USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Old Schuylkill tales, a history of interesting events, traditions and anecdotes of the early settlers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania > Part 16
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Old Schuylkill Tales.
veins. A coal breaker stood in North Centre Street, at the corner near the gas house.
"The school referred to was only for boys. Christopher Little taught there and had as an assistant a man named Kutchin. The boys called him 'Little Billy.' Joseph Bowen, in after years Borough assessor, was a teacher. Small boys wore gingham aprons in those days and would sit for hours in school passing a slate pencil through the hems.
"How I hated those aprons, but my mother insisted upon my wearing one. There was a large flat stone in the vicinity of the old water basin, now Yuengling's Park, and under it I hid my apron, returning for it after school. I carried on this de- ception for a long time but was finally exposed after returning home several times without it.
"I learned my trade of hatter with Oliver Dobson and Nicholas Fox. We made fine wool hats and afterward nothing but silk hats, all hand made and for which there was a great de- mand. John G. Hewes also learned the trade but never worked at it. I was in the hat business for years until I disposed of the stand and good will to my nephew, C. W. Mortimer.
"Those were lively days in politics. When Henry Clay, the great Whig leader who opposed the annexation of Texas, was defeated and James K. Polk, of Tennessee, the Democratic candidate who favored it was elected, the Whigs were opposed to adding any more slave States to the Union. A barbecue was given by the Democrats on the vacant lot at the corner of Elev- enth and Market Streets. A whole ox was roasted. That was in 1844.
"In 1848 when Taylor and Fillmore were inaugurated and in 1856 when Jimmy Buchanan went in there were ox roasts in
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Garfield square. I was a Democrat then. There were live po- litical clubs formed that marched about during the presidential campaigns shouting and singing for
" 'Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.'
"Nathaniel Mills, was a great local politician. He was a rabid Democrat. He went west for a time when gold was dis- covered in California and returned a Black Whig. The Demo- cratic clubs had it in for him and marched around singing :
"'Oh! Poor Natty Mills,
. Oh! Poor Natty Mills, Give him a dose of castor oil, And then a dose of pills.'
"Harry K. Nichols, late chief engineer of the P. & R. R. W. Co., was born in Pottsville the same year I was. His father, Lieut. F. B. Nichols, of the United States Navy, who was active during the war of 1812, built the house on Market Street now occupied by the Y. M. C. A. It was subsequently owned and occupied by the late Benjamin Haywood, who with Lee and Harris formed the firm that operated the Palo Alto Rolling Mills and were with George W. Snyder and Wm. Milnes, iron founders and coal operators, some of our leading capitalists and most enterprising business men and foremost citizens.
"Those were the days before the Government exacted a tax on spirituous liquors. The farmers, many of them, had their own stills and were moonshiners. What they could not sell of their grain and corn they turned into whiskey and brought it to town to the stores to trade for or sell as part of the results of their agricultural pursuits. Some of the leading families of Pottsville, today, owe their present prosperity and share in large estates to this early traffic in whiskey. The first brewery I knew
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of was one on the river road to Port Carbon run by A. Y. Moore. The founder of the Yuengling plant began in a very humble way on Schuylkill Avenue, in the rear and above the present brewery. He manufactured and retailed his first stock. The Lauers' opposite the Hospital came afterward and the Market Street, Mt. Carbon and another brewery near Mechanicsville, still later.
"Circuses often visited Pottsville. They held forth in the vacant block in Garfield Square opposite the English Lutheran Church. The crowds were large and there was no trouble reach- ing the shows."
OLD TIME SCRAPPERS
George W. Eiler, former foreman at the P. R. C. & I. Shops, now retired, tells the following story :
"My father, Daniel Eiler, came to Pottsville in 1846. He built the brick residence next to the corner of Eighth and Mahantongo Streets where our family lived for more than a quarter of a century. Among the many stories he told me of the early days, was one about the old time scrappers.
"There was a great rivalry between Berks and Schuylkill Counties as to which could claim the strongest man, the best fighter in a pugilistic encounter, the best pedestrian and the most powerful man in a hand to hand fist fight.
"Pottsville put up Jonathan Wynn, a blacksmith for Potts' and a well known Methodist class leader, for Wynn could
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both fight and pray, and Berks County backed as their man (his name I have forgotten) a regular bully with a big repu- tation.
"A day was set for the fight. At a given hour the two men set out from Reading and Pottsville and walked toward each other, each man was accompanied by his backers and friends. They met at a point near Hamburg. Wynn not only walked the greatest distance in the given time, but he did up the Reading bully in such a shape that he was never heard of in Pottsville again, and Jonathan Wynn was for a long time known as the champion all-around fighter of Schuylkill County.
"Those were the days when the early constables of the county would walk thirty or forty miles to serve a writ and think nothing of it. If they could get a friendly lift from the driver of a farmer's wagon they accepted, but seldom depended upon it. They had their own routes over the mountains and and by circuitous paths, and covered great distances. Among these were Christian Kaup, of the Brunswicks; William Boyer, of Orwigsburg; Peramus Brobst, a mail carrier; Stephen Rogers, constable, of Pottsville, and others.
"A branch of the Schuylkill Canal, which ended at Port Carbon, ran along Coal Street to a point opposite the coal and iron shops. There was a landing there for the loading of the boats with the coal that came down from the Delaware. There was a mill race near this point to the old grist mill.
"In 1813, several small openings were made around Potts- ville for the digging of coal. The article, taken out, was sold to the blacksmiths and others in the neighborhood for 25 cents a bushel at the pit's mouth. The shafts were sunk only a few
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feet into the crop of the vein and the coal was raised by means of the common windlass and buckets.
"It was not until 1823 that coal was found on Guinea Hill, where horse power was first used as an improvement on the windlass. The railroad was not built nor the canal com- pleted and the common method of transportation was by horsc and wagon. Later years brought with them the newer im- provements in mining and increased facilities for transporta- tion.
"In 1842, the Pott and Bannan mine on Guinea Hill was considered one of the best in the region. It was known as the "Black Mine." Its veins in the upper lifts were soon ex- hausted, and not desiring to dig deeper, the working was aban- doned. People were curious to see the operation of mining and visitors were frequent. It was here that the Rev. A. Pryor, a retired Episcopal clergyman, who lived at the corner of Fifth and Market Streets, met with an accident through which he was lamed. He had been visiting the operation when the accident occurred.
"There were many of the first business men who came here penniless that left their families well-to-do and even wealthy, some of the present estates held by their descendants having had very humble beginnings. These men were of the sturdy sort, and like all self-made men, were more or less proud of their own work-the carving out of their own fortunes. Many good stories could be related of their thrift, economy and foresight and the sagacity shown in their investments. Among them were: Samuel Thompson, merchant; Wm. E. Boyer, J. D. Woolison, Nathan Wetzel, tobacconists; the Fosters and Daniel Schertle, shoe dealers; David Yuengling, brewer; Joseph
18
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Shelly, boat yard; Clemens, Parvin and L. F. Whitney, steam mills; Joseph Stichter, tinsmith; and Daniel Esterly, hardware. The Morris', merchants; John Crosland, who took the first boat load of coal to New York and others. Some of these met with heavy reverses in after life."
THIRTY THOUSAND COPPER PENNIES
Squire J. W. Conrad relates the following:
"My grandfather, J. W. Conrad, who came here from Ger- many, was a Justice of the Peace for many years. He spoke French fluently and was acquainted with some of the dialects of the German confederation and those of Southern Europe, although German was his mother tongue. He was called on frequently to write or translate letters from one language into another and to straighten out matters, legally, for the early foreigners. He conducted a foreign steamship agency at his office next to the corner of Third and Market Streets. Owing to his knowledge of the European ports and his acquaintance with different languages this branch of his business proved a very lucrative one. Those were the days when abstracts of lands were written out and there were no printed forms of deeds. A Justice worked hard, there was so much transcribing.
" 'Jimmie' Sorrocco, an Italian, was an early organ grinder. He delighted the children of those times with his barrel organ, which he carried about on his back and rested on a stout oaken stick while he ground out the few tunes in its scant repertoire.
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But it was not 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' nor 'Home, Sweet Home,' that the youngsters cared particularly about; but the pet monkey that amused them with its antics, capering up the sides of houses and porches to gather up the pennies given it.
"Sorrocco lived on Guinea Hill, in the locality known as Italy, where he and his wife kept a boarding house for their countrymen. They were very frugal, particularly Catalina, who kept cows and sold milk to add to the family revenue. Catalina was a great beauty, with olive-brown skin, big black eyes and heavy coal-black hair. At times 'Jimmie' became very much incensed at the admiration she excited and the at- tention she received from his visitors.
"This seemed only to amuse Catalina and she would laugh, showing her great white teeth and shaking the long gold ear- ings in her ears as she measured out the milk from her bright cans, for she was a clean and industrious woman. Then she would tell her patrons in the soft tongue, she knew very little English, 'Jimmie so jelly, so jelly,' meaning jealous.
"When the couple purchased the property at Eighth and Laurel Streets, known as 'Little Italy,' my grandfather con- ducted the transfer and made out the deed. The price was three hundred dollars and it was paid for with thirty thousand pennies, the large copper pennies, bigger than a twenty-five cent piece, then in circulation. They had all been gathered together by Sorocco and his barrel organ and the monkey, and were saved by Catalina.
"The pennies were weighed, but as some were worn more than others the result did not even up and they were subse- quently re-counted. It took a half day with several at work to figure out the amount.
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QUEER CHARACTERS.
"There were many queer characters about town. One of these, 'Jake' Danes, a harmless, half-witted man, who acted as 'boots' about the old Mortimer House, was the terror of the children. The mere mention that 'Jake' Danes was com- ing that way would scatter a whole neighborhood at play in a few minutes. 'Jimmy the fiddler,' was another. He was addicted to his cups, but as his name indicated, sometimes played for dances. Doctor Bobbs (not Boggs) was another. He was a lame negro paralytic and shook all over when he shambled about. He sold corn salve and was the sandwich- board man of his time. No parade was complete without Doc- tor Bobbs bringing up the rear covered with advertisements.
"'Jimmy Donnegan,' a good workman and a member of the old 'Hydraulian' fire company, was a terror to everybody when under the influence of liquor. He was a strong, broad- shouldered, well-built young man and rather good looking, and few cared to tackle him when he was in his fury. He was incarcerated one night in the old stone lock-up in the rear of the 'Drollies' fire house, next to the old stone school house for girls, corner of Centre and West Race Streets, for safe-keeping.
"Neglected the next day, his thirst after his spree became almost intolerable and he made the neighborhood hideous with his yells and curses but no one relieved him. Recess came and the girls filed out and gathered below the grated window above, where Donnegan appeared and plead:
" 'For the love of God, give me a drink of water, I am dying of thirst !'
"The girls were afraid and the window was high when one
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of the most venturesome-now a well-known and sturdy matron of North Second Street, with several grown up sons-matured a plan. The girls stood together, 'London Bridge,' she mount- ed on their shoulders and others filled the pint tin-eup which 'Jimmie' took from her hand and drank through the iron bars. When the bell rang he was still pleading for 'more, more,' like Oliver Twist."
CURFEW SHALL NOT RING TO-NIGHT
"A curfew ordinanee would be nothing new for Pottsville. When the Borough streets were lighted with small oil lamps inserted in the old glass enelosed lamp posts, it was eustomary to outen these lamps at ten o'eloek. At each corner as the watehman, who earried a small ladder to aseend the lamp-posts, outened the lamp, he cried in a loud voiee : 'Past ten o'clock,' and the people were expected to be in their houses and ready to retire. Those abroad after that hour were looked upon with suspieion and few eared to brave the darkness of the streets. Corporation moonlight meant something then.
"Opposite our home, on West Norwegian above Eighth Street, the greater part of the square was enclosed with a high paling fenee which extended from Norwegian to Mahantongo Street. It was known as 'Russel's Field' and was at first enclosed and cultivated. Crops of eorn and potatoes were raised in it by the owners. The huge driving gate had accidentally been left open one night and an individual, rather the worse for John Barleyeorn, had lost his bearings and wandered into the field.
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"It was a dark night after twelve o'clock when the neigh- borhood was aroused with the loud yells of one in distress and the oft-repeated cry:
-where am I? H -- where am I?'
"The neighbors arose and some procured lanterns and pro- ceeded to the source of the alarm, when a man was found half- way between the square on Ninth Street, inside the field. He had wandered in the gate and was clinging to the palings of the fence, which he had followed around to that point. He was piloted to the street by my father, who took him part way toward his home.
"The early watchmen in those days were brave men. They encountered many toughs in their rounding up of the town but there was little burglary that I remember. The watchman were, Elijah Quinn, a powerfully built man, Wm. Stout, Daddy Mey- ers, Jacob Mervine and Wm. Beidleman. Chief of Police George Smith came afterward."
ORIGIN OF GHOST STORY
A Pottsville lady, who desires to be nameless, relates the following :
"My father and mother, came here in the early days from Chester County. We lived first at Mt. Carbon, soon after the opening of the Schuylkill Canal. My father was an old-time printer, although he subsequently engaged in the confectionery
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business and other branches before his death. which occurred while he was still in the prime of life.
"Near our home stood a large stone house that had a bad reputation. It had been used as a company boarding house during the building of the Mt. Carbon Railway. After the boarders left, the family contracted small-pox and several mem- bers died of the disease. The father and owner becoming dis- couraged left and went to New York where he worked on the Erie Canal.
"Houses were scarce but no one would rent the big stonc house. Strange noises were hcard there and it had the repu- tation of being haunted.
"Once a week, on publication night, for the newspapers of town were all weeklies then, my father was at work all night. Before going to the office he would fill the pail with water from the neighborhood pump for use until morning.
"One evening he left without having performed this little office, forgetting it probably and my mother discovered late at night that there was no water for the children, who were cer- tain to ask for a drink.
"Passing the stone house on her return she heard the strange noise that had so often been described. She set the pail down and softly crept into the house through an open window.
"Here she saw-not a ghost but a frugal German who was building a house for himself nearby, hard at work with an axe cutting out the joists for his own use. The house on examination, afterward, was found to have been dismantled, too, of its doors and other appurtenances.
"My mother left as quietly as she came but the agent of
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the property was notified and the stone house, though ruined, was no longer haunted."
INDIAN STORY
The early settlers related that an Indian village stood in the locality lying between what is now Centre Street and the railroad, between East Market and East Areh Streets. Another stood on the site of the Charles Baber cemetery. Indian ar- rows and cooking utensils were found at these points. At Indian Run there was a large settlement and wigwams were pitehed along the Swatara ereek. On Fourth Street there were stones plaeed around Sharp Mountain by the Indians. They were ealled Indian steps. They may still be seen. There were not many Indians in this loeality, yet the life of the early settlers was one of constant struggle with the roving bands of red marauders. As late as 1825 there were still a few red men in this vieinity, but they were harmless. Of one of these Mrs. B. W. Cumming, Sr., says her father-in-law, George H. Cumming, a member of the Society of Friends and an early . settler, related the following:
"The Indian was known as Tecumseh and was an idle and dissolute fellow who lived on the hill above the Odd Fellows' Cemetery. He was detected in stealing from a neighbor, and with his wife was brought before a Justice of the Peace to an- swer the charge of theft. The poor squaw broke down and
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sobbed and cried like her white sisters might have done under a similar circumstance. This disgusted the red man who said to the 'Squire :
" 'Squaw no good. She cry. Me no squaw, me Injun brave, me not cry. Ugh!'
"Tecumseh was let go, a bystander paying the costs and fine imposed."
THE FIRST PHYSICIANS
Dr. A. H. Halberstadt, who is the last of his generation of leading Pottsville physicians, which included such practi- tioners as Doctors J. C. Swaving, J. T. Carpenter, D. W. Bland, C. H. Haeseler and Samuel Berluchy, had just returned from the Pottsville Hospital, where he had performed a deli- cate operation upon a prominent Tremont resident, when the writer ventured to call upon him.
The doctor has long passed his -th birthday but his tenacious grip on youth still enables him to do a tremendous sight of work and he is still as busy and active as he was at any time in his long and useful medical career.
"I would rather wear out than rust out," is one of his mottoes for the promotion of good health and a well-rounded-out longevity.
Knowing from previous experience that he had an ap- preciative listener, which is far better than being a good con- versationalist on such occasions, he at once launched on a
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technical description of the surgical case in hand and the complications encountered. The operation was a success. (The man is alive and well to-day.)
From that story he gradually drifted into a history of hydropathy, osteopathy, the origin of homeopathy, Christian Science and almost every other known form of pathology, all of which, it is a matter of regret, cannot be reproduced here, for Doctor Halberstadt is a most interesting conversationalist and fluent talker when he warms up to the subject.
During this time he waited upon several office patients that had been awaiting his arrival, attended to a business caller and dismissed another social visitor; between whiles answer- ing several calls on the two 'phones in his private offices, and keeping up a running but by no means a desultory conversation in the interim.
"You want to know about the early physicians of Potts- ville ? Why, of course; why didn't you tell me at once ?
"Too much interested in what I was saying? Oh! well, I must think about them first.
"My father, Dr. George Halberstadt, came to Pottsville in 1830. His colleagues in the first years were: Doctors Mc- Cullough, Sorber, William Tweed and Zaccur Praull. Col. Zaccur P. Boyer, born in Port Carbon, was named after the latter.
"The Pennsylvania State Medical Association was formed in the early 'Forties. It was the parent of the Schuylkill County Medical Society, of which my father was the president for five years. It was formed in 1846.
"In 1832 the cholera was raging in Philadelphia. It broke out in Pottsville with several virulent cases. On the
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northwest corner of Twelfth and Mahantongo Streets stood a block of workingmen's houses. They were built of stone, white- washed white and were two and a half stories in height, with dormer windows in the upper story, which was unfinished. Here the first Pottsville Hospital was established by my father for the care of cholera patients who were isolated in the upper story of that building. The name, the Pottsville Hospital, clung to the block until it was demolished, after its last owner, Oliver Dobson, had disposed of it.
"Dr. George Halberstadt built our present family home and the adjoining houses about 1838. After my marriage I opened practice and lived in a building on the site of the house occupied by my son, Dr. G. H. Halberstadt.
"Dr. Cecil Berryman was an early physician. He lived on Centre Street, where the Green jewelry store is, or adjoining, and also at the corner of Third and Mahantongo Strects. He was injured in an accident by a runaway horse, from the effects of which he subsequently died. IIis wife maintained herself. with a fancy dress goods and trimming store on the northwest corner of Third and Market Streets. Another early doctor was Dr. Brady, who lived in and built the Charlemagne Tower house now occupied by Baird Snyder.
"Col. Anthony Hagar and John T. Nichols, (the latter lived in the brick house next door to Captain D. H. Seibert) were both surgeons in the Civil War and good doctors.
"Dr. James S. Carpenter, Sr., came to Pottsville about the same time my father did. There were, of course, many others and if I should include the county physicians they would fill a volume.
"Drs. D. J. Mckibben, Henry C. Parry, Henry R. Silly-
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man, Thomas Turner, J. B. Brandt, J. D. Brantner, C. P. Herrington, J. F. Kern, Douglas R. Bannan, a young man of great promise, were among the early doctors.
"There were a number of druggists, too, who acted as physicians, some were intelligent men and others were quacks. There was a Doctor Spcar here who for a time cut a broad swath. He was smart, too smart, and landed in jail branded as a forger and counterfeiter and subsequently was convicted and served a term of imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary. During his trial in the Schuylkill County Courts his counsel set up a plea of insanity.
"In presenting the proofs of his client's condition his law- yer entered the plea that Spcar was demented because he asked for a turkey and plum pudding dinner in jail on Thanksgiving Day.
"I will tell you of Dr. G. W. Brown, of Port Carbon, who was one of the best physicians the county ever had. He did not like Dr. Samuel Berluchy, who was an especial friend of mine.
"What was that? You remember how Dr. Berluchy looked ? Oh! Yes! I believe the ladies of those days all thought him handsome.
"He was a tall, large, well-made man. Stout, but with not an ounce too much flesh for his height. Smooth face and with skin as fair as a babe's and heavy, wavy, jet black hair. He was cultured and refined, had genial manners and was very companionable; everybody liked him except Brown, whose rea- sons were solely professional.
"Dr. Berluchy came here from Gettysburg. His father had been a surgeon in the army of Napolcon and the son studied privately under Harmer, the great anatomist at the U. P.,
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Philadelphia. Berluchy was a widower, he had been married to a member of the Flood family, a wealthy and cultured Roman Catholic family of Philadelphia.
"His last illness came in the prime of life. I attended him and knew he would dic. I effected a reconciliation between my patient and Dr. Brown and two better pleased men you never saw.
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