The Ghost of Cave Hollow

Mar 19, 1953 Newtown Enterprise

West of Woodhill stretches a strip of woodland, of several hundred acres, almost to Wrightstown, as wild as when Washington camped on Jericho Mountain and the band of tories watched him from the wooded hilltops west of Woodhill and north of Highland Road [Wrightstown Rd], in perfect security, for it would have taken a small army to dislodge them.

The branch of Jericho Creek runs south into this wooded area, crossing the Pineville Rd. by the Shannon buildings, then dividing into three branches on the Egypt farm to rise in the wooded area near the Highland Road. All these branches contained ravines 40 to 50 feet deep during their courses. The eastern branch, which passes about one-half mile from Woodhill, rises within a stone's throw of the intersection of Eagle or Highland (or Wrightstown-Washington Crossing) Road. This creek is known as "Cave" or "Cavey's Hollow" and, as its upper course is through Harold Lewis', his farm is known as the "Cave Hollow Farm". A branch of this Cave Hollow stream runs up to the buildings of John Wood's "Makefield Farm" and from an incident at a stone cottage along this branch, comes the story of the Cave Hollow Ghost.

At the time of Washington's camp on Jericho, the road to the Eagle (now Woodhill) ran from Ryan's Corner on the Durham Road, between Wrightstown and Newtown Township, and then straight across the woods and valleys in Upper Makefield, up the branch containing the stone cottage, passed the lane to the Hayhurst farmhouse, to the Eagle. General John Sullivan had his brigade at the Hayhurst farm building. An outpost was stationed at the stone cottage further west, then occupied by an unmarried carpenter named Jack Cave (or Cavey), who was reputed to have a considerable sum of money in hard cash, that is coin, not paper. After Washington left on his nation saving expedition to Trenton, the tories from the Egypt farm raided Jack Cave's cottage for they were now robbing and supporters of the revolution. They surrounded the house and boosted one of their number up to open a first story window. Jack Cave heard the noise and ran downstairs and grabbed his carpenter's hatchet. The Tory's right arm was just coming over the window sill. Jack chopped down, cutting the hand from the arm. The tory fell back and his hand fell inside the house. He was carried a short distance away by his companions and an effort was made to stanch the flow of blood but he died within a few minutes. Jack Cave used the diversion of the tory's death to escape from a back door. The tories surrounded the house again and set fire to it, intending to burn Jack Cave alive. The cut off hand of the dead tory, and the supposed hoard of Jack Cave fell into the ruins.

Marcus Doan, of Woodside, who lived on the Cave Hollow farm until well into manhood, said that about the beginning of the present century the mechanics and clerks of Woodhill, then a bustling business village would go down the lost road to the ruins and search for the treasure but, though they did find a few coins of small denomination, no sizable sum was ever recovered. It it said to this day that, on bright moonlight nights, the ghost of the dead tory will come out of the dark recesses of Cave Hollow and search in the ruins for the bones of his missing hand.