A couple of friends suggested I look into a few stories from different sections of our historic county. Sally Sondesky of the Bensalem Historical Society offered up the legend of a tiger that terrorized the Torresdale Manor section of Bensalem in 1879. Fletcher Walls of the Doylestown Historical Society sent me information on a pigeon farm like no other in New Britain in 1925.
First, the tiger tale.
Newspaper accounts described a man by the name of Hartranft asleep in his home along the Pennsylvania Railroad near the village of Torresdale in Northeast Philadelphia when a loud growl awakened him.
It was dawn on Oct. 24, 1879. Going outside, he was shocked to see a 310-pound Bengal tiger on the tracks. “Naturally he sought cover at once for to cope unarmed with a tiger was a matter not be relished,” reported the Harrisburg Daily Independent.