“Like I said earlier, my dad told me that Phillip was a fair, but hard man. I guess what that really meant was that if you didn’t go along with what Phillip Kroger thought was fair, then he would turn into a hard, difficult man. So at first Phillip Kroger offered the Indian tribe money for the land; what he thought was a fair price; 1800 dollars; the Indian chief declined, therefore Phillip became difficult. He went back to Baltimore in a terrible way. My daddy told me that it wasn’t a pleasant trip back.
“And once they were back in Baltimore, Phillip gathered a few men – tuff men who weren’t unfamiliar with prison if you know what I mean – and they came back here. My father wasn’t asked to come back, which he was happy about, because my father knew that there was goin’ to be trouble. He was a businessman, and didn’t want any part of what Phillip had in mind. He actually tried to talk Phillip out of making the trip back out; told him that there were other places to build homes on. But there was no talking to a man like Phillip Kroger. Even if he didn’t want the land anymore, he would still want to come back and take it, because that’s the type of man he was. My dad was almost fired for trying to talk him out of coming back. The only person that Phillip Kroger was always nice to was his wife Melody. He loved her.
“Anyway, Phillip and his… criminal friends went. They left Baltimore on a Tuesday, under the cover of dark, with guns, knives, any kind of weapon you could imagine, and they came back that next Saturday. Phillip was happy, his bad friends were happy. My daddy told me that he was kinda sick thinkin’ about what Phillip and those other men did to that Indian tribe, but he couldn’t stop workin’ for him. At that time, my daddy was a twenty one year old kid who was givin’ a great, well payin’ job. Back then those kinds of jobs didn’t come around too often.
“So he, along with Jess’s dad – his name was Joseph – and Fred’s dad – his name was William – they came back out here with Phillip and all the others to get to work on starting a new town. On their way out here Phillip told my dad about what him and his criminal friends had done. Apparently, they ambushed the village late one night. Killed everyone – woman and children included. Once all the killin’ was done, Phillip’s men dug a huge pit. They dug all night, until dawn. Phillip told my dad that they buried all of the bodies in that one pit. He told my dad that before they filled the pit in, they poured concrete over the bodies; my daddy told me that Phillip called this: ‘the Indian’s Concrete House’. The concrete supposedly kept any evil spirits from comin’ back up. Phillip said that he was goin’ to build his house right on top of the mass grave. He was a pretty arrogant cuss. He was SO arrogant that he carried around the spade that he used to dig part of the hole. My daddy told me that he cherished that spade. It’s pretty sick if you ask me.
“Anyway, these stories only made my father sicker. He seriously considered leaving, and coming back to Baltimore. But there was no way he could. With the information he had about Phillip killin’ all those people, he probably wouldn’t have gotten too far before he was killed himself. So he stayed, and tried to forget about it.
“Once they got here the first structure they built was a bridge crossing Nidd River, so they could get supplies across to build the mill. That’s why this place is called Bridgetown. While Phillip had a bunch of men down the river working on the mill, my father was down here building up homes and places for business. This place was built first; this was Phillip’s house. And I guess you know what that means.”
Dawn shook her head up and down, indicating that she knew exactly what it meant.
“Yep” Roy continued, “Underneath this place are the remains of… heck, who knows how many Indian bodies.”
Dawn’s stomach sank.
“And believe it or not, the grocery store, downstairs, used to be Phillip Kroger and his wife’s living room and kitchen. Up here were the bedrooms, and he had a den up here – that’s where your living room is now. Things were goin’ good. The mill went up, and so did the buildin’s here on Reed Street. The name Reed was Phillip Kroger’s middle name, if you were wonderin’. Everythin’ was goin’ well. The mill went up in about a year, and the road that ran from the mill to here was laid down in record time. Throughout this whole time many of the workers took turns going back to Baltimore to visit with their families. There weren’t many women out here at first. Phillip went back the most, and by the time all the workers sent for their families, Phillip’s wife, Melody, had one son, Jacob, and another on the way.
Dawn gasped at the name Roy had said: Jacob. Instead of saying a word, she let him go on.
To Be Continued…
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