The view from the roof of “John Mason’s Leaning Tower,” as it was called, was one of superlative grandeur. Both the North and West Branches of the Susquehanna, as well as the main stream below their confluence, the majestic hills and pretty towns of Northumberland and Sunbury could all be taken in one panoramic view. Blue Hill at this point is 301 feet in height, as determined by the engineers who laid out the railroad in after years. The leaning tower was built very near the spot one now sees, in seeking the profile of old “Shikellamy,” which would be located about where the top of the forehead would be seen. The tower was almost destroyed by visitors who cut their initials upon everything of wood, until it was entirely covered by these characters. John Mason built this odd-looking house in 1839. William Henry did the carpenter work. It stood there until the spring of 1864—a period of twenty-five years—when, on a Sunday afternoon, April 22, it was destroyed by a party of railroad men in a spirit of deviltry. They loosened its moorings and the curious tower rolled down the rocky precipice with a tremendous crash and landed on a raft of logs passing down stream. Its destruction removed one of the oddest, as well as one of the most conspicuous, landmarks along the Susquehanna River. There are several stories related of John Mason’s eccentricities and the motives which induced him to erect this leaning tower. About the time the vandals destroyed the tower a most interesting novel was written entitled “Eros and Antiros,” which story was woven about this scene and its unusual builder. In fact, John Mason was the hero of the story. The author, being a personal acquaintance, may have written from a knowledge of the facts. In the story John Mason had been disappointed in a love affair and sought this manner to remove himself from the busier world and to live and die in seclusion. Another version of the eccentric John Mason’s leaning tower is that it was his eyrie, where he gathered together a rare collection of queer old English books—they sold at 75 cents the bushel-basketful at his sale—and here he slung his hammock and here he read his books. That story says John Mason’s father was a Quaker, living in Philadelphia, an old acquaintance of James Jenkins, Jr., at Turtle Creek, opposite the town of Northumberland, at the base of Blue Hill, who said to him one day, speaking of his son John, that he was a restless fellow and wanted to go to sea, and that it would be the death of his mother. “Can’t thee take him out with thee?” Jenkins replied that it was a wild place and not likely to suit the taste of one who wanted to go sea-faring. But John Mason did go up into the wilderness, engaged in the mercantile business for a time at Northumberland, then moved his stock of merchandise to the western side of the river and opened a store at Turtle Creek.