1.
In 1881, the magnate Andrew Carnegie opened an iron mine in central Pennsylvania, built a company town for it, and named the town after his native land: Scotia. Soon enough, it was a home. It had become a setting.
2: some texts for the performance
Altoona Times, Saturday, October 23, 1905, page 1:
Williamsport Daily Gazette and Bulletin, Tuesday, August 16, 1910, page 6:
See it die away.
But then resume. Altoona Times, Tuesday, October 18, 1910, page 1:
Altoona Times, Wednesday, November 23, 1910, page 1:
Harrisburg Patriot News, Wednesday, April 26, 1911, page 7:
The Danville News, Wednesday, April 26, 1911, page 1:
3. But elsewhere in the continuum
Altoona Tribune, Thursday, June 10, 1897, page 6:
Tyrone Daily Herald, Thursday, June 10, 1897, page 6:
It appeared that the body that was Scotia lived on, regardless.
4. But then, “with startling suddenness”:
The Times [State College, Pa.], Friday, March 22, 1912, page 8. It was the sentence.
By 1914, Scotia was a ghost town. During World War II an attempt was made to reopen the mine, but it was abandoned. Today only traces of the mine and the town remain. The word “Scotia” no longer has the power to mean what it meant to the poor merry-go-round man.
5.
I grew up near a different Scotia: Scotia the ruin. What you are about to see is a part of that Scotia which still happens to exist, though it is no longer on Scotia’s ground. I can’t remember when I picked it up and carried it away, but it was very long ago — probably in the early 1960s. Beside a low earthen berm that had once been the course of a railroad track, I noticed a fallen bough that seemed to show traces of having been worked. Stepping off the berm, I picked it up. It had gone so rotten that I could break it over my knee, but it still bore traces of function. It had once been a crosstie that carried the weight of iron.
The dead wood’s decay crumbled in my hand. This fell out. It was, is, a railroad spike probably hammered home in the late nineteenth century.
6.
I took its image today. The hand holding it before the camera is mine.
For only a short time more, of course. But it is iron, and it helps me be steady.
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Mark Hughes, “A Geologic Wonder: Scotia Barrens.” https://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/geologic-wonder-scotia-barrens
Centre County [Pennsylvania] Historical Society, “Scotia.” https://centrehistory.org/article/scotia/
“The Ruins at Scotia Barrens.” Valley Girl Views: Sights to See, Events to Attend, & History to Know in the Central Susquehanna Valley, August 6, 2019. https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-ruins-at-scotia-barrens.html
The photograph of the Forest City Cornet Band is on this page, but its original source isn’t named. Artificial intelligence and I have restored it.
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August 1, 2025: With thanks to Kim Bridges, here’s a detailed article, with portrait photographs, about the trial of Bert Delige.
https://panewsarchive.