History & Folklore Folk Stories The Story of Altar Rock From Pennsylvania Mountain Stories by Henry W. Shoemaker, Bradford Record Publishing Co., Bradford PA 1908 In the first quarter of the Eighteenth Century several bands of French trappers found their way from the trading posts on Lake Erie to the Elk branch of the Sinnemahoning. They followed this stream to the main run, where some of them went out the Bennett branch toward Benezet, while another party of five built a camp and stockade on a high point at the great bend west of what is now Round Island Station. The camp, which was christened Grande Pointe, and even the subsequent history of these French pioneers has faded into oblivion, although to this day the foundations can be located in the pine forest which has since grown up on the scene of this ancient fortification. The French policy with the Indians was to fraternize and be honorable in all dealings with them, and for this reason their trading and trapping enterprises were eminently successful. However, some few of the young bucks resented the intrusion of the whites, especially after the building of the Grande Pointe camp, which seemed to insure their permanent residence in the locality. But the squaws and less warlike of the braves, who bartered furs for hitherto undreamed of fineries and satisfying stimulants, were glad of their presence in the neighborhood. Of all the hostile braves, none cherished a more bitter and uncompromising hate than did the tall, spare, young soothsayer, whose name translated is equivalent to Two-Pines. He was a medicine man by descent, and in his frequent visions he saw nothing but frightful omens of his people's annihilation at the hands of the palefaced strangers. Still, the greed for bargain and luxury was too strong in the majority of the tribe to give but a passing thought to predictions that at another time would have been instantly heeded. They turned away, shaking their heads, when on festal days he mounted the Altar Rock for devotions, where sacrifices were offered, and commune with the spirits held, and on whose narrow ledge an Indian was supposed to bear a charmed life and be for the time invulnerable to poisoned arrows or javelins. Altar Rock, which modern writers call Pulpit Rock, Chimney Rock, Steeple Rock and Nelson's Rock, is one of the most remarkable natural wonders in the State of Pennsylvania. Its diameter in no part being over ten feet, it rises like a graceful column to a height of sixty feet, where it is surmounted by a flat slab whose dimensions are approximately ten by twelve. The entire cliff is composed of brownstone, and is undulated and fluted by the action of water in past ages. On top of the flat slab stands a living white pine, forty feet tall, whose gnarled roots clutch at the rocks in a grim effort to hold its place against the onslaught of the elements. There is no earth on the Altar Rock from which the tree can gain sustenance, but it grows healthy and green in its barren home. Until ten years ago there was a second white pine, the exact counterpart of its mate, growing on the rock, but it was struck by lightning, lifted bodily from the roots and hurled into the valley below. It was one bright September morning, after Two-Pines, the soothsayer, had spent the night on top of Altar Rock in meditation and prayer, that he heard the crack of a gun fired somewhere near the Sinnemahoning. A few minutes later he came face to face with a Frenchman, Pierre Le Bo, dragging the carcass of a bull elk to the river's edge, to sink it until he might have time to prepare it for eating. Two-Pines' anger was thoroughly aroused. To see this intruder killing the beasts of the forest, which belonged, in his idea, to the Indian race, was too much for him, and he struck the Frenchman a terrific blow on the head with a stone mallet, crushing his skull and causing instant death. Then he reclimbed to his retreat on Altar Rock, and prayed rapturously for the gift of strength to annihilate the white beings who defiled the valley of the Sinnemahoning. It was in this attitude of prayer that he heard footsteps and whispering voices in the woods beneath. Nearer and nearer they came, until through the leaves he beheld, to his satisfaction, the forms of four French trappers, heavily armed. Two-Pines arose and stood erect, in the dignity of his Titan stature, and with arms folded across his breast, seemed to defy the avengers to slay him on his immortal pedestal, where poisoned arrows and javelins had less effect than drops of summer rain. A little Frenchman named Lafitte, leaned his heavy gun upon a snag, took careful aim and fired at the defiant warrior. There was a loud report, and when the foul-smelling smoke had cleared, the dead body of Two-Pines lay upon the Altar Rock. An hour later the Frenchmen abandoned Grande Pointe with its valuable stores, and started down stream in canoes. That night the camp was looted and burned by the Indians and whether the trappers succeeded in reaching a friendly refuge or were murdered on the way has never yet been fully ascertained. But from the flat top of Altar Rock two little pines sprouted slender and straight, with long silky needles. Taller and taller they grew, until, side by side, with their smooth barked trunks and shapely tangle of dark green foliage, they resembled the figure of an Indian youth, the slain but defiant Two-Pines.