Chickies Rock (the Albatwitch)

OVERVIEW

A 100-foot quartzite cliff in Chickies Rock County Park above the Susquehanna north of Columbia, Lancaster County, on ground the Susquehannock occupied before the 1700s. The Albatwitch — 'apple-snitch' in the local Pennsylvania German — is the small, hairy creature said to steal picnickers' apples and throw the cores back; the historian Chris Vera has found more than a dozen accounts in the Columbia newspapers from the 1920s, and the town holds an Albatwitch Day each October.

HISTORY

The rock was a picnic ground and a trolley-line destination in the early twentieth century, which is when the accounts begin.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

A small ape-like figure in the trees, apples taken and thrown, and dozens of modern sightings collected by local investigators. The creature is folklore with a paper trail — LancasterOnline has traced it — and is recorded here as that.

VISITING

County park, open daily; the overlook is a short walk. The cliff edge is unfenced.