Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 03: On and Near the Delaware

The Delaware River has been haunted for centuries. Not just by the Revolutionary War dead still pacing those banks, but by the stories people couldn't let go of - tales of phantom dragoons riding through mist, of love betrayed, of mansions where the last revel ended in blood. Charles M. Skinner gathered these legends in 1896, when memory still lived close to the events that inspired them. Here you'll find the spectral soldier who rides the Bethlehem pike, the tragic romance of Colonel Howell and Ruth torn apart by war, and colonial halls where candles still flicker for guests long dead. These aren't fairy tales polished smooth by retelling. They carry the weight of actual history - the hard years of settlement, the Revolution's violence, the grief that needed somewhere to go. Skinner's collection captures how a region made peace with its past by weaving fact and phantom into something that feels truer than mere truth. For anyone hungry for American folklore that isn't sanitized, these are ghosts with teeth.