Before Paul Bunyan ever swung an axe in the Northwoods, the Allegheny Plateau had a living legend of its own: Bill Greenfield. Unlike the giant blue ox-herder, Bill was a real man who lived in the 19th century, but his reputation for "stretching the gospel" made him the undisputed king of the Pennsylvania logging camps.

Bill didn't just tell stories; he lived in a world where the laws of physics were merely suggestions.

The Winter of the Frozen Conversation

Bill’s most famous tale took place during the "Year of the Two Winters," when the mercury in the thermometers dropped so low it shattered the glass. Bill and his crew were out in the Tionesta Tract trying to work, but it was so cold that their words froze solid the moment they left their mouths.

The Phenomenon: The air was filled with jagged, crystalline "word-shards." You could see a man shouting, but you couldn't hear a thing.

The Spring Thaw: Bill claimed that when the sun finally hit the valley in April, the woods suddenly became a deafening roar. Every conversation from January thawed out at the same time—thousands of "hellos," "watch out for that hemlock," and logging orders played back at once like a thousand gramophones.

The "Mosquito" and the Iron Pot

Bill once encountered a swarm of Allegheny mosquitoes so large they were mistaken for a flight of hawks. To escape them, Bill dove under a massive iron rendering pot used for boiling sap.

The mosquitoes were so determined that they began drilling through the iron with their proboscises. Bill, ever the quick thinker, took his hammer and "clinched" their stingers on the inside of the pot. The story goes that the mosquitoes got so angry they flapped their wings and flew away—carrying the three-hundred-pound iron pot (and Bill) right over the Kinzua Bridge.

The "Rapid-Fire" Axe

Bill claimed he had an axe made of "Blue-Sky Steel" that was so sharp he didn't even have to swing it. He just had to point it at a white pine, and the tree would get so scared it would shed its own bark and jump onto the log-sled.