USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Old Schuylkill tales, a history of interesting events, traditions and anecdotes of the early settlers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania > Part 12
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The boys ran barefoot during the hot summer months and when they went to bed they must all first wash their feet. Bob hated water and to slop his pedal extremities in the foot bath when he was tired and sleepy was almost more than he could endure. Coming home one night after a busy day play- ing around the foundry, for he had a taste for mechanics, he was more than usually black. He did penance, however, by washing his face and hands and then carefully washed off the tops of his feet, leaving the soles black and dirty but dry.
Susan detected the imposition at once and the following conversation ensued:
" Oh! Bob, why didn't you wash the soles of your feet? You must go back and wash them over again. You will make the bed clothes all dirty."
" Dirty! Huh! How? You don't stand up in bed, do you?" said Bob!
COLORED WOMAN BURIED IN BABER CEMETERY
It is not generally known that a colored woman lies buried in what was, in the 'fifties, called Mt. Laurel Cemetery, but
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such is the case. Burd Patterson, Esq., early coal operator and capitalist, imported into his family from the State of Virginia a very likely and comely young colored woman to act as upper servant and nurse. She proved a faithful and efficient servitor, trusted and highly respected by her master and mistress, and beloved generally by the family. The cold winters, however, of the North proved too much for her rather frail constitution and tuberculosis set in, from the effects of which she died after about a year's illness, during which she was tenderly cared for by the family. After her death the Rector of the Episcopal Church read the burial service over her at the family residence. The remains were privately buried in the Mt. Laurel Cemetery, at the north-east end of the enclosure. A plain wooden head-board with the inscription, Phyllis, aged 38, still marked the spot a year or two ago and the record may be seen on the Trinity Parish register.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHILL
It was one winter when an Evangelist was holding forth in Pottsville, with a series of Union Evangelistic meetings. The attendance nightly was large and the gatherings among the church people very enthusiastic.
At a meeting in the First Presbyterian Church, close on to a thousand persons were present and it became necessary to hold an overflow meeting in the basement of the church.
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A prominent business man of town having been engaged at work rather late, entered the overflow meeting, which was filled with members of other denominations, among them the Baptist, of which he was one.
The "P. B. M." had a cold, and the room was cool and draughty; but the gathering bubbled over with religious fervor. On his return home, his bronchial tubes closed up much to his wife's alarm, who, fearing pneumonia, hastily summoned the family physician, a testy old chap and a Presbyterian, too, by the way, and withal something of a wag.
The Doctor sounded the P. B. M.'s lungs, carefully ex- amined him and ordered the usual remedies, which were at once applied.
" No, there is no pneumonia there," said the Doctor.
" But a Baptist has no business in a revival outside of his own church. He just caught the Presbyterian chill. That's all! "
BEFORE THE WAR
It was in the summer of 1856 that the great Union Gospel Tent stretched its flapping sides and peaked dome, surmounted by an U. S. flag, on the site of what is now the depot of one of the main railways entering Pottsville. It held 3000 people and was considered a monster for its size, and was crowded nightly. The evangelists, Long and Schultz, were zealous for
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the cause, and the old town never experienced such a revival of religion before or since. Members of the different churches rallied to the support of the Tabernacle and there was a regular rattling of the dry bones in Israel everywhere.
The Tent remained six weeks and many were the sinners that forsook the evil of their ways; somc of whom remained staunch to the cause espoused for the remainder of their lives, and were as bright and shining lights plucked from the burning. All things, however, must have an end, and the Tabernacle was removed to Norristown to fill a similar engagement.
It was decided by some of the firmest supporters of the inovement to continue the Gospel meetings, at least weekly, and a Union prayer meeting was formed among them to meet Sunday afternoons and thus not interfere with any of the regular church services. The gathering met in the little church on Second Street, abandoned by its congregation for a newer and larger one farther northwest; and on the site of which now stands the large Fire Department House of the Good Intent Company.
Lawyer Peasely and Mrs. Cuff were among the most regu- lar attendants at the Gospel Tent meetings and were foremost subsequently among those in organizing the Union meetings. The Lawyer was a fine old-Country German gentleman, dig- nified in bearing, immaculate in dress, and one of the best read men in town.
Mrs. Cuff was an honest woman and very carnest in her religious zeal and convictions. Her husband had been dead for some years and she in common with her daughters eked out a somewhat precarious existence as decayed gentlewomen bereft of their only legitimate support must do. Mrs. Cuff was not all
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educated woman, but the townspeople said, "she was extra- ordinarily gifted in prayer " and just to hear her petitions for the uplifting of the good of the town and the overthrow of sin was considered more of an inspiration than the sermons of a preacher; and no one doubted her sincerity, either, for hers was a profession that would wash and remain fast colors.
Lawyer Peasely had lost the companion of his joys and sorrows just prior to the arrival of the Tabernacle. He had been heard to remark at the grave to his little daughter, Mary, who clung to his arm sobbing as if her heart would break: " Take courage, my child, take courage!" and although ap- parently genuinely overcome, tried hard himself to follow this sage advice. At the devotional meetings he would pour out his soul in prayer and perhaps Mrs. Cuff would follow with one of her fervent petitions, and thus it was not strange that a soul affinity sprang up between the two; and it was not long be- fore it was rumored about that Lawyer Peasely had promised to marry Mrs. Cuff in the Spring, when a year had rolled around.
The news reached his daughters and they summoned home their brothers, who were engaged in business in New York, and together the family tackled the situation. The old blue blood of their ancestors was aroused; it must not, dare not be. It was a delicate matter, but the old gentleman was approached by his sons and the engagement with Mrs. Cuff was broken off. His attention was directed to another source which it was in- timated would be more agreable to the family, if marry he must, and which he subsequently did, and lived happily long past the allotted three score years and ten, with the object of his children's choice, confirming the wisdom of their selection.
The next Sunday came and with it the Union prayer
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meeting; people had gotten wind of the affair and the attend- ance was large. Something might happen, they said, and they were not disappointed.
Lawyer Peasely was in his accustomed place. He arose at the proper time with his golden-headed cane clasped be- tween his hands, made a few remarks and offered prayer.
He had scarcely seated himself when Mrs. Cuff jumped up with the evident intention of doing likewise, but her emo- tions overcame her, and with uplifted hand and head erect, in a voice that reverberated through the little building, she cried out in the shrillest of tones.
" Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! How I hate a hypocrite, I hate a hypocrite! ugh ! "
Poor woman. She sank to her seat with tears and in sobs; unable to utter another word. The feeling was tense and you could have heard a pin drop, but a better sermon was never preached anywhere.
STICKETY JIMMY AND ELLEN
Consternation reigned among the Peterpin nine when it was told them that Ellen was about to marry Stickety Jimmy. Susan cried, and Bob said, "he wished somebody would steal Jimmy's stick-foot, so he could not go to church, hopping up the hill all the way and when the priest was ready 'Old Stick-foot' would not be there;" and here he darkly hinted
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that he might be that somebody if he could only get hold of it after Jimmy had gone to bed, for Ellen had said when interro- gated that, "he always unstrapped the wooden leg at night" -"And get taken to jail," said the sobbing Susan. -
Ellen was the maid of all work in the home of the nine and they had never had a girl like her before. She was a new importation from the Sunny Green Isle, and coming over the ocean with friends destined for P-, she made her advent in the family soon after her arrival. Ellen was as handsome as the girl that " sat in the low-backed car." Tall with a milk white skin, blue-grey eyes, pearly teeth, rosy cheeks with dimples, and bands upon bands of chestnut hair which she wore coiled round and round on her shapely head.
She was as strong as any man and could lift a full barrel of flour, which two of the noisy clan together could not do, and which fact gave her an authority over the boys, when in her charge, which she otherwise could never have commanded. They told their chums that she could lift the huge iron bucket the crane brought up from the dirt bank at the coal washery and even carry off a whole freight car on her back, and many were the walks in the vicinity of the railways, she was inveigled into, that they might see her perform the feat, which of course she never did.
Story telling was her forte. "Come, Ellen, tell us a story," Bob would say. "One of your fairies." What remarkable stories they were; of the Banshees and little people, the fairy queen the dragons and the monsters of Tipperary Downs. When the boys were particularly bad, she told them of the headless giants that walked about the outside of the house and pecred in through the windows. The blind prince who
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marked down their good deeds and the dragon who could change them into a pig or a goat. If any of the bolder ones ventured to say, "I don't believe that, Ellen, that is a lie." She would defend herself with something like this:
"A lie is it ? Shure what is a lie ? Me lyin' is given me to plaze me. If I lie against me frind, 'tis a mortal sin, but a lie to plaze meself is a gift from God, sint from Heaven for me plasure."
The kitchen clock needed cleaning and ran down every day or two and refused to respond long to Bob's frequent windings. " It's the Divil in it," said Ellen. " I've heerd of it before. He sthops the clocks to hinder people from doin' their work on time, and 'yer father bein' that particular wid havin' his dinner right on noon, but I'll get him out."
She took the poker and gave three vigorous raps on the back of the clock saying with each rap: "Come out, ye Divil, come out." Whether or not the dust and grime fell from the wheels with such vigorous treatment is not known, but the clock went steadily after.
"Never pint your gun at me," she said to Bob who had an old disabled musket with which he was allowed to drill, but from which the lock and chambers were gone. "I've knowed guns like that to go off afore whether they're loaded or not. They always do in the old counthry. The Divil is in a gun when you pint it." Wise Ellen; and she was to be married and leave them.
Stickety Jimmy was a morose looking Irishman. Coarse featured, unkempt, with thick black hair and round under-neck chin whiskers and was not liked by any one. His face was red, his temper bad, and he a hard drinker. He had worked in the
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silver mines near Vera Cruz, where he lost a leg and wore a wooden substitute, from which fact he gained the sobriquet by which he was called. He came East to P-, where some friends he had known, bought a horse and wagon for him and he made a fair living at hauling coal, or at least could have made it had he let " the craythur " alone. But he came from Tipperary and that was his sole recommendation in Ellen's eyes.
The marriage was not a good one, and Ellen was soon in- stalled again at the family home doing day's work at cleaning, washing and general housework. At night it was rumored Jimmy beat her until she gave him her hard earnings to spend for whisky. Ellen said little, but her proud boastfulness was gone and her spirit broken. Little Jamesy came soon after, and he died from suffocation it was said, though it was never proven, the drunken father rolled on him in the bed while he slept and Ellen was at the washtub.
She appeared again at her washtub and a little later was at work with a huge hole in her head. Doctor Berluchy had shaved away the hair around it and dressed the wound with huge strips of court plaster, and the children wondered if the pretty brown locks would ever grow again. When asked what caused it, she said:
" I was just sphlittin' a bit av kindlin' wood and a piece av it flew up and sthruck me on the head."
But word went around that Ellen was at last attempting to hold up her end, that Stickety Jimmy was getting as good as he gave. The neighbors, however, objected to these nightly brawls, and fearing Ellen might be injured or killed, when matters appeared to be reaching a climax they interfered. True to her Irish love of fair play and the traditions of the wielders
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of the shillalahs at Donnybrook Fair, Ellen helped Jimmy, and together they turned on the neighbors and soon routed her well wishers.
It was too bad. Something must be done and they ap- pealed to the Parish Priest, who appeared on the scene the next evening when matters were about at their worst. In thundering tones good Father G- berated the brutal Jimmy, who with wooden leg in hand as a weapon was thrashing the luckless Ellen with it whenever he could get in a whack, and she in turn defended herself with the poker. Jimmy fled through the back window using the leg as a cane until he got up the adjacent hillside a sufficient distance to readjust it.
Ellen retained her presence of mind and strove to appear as if nothing had occurred. She courtesied up and down, again and again as she did when a girl on the country roadside in " ould " Ireland when the carriage of the curate passed by, wiped off a chair with her apron, asked the reverend to sit down, inquired about his health and deprecated it that he had come out for such a " thrifle," he might take " cowld " again.
The good man could not be severe with her but told her what a disgrace their conduct was, how they annoyed their neighbors, and asked her "if they both wanted to lose their souls? " and finally said:
" It is a shame Ellen for you both to behave so, and you, too, that ought to know so much better. Cannot you and Jimmy live together without all this quarreling?"
" Not wid any pleasure or injyment, your honor," said Ellen.
Whether Jimmy was tired of married life or whether he was genuinely scared at the admonitions of Father G- was
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never known. He was never seen in town afterward. Ellen told the nine, she guessed, " the Divil had come for him, or else the Bogy-man had taken him down in 'wan of thim' big air-holes (mine cave ins) on Guinea hill to torment the bogies wid him." Some years thereafter, however, a Schuylkill County man returning from Tucson said he saw "Stickety Jim " driving a six mule supply team over the desert, for one of the Arizona silver mines.
Ellen lived until she was well up in the eighties, working as long as she was able, when the charitable people of the town and her old friends relieved her from the necessity of going " over the hills to the poorhouse " of which she had so wholesome a dread. She was buried according to her own in- structions. Her funeral was large, and one of which she would have been very proud, could she have seen it, and perhaps she did.
PART V
EARLY CHURCHES
PART V
HISTORY OF EARLY CHURCHES
THEIR ORIGIN AND WHEREABOUTS
S CHUYLKILL COUNTY, having been a part of Berks, its early history is, of course, contemporaneous. Lo- cality, however, fixes certain historical events that oc- curred east or west of the Blue Mountains, the divid- ing line, as early as the French and Indian War.
The "Old Red Church," near Orwigsburg, Schuylkill County, was built in 1754. It was burned in the Indian massacre in 1755 and has since been re-built four different times. Jacob's Church, two miles west of Pinegrove, was or- ganized in 1780. St. John's Church, near Freidensburg, and Hetzels, on the Summer Berg, followed soon after. The early settlers in the vicinity of Pottsville attended either the Freidens- burg Church or the New Jerusalem organization, below the County Home, which was built later.
The first church here was not within the Borough limits, but stood in a field lying north of the road leading to the Joyce
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nursery, near the home of Col. Hyde (Mill Creek Avenue). It was built as a place of worship for the lumbermen who oper- ated saw-mills along the Schuylkill, as far north as New Phila- delphia, and for the use of the few settlers in the vicinity of Pottsville. It depended entirely upon the services of such itin- erant Lutheran and Reformed preachers as came this way, for the ministration of the Gospel, the baptism of children and the burial services for the dead. Some of these funeral sermons, being preached months after their subjects were interred. The rude stones that marked the graves of some of these early pioneers were still to be seen on the spot after the traces of the first log church near Pottsville were altogether obliterated.
Mrs. Amelia P. Schall, daughter of the late Benjamin Pott, and granddaughter of John Pott, the founder of Potts- ville, kindly furnished the author with the following informa- tion on the subject :
"My mother, who was a daughter of Martin Dreibelbeis, who came to where Schuylkill Haven now stands, in 1775, to make a home for himself and family, told me of this first church. It was known as Keim's Kirche. The Rev. George Minnich, who was one of the first pastors of Jacob's Church, near Pinegrove, the second church built in the county-not Wm. Minnich, who afterward officiated in Pottsville-with other ministers that traveled about, sometimes came there to preach.
"On such occasions, her parents and their family, with others of the early settlers, would come up here to attend the meetings. The women, many of them, rode on horseback and whole families came in wagons. The only other church then was the Freidensburg Kirche on the other side of Schuylkill Haven, which the early settlers attended in the same way. Rev.
Old Red Church
Retiring Pastor and Successor
REV. R. S. EDRIS
REV. W. MILLER PRICE
Auburn Reformed Charge To Install New Pastor
Auburn, Dec. 10-The Rev. W. Miller Price, elected pastor of the Auburn Reformed charge to suc- ceed the Rev. Robert S. Edris, re- signed, will be installed at special services on Sunday at 2:30 p. m. in Zion's (Red) church,
The committee on installation by Schuylkill Classis will be as fol- lows: the Rev. C. M. Baver, Maha- noy City; the Rev. J. Arthur Schaeffer, Tamaqua; the Rev. R. S. Edris, Reading; the Rev. O. R. Frantz, Minersville; the Rev. H. J. B. Ziegler, Orwigsburg,
The following clergymen are ex- pected to attend: the Rev. M. L. Wuchter, Wyomissing; the Rev. W. H. Dietrich, the Rev. G. J. Mar- tin, the Rev. Kenneth Snyder, of Auburn, and the Rev. C. A. Steig- erwalt, of Schuylkill Haven.
The Rev. Dr. Charles E. Schaef- fer, of Philadelphia, general secre- tary of the board of Home Missions of the Reformed Church in the United States, will preach the ser- mon. Special music for the occa- sion will be furnished by Zion's (Red)' church choir, directed by O. M. Wuchter, organist and chor- ister. Following the service of in- stallation a brief reception will be held in the Sunday school room.
Rev. Mr. Price is a native of Schuylkill county, and a son of Schuylkill Classis, born and reared in Minersville, the son of Ida and the late Daniel Price, who too I were natives' of Minersville. He was a son of Emanuel congrega- tion in Minersville and served as deacon and elder, superintendent of church school and member of the choir.
He received his theological edu-
cation at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Lancaster, was student manager of the seminary choir and business manager of the Seminary Players, a dramatic enterprise.
He was licensed and ordained by Schuylkill Classis in May, 1936. Since that time he had been pas- tor of the Pymatuning charge, Greenville, located within the bounds of St. Paul's Classis and Pittsburgh Synod, and was elected treasurer of- Pittsburgh Synod at the meeting- of- that body in May of last year.
" Mrs. Price is the daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. O. R. Frantz, who have resided in Minersville for the past 28 years. Until a year ago, Rev .. Mr. Frantz was pastor of Emanuel Reformed church, Miners- ville, and is now pastor emeritus. Mrs. Price is a graduate of the Braun School of Music, Pottsville, and prior to going to Greenville, taught .piano. She has appeared frequently as a concert pianist. : . Zion's (Red) church, the place of installation, is the oldest Chris- tian parish in Schuylkill county. The Reformed congregation began its "existence in 1795 as Christ church. It was a' separate church until 1832 when the two congre- gations, Lutheran and Reformed, agreed to worship as a union church with equal property rights.
Some of the pulpit furniture in the present church building has bcen ;in use for more than 135 years."The pipe organ still in use was installed in 1808. The parish was served by 18 Lutheran and 13 Reformed ministers. The longest period of service by รก Reformed pastor was 48 years and by a Lu- theran pastor 22 years.
Rev. Mr. Edris, now pastor emer- itus of the Auburn Reformed charge, which consists of St. John's church, Auburn;" Zion's (Red) church, Pinedale; St. John's, Port Clinton, and Faith, Landingville, was born in Tulpehocken township, Berks county, reared in West Read- ing, and is a son of St. James Re- formed church.
He is a graduate' of the Reading Classical School, 1889; Franklin and Marshall College, 1903, and Ursinus School of Theology, 1906. He was licensed to preach by the German Philadelphia Classis in May, 1906, and 'elected and ordained to . St. John's Reformed charge, Red Lion, York county, in November, 1906. He served this charge until July 31, 1910. On August 1 he became pastor of the Auburn Reformed charge. He was installed Septem- ber 25 in Zion's (Red) church. The installation committee was the Rev. George W. Hartman, J. Arthur Schaeffer and W. D. Stoyer.
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George Minnich at that time also supplying that and the Jacob's charge at Pinegrove.
"My cousin, Miss Tamson Strauch, sister of Henry and Daniel Strauch, the latter the first white boy born on Mahan- tongo Street, all now deceased, recollected hearing her mother, who was Magdalena Pott, daughter of John Pott, relate the same circumstance. Some years before my mother's death, which occurred in 1875, we drove to the spot in the rear of the Pottsville water basin, where Keim's Kirche stood, but found only the landmarks to indicate the site of the ancient church.
"There is no record of when my grandfather, John Pott, gave the land on the corner of North Centre and Race Streets for the laying out of a cemetery and the building of the log school house in which the first church services in Pottsville were held. At least none that I am aware of."
THE LOG SCHOOL HOUSE
When it is taken into consideration that in 1824 so little progress had been made that there were only five houses on the site of Pottsville, which was known as "John Pott's at the Coal Mine," it will not be a matter of astonishment that the building of the first churches began almost simultaneously, about 1828, with the incorporation of the town and that three of them were completed very nearly at the same period in the town's history.'
The great body of the early Methodist preachers were
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plain, uneducated men, who came direct from the masses of the people. They were in touch not only with their views, ambi- tions and aspirations but with their inner everyday lives. They were a set of self-sacrificing men, who could consistently preach of that future state of happiness as the only thing worth striving for in this world. The salary consideration did not enter into their life-work, nor was their religion a mere profession of moral ethics or their teachings confined to the theoretical dogmas of church doctrines. They taught the people their need of God to lean upon, during the hardships they were undergoing and His power to sustain them through the privations of their hardy and lean lives.
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