Dear listers: Several of you have written to me, reminding me that it's time for my annual Delaware County ghost story. This year, the region has been commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Philadelphia campaign of the Revolution - Head of Elk, Cooch's Bridge, Brandywine, Paoli, Germantown, Forts Mercer and Mifflin, Valley Forge. I know of at least 26 ghost stories related to this campaign, most of them about "lost" soldiers. Here's one that is a little different -- a haunted tree. After the day long, sprawling battle of Brandywine, the British Army occupied the ground. General Howe's forces spent five days camped on the bloody field, bringing in the wounded, burying the dead and raiding the local countryside. While food, draft animals and other items of military usefulness were considered the spoils of war, some of the raiders went further. In one unit, which had taken very heavy casualties, there were three soldiers who evidently decided that the locals should pay for stiff resistance the Continentals had made. Word came back to British headquarters that there had been robbing and raping inflicted on a local family living on what is presently Brinton's Bridge Road. Robbing was something both armies tended to turn a blind eye towards, but raping was sometimes else. Howe could not permit such crimes to go unpunished, mostly for the sake of maintaining army discipline but also to prevent a hostile populace from being goaded into rising behind his army and cutting their communications as Howe marched on Philadelphia. Suspects were identified, a court martial was held and the three men were hung from a branch of a magnificent oak tree located near the site of the crime. They were buried in an unmarked grave at its foot, and the Crown forces moved on. This tree, known as the Dilworthtown Oak, dated back to well before Penn's arrival and was one of the largest trees in the region. From the mid 19th century on, there were occasional travelers along Brinton's Bridge Road who claimed that they saw three bodies dangling from the branches, and would call out neighbors and/or the local constable to report the "crime." Sightings continued until the 1980s, often with motorists placing phone calls to the local State Police to come and investigate, when a violent storm finally felled the landmark oak. A cross-section of its gigantic trunk has been preserved in the Birmingham Township Building, but the ghosts seem to have found their rest at last. However, there are other parts of the battlefield where restless spirits have been seen, and a similar location where rape and its ultimate punishment occurred during the aftermath of Brandywine. People continue to see ghosts at that site, near Dutton's Mill in Aston, but that's another story. Happy Hallowe'en! And keep reserving our local history. Thy friend, Nancy Webster