Many of you have asked me for another ghost story after last year's, so here's one for you all. Happy Hallowe'en! Several recent posts on Radnor Township brings to mind the lovely 1718 St. David's Episcopal Church on Valley Forge Road. The colonial church is only used for special occasions now, as the congregation has outgrown it and has a new larger building across the road. Spread out around the old edifice is a burial ground so picturesque that many painters record it and poets have praised it. But things are not always quiet here. Noted parishioner General Anthony Wayne is buried here, but he supposedly has been seen roaming the graveyard at midnight, [particularly on Hallowe'en and New Year's Eve (a celebration he was devoted to in life). Perhaps I should say more accurately only part of him is buried here, and the tale of his burial explains why he may not rest easy. General Wayne died Dec. 15, 1796 on the NW frontier, having just successfully completed a campaign to subdue the Ohio tribes. He started for home, but died en route and was buried with full military honors at the base of the flagpole at Fort Erie, PA. Several years passed and the Order of the Cincinnati, formed of veteran Rev War officers, offered to erect a suitable monument to the hero at his home church of St. David's if the family would bring his body back for reinterrment. The Wayne family decided this would be fitting, and his son traveled by horse and cart along very primitive trails to the western PA frontier to bring the general home. Arriving at Fort Erie during the hot summer, the son was appalled to discover that the general was quite intact upon disinterrment, not just the expected skeleton. It was impossible to transport such a corpse, unenbalmed and unrefrigerated, for several weeks during the hot summer. So, Anthony Wayne was boiled down, the fleshy remains reinterred and his son is reported to have put the skeleton in a coffin and started back to Radnor. Legend says it was a rough trip, with the coffin falling off the wagon several times; the bones had to be regathered and reloaded and some believe that parts of Anthony were inadvertently left along the way and sheep bones were mistakenly gathered instead. The family reburied the general with pomp and circumstance, military parade and a gathering of several thousand respectful citizens. The Order of the Cincinnati placed a Bunker Hill type monument on the grave, which can still be seen today and its elaborate praises read. But not all of Anthony is there and many believe that he roams restlessly because he has no one place he belongs. For the last 15 years, people with cameras and sound recording equipment have tried to prove his ghost exists by waiting at his grave, particularly at midnight on Hallowe'en and New Year's. No one has been able to use their equipment though, as it mysteriously breaks down shortly before midnight, but can work again a half hour later. Many claim to have seen him and in the last few years local children have begun to lay some of their candy trick-or-treats on his grave to comfort him. Happy Hallowe'en! Thy friend, Nancy Webster