The Great Woodward Shoot-Out

Grave of John Barner, Woodward Cemetery,
Woodward

The first time I set foot on the sacred grounds of Woodward Cemetery, it was the late 1990s and it was in search of a phantom black cat that had been seen darting among the stones. John, a co-worker at the time, and I had been told about a "mysterious" black cat was seen roaming the grounds. Being outside, of course, meant that it was probably a real cat that had been spotted, even though neither of us saw a cat that day - real or otherwise.

After spending too much time looking for the cat, we gave up and started searching the stones for anything of interest. A few minutes into our search, John excitedly called me over to look at his find. The stone was for John M. Barner, but it was the inscription at the bottom that had caught John's attention and my interest. "Was shot while in the performance of his official duty."

I circled the stone, hoping for more information, but it yielded no clues as to what had happened to Mr. Barner. I took a few pictures of his stone and also of another nearby stone that had caught my interest before we headed out to explore other parts of Penns Valley.

During that phase of my life and explorations, I was more interested in collecting the lore and legends of the region, so John Barner's story got put in the filing cabinet to collect dust.

A couple years later I was doing some research at the Centre County Historical Library when I came across some clippings about the shoot-out that claimed the life of Constable Barner. As I read the article, I realized that, among the random pictures I snapped while at Woodward Cemetery, I had taken photos of the graves of the murderer and the victim of the Great Woodward Shoot-out.

Close-up of John Barner's death on his tombstone
(Red spot is a reflection of flowers on neighboring grave)

William Ettlinger was known throughout the town for his quick temper and in the summer of 1895, it exploded. During a festival at Woodward he supposedly beat his father-in-law, Benjamin Benner, with a whip handle. The argument started when Benner began to question Ettlinger about his wife's (Benner's daughter) supposed adulterous activities.

Benner swore out a complaint and Ettlinger was arrested for assault and battery and was promptly released until his case came before the judge. However, when his case came up, Ettlinger fled into the mountains above Woodward. For the next six months William Ettlinger lived off the land and terrorized the locals. Known to be well armed (he was known to carry with him two pistols, a shotgun, some knives and a couple sticks of dynamite), he threatened to kill anybody who tried to arrest him.

Enter John Barner into the picture.

William Ettlinger's Grave

In February of 1896, John Barner was elected constable of Haines Township under the promise of bringing William Ettlinger to justice.

On March 5, 1896, just a few days after taking office, Constable Barner received word that Ettlinger was at his home in Woodward. Barner and his deputies arrived at the house to serve the warrant. When Barner approached the door he was greeted with two blasts from a shotgun to the head. Then, to make sure the deed was done, William cut Barner's throat before taking refuge in the house, shooting at anybody who dared approach the house.

Within hours, a mob of over fifteen hundred people descended on Woodward. Ettlinger continued to shoot at people and would occasionally toss a stick of dynamite towards the growing crowd.

When Sheriff Condo and his posse arrived in Woodward, it was discovered that Ettlinger was barricaded within the house and was holding his wife and two children hostage. Shots were exchanged over and though some of those gathered outside were injured, none of those in the house were harmed throughout the stand-off.

The next afternoon, Sheriff Condo decided that he had had enough and the house was set on fire. Mary Jane Ettlinger was forced out of the house by William and his children soon followed. When William emerged, someone in the mob shot at him, but missed. "I'll do this myself!" he yelled out and shot himself in the head, dying instantly.

The townspeople quickly approached the house and dragged the bodies of Barner and Ettlinger away from the house minutes before the house exploded.

Barner would get a hero's burial - Ettlinger was dumped in a shallow grave in Lewis Orndorf's peach orchard.

Years later, Jay would recover his father's remains and they would be buried in Woodward Cemetery, less than fifty yards away from John Barner's resting place.

Ettlinger Grave Marker
Note: William's name is misspelled

Years after the first visit, I returned to Woodward Cemetery to take some pictures. While walking around the cemetery, I ran into two gentlemen who were placing flags for Memorial Day. After talking for a couple minutes, they started talking about those buried in the cemetery and after a couple of minutes they started sharing the story of the Woodward shoot-out, pointing out the graves of John Barner and William Ettlinger.

After they finished telling the story, one of them added, "They say that on the anniversary of the shoot-out you can hear strange noises in the area where it all happened."

"But that's not the best part of it," the other spoke. "There's a strange glow that appears where the house once stood."

"Do you remember...," the first spoke in a very serious tone. They told me how one night, when they were kids, they were walking home at night when a strange glow appeared near the place where the Ettlinger house once stood. The air was suddenly filled with the sounds of gunfire.

"You never saw two boys running so fast for their homes as we did that night." They both laughed as they finished their story.

We talked for a little while longer before they said they had to finish up - they had another cemetery that needed flags placed. As we got ready to go our separate ways, one of them called out, "You ever hear about the phantom cat that roams the cemetery?"

I never have found the phantom cat, nor have I witnessed the phantom shoot-out that reoccurs from time to time. As far as I can tell, John and William rest peacefully on the hillside of Woodward Cemetery, victims of the Great Woodward Shoot-out.

The Tragic Death of Etna Bittenbender: Part Two

The top of Etna's tombstone

I thought I "knew" all there was to know about the tragedy that befell the Bittenbender family with the gruesome murder of their daughter, Etna. As mentioned in the previous article, Etna was brutally assaulted and murdered on October 31, 1880.

Initially, I found the history of the crime in The Reading Eagle and was able to find information about the murder in a number of papers of the time. Sadly, the horrible crime was the news of the day, picked up and reported along the eastern coast.

A handful of articles mentioned Samuel Hainey and the fact he was arrested twice for the crime and then released. The first time he was arrested, it was with a number of others; they were let go, but he was held with two others (their names were not mentioned in the papers.) He was eventually let go and rearrested in February of 1881. By February 6th, he was once again a free man.

Nothing else came up in the searches I did.

Etna's Grave

Then everything I thought I knew was changed.

While scanning through the archives of The Reading Eagle, I stumbled upon an article in late February about an assault in Saylorsville. The article mentioned that three young girls were assaulted by a group of six young men and boys.

The girls had left the church on the evening of February 22nd and were headed home when the attack occurred.

The girls were indecently assaulted (one had her dressed literally ripped to shreds) and were only saved when one of them screamed "Murder!" at the top of her lungs. Some men arrived at the scene and drove the group of boys away.

One of the attackers had been identified as having already been arrested and questioned for the death of Etna Bittenbender. Though the paper does not identify the attacker who was involved, the impression it gives is the attacker was none other than Samuel Hainey. Nobody was arrested for the assault.

I continued scanning through the newspapers in search of more information about the assault and the connection to the Bittenbender murder.

If I had not been purposely scanning though the papers, I would not have discovered the next, important piece of information about the case. A spelling error in the newspapers had almost prevented me from initially discovering the rest of the story; due to a reason I cannot determine, Etna's name was changed to Emma.

Details of murder on Etna's gravestone

On March 17, 1881 The Reading Eagle reported that John Pfeiffer (also spelled Peiffer) had murdered John McBride in their cell at Eastern Penitentiary. The following day an article mentioned a connection between John Pfeiffer and Etna Bittenbender's murder.

After Pfieffer strangled McBride to death, he left behind a message on a piece of slate. On the front of it was written: "Miss Emma Bittenbender Jackson Township last fall me and my cousin George Kraft. I am." Here the message ended abruptly.

On the back side of the slate was a second, similar message (spelling is not corrected in the strange statement): "I also kill that girl in Jackson County (Township). Cousin George Kraft last fall was arrested his brother. They call me the divil and a wich, so if you all knew all the people I have kill you would astonish go in New York ther you find out all about me I am sorry for me owen family for I know they use them ruf on."

After suffocating his cellmate, John Pfeiffer hung himself in his cell.

It took a second reading of the the article before it dawned on me that the reason the case went cold was before me. The only other suspect in the case was dead - Pfeiffer had been questioned about the murder.

A distant relative of the Bittenbenders, Pfeiffer had been arrested and imprisoned at Wilkes-Barre for another crime shortly after the murder. I could not find the reason he was imprisoned, but it was a serious enough crime that he was transferred to Eastern Penitentiary in March of 1881. A few days after his transfer he succeeded in killing himself, something he had twice tried and failed to do while in the Wilkes-Barre prison.

While the "confession" left behind by Pfeiffer caused much debate (some thought that he had not written it, but that the words written on the slate were by somebody else), the "confession" seemed to have brought the case to a dead end. With one suspect freed and the other one deceased, the case seemed to fade into history.

Who actually killed Etna Bittenbender will probably never be resolved; everyone involved has long since passed, taking with them any clues and information that they may have known.

Though the Bittenbender case has been forgotten by most, I know she has taken a place in my life; any time I'm in the area, I will be definitely stopping to pay my respects. She rests on the hillside in Mt. Zion Cemetery near Sciota - her stone tells the circumstance of her death for any visitor to view.

The Tragic Death of Etna Bittenbender: Part One

Mt Zion Cemetery - near Sciota

There was a feeling of rain in the air as I stepped out of the truck and glanced around the cemetery located along the western edge of Routes 33 and 209. This was not the first time I had stopped to visit this cemetery; bad memories of an attack by a wild rose bush that had left my leg badly cut and bleeding filled my mind.

It was obviously in my sister's mind too as she warned me to stay away from any bushes with thorns on them during our current visit.

Mt. Zion Cemetery is wrapped around a steep hillside. After finding our way around the maze of back roads to get to the cemetery (though it borders Routes 33/209 it is not accessible from them, nor should it be attempted) we almost instantly spotted the last name of the person we sought: Bittenbender.

"How in the world am I supposed to climb this?" I muttered under my breath as I looked at the steep hillside that a number of graves were clinging to.

"There are a set of steps over there," my sister pointed out. We carefully made our way up the steps (a double stack of staggered cinder blocks with a simple railing beside them) that shifted under my weight. Once safely up the steps, we cautiously made our way around the steep hillside. "I can't believe that they buried people on this steep of a hillside."

"Hey! I found her!" I called out excitedly as I sat down in front of the tombstone to read the words eternally etched into the tombstone. "You need to come read this!"

"Oh...wow," she whispered as she read the words carved into the old stone..

Grave of Etna Bittenbender

Carved into the stone are these words (slashes denote the start of a new line on the stone): Etna / Daughter of / Samuel (and) Margaret / Bittenbender / Murdered by some person / unknown on Sunday evening / October 31st 1880 between / the hours of 4 and 6 o'clock / aged 17 years 1 month / and 8 days.

On that fateful Halloween evening, Etna, the eldest daughter of Samuel and Margaret, had set out around four in the afternoon for the home of Jacob Marsh where she was hired as a maid. Unfortunately she never arrived at her employer's house. The next morning when her younger sisters passed the house she was hired at, the Mrs. Marsh asked them where their sister was because she had not arrived at the house. The sisters started back to their home when they discovered their sister's lifeless body about two hundred yards off the road in a fence corner along Pensyl Creek Road.

The sisters ran home and reported that she had been shot. Samuel arrived at the scene to discover the violent, senseless murder. The Reading Eagle reported the the violent death: Etna's lifeless body was discovered along the road and her head had been beaten so badly her brains were scattered over the stones and fence nearby. A piece of wood used as a weapon was found nearby.

I can't even imagine the grief Samuel felt; he had passed the place where his daughter's lifeless body laid without noticing her that very morning.

The initial thoughts of who her murderer(s) may have been a groups of tramps spotted in the area in the days before the gruesome murder. However, it soon became obvious that the person who killed her was local. They followed the trail of blood through the patch of woods that she normally traveled through; the person who killed her was aware of the path she took to get to the Marsh home.

A number of people were rounded up and arrested, but all were released when their alibis checked out. One of the men held was Samuel Hainey. He was let go due to lack of evidence, but on February 6, 1881 the New York Times had reported Hainey had been arrested again for the crime and held at the county prison in Stroudsburg. A couple days after his arrest, the judge again let him go due to lack of evidence. As far as I am able to determine, nobody else was ever charged with the horrific murder.

Etna's demise - recorded on her tombstone

Officially the case remains unsolved and forgotten by most. It was purely by accident that I had stumbled upon the tragedy. I had discovered an article about ghosts in the Poconos and one of the stories involved the Etna Bittenbender case. According to some, her ghost still wanders along the Pensyl Creek Road.

But I had not arrived at the cemetery searching for a ghost. Instead, I stood before her grave wondering what happened that night to cause anyone to savagely beat this beauiful young woman to death. Over a hundred and forty years have passed since the events of that night; any evidence is gone and all of the people involved have long since passed. The truth of what happened will never be known.

I paid my respects to Etna as the storm got closer. I shivered but I don't know if it was due to the facts of the case or because of the storm that was coming; either way I knew it was time to move on. I made my way carefully down the steep hillside, leaving Etna in the silence, and left her with many unanswered questions in my mind. The rain began to fall, echoing my thoughts and feelings.

As mentioned before, Mt Zion Cemetery can be seen from Routes 33/209, it cannot be accessed from this route. The entrance to the cemetery is from State Route 3023. When entering the cemetery, take the roadway to the right. The Bittenbender family is on the hillside immediately to the left as you enter the cemetery.

As with all cemeteries, I ask that you please be careful and be respectful of the area. Use caution going up and down the hillside.