called the first murder in the area that would become Schuylkill County, there were a number of settlers in the region killed by Indians during the French and Indian War in the 1750s and 60s.
Folhaber was buried in the area where he was killed, with a grave marker placed by E.T. Everett & Sons in Mahanoy City.
Tracey said the gravesite is well preserved.
"It's in wonderful shape. While I don't know his name, there is a man who comes there on an ATV to take care of it," Tracey said.
For more information, call Teddi at Diakon at 570-624-3012.