Folk-Tales from Schoharie County Caves
Is McFail’s Cave Haunted?
The July 1, 1854, death of Prof. Thomas A. McFail in a cave off Lyker’s Road, Carlisle, is relatively well-known among northeastern cavers and Schoharie County history buffs1.
The exact details are less than precise. Exactly which cave he died in is not known, but one—the largest cave in the northeast—is named for him.
Writing on the caves of Schoharie County, a reporter from The New York Sun in December 1886 suggested McFail, a math professor at the Carlisle Seminary School, is forever exploring the underground in which he met his doom.
According to the anonymous writer: “Not a few credulous natives declare that the lake is haunted, and those who have ventured into its depths say that the weird responses a shout awakens among its damp aisles and openings might easily be taken for the voices of unearthly dwellers.” (Adding to the confusion, there is no lake in the cave named for McFail. – editor)
Ghost Men of the Revolution
While suggesting a connection between VeenFliet’s Cave outside the Village of Schoharie to other caves of Terrace Mountain, Caver Charles J. Hanor shared in 1949 that some believe local Revolutionary War hero Timothy Murphy and Morgan’s Riflemen used the cave network on the mountain to baffle enemies.
“They were called the ‘ghost men’ as Indians following their trail would come to the mouth of a cavern, where they were afraid to follow,” Hanor wrote in the Sept. 9, edition of the Albany County Post2.
Giving up the chase, the native warriors were later taken by surprise, seeing Murphy and his men “just appear out of nowhere,” to win the skirmish.
Bottomless Pits
Readers also learned of the dangers of “bottomless pits” in the 1886 New York Sun report.
“A man named Samuel or Lemuel Pool was lost in one of these dangerous hour-glass caverns in 1838. He visited the cave with two companions. They carried five torches, and holding one of these in his hand, Pool crept into one of the narrow and crooked passageways for the purpose of reaching an invisible waterfall, the roar of which could be heard as though just beyond the mouth of the passage.
“His companions saw his torch gradually disappear in the aperture and waited for hours for his return. He never came back, and nothing was ever heard of him again,” according to the Sun newspaper.
These “bottomless pits” were not just dangerous to the men and women of the Cave Country: “The openings of these surface entrances to caverns. . .in some instances [when they are] near the houses of farmers, they are enclosed with strong fences, for many horses and cattle were lost by falling into the pits,” according to the paper. “Some of the openings are seventy-five feet in diameter.”
1“The Caves of Schoharie,” The New York Sun, Dec. 12, 1886, submitted by Chuck Porter and appearing in the Carlisle Historical Society Newsletter volume 2.2, August 2009
2“The Cave with the Tapir Tooth,” By Charles J. Hanor, The Albany County Post, Sept. 9, 1949
See also, “The Mysterious End to Prof. McFail,” by the author, March 2024 blog post, HoweCavernsTales.com