Lewis
the Robber and Andreas Bombaugh
Andreas Bombaugh had the misfortune
of becoming involved with a character called 'Lewis The Robber',
and in the "History of Adams County, Pennsylvania" Chicago,
1886, p. 307, one H.C. Bradsby compiled oral accounts of residents
of Northern Adams County and reported that "Lewis the Robber-
David Lewis, made his appearance at Pine Grove in Cumberland County,
about 1813. An accomplice named Howard visited the place six weeks
later and won the confidence of Andrew Bombaugh, Master Miner, for
the Furnace Company. The first work of the robbers was to interest
some well-known old settlers in 'shoving' counterfeit money for
them...." The story indicates the importance of Bombaugh to
their plan and suggests that many years later he was remembered.
About Lewis the Robber
Born in 1790, Lewis moved
with his family to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, when he was ten years
old. Robber Lewis reportedly made his early fortune by counterfeiting
bank notes and through acts of highway robbery as far afield as
New England. By his early twenties, Lewis focussed on operating
more locally.
In a tavern near Bedford Co. PA, in late
1815, a handsome stranger whose real name was Davey Lewis lost a
back-room discussion with the sheriff, and was taken to court. Until
then, he had been a legendary Robin Hood robbing banks, counterfeiting,
even picking pockets in several states and in Canada. But in Bedford,
he was sentenced to the penitentiary. He was let out of jail, and
boasted no jail could hold him. But he couldn't stay out of jail.
Three times, he would be brought to Bedford ... and three times,
he escaped. Citizens let him out, other citizens brought him in.
Big money was involved, but it never surfaced. And the handsome
young robber, counterfeiter, gang leader died on the run, shot down
by a gang of angry young men like himself. His arm ruined, his life
threatened by gangrene, he refused amputation, and died in jail.
Indian Cave and Davey Lewis - 'Lewis the Robber'
The
cave entrance
as
it would have appeared ca.1816
In 1820, a Centre County posse captured Lewis for holding up a Bellefonte-bound
wagon train on the Seven Mountains road. During the gun battle,
Lewis was wounded and, shortly after his capture, he contracted
pneumonia and died.
On his deathbed in Bellefonte Jail, he claimed that he had secreted
away some $20,000, mostly in gold, where even his confederates could
not find it. Not long before his death, he had written to a friend
residing on a farm in the Spruce Creek Valley telling him that his
loot was hidden in "a dank hideout room" from which he
claimed he could see the workmen in the old woolen mill going about
their tasks. This woolen mill stood in the center of what is now
Indian Caverns' parking lot. So strongly founded was the belief
in the bandit's story that numerous treasure hunters have searched
in the cave for Robber Lewis' legacy.
Impelled by this same belief, one resident of Franklin Township
spent over twenty years in a vain search for the treasure. Armed
with a lantern and a ball of twine, used as a trail marker so that
he would not become lost in the labyrinth of passages, he kept up
his tireless search. Death ended his quest in the 1920s with the
robber's hidden gold-bags still unfound.
Treasure-hunters believe Robber Lewis may have concealed or walled-up
the entrance to one of the cave rooms opening from the Lost Tunnel
in the cave so perfectly that no one has been able to discover its
exact location.
David Lewis died at the age of thirty in Bellefonte Jail and, according
to records in Huntingdon County Library, was buried in Milesburg,
Pennsylvania. Somewhere deep within Indian Caverns, does the mystery
room still guard the secret of the bandit's treasure trove?
More information on "Robber" Lewis can be found in the
Virtual Tour of the cave—or, of course, by visiting the cavern itself!
From the Website
~ http://www.indiancaverns.com |
