USA > Pennsylvania > Lancaster County > Lancaster > The story of Lancaster, old and new : being a narrative history of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, form 1730 to the centennial year 1918 > Part 13
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"As both plots lay close, one beside the other, and as both mourners met at times on their errand of mercy, it was only natural that they should come within speaking distance; and come together they did with the following result:
"Looking up, the widower exclaimed, wiping away a tear, 'It's a sad misfortune for a man in the blossom of his youth to be left alone in the world with a family of children to be cared for.' To this, came the widow's lament, 'It truly is, for likewise, it's my misfortune to be left also alone with a family.' Then drawing nearer, the widower, placing his hand on her shoulder, gives way to another spasm of grief." The result-as the grave-digger ended his story-"both went away, arm in arm, and nevermore were they seen bending over the tombs of their loved ones."
But to refer once more to the writer of the "Good Old Days": "Let us visit some old -churchyard, where loved ones of early days are sleeping their
WATER COMMITTEE WHICH BUILT THE PRESENT WATER WORKS IN 1888
LANCASTER'S AMBITION TO BECOME CAPITAL 195
last dreamless sleep, each in his windowless place of rest. Tired of the day's wanderings, you sit your- self down on the green grass on the family plot. The last rays of the setting sun are tinging the hill- tops with their mellow light and bathing the land- scape in a flood of golden glory. Perhaps for the first time in years you permit memory to have its full sway. Beautiful 'Isle of Memory,' lighted by the morning-star of life, studded with jewels of hope, warmed with motherly and fatherly affection, and watered from perennial springs of joy; wreathed in garlands of everblooming flowers and beset with diamonds of peace, contentment, love! Oh, beauti- ful 'Isle of Memory,' where roses bloom by the door, where robins sing among the apple blossoms and where bright waters ripple into eternal melodies!"
And now, dear reader, while the above sentiments so beautifully expressed are not of the chronicler's conception, they illustrate what he has many a time witnessed in this or that cemetery, with loved ones bending over a mound in placing a few flowers thereon-then silently go their way.
Oldtime stories may be occasionally indulged in by the thoughtless, and yet there is a certain some- thing about a graveyard that admits of no levity on the part of the humorously disposed. It is the most sacred, the most beloved spot on God's broad domain; no place for idle thoughts; no place to indulge in frivolity.
And as the chapter closes, it is with the thought of one who has just been laid to rest. We knew H. S. Williamson intimately as a devoted husband, a loving
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father, a generous giver, beloved by the boys and girls for his many little acts of charity. His last act was to present four little tots each a rag doll. And the day before his demise, as he related the story of the happiness given them, he exclaimed, "It is the little things one does that give the greater pleasure." But as Harry is no more, may his memory ever remain fresh and green in the hearts of his hosts of friends as one of God's bene- factors.
All at once we are reminded that this is "Decora- tion" day with the old and young veterans going their way from cemetery to cemetery, there to lay a few flowers on the mounds of the departed! It is a beautiful custom perpetuated as the outgrowth of the war of the sixties, and later that of the Spanish American, even to this, the present great European conflict. May the day never come when it will be necessary for the "Grand Army" to lay garlands of roses on this or that patriotic boy's tomb! To close this chapter, may the clouds which hang heavy over the nations engaged in cruel war, soon be dispelled by the sunshine of hope for a greater and brighter future!
CHAPTER XV
MOVE FOR A COURT OF APPEAL. THE TAXPAYERS' REDRESS
WE are still turning over the pages of the council- manic records of the thirties. An important epoch, this decade, with the city trying to move forward against obstacles almost insurmountable! The town at the time was full of "pullbacks," and the cry went forth, "As it was good enough for our ancestors, it ought to be good enough for our descendants." The moneyed men of the city seemed to be almost a unit against what they called extravagance on the part of councils in their appropriations. Salaries were cut to the minimum. And as for street laborers, few except those engaged at the water plant could find employment. Well had the under employees cause to grumble; but what signified grumbling. The time for trades unions had not as yet arrived. No walking delegate was to be seen going through work-shops as agitator, in banding men together for their own self preservation. In fact, such a move as a walk-out was almost unheard of during the thirties and forties of the past century.
Prior to the action of councils April 7, 1835, there was no redress for the tax-payer except to step into the treasurer's office and pay such taxes as the duplicate contained. As all good things come to
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those who have the patience to await the hour of their coming, so was passed the ordinance creating a "Court of Appeal."
While this "court" was intended to equalize and readjust property valuation, for a time it had quite the opposite effect, giving those with a "political pull" with the men constituting the court the power of lowering the assessment of their favorites, and putting up that of their political enemies to the top notch.
To bear out this statement, think of taxes from real estate within the town of two miles square, producing but six thousand dollars at the close of the year 1835. Evidently the assessor was abroad in "Old Lancaster," and abroad he has been ever since as one of the city's necessary evils.
We are now to reach conditions leading to the panic of 1837, when specie payment, discontinued by the banks, compelled councils to issue what to- day might be called "shinplasters." At a meeting of councils, June 8, 1838, the committee appointed to confer with the different banks of the city relating to the redemption of the city's loan, in bills of one dollar or less, reported "that the matter be sub- mitted to the respective boards of bank directors for their decision." Here follows their reply:
"However anxious your committee are to aid in the circulation of metallic immediately, recent indi- cations of a general resumption of the small bills induce the banks to withhold a recommendation under the impression that when the banks fully resume, the small bills may be withdrawn from
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circulation with less inconvenience to the com- munity."
The following proposition came from the Lan- caster Bank to councils: "Resolved that this bank will redeem $5,000 in small notes issued by the city of Lancaster under the denomination of one dollar in specie, provided that funds be furnished in current bank notes by the city to that amount, and provided that the city will make provision for the further amount of $10,000 of the same issue in like manner. This offer was made by order of the board, Christian Bachman, Cashier."
These notes, of denominations of ten, twelve and a one half, twenty-five and fifty cent scrip were handsomely engraved, one bearing on its face the image of the first locomotive; another, three black- smiths standing facing an anvil. They bore the name "Lancaster City Loan," commonly called "Lancaster City Fractional currency." While their execution was passable, they were far below the kinds of scrip issued by the United States during the con- flict between the States. The fault lay not so much with the engraver as with the inferior kind of paper in use for the purpose.
Reference to bank-note currency has been made to show the stringency of the times during the later thirties, not only in Lancaster but in all cities of the country.
These "hard times" had reached floodtide with the close of Andrew Jackson's eight years of ad- ministration. But comes the query, What occasion had the people of Lancaster to complain, with so
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many improvements going on during the thirties? Work there had been on the canal, railroad and water works, but it was not by the manor-born. The contractors had brought with them their own laborers, at least in the construction of the canal and railroad.
We have scanned the pages of councils for the per diem wage paid city employees, both for clerical and outside labor. Think of Mayor Mathiot re- ceiving $200 per annum, or a total of $2,200 during the eleven years of his incumbency in office. As for employees for street work, fifty, sixty and seventy cents constituted pay for twelve hours' work. And as for trained mechanics, a dollar a day was the rule, and a pretty long day it was!
At the close of the year 1839, two years after the water works had been completed, came the following report: "The whole cost of the water works up to this time amounts to $127,086.53," and the amount of revenue received from water for the year previous:
32 dwellings at $7 per annum $224
79 dwellings at $6 per annum 474
45 dwellings at $5 per annum 225
50 pave washes. 50
1 Tavern stabling
28
1 Tavern stabling
22
1 Tavern stabling
18
1 Tavern
28
2 Taverns
96
8 Taverns at $12
5 Taverns at $10 96
50
4 Taverns at $9. 36
2 factories at $30 60
Jail and courthouse 30
The Slaymaker House 30
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Stable and horse
8
Brewery
25
Brewery .
20
Currier shop.
20
Currier shop.
5
1 Bath house, public.
50
9 private baths at $3
27
3 distilleries 40
1 distillery
43
1 distillery
60
2 Barber shops
10
2 Hatters at $8.
16
Total revenue, one year
$1,791
Think of only nine private bath tubs in the city using Conestoga water and but one public bath house! It is only reasonable to infer that the owner of this "public" bath house must have done a thriving business, during the summer at least, in order to pay his fifty-dollar water tax per annum.
Whether this public bath was used by both sexes the minutes fail to make entirely clear. The most reasonable conclusion reached by the chronicler, who, as a boy, never lived in a house with a bathtub, is that most boys, as well as man, bathed in the Conestoga near the "Big Stump." But this was years before all bathers were denied this health- giving privilege, with the danger of imbibing all kinds of disease germs.
But even with bathtubs for the women, how did they manage to get the Conestoga water to a proper temperature during winter for bathing purposes without a gas range? We used to know a dweller who had a tank on the top of his roof to catch the rain water. This he would let down through a
15
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pipe into an improvised bathtub, and all by the pulling of a cord. As the story has been told the narrator, on one occasion, during the month of August, he invited a friend to enjoy a bath, the first he had taken since quite a young man. Being assured that the temperature was normal, the in- vitation was accepted with thanks. The day previ- ous, the tank was filled with ice from a nearby ice house, bringing the temperature to near the freezing point. Entering the tub, the bather was told to stand upright, with the assurance that there was no danger of his getting a sun-stroke from the effect of the sun's rays on the tank above.
Not to be left entirely alone, one of the leading physicians kept within easy distance to witness the effect. Within the twinkling of an eye, down came the icy cold water like an avalanche. Frozen! It took a half-pint of brandy to thaw the invalid into consciousness, and another half-pint to restore him to his perfect equilibrium!
It used to be said that a good story was like old wine, the older the more delicious its flavor. How- ever, some people prefer the wine to the story, and so the reader can take his choice.
Back in the narrator's boyhood the people used to brag of their inland town being the largest in the United States! But, by gradual degrees, it be- came a back number, at least as to population! But what other cities could not take from "Old Lancaster" were its religious, social and home life. All depends, then, on what advancement means. If it means the center of the state's largest in-
LANCASTER WATER WORKS AS IT APPEARED ABOUT 1900
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dustries, ofttimes over-capitalized, with strikes fol- lowing one another at stated intervals, then Lan- caster has failed to measure up to its sister cities. No city can excel in everything. Smoke flowing from the tops of furnace-stacks is not at all times an indication that the dwellers are getting the most out of life's comforts. But if they do not, it is largely their own fault in not learning the secret of how to economize. As a rule, however, the great majority of the citizens of Lancaster, while liberal in their expenditures, yet manage to lay some- thing aside for a rainy day. And it is to the middle classes, those who depend upon their daily earnings, that the prosperity of our city depends.
If, then, large industries have been few and far between, our smaller ones furnish employment for hundreds of young men and girls. By some our city has been called a "child-labor" town. Well, as it is no disgrace for young people to work with their hands as well as their brains, no longer exists the line of demarcation separating our citizenship into classes with the rich and well-to-do as in ye olden time, when wealth and social standing was the rule rather than the exception. Our consti- tuency has become one harmonious whole where honest labor receives its just rewards. The wheel of fortune has taken many a turn and twist during the past half century. Today a man may have reached the topmost rung of the financial ladder; tomorrow, seeking alms from those whom he despised but a short time before.
Our people possess one advantage that neither
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fortune nor misfortune can altogether eliminate. We have our rich agricultural county, which is a mint in itself, excelled by none in the union of states. Of course, our farmers have learned, through the telephone, newspapers and other avenues, how to feather their own nests. And nothing has con- tributed more to high prices than our numerous market houses, conveniences to the buyers though they be. One sometimes wonders how prices are so uniformly fixed! It is easily explained. All that is necessary is to keep an eye on the "price fixer," who quietly moves among those with farm products to dispose of. A word, a look, or even the point of the finger, means to add another cent or two to this or that commodity. This may be true to a limited extent.
From whom the farmers learned the art the chronicler cannot say, except that they might have learned it from the city-merchant. Be this as it may, the era of high prices has arrived, nor is it peculiar to Lancaster alone. Of all things, think of matches going up a cent a box with the country full of pine wood! Why, the chronicler's nearby neigh- bor nearly went into hysteria when she came to look over her grocery-bill to find that matches had taken an upward turn! A dollar or two added to the price of a new spring hat might have been borne with instant and becoming resignation, but a raise in the price of matches, never! And so, why in the world does not the Chamber of Commerce get busy in a busy way? We know that this body of workers are trying to keep the town's name on the map.
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We verily believe this body can get almost anything their hearts may desire if they only go about in the right way. Let their slogan be, "Pull together, work together, and stand together" in harmony with all other of the city's other organizations, not to over- look by any means our city fathers, duly representa- tive of the interests of their constituents, that usually pull apart instead of together on most problems that should demand the highest order of statesmanship.
But what is this the minutes of councils of the year 1843 have to show? The announcement by the chairman of the Finance Committee that the census had fixed the town's population at 7,999 came with a shock, with only a slight increase over that of the decade previous. It was only natural for this or that councilman to wonder why the census-enumerator had not made it the even eight thousand!
But when the news reached a coterie of merchants sitting on a slab bench in front of the place of business of one of their number, they had other matters to talk over than the town's growth, whether in extension or population. What they knew, was that they still had the trade of the county as an asset. If a few of the old-time shopkeepers were here in the flesh to testify, their verdict would be that they did not want an influx of strangers to be setting up shops as competitors.
Again, few of the old-time business men could ever have been made to believe that the time was ever to come when business was to be conducted on a "thirty-day" cash basis. With country as well as
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with some city people it had been a custom of long standing to settle accounts on the first of every April. And then, after settling up, open another account to be settled a year hence. This was called "financial settlement" day. It took years for the town merchants to break away from former customs. And a blessed thing it is for everybody to pay as he goes!
However, the foregoing are but glimpses of old- time conditions, which for years were stored away in memory's cells, always ready and pleading to find expression. To close this chapter, if you want to be happy, my boys, in your old days, fill your storehouse of memory with plenty of boyhood reminiscences. Crowd out all the evils, with only the pleasing reminders to be making merry over. Of course, this is not meant that either boys or girls in after years should forget their courting days. And last, let a mother's devotional ways remain green and fresh in memory's cells. And, as a parting word, do not forget to place a rose on her grave on "Mother's Day." This may be called sentiment, but without sentiment how cold and dreary would the world be! Think it over, my boys. You will only realize it when you become an octogenarian.
Why, the whole country is being crystallized in one overwhelming sentiment in upholding its rights on land and sea against the encroachment of a domi- nant oligarchy, and which if allowed to have its sway would domineer the world. Slow to wrath, who knows what may happen before this volume reaches the public eye?
CHAPTER XVI
SOCIETY OF MASTER MECHANICS FOR THE POOR BOYS OF LANCASTER
SELDOM if ever do we hear mention made of the "poor boys of Lancaster." This may be for the reason that there are comparatively few poor boys in this city at the present time compared with the number in years gone by.
Today, nine boys out of ten, if at all so disposed can find something to do. Every now and then one can see in a window, "A boy wanted to run errands." And the supply is seldom equal to the demand, and this, notwithstanding the fact that the telephone has largely taken the place of boys as message bearers.
Along in the middle forties and fifties what were called poor boys were allowed to run the streets, many attending the lower grades of schools until they were well up in their teens unless fortunate enough to be apprenticed to a trade to be known as bound boys.
It is from the minutes of councils of January 18, 1843, we note the following: "Whereas, The Me- chanic's Society of City and County have, with most praiseworthy efforts, aided by the contribution of its members and others, erected a spacious Hall for the dissemination of knowledge by public lectures
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and otherwise, therefore, be it resolved that the same be exempt from payment of taxes for city purposes."
Merely relieving the society from payment of taxes by councils was not anything unusual. The important question is how came the Society of Master Mechanics to be established? It was written by the biographer of the Rev. Augustus Muhlenberg that, in the spring following his advent into the city, he was instrumental in calling a meeting of citizens interested in the formation of a public library. And that out of this assemblage grew the "Society of Master Mechanics" for the benefit of the town's deserving poor.
This "hall" was as famous in its day, and as well known as is the Y. M. C. A. of the present time, but differed in the class of boys admitted to its rooms for instruction, usually the sons of me- chanics serving as apprentices. At the time men- tioned, when a boy entered, he was expected to serve his time. If he happened to run away, escape was not so easy. He was as a rule captured. If he entered any one of the trades, where machinery was the exception rather than the rule, he began at the bottom and gradually worked himself into a first-class journeyman and taken in the union of Master Mechanics.
In this later twentieth century, a boy of any get- up soon catches on to one particular line of work, especially in that of the electric. And it is astonish- ing how readily he finds employment, and at a weekly wage greater than a trained mechanic re- ceived back in the days before schools and colleges were as numerous as at the present day.
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As for girls, their chances of earning a living have been enhanced a hundred fold. Scores of the gentler sex, instead of wedding, have become wedded to the typewriter. Enter any business office, and the jingling of the keys goes merrily on with nimble fingers. Having at last come by their own in the world of competition, they have made their boy friends stand up and take notice, that while they are still in the matrimonial market, they are not sitting down awaiting a proposal, maybe, later on, to make a living for both!
Again, there never was a time in the history of Lancaster or any other city when there was so much employment at the disposal of young women. It is not so many years ago when domestics could be had without even an advertisement in any of the daily newspapers. Now they fix their own wages per week; and, what is more, they are always in demand, wages being a minor consideration. The girl prob- lem has given mothers more concern than have the selecting of a summer's wardrobe. But how to overcome the trouble is yet an unexplained question of domestic housekeeping. The needy meet on the street, in the churches, at their socials, and the first question is, "Can't you tell me of a good girl?" Some sell out, move into an apartment house, and, after a six-months, wish themselves back again in their former homes, even if they have to do their own cooking, house-cleaning and other chores! But what's the remedy? There is none but to grin and bear it. Women have their alternative of remaining in single blessedness, or of marrying men
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who can be made to do the cooking themselves. It is a sad condition, and one the narrator almost wishes he had not entered upon, compelled as he is to bear up under the same kind of household worries. However, with the minutes of councils as a diver- sion, the octogenarian can thrust all minor troubles aside. Again resorting to the records of January, 1847, we find "Be it ordered that the Committee on Finance take up and destroy certificates of loan of all denomination under five dollars, issued by the city of Lancaster, amounting to $45,376.19."
From the foregoing it would seem that the city had outstanding in small currency a pretty large amount during times of stringency of the money market. But in due time specie payment was resumed down until the breaking out of the war between the North and the South, when gold and silver for the second time found a resting place in the vaults of the banks. And who among the wisest of the wise men of the nation knows how soon fractional currency may again come in these times of war and rumors of war?
Previous to the year 1840 all money from any and every source went into a common fund, making it impossible for the public to know how much came from water rent or how much from property tax. From that time on water tax has been kept separate and apart from monies derived from other sources. For keeping all funds as a whole, there may have been a cause in not allowing it to become known in how far water receipts had fallen below expenditures for this staple alone. Bookkeeping at the time had
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not become a science like today, nor the expense as great, needing a treasurer, controller, and a half dozen clerks, such as are to be found in all city de- partments at the present time. But as good book- keeping is as necessary as good housekeeping, why even intimate that these overworked officials are not earning their salaries?
During these years of slow industrial develop- ment, it is well to note how many men of means were holders of certificates of city loan. Of a list of sixty subscribers the Finance Committee's report shows, during the forties, $175,007.62, passing into the hands of the well-to-do, drawing six per cent. interest. One subscriber alone held $50,000. If doubters there were as to the city's ability to redeem these loans, this investor was not one of the pessi- mists, ever and at all times ready to foresee some dire calamity looming in the financial horizon. With nearly all monied men, a six per cent. city bond was more enticing than a certificate bearing double the rate in a manufacturing industry. Another reason for the city's slow development!
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