The Whiskey Papers #18 - Little Washington

I knew I wanted to go to Little Washington -- Southwestern Pennsylvania (SWPA).  Convincing my wife to go was another matter.  I had a lot I wanted to do.  In the end, she found it all worthwhile.  I found it a historian's paradise.

Washington County Historical Society.  I found details of my ancestor's life in old books and land deeds.  These were important clues to my family's past and helped me understand the Whiskey Rebellion and my family's role in it.

The George Washington Hotel.  This was a classic, elegant hotel whose days are gone but lie ahead.  The really big thing was that on September 14, 1964, the Beatles played at Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.  Fear that fans might find out where the Beatles were spending the night, their manager arranged for them to stay at the George Washington Hotel in Washington, Pennsylvania.  The hotel was gracious enough to upgrade our stay and placed us in the suite the Beatles had stayed in decades before.

Liberty Pole Spirits Jim and Ellen Hough got into the distilling business as Mingo Creek Craft Distillers.  Since then, they have produced their whiskeys and ryes for Liberty Pole Spirits.  I have learned so much about whiskey and the Whiskey Rebellion from these two.  I have tasted whiskey as my ancestors would have produced it.  I trust their mash bills as authentic to a tradition long gone.

More importantly, their knowledge of the Whiskey Rebellion strikes true.  This couple has single-handedly brought history to life.  I am indebted.

Fort Necessity Yes, the Father of our Country screwed up.  George's recce party killed a Frenchman.  George surrendered Fort Necessity and retreated to coast.  This allowed the French to fortify Pittsburgh and off we go into the French and Indian War.  The irony...   Washington started the war that would only end with the resolution of the American Revolution.  I plan to cover this in another series.

Christian W. Klay Vineyards and Ridge Runner Distillery I really recommend their Lavender Wine.  Not so sure about their whiskeys.

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum This was a real plus to see restored trolleys, interurbans, and other rail equipment from days past.  Gave me a real insight into the past.

ALEXANDRIA'S HEMP AND LEATHER

If you think about it, a harness maker combines several technologies and skills to produce a harness. First, you need to be able to work leather and rope. In Alexandria, there was an abundance. In early days, the harness maker also made shoes. Then, you need hardware - buckles, clasps, rivets, and bits, not to mention the tools to work the leather. Alexandria had blacksmiths and coopers. You need the be able to sew leather together and probably had some glue available as well. Finally, you need to understand the mechanics of a harness to make it comfortable to the horse; you need to understand horses. Harness making is not something you just decide to do one day. Because we often find harness makers associated with rope makers or cobblers, it is difficult to tell what they actually did.

One of the first mentions of rope making in Alexandria is a rope factory built by Alexander Devilbiss in the back of Lot 20. Very early on, a rope bridge over the Raccoon Creek was made along what today is Tharp Road. This rope bridge was in existence in the early 1900s and is mentioned in The Buxton Journal. Then it was known as the South Road.

Another 1800s Alexandria farm and business family was the Boudinots. In 1866, Elisha Boudinot owned the farm northeast of Alexandria and by 1875, extended to the highland along the east side of Mounts Road. Elisha also owned properties in Alexandria. These include the lot where the firehouse currently stands, although in 1866, there was a house there. He also owned the lot across the street. On this lot, there was a house on the west side of the lot and a harness shop on the east half. Elisha also owned a large house on the east side of North Liberty across from the current township garage.

Elisha Boudinot got his start growing hemp. With so much farmland devoted to staple crops - often with so much excess of grains that it was converted to whisky and rye - Boudinot could afford to grow hemp and buy flour. Boudinot would dry the hemp and work it into fiber with which to weave rope. It is not clear if this led Boudinot into the leather business or if he stuck to rope, but we do know Boudinot & Oldham's offered custom shoes.

Then we have the record of L.S. Chadwick, the hardware merchant, who recalls "Mr. Blizzard and John Reid" as harness makers some time earlier.

The Blizzard family immigrated to Licking County from Pittsburgh sometime in the early 1800s. The 1840 Federal Census of St. Albans Township lists M. (Mervin) E. Blizzard, a single male between 20 and 29. By 1850, M. E. Blizzard, had married, moved to Monroe Township, and is raising a family. By this time, he had married Louise Reed. The couple would go on to have six children, none of whom remained in Alexandria. His occupation is "Saddler" as was his partner, John. By 1870, M.E. Blizzard lived in Wauseon, county seat of Fulton County just a few miles south of Michigan, where he is a harness maker. John Reid (also spelled as Reed and Read) was married to Mary M. ________. In 1850, John and Mary had no children. By 1880, John and Mary had a 20-year-old son named Johnnie who worked as a store clerk. John was listed as a farmer.

By this time, Watson Davison was the wagonmaker and seemed to take over for Mr. Marandville who lived more or less across the street at 57 West Main. Through Alexandria family relationships far too lengthy for your patience, we come to Zola Rugg, who married into the Davison family. Zola was the daughter of Elijah 'Lige' Rugg. Lige was the older brother of Ephraim Rugg. We are more familiar with Ephraim by his company's name E.T. Rugg & Co. This company made harnesses in Alexandria.

The Newark Advocate tells us that Ephraim T. Rugg went into business sometime around 1880 when Ephraim was about 25 years old at the time. Some sources indicate that harness-making requires a four-year apprenticeship. This would have been the same time his kinsman, Watson Davison, opened his wagon-making shop. The locally produced monthly, Hearth and Home, has an 1881 advertisement for E.T. Rugg & Co., a grocery, clothing, and dry goods store downtown that also offered custom made shoes.

In 1900, The Johnstown Independent reported two bits of Alexandria news,

It has been announced that the E. T. Rugg & Co. Halter Factory will be removed to Newark. - May 24, 1900

The members of the firm that have organized the new halter factory in the village to take the place of the Rugg factory, met Monday evening and elected the following officers: Pres. L. C. Laycock, Treas. J. T. Reese, Sec. C. H. Thorpe. Land was also purchased from M. D. Shrader for building purposes. - July 12, 1900

Rugg may have had the raw materials he needed to make harnesses, but the reason he moved, as reported in The Newark Advocate, was he needed access to the railroad. Alexandria was a stop on the Toledo & Ohio Central (T&OC) RR, but it wasn't enough. Rugg's Newark factory sat right beside the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road right-of-way that paralled Mt. Vernon Avenue (State Route 13) north out of town. This location gave Rugg the ability to have a siding and load up railroad cars full of harnesses. Given the terrain, such a location in Alexandria would have been nearly impossible. What isn't stated is that Rugg had a larger labor pool on which to draw given his location in industrialized northwest Newark.

According to The Newark Advocate, by 1911, E.T. Rugg & Co. was considered to be the nation's largest halter maker. With the popularity of the automobile, and new leadership provided by Ephraim's nephew Howard Rugg, the Rugg company diversified into plumbing supplies and eventually lawnmowers. On the eve of World War II, lawnmowers were Rugg's leading line. However, lawnmowers were not a wartime priority and the Rugg Company changed production to land mines. Following the war, Rugg returned to the lawnmower business; his mowers were sold through several outlets including J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward, and Western Auto. In March 1970, the Rugg Company ceased production and closed the factory. A Rugg built lawnmower is on display at The Works in Newark.

Rugg's factory was located south of Sisal Street off Mt. Vernon Avenue. On the other side of Mt. Vernon Avenue is a brick side street, Rugg Avenue, that is lined with 100-year-old houses. Ephraim and Emma lived out their days in this prominent north Newark neighborhood. As for the company to replace Rugg's factory in 1900, these Alexandria businessmen must have seen a need to replace the Rugg factory. In a fit of irony, in the April 1915 edition of Harness: For Harness, Trunk, and Leather Goods Makers and Dealers, an advertisement appears on page 32 for the E.T. Rugg & Company's "Hold Fast" Halter. Below this advertisement is another for the Alexandria Halter Manufacturing Company. The company even had a catalog,

The Alexandria Halter Mfg. Company. of Alexandria, Ohio: Illustrated descriptive catalog of Five-Ring Leather Halters, Bridles, Rope, and Web Halters, Cow Ties, &c. The company state [sic] that it is their aim to keep their standard of quality well to the front, as their experience has been that the better class of goods are more satisfactory to all concerned.

- The Iron Age, Volume 71, January 1, 1903

It is not known exactly when the Alexandria Halter Manufacturing Company went out of business. We do know the first car in Alexandria appeared in 1907. By then, steam engines were already at work threshing on Reese's farm. The horse and buggy days were rapidly ending, and far fewer harnesses would be needed.

The ALEXANDRIA PAPERS #5

E A R L   a n d   M A E

One of the people not often mentioned in Alexandria and St. Albans' History is Edward Earl Thomas. Nobody that I knew called him Ed or Edward, with the possible exception of his mother during moments of, well, I think we've all been there... I knew him as Earl, Earl Thomas. His wife was, as far as I knew when I was a four-years-old, Mae Thomas... she was Earl's second wife after his first wife and mother to his son passed. Earl's first wife was Maud Aura Parsons and she was the daughter of Horace Parsons, the village undertaker. This made Earl an in-law to the Mount family of Mounts Road fame. Mae was a Dumbauld by birth with ancestors in the Cooperider and Gosnell families. I remember Earl and Mae coming to church with Edith Irwin, their neighbor. Both Mae and Edith always wore hats to church along with a nice dress and dressy shoes. (Only worn on Sundays.) Such was the style in a more genteel age, a life sadly gone by. Earl always wore a white shirt and a conservative tie. In the winter, he added a suit coat to his ensemble. Both Earl and Mae were slight of stature. By this time, Earl used a cane.

Earl came from a long line of Edward Thomases that stretches back to Wales where his grandfather was born in 1829. His father, Edward Charles Thomas, was born on Black Back Farm in Wales and is listed in St. Albans Township having immigrated with his parents to a farmstead in northwest St. Albans. Earl's father was 21 when he married Ellen Frances Remington, an Iowa native whose family moved to the Concord and Liberty Township area before 1860. Earl was the middle of five siblings. The farm was located in the northeast quarter near Castle Road.

Alexandria had one filling station and garage in the early automobile days.  The Cental Garage advertised their expertise as battery specialists.  The March 11, 1926, edition announces the acquiring of Central Garage by Earl Thomas.

Earl left farming and purchased the old S. S. Anderson Hotel, now called the Robinson Building. By then, Buxton's 'Old Red' Tavern was gone, and Wat Davison was selling wagons and plows from the building. Earl leased part of the first floor to the United States Post Office. A store was also located there. This store was run by Pop Johnson with Neil and Carol Williams running it later on.

Local barber Forrest Sines started his business in Earl's building. Forrest would later move his barbershop to a single building near the Fire House where he would remain throughout his life. For a while, a vegetarian Mexican cuisine restaurant was housed there before becoming a Barbecue restaurant of late.

George Dumbauld ran a Creamery from Earl's building. This was a favorite spot for the kids of the 1930s to stop after a hard day swimming in Raccoon Creek to pick up an ice cream cone.

Earl also owned one of the Feed Stores. Alexandria had two, one located next to where the old train depot stood. Today, the location serves as a parking lot for the bike path. Earl's Feed Store started as E. H. Hammond's Livery at the southwest corner of North Liberty and Church Streets. Today, this is the Township Building. Earl sold this building to Art and Doc Revercomb in 1938 who ran it as Revercomb's Feed Store until 1967.

Earl took great care in life. Earl's neighbor to the east was his daughter-in-law. Earl and his first wife had a son, Horace Edward Thomas. I have heard he drove a long-distance bus for a living. While there is more to this story than I will tell, suffice it to say he died in 1954 and is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery in Alexandria. Horace's widow, Wilma (Mosher) Thomas was, at one time, a telephone operator for the Alexandria exchange. They lived in the house Horace Parsons used for his business as the local undertaker. Earl made sure Wilma was taken care of by keeping a roof over her head. Earl also made sure his former employee; Charles Bailey had a roof over his head at the E. E. Thomas building.

When I was old enough, Mae and Wilma paid me for the job of mowing their yards. As a teenager, this allowed me to return the money to Alexandria's local economy by buying my lunch at Bob's. I was a growing boy fueled by Pepsi, hamburgers, and a box of Cracker Jacks on a daily basis.

I remember Earl for other reasons. Earl was a kind, generous man. From time to time, he would give me coins. I had no idea what to do with them back then, and honestly, I still don't today but to keep them. I have never even looked up their worth. Why would he do this? Earl was a kind, generous man. Bon temps, my friends... good times.

OF GIANTS AND MOUNDBUILDERS

When I was in the 5th Grade, we studied Ohio History.  Appropriately enough, the 5th Grade teachers, Mms. Thornton and Underwood organized a field trip around historic Licking County.  We went to Bob's, a supposed stop on the Underground Railroad, Buckeye Lake's Cranberry Bog, the Licking County Historical Society's Museum, Moundbuilders Park, and Black Hand Gorge.  I listened as I should, but there were a few things I learned that didn't sit well with me.

Moundbuilders Park in its Trolley Days iteration as an amusement park.

At Moundbuilders Park, home of the Great Circle Mound and past home as a military training base, a fairground, an interurban place-to-go for picnics, and even a cornfield, I was told that the Moundbuilders built it using fire-hardened, pointed sticks and woven baskets.  We also ate lunch there, so I had some time to mentally digest what I heard.  Okay, the math does not agree.  Nobody did the math!?!?  College level archaeologists did not do the math!  It gets worse when you look at Mound Builders Octagon Mound.  It has been shown that the 18-1/2 Year Lunar Cycle was built into the mound system.  How could illiterate Moundbuilders, whose technology appears to be strictly Stone Age - pointy sticks and arrowheads, create these structures in Newark/Heath.  The math is completely trashed when experts try to sell the same story at Fort Ancient.  Yet, this is the claim of Ohio's experts.

Mound surrounded by Homer's Cemetery, giant skeletons were uncovered here.

Other answers are available.  And no, I am not crazy as you may well wish to believe.

SKELETONS CENTREBURG SEVEN FEET LONG CENTREBURG, Ohio, May 4,-Licking County has been fo[r] years a favorite field for students of I[n]dian history, there being here two old forts and scores of mounds. Last week a small mound near Homer was opened by some schoolboys, who found a skeleton. Today a further search was made, and several feet below the surface of the earth in a large vault, with stone floor and bark covering, were found four huge skeletons, three being each over seven feet in length and the other eight. The skeletons lay with their feet to the east on a bed of charcoal in which were numerous partially burned bones. About the neck of the largest skeleton were a lot of stone beads, evidently a necklace in life. The grave contained about 80 stone vessels and implements, the most striking being a curiously wrought pipe, the bowl having a series of carved figures upon it resting a contest between animals and birds. It is said to be the only engraved stone pipe ever found. A stone kettle holding about a gallon, in which was a residue of saline matter, bears evidence of much skill. Their bows, a number of arrows, stone hatchets, and a stone knife are among the implements. The knife is of peculiar shape, with a curved blade and wooden handle. Students in Indian archaeology claim that it is the most valuable find ever made in that line.

The New York Times, May 5 1885

There is an oral tradition found among First Nation tribes of a horrible war fought against the giants to liberate humans from the giant's whims.  There is DNA evidence that the South American giants (Rephaim) fled Canaan as Moses and the Israelites advanced to the Jordan.  Rehab, a madame of Jericho, elaborates,

8 Before the spies lay down for the night, she [Rahab-TEB], went up on the roof 9 and said to them, “I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. 10 We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og [both giants - TEB], the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. 11 When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the LORD your GOD is GOD in heaven above and on the earth below.

Joshua 2:8-11 [NIV]

The evidence of giants flies in the face of Darwinism.  Giant skeletons were often sent to the Smithsonian where they disappeared.  The Smithsonian believes in Darwinism.  Some cry out about a conspiracy while others comment that once exhumed, an unfossilized bones will rapidly decay due to exposure to normal atmosphere.  Besides, from time to time, they say, the Smithsonian needs to clean house.

We know very little about the Moundbuilders, that is to say the Adena and Hopewell cultures.  When the earliest European settlers asked First Nation people about the mounds, the First Nation said, 'It wasn't us.'  There were no Adenas or Hopewells around to ask.  There is a rich pre-history to Alexandria and St. Albans that we know nothing of.

Alexandria had an Adena Indian village and mound just west of town.  The circular mound was about 70 feet across and four feet high was investigated and recorded by Squire, Davis, and Parker in the 1840s.  It was located where Route 37, Duncan Plains and Castle Road connect.  There is no evidence left, having been plowed over for decades.  Stone artifacts of the Adena village were found on the north terrace above the Raccoon Creek.  Personally, I recovered an Indian hand hammer that fits my palm perfectly near on the terrace above the Racoon Flood Plain.  This area is near the old Buffalo Trace which became the T&OC right-of-way and is now a portion of the Evans Bike Trail.

I do not believe in ancient aliens, based on my experience of watching radar throughout the night.  I am, however, suggesting a lot of things.  Darwinism is a conjecture, not even a theory.  Yet our schools teach this as fact.  The history of the Adena and Hopewell cultures of the Moundbuilders is a house of cards, ready to fall in the light of truth.  Do not be deceived.

ALEXANDRIA'S TOWN HALLS

Alexandria appears to have had two purposefully built town halls.  Unofficially, we could also include Buxton's "Old Red" Tavern in those times before 1885. 

I know very little of this first, older Town Hall other than to say it occupied the lot across the alley from the site of Buxton's 'Old Red' Tavern, where CenturyLink has a communication station as well as Brad and Vicki Wood's property (the old Zora Mowery house).  There was, apparently, plenty of space behind the building to park your horse and buggy.  The post office was also in this building.  The clapboard building remains unidentified.

The Johnstown Independent reported around 1900 that, "The vote on the new town hall will be a special ticket and separate ballot box.  Be sure and vote YES and you will never regret it."  Most who voted would live to see their investment in the new Town Hall go up in smoke.  Any salvageable items to be had were sold out.  A house was built of reused bricks. 

As I remember hearing, the old town hall was strictly business.  There was a mayor's office, offices for clerks, and maybe a constabulary and maybe a township office or two.  The hoosegow -rarely used - was out back.  There is a nice feel that Alexandria is real.   There is a feeling that Alexandria is important.

At some point, Alexandria built a new Town Hall.  Since there is a telephone/electric pole in the picture, we can believe this picture was taken after 1900.

and within a few years, it burnt completely, leaving a brick shell,

On Saturday, November 26, 1916, the new Town Hall completely burnt.  There would never be a new townhall to replace it.  Alexandria had already lost its old business block in 1905, only to be re-constructed from brick and concrete.  Former Alexandris resident, David Reed, states that the Alexandria Fire Brigade called on Granville for assistance.  Granville responded with 100 men and buckets to help contain the fire.

The 'new' Town Hall was more than that.  The second floor was largely open.  This space could show movies, hold dances, or serve a variety of presentations, lectures, or other large functions.  It was gone, never to be rebuild.

But - being Alexandria - a solution appeared.  Alexandria had a new high school, and it was grand.  On the ground floor were four classrooms along the south side.  On the eastern end was a hallway heading north with the furnace room on the left and the boy's restroom on the right.  At the end of the hallway was the shop where woodworking skills were taught.  The pattern repeated on the west hall with a girl's restroom and at the end, the home economics room, where cooking and sewing were taught.  The cafeteria and kitchen filled the space between these halls.

The Alexandria High School, about the late 1930s.

The second floor mirrored the first in pattern.  The gym, long time home to the Alexandria "Red Devils" was directly above the cafeteria.  To the east was the stage, some three feet above the floor.  To the west was a shortened classroom with a projection room behind.  The principal's office and teacher's lounge were small rooms located halfway up the stairs at each end of the building.  Alexandria had a 'newer' town hall in the form of a high school.

The two town halls are no more.  Alexandria High School is no more.  Alexandria was becoming a bedroom community.  Since then, the township has moved into the old livery and feed store and the village was holding meetings at the firehouse.  The village eventually took the space offered by the now available Shell Oil gas station on Granville Street before moving into the now vacant Huntington Bank (former Alexandria Bank) offices.

I miss those days in May when I walked to school knowing that in a couple of weeks, it would be summer.

The Whiskey Papers #11 - Frank

There is a person I revere.  I always called him Grandpa.  He barely had two pennies to rub together, but he knew a few things about living well.  Grandpa had the best smelling smokehouse.  The pasture had no small number of free-range hickory trees.  If the supply of hickory went low in the smokehouse, you simply collected some more when you brought the cows up for milking.  Between the smokehouse and the house stood a brick building we called the washhouse because that is where we kept the washing machine and tubs.  We also had the cream separator there and several years of home-canned vegetables.  Below was the root cellar where potatoes were stored. The third building was the outhouse.  It was a two-holer.  No further explanation required.

As obvious as the smokehouse was, the washhouse held some secrets.  Grandpa had experience taking hogs apart.  He could also cure what he cut.  Some of the best hams and bacon...

As a youngster, I was taught how the make Grandpa's tea for when he worked the fields.  This is long, hot work when all you have is a 50-year-old Johnny Two-popper.  Grandpa liked his iced tea strong and sugary.  In a half gallon pitcher, you dumped a ton of instant tea and several pounds of sugar.  (I exaggerate for effect.)  You never filled the Thermos completely full.  For the better part of ten years, Grandpa liked how I made the tea.  I must have been 13 or 14 when Grandpa showed me the final missing ingredient.  If you went to the root cellar and moved the second bag of potatoes and felt behind the first, you would find an old brown jug.

They also made plum wine in a barrel in the root cellar.

No, I do not judge Grandpa for his old brown jug.  He lived a hard life, but he always offered three hots and a cot.  While I hated weeding the potatoes, I never missed a chance to pick the sweet corn because I certainly pick one, shuck it and eat it before it ever saw a table.  I am sure Grandpa did so too when he needed something to get him to dinner.

God Bless You, Grandpa.