Mysteries Along the Manada

The Hill Hershey Chose

Long before it gleamed with chandeliers and marble, the hill that crowns Hershey, Pennsylvania, was just a patch of quiet countryside — a place for Sunday picnics, reservoir ponds, and the occasional whisper of strange fortune. But when Milton S. Hershey fixed his eyes on that ridge in the midst of the Great Depression, he didn’t just see a view — he saw a legacy. The Hill Hershey Chose unearths the layered history beneath one of America’s most elegant hotels — from its earliest days as the town’s water source to the dark chapter when influenza swept across its slopes, claiming lives during the 1918 pandemic. We follow the dream that rose from that same ground: a palace of hope and hospitality built while the rest of the nation was crumbling. This episode walks the marble halls and the muddy past — through the labor strike that nearly broke the utopia, the WWII prisoner-of-war camp hidden in plain sight, and the years after Milton’s death when his dream became something larger than even he imagined. Told by someone who spent eleven years within the hotel’s walls, this isn’t just a history lesson — it’s a haunting love letter to the hill that witnessed it all: the ambition, the idealism, the cost, and the quiet echoes that linger long after the last guest checks out.

Cost of Liberties: Forgotten Graveyard

Tucked behind the hotels, gas stations, and the glitter of the casino at the foothills of Blue Mountain lies a piece of East Hanover’s soul — forgotten by time but not by history. This isn’t just a graveyard… it’s the story of a congregation that helped lay the foundations of East Hanover Township, where faith and frontier met in equal measure. Within these weathered walls rest Scots-Irish settlers, Native Americans, and the enslaved — the very people who carved out liberty from wilderness, and paid dearly for it. Through spirit box sessions, personal accounts, and a few uncanny coincidences, we walk the line between the living and the remembered. Join me for “Cost of Liberties: The Forgotten Graveyard”, an episode that blends local legend, township beginnings, and the mysteries that still echo through this quiet corner of Pennsylvania. 📜 Featuring: * Hidden history of East Hanover’s first congregation * Early township roots and burial ground lore * Spirit box responses from beyond the stone walls * The untold stories of those who built — and were buried in — the land they called home

Elegance to Ash

Hidden beyond the ridgelines of Dauphin and Lebanon Counties lies the ghost of a valley once full of promise — Stony Valley. A place where fortune, fire, and folly collided. Long before the forests reclaimed it, this stretch of wilderness thrummed with ambition — iron furnaces, timber barons, and dreamers betting their lives on the riches buried beneath the soil. In the late 1800s, it wasn’t just a valley — it was a gamble. Companies carved towns into the woods, chasing iron ore, lumber, and the wealth that came with them. And at its heart stood the grand jewel of the mountain — The Cold Spring Hotel. Built as a luxurious escape for the elite, it rose from the wilderness like a monument to excess, offering hot springs, music, fine dining, and the illusion of permanence. But fortunes fade fast in Stony Valley. When the resources dried up and the money stopped flowing, the dream turned hollow. The hotel’s lights dimmed, the rail lines rusted, and what was once elegance turned to ash — quite literally — when fire consumed the Cold Spring Hotel and erased its grandeur overnight. In this episode of Mysteries Along the Manada, we unearth the story of Stony Valley’s rise and ruin — a tale of industry, isolation, and the human need to tame the untamable. And through on-site spirit box sessions, we’ll listen for what might still echo in those empty woods — the laughter of guests, the hiss of steam, and the restless whispers of a valley that refused to stay quiet. Because in Stony Valley, even the ashes still tell stories.

Inheritance by Murder

In 1878, six desperate men in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, conspired to kill an aging neighbor for a handful of insurance payouts. What followed became one of the most chilling and influential murder cases in American history—the story of The Blue-Eyed Six. Join host Jaratt Dill as Mysteries Along the Manada uncovers the haunting legacy of greed, deception, and death that still echoes through the quiet woods of Indiantown Gap. From the tavern whispers where the plot was born to the creek where Joseph Raber met his end, we trace a story that blurred the line between survival and sin. Featuring on-site spirit box sessions, historical insight, and eerie local lore, this episode digs deep into how one murder-for-money scheme forever changed insurance law—and maybe left a few restless souls behind. 🎧 Listen if you dare—some stories don’t stay buried for long.

Confederates by the Casino

Beneath the hum of traffic and the glow of a Pennsylvania casino lies a mystery that predates it by more than a century and a half. Three Confederate soldiers rest in quiet obscurity on the outskirts of Grantville—buried in Northern soil, hundreds of miles from home, their story unmarked and nearly forgotten. In this premiere episode of Mysteries Along the Manada, host Jaratt Dill peels back the layers of local legend and historical record to uncover how these men—once enemies of the Union—found their final resting place in the shadow of Manada Creek. What begins as a roadside curiosity quickly turns into a haunting pursuit of truth, blending Civil War history with the strange echoes that still drift through small-town cemeteries. From the roar of the old iron furnaces that once fueled Pennsylvania’s wartime industry, to the whispers of Confederate prisoners who labored and died far from home, this story traces how the past embeds itself in the landscape—and how the dead sometimes refuse to stay silent. Armed with his curiosity, research, and a spirit box that blurs the line between static and the supernatural, Dill retraces the long, winding path from Antietam to Grantville. Along the way, he confronts the eerie intersection of fact and folklore: a deal struck between iron magnates and state officials, rumors of Confederate labor in Union territory, and the unnerving possibility that something beneath those stones still remembers. Part history, part investigation, and part séance, Confederates by the Casino captures the uneasy beauty of Pennsylvania’s hidden past. It’s a story about what lingers when history is half-buried—about memory, guilt, and the strange persistence of place. Join Jaratt as he steps into a forgotten graveyard armed with a spirit box and a skeptic friend, testing whether the voices of war ever truly fade. Through his investigations—both historical and paranormal—he discovers that the story of these three soldiers isn’t just about how they died, but about how easily we forget what’s buried in our own backyards. As the signal fades and the static deepens, one thing becomes clear: some ghosts don’t haunt—they endure.