From Mischief to the Macabre

Northland Public Library archives

This historic photo from around 1920 in Allegheny County shows area children dressed in their Halloween costumes. Around this point in American history, many local schools began hosting Halloween celebrations where they ate ice cream, cake, doughnuts, and candy while having balloon races and hidden apple hunts.

According to a 2021 YouGov poll, nearly a quarter of American adults consider Halloween one of their favorite holidays. While some are certainly on board for the adult mischievousness — Halloween parties, bar crawling in costume, or marathoning A Nightmare on Elm Street movies while sipping on a Lavery's Devil's Pumpkin Ale — there are likely a considerable number of folks who also enjoy the more traditional aspects of the holiday. Whether it's passing out candy, accompanying some trick-or-treating youth, spookily decorating one's home, or trying to predict where Spirit Halloween will pop up each year, the holiday has plenty to offer to everyone.

It was around the 1840s that Halloween customs arrived in the United States alongside Irish immigrants. As described by Encyclopedia Britannica, "Halloween had its origins in the festival of Samhain among the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland. … During the Samhain festival, the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the otherworld. People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their hearth fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present."

In 1868, the Erie Observer newspaper published a story about All Hallows' Eve for the first time. At a Halloween party in Massachusetts, a few young Irish teenagers had been playing games. As part of the game, two girls entered a neighbor's field to snag a cabbage. "[They] were fired upon by the owner," the report recounted. "Miss Bridget Murray, of Boston, was killed, the ball passing through her head."

By the late 1800s in Erie though, newspaper descriptions of the night locally were much less morbid. They generally described the city's Halloween celebrations as "delightful." These events included bobbing for apples, snatching dangling apples, roasting chestnuts over bonfires, and walking backwards in an orchard holding a mirror in an attempt to see one's future spouse. Another trick believed to predict one's future spouse involved paring an apple, twirling the peel around one's head three times, and tossing it to the ground. Whatever letter the peel resembled was the first letter of their true love's name.

On Oct. 31, 1891, the Erie Daily Times ran a report that these October celebrations mostly included only the "older and more innocent features" of Halloween that had been preserved from previous centuries. The worst of it, they said, was not beyond "horse play and rude burlesque." Still, during some of these years in the city, there were reports of occasional holiday thefts as well as rascality that included bricks through windows, windows lathered with soap, backyard trees cut down, outhouses tipped over, doorbells disappearing, and porches being painted. "Parents could help by keeping their children at home or at least warning them to behave themselves," one Erie police captain told the paper.

In 1907, there'd been "considerable malicious mischief" by "Halloween jesters." The following year, the police chief ordered the entire force to patrol the city all night. "[I]t will be well for the parties out celebrating tonight to have a care that they keep within the bounds of the law and reason," advised the Erie Daily Times.

"Authorities of a century or two ago say that at Halloween, the pixies, the sprites, and the witches emerged from their hiding places and played queer pranks with humanity," the paper explained a few days later. "Nowadays the small boys play the pranks."

Altogether though, local vibes were generally positive. Many organizations and businesses hosted elaborate family-friendly Halloween gatherings. In the early 1900s, the Boston Store organized public parties with entertainment such as the Gem City Orchestra and games such as trying to eat doughnuts suspended from strings. Halloween parties at people's homes were also often reported upon.

"As the guests arrived, a very dignified and awe-inspiring ghost pointed with a bony white hand to the place where they should place their hats and coats," described the newspaper of a party hosted by Florence P. Robinson at 337 W. Fifth St. Each room in the house was themed. One room had even been transformed into a dark cave with a witch's kettle, candle-lit lamps, and a fortune teller named Queen Algarsa. In another room, ghost stories were told. The paper called the function "one of the most enjoyable Halloween parties ever given" in Erie.

"This is the time when spirits and fairies return to their old haunts and all who wish may lift the veil which hangs over the future and its mysteries by certain ancient, well tried methods," the paper said. Young boys, they wrote, saved their pennies to buy the "ugliest false face" from the "corner shop's window exhibits," while girls often made their own costumes for local masquerade balls. Even adults, they argued, couldn't resist that "well-remembered childish feeling and a delicious fear of being caught by evil spirits."

Many churches involved themselves in Halloween festivities around the turn of the century, too. One church social hall was decorated with cornstalks, pumpkins, and apples where apple cider was served as ghost stories were shared and a fortune teller made predictions reading palms and tea leaves. There was also the shared tale that children born on Halloween possessed special gifts. "They have second sight and are able to commune with the spirits. It enables them to peer into the future," noted the Erie Daily Times.

In the 1920s, local schools were hosting Halloween celebrations. In 1926, the Erie Daily Times described kindergartners in an orange-and-black decorated classroom who were costumed as rabbits, clowns, and pirates. They ate ice cream, cake, doughnuts, and candy while having balloon races and hidden apple hunts. Prizes were awarded for the best costumes.

By 1941 though, the editors of Erie Daily Times claimed that the "old fashioned Halloween Party [is] sadly out of date." One's party, they argued, now had to "elicit a gasp from your guests the very moment they make the mistake of setting foot inside your door." The goal was no longer to merely entertain, but to inspire fear with "eerie" rooms that inspire a "proper emotional response" from guests.

Halloween was popular on local college campuses, too. In 1948, Penn State Behrend held a Halloween dance for 50 cents per couple. This dance became a yearly tradition, often with a new name and a new campus organization sponsoring it. In 1957, for instance, it was called the Punkin Ball followed by the Pumpkin Prance the next year, each a semi-formal dance that lasted until midnight where Erie Hall was adorned with pumpkins, corn stalks, white picket fences, and a large decorative moon. There was cider, doughnuts, costume prizes, bobbing for apples, and plenty of other games.

The following decade, the festivities were embraced by Behrend's growing counterculture. "Halloween, which you might only consider a night set aside for tiny cherubs to plunder your neighborhood, is indeed just the chance that you've been waiting for," student Debbi Cole wrote in the student newspaper in 1968. "When else can you dress, act, walk, and talk like just the person or thing you want to be and get away with it? Consider this Halloween your big chance. Be anyone you want. … It should be interesting to find out how many Behrendites wish they were Raquel Welch or Steve McQueen."

This newspaper ad from the Erie Times News in 1978 shows costumes influenced by popular culture at the time – the 1970s also coincided with less mischief happening on Halloween and a shift in the focus from tricks to treats.  (Photo: Erie Times News, 1978)

By the 1970s, there was a further shift towards the more macabre. This coincided with mainstream horror movies becoming more violent, intense, and disturbingly dark from Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), to Black Christmas (1974) — and, of course, a few short years later, John Carpenter's slasher masterpiece Halloween in 1978.

That same year, local reporter Ed Mathews noted that Halloween celebrations had changed dramatically in recent decades too — but for the better. "The day after Halloween is nowhere near as bad as it used to be when everybody was upset over what had happened to them or their property," he wrote. "Now the youngsters on the whole are quite well behaved." He added that the emphasis on families providing "good candy and fruit" for trick-or-treat likely kept "the youngsters" occupied. He recalled a time as a kid when he had dumped a family's garbage can on Halloween night. His father found out and marched him right back to the yard to clean it up. "That changed our understanding of fun at Halloween in a big hurry," he quipped. Children trick-or-treating for goodies was now what more and more people were associating with the holiday.

"Whatever the tradition of going trick-or-treating meant in the past, it now serves a new purpose for children in a city," another city resident (and self-described former "Halloween Scrooge") explained. "It is a dramatic experience of friendliness and caring about a neighborhood ... I feel grateful for our neighbors who help to teach children about how the world should be. Halloween in Erie would make a believer out of anyone."

Three haunted houses visited by local children were also operating that year: the March of Dimes Haunted House on Ottawa Drive, the Presque Isle Jaycees Haunted House in Fairview, and the Gravel Pit Park Haunted House just west of North East. Despite this positivity though, it also included the first local report warning parents to look through candy for hidden razor blades.

By the 1980s, Penn State Behrend was sponsoring all-night horror movie marathons on VHS in dorm hall basements. Party culture also was increasingly associated with the night. The student paper printed a report about the concerning nature of out-of-control, alcohol-infused Halloween costume parties across college campuses that had become increasingly popular over the previous decade. Many, the report stated, "often devolve into chaotic, violent street brawls … [with] injuries and property destruction." Some campuses around the country even began shutting down their campuses and sending students home during the week of Halloween.

Entering the 1990s, the conversation shifted to the commercialization of Halloween. Many waxed nostalgic over the good ol' days before the spooky season became a $3 billion dollar industry (over $12 billion today). One local resident penned an op-ed for the Erie Times-News expressing puzzlement over the amount of money people were spending on their costumes. It wasn't until the mid-90s that the editors of the Erie Times-News acknowledged that, like many other things, Halloween had officially entered the culture wars.

"Sometimes it seems that these days no event or issue escapes being dissected and analyzed until half the fun is squeezed out of it," they wrote. Some parents, they explained, objected to Halloween celebrations due to perceived "satanic undertones." Others were upset by the holiday exposing children to so much candy, setting a dangerous nutritional precedent. "Still, count us among those who view Halloween as a fun-filled lark that offers children a lot of enjoyment while doing them no harm," defended the editors, adding that they believed most parents likely agreed. "Just let the kids be kids and have some fun."

Today, families across Erie County continue all sorts of traditions, whether it's carving elaborate pumpkins (and cooking those delicious seeds), dancing the night away at ZooBoo, watching scary movies, or simply seeing how many neighborhood trick-or-treats one can attend over the final week in October. However one chooses to (or not to) celebrate though, one thing is for sure: Halloween is more popular than ever.

Jonathan Burdick runs the public history project Rust & Dirt. He can be reached at jburdick@eriereader.com