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HISTORIAN’S CORNER
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From "200 Years of the Town of Phelps"
PHELPS HISTORY
SAN- ICE MACHINE TO SMITHSONIAN
(Story by Fred Gifford)
(Photo is -FRICK CO. WAYNESBORO, PA)
Old newspapers continue to reveal news of yesterday. Mrs. Lois Copeland recently gave me a copy of an article in the Geneva Times of April 28, 1959, which told of the old ice-making machine, which once made ice at the Sanitarium.
The article went on to relate that such an ice machine was shipped to the Clifton Springs Sanitarium on December 5, 1898 from its manufacturer, the Frick Co of Waynesboro, PA. It was an early type steam-driven ammonia compressor and was used to make 300-pound blocks of ice. An auxiliary job of the compressor was the cooling of food storage spaces throughout the hospital, including the main building, the Foster Block and later the Woodbury Building. The coolant was piped from the compressor to all these areas. The Sanitarium used this compressor from 1898 until the early 1950's when a new model was installed.
Smithsonian Institution officials heard of the existence of this early model at the San and in 1957 suggesting that they donate it to the nation's new Museum of History & Technology in Washington, DC. This type of compressor virtually formed the backbone of the refrigerator and artificial ice industry from its commercial inception in the 1870's until about the First World War. The Smithsonian institution stated that the machine would occupy the central position in the technology section and should be a most interesting and striking exhibit. Much correspondence and planning preceded the final moving of the big machine, which weighed about seven or eight tons and measured approximately 9 ft by 12 ft by 12 ft.
In a letter of the time to the Frick Co., Charles Corwin, then treasurer and business manager of the hospital, told them that the compressor was "still in existence and in clean condition, although it had not been used for quite a few years". "We have kept it in the engineering room as a curiosity," said Mr. Corwin. The Mollenberg-Betz Machine Co of Buffalo had serviced the compressor over the years. The Frick Co. was one of the oldest manufacturers of refrigeration machines in America, their work in this field having begun in 1882. It was said that this design was the standard of the entire refrigerator industry for more than 50 years and the principle was still used in nearly all heavy-duty industrial compressors handling ammonia or Freon 22.
According to Harrison Galusha, night clerk at the hospital in those days, the machine was used until the early 50's when part of the machine cracked. Needing ice daily, the hospital immediately bought a modern ice cube machine. The old machine was repaired but never put back in use. From the time of its arrival at the San, the machine, with two huge flywheels, rested on a specially build concrete foundation in the engineering section of the hospital. The 300-pound blocks of ice were then cut up. Later a special cutter made cubes from the large blocks.
The machine was returned to the Frick Co. who repaired the machine at their expense, and then sent it on to the Smithsonian. A plaque was to be placed on the machine denoting that the Clifton Springs Sanitarium & Clinic had donated it to the institution.
Whether or not our old ice machine of yesterday is still on exhibit at the Smithsonian is unknown, but if it is not, you can be sure that somewhere in the holdings of that famous museum it still awaits the viewing of the thousands who visit its halls each year. A small piece of OUR HISTORY is now in the hands of a highly regarded National Institution preserving it for its history.
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HISTORIAN'S CORNER
By Frederick L. Gifford, Emeritus
Clifton Springs Historian #111
The Early Methodists & Their Church
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In the early days of the settlement of this country it was often quite difficult for people to hold meetings. In the first place what there was of a religious element was scattered far apart and it was a laborious task to get them together. Some families that did however gather for these revivals were the Fergusons, the Baggerlys, the Barclays, the Woods, the Griffiths, the Pritchards, the Sheriffs, the Costs, the Redfields, the Rafters, the Lazenbys, the Shekells, the Coates, the Warfields, the Carys, the Edgertons and many more.
The Shekell family, who were mainly Episcopalians, built the first church in Clifton Springs as early as 1808-09. However, within three or four years of its construction the War of 1812 began and many of the early Episcopalians moved west. During this same period, there was a large increase in settlers of the Methodist persuasion and John Shekell Sr. proposed to their members that if they would complete the small Episcopalian church they could have use of it for services. The Methodists agreed to this and organized a society afterwards known as the Third Society of the Methodist Church of the Town of Phelps. This church, located on East Main St. in Clifton Springs, was occupied until its destruction by fire sometime between 1839 and 1841. The most prominent in forming the First Methodist Society were Hezektah Baggerly, Peter Baggerly, Isaac Sheriff, John Wood, William Ferguson, Richard Barkley, Robert Ferguson, Jared Knapp and the Rev. Gideon Draper. All of these were heads of families with Richard Barkley as the local preacher. The Rev. Gideon Draper was here for awhile, moved to another community, then later returned and lived here until his death. He is buried in our local cemetery on Pearl Street.
After the loss of their church by fire, the society had no place for worship except the old stone school house, which stood on the northwest corner of the present church lot. Feeling the necessity for a regular place of worship they resolved to ascertain if something could not be done towards the building of a church. A meeting was held at the home of Richard H. Shekell, the grandson of the original settler and an active member of the Methodist Church, to decide their future. A committee composed of John Cost, Jesse Cost, Levi B. Ferguson, Richard Giddings and Richard H. Shekell was formed. The committee, with the exception of John Cost and Richard Shekell, lived at some distance from the settlement, so the original contact for a piece of land for a church fell to these two. Richard called on the Hon. Francis Granger in Canandaigua, who with Phelps and Gorham owned a tract of land below the springs in present day Clifton Springs, to see if a site could be procured. Mr. Granger, known for his public service, donated the site for the new building even as he had earlier given the site for our first schoolhouse.
The next big job was to procure subscriptions and as the number of Methodist families was limited, they sought support from friends outside their own society. With the help of the community the sum of thirty-three hundred dollars (part being payable in labor, teaming and materials) was raised. In the discussion of building materials it was unanimously decided to build of brick; as they could be procured as near as the village of Orleans and could be delivered to the grounds by voluntary contributions of local citizens.
The heavy materials were on the grounds by the fall of 1843 and contracts let for construction to begin early in 1844. The mason work was let to James LaDu of the village and the woodwork to Joshua VanEtting of Geneva with the understanding that he was to make Clifton Springs his place of residence while doing the work. This proved helpful as he could attend to the purchase and measurement of all the lumber and timbers and take care of all the decisions necessary in such construction. Candles lighted the church and each pew was fitted with a door. There was a belfry on the church but some records say there was no bell. It seated 135, with room for an additional 85 in the gallery.
This first "official" Methodist Church building was completed in the fall of 1844. Lottie Baggerly, wife of Hezeklah Baggerly, who had been seriously ill during the building period, often expressed a wish to live until its completion. Her wish was fulfilled, her funeral service becoming the first service performed in the church. A dedication, led by Rev. Matthew Simpson (later Bishop) soon followed with the sermon being preached by the Rev. John Copeland. The preacher in charge of the new organization was the Rev. William Ferguson. The building of this church marked an important epoch in the growth of Clifton Springs. In 1849, Richard H. Shekell sold his property in the village and moved to his farm on the Orleans-Chapin Road. It was at this time that he met Dr. Henry Foster who was prospecting for a location for his Water Cure. In looking over the springs and the present site of the "old" San, we wonder if he cast an eye on the nice little brick Methodist church in the center of town. Would he have selected this site for his worldwide institution had not the church been such an appealing addition to the area in which he sought to build? Of course we will never know, but in all honesty, it certainly did nothing to deter his acceptance of Clifton Springs as the site for his great undertaking!
The Methodist following was to grow in the years after 1844. In 1850, Dr. Foster's Water Cure was in operation and within ten years the nation was involved in a Civil War. By 1865, and the close of that conflict, the village and the Methodists were ready for a giant step forward. This growth and the construction of the present Methodist Church will be the subject of a future article. Let me say in closing that we all owe much to the families of the Methodist Church who have helped to make our community what it is today. The history of the Methodists here begins with the opening up of this whole area in the early 1800's and has remained strong for nearly two hundred years. If the future is what we make it, let us be thankful for these past examples.
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HISTORIAN'S CORNER
PHELPS HISTORY
By Don Tiffany
THE COMMON MAN/WOMAN
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John Parmelee related a story about John Loney, a drayman* in Phelps who delivered freight for the railroad and carried people from the depot to their local destination. It seems that John picked up Father Edward Simpson when he arrived in Phelps in 1919 and dropped him off at the Catholic rectory on Church Street with the admonition that he hadn't better unpack his bags as no priest stayed here too long as they didn't like small town life. Father Simpson reminded John of his warning for many years after. Loney died in 1948 and Father Simpson was the priest at St. Francis until his retirement in 1967!
*Comparing a drayman to a teamster is like comparing a local UPS deliveryman to a semi driver who hauls heavier loads longer distances. The irony is that the railroads practically eliminated the teamster hauling heavy loads but increased the drayman's local delivery work. The teamster used a team, sometimes a double team, to haul large, weighty, cumbersome fright while the drayman could use either one or two horses for his work.
John Loney lived in a house in William Street just south of our property on Ontario Street. His son, George, continued his father's trade but used a 1939 International Harvester pickup truck to deliver freight locally for the Railway Express Agency. The REA died with the railroads.
In Jack Parmelee's book, It Happened in Phelps, Jack also tells of the New York Central train that arrived at the Phelps depot every Saturday afternoon at 5:00 during the 1920's. It was called the "Whiskey Special" because Phelps men could travel to Geneva on the 9:00 a.m. train where they could get drinks at the "speakeasies" during Prohibition. The local (Phelps) boys would be at the depot at 5 o'clock to see who would stagger off the train. One of the regular passengers was a man named "Peg-leg" (Seth) Bissel. Peg-leg was a local character who was addicted to "John Barleycorn" and could frequently be seen staggering along Main Street or sleeping one off in front of the Hotel. The story is that Bissel, on one of his rides on the Whiskey Special, fell under the train and lost his leg and was known ever after as "Peg-leg" or simply "Peg".
Jack states that there was a hole in the sidewalk in front of the hardware store to set a flagpole on holidays and festive occasions. Peg-leg, while drunk, stepped into this hole with his wooden leg and it stuck! His swearing and howling and efforts to "unscrew" his leg caught the attention of Leo Burns who was working in Bennett's store. Leo came out and extricated Peg-leg from the hole and sent him on his wandering way.
Leo Burns was a good electrician who worked for Pat Penta at Phelps Electric Co. for many years and did all kinds of electrical work from houses to factories. Leo lived to be almost 90. He stood on the corner of Banta and Main Streets one day in 1993 when the bricks were being removed and the street completely rebuilt. He told me then that he had watched as a boy when the bricks were originally laid almost 80 years before and now he was seeing them torn up.
So, who was the first electrician? Did he work for J.Q. Howe's Sons, the first supplier of electricity in the Village? Where did he learn his trade? Was he a local man or did he come in from out of town? Who maintained the streetlights for the Village? What was the man's name who laid the bricks to pave Main Street? Some say he was a black man who worked alone. The July 8, 1915 the Phelps Citizen stated that this man was able to lay 37,000 bricks a day! Using that figure and working a 10-hour day, he would have had to lay a brick a second and never take a break! The paper also said that it took 14 men to keep him supplied and that this man had laid a record 31,000 feet in 7 days! [That is over 8/10ths of a mile every day.] And no one knows the name of this "John Henry" of bricklaying! {It must be said that the project in the Village of Phelps - the complete length of Main Street, and Church Street from the RR depot to Main Street - took from July to December in 1915, through no fault of the bricklayer.}
We adults remember the "town drunks". Many were characters and social misfits. They were certainly all alcoholics. What did these men do before booze took over their lives? The ones I knew did odd jobs or worked sporadically to pay for their habit. Were some skilled in a trade? What was the story of their lives? Only the people who were close to them knew or cared.
There were black people living in Phelps early in the nineteenth century. Who were they? What were their names? Did they have families here? Some, I'm sure, were skilled craftsmen but most were relegated to dirty, menial work that was necessary for the smooth operation of daily life. Helen Post Ridley tells of some in "When Phelps Was Young." John Countee dug the graves in the Pioneer Cemetery for over 60 years. John died in 1886. Aunt Henny and Uncle Phil were former slaves that were remembered fondly by Phelps people in the early 1800's. Philip Grayson ran a barbershop in Phelps for many years. But what of the Georges, Jakes, Hannahs, Marys, and Isaacs that are buried in unknown, unmarked graves in the south side of the old cemetery and the countless others buried on the farms where they worked and died, mourned only by a wife or child?
Dr. Willard Frisbie and Lysander Redfield were both known to be abolitionists, or at least antislavery people. Were their houses used as stops on the Underground Railroad? How many other Phelps citizens helped the runaways? The conductors and safe-houses involved in this humanitarian effort were only known among its participants because of the Dred Scott decision and the strict penalties imposed by the Fugitive Slave Law. Therefore, because of the secrecy imposed by the threat of imprisonment and large fines, we can only speculate about the brave people and the havens they provided in our Town.
Who were the everyday laborers that kept Phelps running all these years? Who were the people who repaired our shoes, welded our broken tools, cleaned our privies, made and mended our clothes, swept our streets or dug our ditches? We know the names of the merchants who ran the stores and the owners of the mills and the doctors and the lawyers and the judges because they advertised and were quoted in the newspapers and were noted in our history. But we lose track of the men and women who clerked in their stores and labored in their mills and factories.
Ezra Goodall had a brief touch of fame. He worked for Francis Root in Root's carding mill that was located across the dam from the Stone Mill. Ezra discovered a way to thresh grain using the spikes in the carding mill. The mill is gone and no one knows where Goodall went or why his laborsaving discovery was never developed until years later.
The only way John Bruno, an Italian laborer on the Main Street paving project, gained recognition was by scalding himself while cooking macaroni over a bonfire and requiring medical attention.
William Ward, a hired hand at Stonemont Farms was kicked by a horse and was in the hospital for two weeks.
Ambrose Pollot and Henry Kelley could have starred in a Max Sennet comedy. They both worked on a threshing rig owned by Mike Kelly. Ambrose got his hand crushed while trying to uncouple some machinery and Henry fell over the separator pole and broke some ribs - all in the same day! Common men indeed!
One unusual recognition of the usually unrecognized - every spring in the first half of the 20th Century the local paper would list the names of tenant farmers who were changing employers. These men and their families would move from farm to farm seeking better working conditions or a friendlier employer. I guess it was a game of "musical farms" or, "the hay is greener on the other side of town."
Why did some women open millinery shops or operate boarding houses? Was it by choice or circumstance? Custom (or law?) required single women teachers to leave the schools when they married. Most of them have disappeared in times. Even the "important" people who served on the rural district school boards are unknown today unless they happened to have their names associated with a particular district, e.g. Dimock, Burnett, and Bennett etc.
Poor little Lloyd Adams may never have grown up to be a "common man." The four-year-old boy accompanied his father on a bridge-repairing trip. While his father was sawing a board little Lloyd came up behind him and was struck in the eye by his father's elbow. Later a plank fell on one of his toes. Finally the boy fell off the bridge railing onto a stone pile six feet below and got banged up. The news article said that Lloyd didn't care to join his father the following day.
Old Israel Nims was a Revolutionary War veteran but the only reason he is remembered in our Village history is that he came to visit his son who ran a tavern in the west end of the Village and died there. And so was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. If he was missed in his hometown, no one will ever know.
We, who lived in a time when things were repaired instead of replaced are hard put to remember the local people who repaired our shoes, television sets and small appliances and automobiles. Who were our neighbors who ground our grist, sawed our lumber, bagged, boxed and/or delivered our groceries? Who delivered our milk, bread or newspaper? Who cut and/or curled our hair, cooked in restaurants or took our food orders, climbed the telephone and light poles to restore downed lines after a storm, mowed our lawns, carried out the winter's ashes from our cellars or just did handyman work?
If we have problems remembering our own nameless people it is understandable why past blacksmiths, cobblers, coopers, liverymen, wheelwrights, harness makers, tanners and chimneysweeps, so necessary in past times, are so easily lost in the mist of the passing scene. As well known to history as Moses Barlow, who built the Howe house, the Partridge house and Gibson Hall and Joel Caves who built so many barns and homes in the Phelps area and also the Silver Floss Plant on Eagle Street, we don't know who the skilled carpenters and masons were who actually drove the nails and laid the block and stone that made those plans take shape. Who were the foremen in the mills, the master tinsmiths and foundry men?
So, unless the average man or woman was killed in a spectacular accident or was maimed and required a doctor's care. Or was arrested and convicted for a noteworthy crime or was caught up in unusual circumstances they went through life unknown, unrecognized and unremembered.
All the men and women with the grand ideas and farseeing visions are justly entitled to their place in our history Our community would not exist and prosper without their abilities to recognize our needs and plan for their execution. But the common man with his/her artistry, ability, industry, sweat and yes, blood has made all those plans, visions and ideas become realities throughout he history of the human race.
One time a man was chastised for letting some weeds grow in his "God's acre." But the man said, "Yes, there are some weeds but you should have seen it when God had it by himself!"
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HISTORIAN'S CORNER
PHELPS HISTORY
By Don Tiffany
THE COMMON MAN/WOMAN
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John Parmelee related a story about John Loney, a drayman* in Phelps who delivered freight for the railroad and carried people from the depot to their local destination. It seems that John picked up Father Edward Simpson when he arrived in Phelps in 1919 and dropped him off at the Catholic rectory on Church Street with the admonition that he hadn't better unpack his bags as no priest stayed here too long as they didn't like small town life. Father Simpson reminded John of his warning for many years after. Loney died in 1948 and Father Simpson was the priest at St. Francis until his retirement in 1967!
*Comparing a drayman to a teamster is like comparing a local UPS deliveryman to a semi driver who hauls heavier loads longer distances. The irony is that the railroads practically eliminated the teamster hauling heavy loads but increased the drayman's local delivery work. The teamster used a team, sometimes a double team, to haul large, weighty, cumbersome fright while the drayman could use either one or two horses for his work.
John Loney lived in a house in William Street just south of our property on Ontario Street. His son, George, continued his father's trade but used a 1939 International Harvester pickup truck to deliver freight locally for the Railway Express Agency. The REA died with the railroads.
In Jack Parmelee's book, It Happened in Phelps, Jack also tells of the New York Central train that arrived at the Phelps depot every Saturday afternoon at 5:00 during the 1920's. It was called the "Whiskey Special" because Phelps men could travel to Geneva on the 9:00 a.m. train where they could get drinks at the "speakeasies" during Prohibition. The local (Phelps) boys would be at the depot at 5 o'clock to see who would stagger off the train. One of the regular passengers was a man named "Peg-leg" (Seth) Bissel. Peg-leg was a local character who was addicted to "John Barleycorn" and could frequently be seen staggering along Main Street or sleeping one off in front of the Hotel. The story is that Bissel, on one of his rides on the Whiskey Special, fell under the train and lost his leg and was known ever after as "Peg-leg" or simply "Peg".
Jack states that there was a hole in the sidewalk in front of the hardware store to set a flagpole on holidays and festive occasions. Peg-leg, while drunk, stepped into this hole with his wooden leg and it stuck! His swearing and howling and efforts to "unscrew" his leg caught the attention of Leo Burns who was working in Bennett's store. Leo came out and extricated Peg-leg from the hole and sent him on his wandering way.
Leo Burns was a good electrician who worked for Pat Penta at Phelps Electric Co. for many years and did all kinds of electrical work from houses to factories. Leo lived to be almost 90. He stood on the corner of Banta and Main Streets one day in 1993 when the bricks were being removed and the street completely rebuilt. He told me then that he had watched as a boy when the bricks were originally laid almost 80 years before and now he was seeing them torn up.
So, who was the first electrician? Did he work for J.Q. Howe's Sons, the first supplier of electricity in the Village? Where did he learn his trade? Was he a local man or did he come in from out of town? Who maintained the streetlights for the Village? What was the man's name who laid the bricks to pave Main Street? Some say he was a black man who worked alone. The July 8, 1915 the Phelps Citizen stated that this man was able to lay 37,000 bricks a day! Using that figure and working a 10-hour day, he would have had to lay a brick a second and never take a break! The paper also said that it took 14 men to keep him supplied and that this man had laid a record 31,000 feet in 7 days! [That is over 8/10ths of a mile every day.] And no one knows the name of this "John Henry" of bricklaying! {It must be said that the project in the Village of Phelps - the complete length of Main Street, and Church Street from the RR depot to Main Street - took from July to December in 1915, through no fault of the bricklayer.}
We adults remember the "town drunks". Many were characters and social misfits. They were certainly all alcoholics. What did these men do before booze took over their lives? The ones I knew did odd jobs or worked sporadically to pay for their habit. Were some skilled in a trade? What was the story of their lives? Only the people who were close to them knew or cared.
There were black people living in Phelps early in the nineteenth century. Who were they? What were their names? Did they have families here? Some, I'm sure, were skilled craftsmen but most were relegated to dirty, menial work that was necessary for the smooth operation of daily life. Helen Post Ridley tells of some in "When Phelps Was Young." John Countee dug the graves in the Pioneer Cemetery for over 60 years. John died in 1886. Aunt Henny and Uncle Phil were former slaves that were remembered fondly by Phelps people in the early 1800's. Philip Grayson ran a barbershop in Phelps for many years. But what of the Georges, Jakes, Hannahs, Marys, and Isaacs that are buried in unknown, unmarked graves in the south side of the old cemetery and the countless others buried on the farms where they worked and died, mourned only by a wife or child?
Dr. Willard Frisbie and Lysander Redfield were both known to be abolitionists, or at least antislavery people. Were their houses used as stops on the Underground Railroad? How many other Phelps citizens helped the runaways? The conductors and safe-houses involved in this humanitarian effort were only known among its participants because of the Dred Scott decision and the strict penalties imposed by the Fugitive Slave Law. Therefore, because of the secrecy imposed by the threat of imprisonment and large fines, we can only speculate about the brave people and the havens they provided in our Town.
Who were the everyday laborers that kept Phelps running all these years? Who were the people who repaired our shoes, welded our broken tools, cleaned our privies, made and mended our clothes, swept our streets or dug our ditches? We know the names of the merchants who ran the stores and the owners of the mills and the doctors and the lawyers and the judges because they advertised and were quoted in the newspapers and were noted in our history. But we lose track of the men and women who clerked in their stores and labored in their mills and factories.
Ezra Goodall had a brief touch of fame. He worked for Francis Root in Root's carding mill that was located across the dam from the Stone Mill. Ezra discovered a way to thresh grain using the spikes in the carding mill. The mill is gone and no one knows where Goodall went or why his laborsaving discovery was never developed until years later.
The only way John Bruno, an Italian laborer on the Main Street paving project, gained recognition was by scalding himself while cooking macaroni over a bonfire and requiring medical attention.
William Ward, a hired hand at Stonemont Farms was kicked by a horse and was in the hospital for two weeks.
Ambrose Pollot and Henry Kelley could have starred in a Max Sennet comedy. They both worked on a threshing rig owned by Mike Kelly. Ambrose got his hand crushed while trying to uncouple some machinery and Henry fell over the separator pole and broke some ribs - all in the same day! Common men indeed!
One unusual recognition of the usually unrecognized - every spring in the first half of the 20th Century the local paper would list the names of tenant farmers who were changing employers. These men and their families would move from farm to farm seeking better working conditions or a friendlier employer. I guess it was a game of "musical farms" or, "the hay is greener on the other side of town."
Why did some women open millinery shops or operate boarding houses? Was it by choice or circumstance? Custom (or law?) required single women teachers to leave the schools when they married. Most of them have disappeared in times. Even the "important" people who served on the rural district school boards are unknown today unless they happened to have their names associated with a particular district, e.g. Dimock, Burnett, and Bennett etc.
Poor little Lloyd Adams may never have grown up to be a "common man." The four-year-old boy accompanied his father on a bridge-repairing trip. While his father was sawing a board little Lloyd came up behind him and was struck in the eye by his father's elbow. Later a plank fell on one of his toes. Finally the boy fell off the bridge railing onto a stone pile six feet below and got banged up. The news article said that Lloyd didn't care to join his father the following day.
Old Israel Nims was a Revolutionary War veteran but the only reason he is remembered in our Village history is that he came to visit his son who ran a tavern in the west end of the Village and died there. And so was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery. If he was missed in his hometown, no one will ever know.
We, who lived in a time when things were repaired instead of replaced are hard put to remember the local people who repaired our shoes, television sets and small appliances and automobiles. Who were our neighbors who ground our grist, sawed our lumber, bagged, boxed and/or delivered our groceries? Who delivered our milk, bread or newspaper? Who cut and/or curled our hair, cooked in restaurants or took our food orders, climbed the telephone and light poles to restore downed lines after a storm, mowed our lawns, carried out the winter's ashes from our cellars or just did handyman work?
If we have problems remembering our own nameless people it is understandable why past blacksmiths, cobblers, coopers, liverymen, wheelwrights, harness makers, tanners and chimneysweeps, so necessary in past times, are so easily lost in the mist of the passing scene. As well known to history as Moses Barlow, who built the Howe house, the Partridge house and Gibson Hall and Joel Caves who built so many barns and homes in the Phelps area and also the Silver Floss Plant on Eagle Street, we don't know who the skilled carpenters and masons were who actually drove the nails and laid the block and stone that made those plans take shape. Who were the foremen in the mills, the master tinsmiths and foundry men?
So, unless the average man or woman was killed in a spectacular accident or was maimed and required a doctor's care. Or was arrested and convicted for a noteworthy crime or was caught up in unusual circumstances they went through life unknown, unrecognized and unremembered.
All the men and women with the grand ideas and farseeing visions are justly entitled to their place in our history Our community would not exist and prosper without their abilities to recognize our needs and plan for their execution. But the common man with his/her artistry, ability, industry, sweat and yes, blood has made all those plans, visions and ideas become realities throughout he history of the human race.
One time a man was chastised for letting some weeds grow in his "God's acre." But the man said, "Yes, there are some weeds but you should have seen it when God had it by himself!"
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