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Gazette & Courier - Monday, September 13, 1875
Hoosac Tunnel
Hoosac Tunnel - The enlargement of the little tunnel, to meet the requirements of the increased travel, was begun Mar. 1, and it is hoped to finish the work in two months’ more. The objects of the undertaking are to lower the grade 8 ft., to widen the roadway so as to accommodate two tracks, and to alter the direction in order to lessen the sharp curves of the road at both approaches.
The new tracks will curve slightly through the tunnel, and the curves at the entrances will be reduced. The new width at the level of the tracks will be 24 ft. B.N. Farren took the contract for the whole job and sublet the work of deepening, which requires an excavation of 10 ft., to Michael Ryan of New York. Mr. Ryan is now setting an 8 horse power steam engine and will begin running it for hoisting and for the steam drill next week.
Mica powder is used in the sides and roof, and glycerine in the bottom. The debris is taken seven or eight miles down the road and used for rip rapping. The rock is mica slate and needs no arching.
The Governor and Council are about closing another contract with B.N. Farren to continue the work on the big tunnel under the appropriations of the last Legislature. The old and new contracts amount together to about $600,000. The work is progressing at the rate of about 275 feet a month, and consists of enlarging, both in width and height, and arching with brick where the stone is soft and liable to fall.
Mr. Farren found the bore 24 ft. wide and 20 ft. high, and leaves it 30 ft. wide and 23 high. The work will probably be done in about a year from now, it being expected that the new appropriation will finish it up...
[One more long article follows, containing reports on budget items].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 30, 1875
Shelburne Falls
(Shelburne Falls) We have received from Mrs. Jerusha King of Hawley a very ancient barrel made from a hollow tree. It was made by Thomas King in 1712 and was used for holding the first corn raised in the town. It holds just 8 bushels.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, August 23, 1875
Montague
Our village has been very quiet and lifeless of late. E.L. Walker has again opened a harness store at his old stand in the Town Hall. The furniture business seems determined to maintain its existence here in spite of reverses. Richardson & Demond continue to buy, fit up and sell chamber sets, giving employment to a few hands. J.M. Clapp is at work in Lawrence's old mill, making small black walnut wares, tables, etc.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, July 5, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
C.N. Reed, who is full of life and enterprise in his business, has fitted up an excellent fountain in his store, which is not only an ornamental affair but very useful. Around its base a zinc-lined basin is arranged to receive the spray, in which are placed cucumbers, lettuce, radishes and other vegetables, which are preserved by the cool water in an excellent condition. It is a good thing [and far ahead of its time]!
Listar, one of the wealthiest manufacturers of England, spent many years and over a million of money in search of a way to utilize silk rags, but finally succeeded and is now making lots of money, employing 4000 workmen in a factory that cost nearly $3,000,000. [Here's one that I was unable to verify].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, June 14, 1875
News about home: Greenfield items
It has been said that even the ingenuity of the Yankees could never find a useful purpose for old hoop skirts, but we passed a cornfield the other day, where a dozen or more of these cast off contrivances of a played out fashion were hung up for scare crows, and we dare say the troublesome birds were kept at a safe distance.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, May 31, 1875
Hampshire County items
William Dickinson is building an elegant house on Hatfield Street, on the site of his old home, which he has removed to a neighboring lot to fit up for tenements.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, May 31, 1875
Northfield
The new ferry boat, built by Messrs. John A. Fisher and George A. Long of Northfield for Munn's Ferry, was launched on Fri. last, and on Sat. she was taken to her place of destination and the occasion was one of pleasure and amusement to a goodly number of "Young America", who availed themselves of the pleasure of a pleasant boat ride. And with the view to make up the quota of song and sentiment, the following lines were contributed: "Old Northfield, in her pride may boast / Princess of the valley / And of her artisans, an host / O, live men, when they rally / Chorus - Yankee Doodle, keep it up, Yankee Doodle Dandy, etc. / We quote the men who built this boat / Their energetic labors / And how they've set their craft afloat / Just to please their neighbors / Chorus / Her cradle was a grove of pines / Twas there her planks were nestled / Twas there John made her first chalk lines / And George her tree-nails trestled / Chorus / Though minus stern, she has two stems / Alias, aprons, two / And he that has to do with them / Has yeoman's work to do / Chorus / Some older heads might here take note / How on the tide she skims / How like a swan the tide she floats / Or like a duck she swims / Chorus / So now, while freighted as she is / With beau and belle so cheery / The chance, forsooth, of her or his / Is anything but dreary / Chorus / And may she last till doom's day comes / And be a bonny boat then / And may our daughters, daughters' sons / Be there among the crowd then / Chorus / And may each lad and lass so gay / Always be as merry / And e'en recall this happy day / When crossing o'er the ferry. J.C.B., Northfield, Mass., May 24, 1875.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, May 10, 1875
There are eight metals more valuable than gold
Indium, vandium, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, uranium, somium and iridium. None of them are found in quantity, nor are they useful in the arts like gold and silver; indium and vanadium are 8 times more valuable than gold. [I think uranium is going to surprise them].
Gazette & Courier - Monday, March 22, 1875
News about home (Greenfield)
The Lady Washington party last Thurs. at Washington Hall, under the auspices of the ladies of the Unitarian Church, was a very pleasant affair, and attracted a goodly number of our citizens. An excellent supper was provided, and the tables were well patronized. Lady Washington, Mrs. J. Keith, held a reception at the upper end of the hall. She was richly attired in a light silk, cut with a long court train, and did the honors of the occasion with the queenly grace that distinguished the wife of our first President.
/ George Washington was personated by W.D. Lucy, arrayed in a dark costume with white wig. Among those who came to do homage to this Republican Court were a number of ladies and gentlemen of the olden time, arrayed in a variety of rich and showy toilets. Many of the dresses were silks that had done duty at weddings half and even a century ago, and since, treasured as precious heirlooms, but those not fortunate enough to possess these family relics improvised substitutes for the occasion, which, if they would not bear inspection in daylight, were in many instances brilliant and striking, and served the desired purpose very well.
/ The gentlemen were caparisoned in a variety of costumes, one 'red coat' even, being tolerated in the throng. About 8 o'clock the dancing was preceded by a grand march, when the ancient toilets could be seen to good advantage. The floor was well taken up by the followers of Terpsichore, who accompanied the excellent music of the Orange Quadrille Band, through many lively measures, including the "Old Virginia Reel". Seldom has Greenfield had a more successful party, and those who planned and executed the preliminaries deserve great credit. The receipts were $161, but money making was not the special object of the occasion. [Some lovely words were used in this article, like 'personated' and 'caparisoned', but it still strikes me odd when older folks are referred to as 'ancient toilets' ;-) ).
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 22, 1875
Where they come from
Where they come from - by Olive Thorne [the pen name of http://www.harpers.org/NightMonkey.html Harriet Mann Miller ]. You’ll be shocked, I fear, when I tell you that your doll came out of a rag bag; her curls from the back of a goat, and her elegant china tea set out of a small hole. But what will you say when I tell you that your http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC3180.htm jelly is made out of old boots, and your delightful perfumery from horrid smelling coal tars. You don’t own all the made over things in the family, either.
Johnny’s new http://www.bharattextile.com/dictionary/66 beaver cloth overcoat was worn out on the back of a beggar, and perhaps even played the part of a scarecrow in some farmyard, before it went into the rag bag and began to come up in the world again; and the http://www.adrynight...20Physiology129.html "Table Gelatin" which everyone in the family likes to eat, once did duty as skin on the back of a rat. The pearl of your paper knife lined the shell house of a modest little creature at the bottom of the sea, while mamma’s shell comb was the comfortable roof over a Sea Tortoise.
Your guitar strings were indispensable to the internal comfort of some poor pussy or unfortunate sheep, and your piano would be but a dumb wooden box, without some of the same internal arrangements of a horse. Your nice hair brush first saw the light on the skin of a hog, and its pretty back of papier mache came out of the ragman’s bag. The crinoline that stiffens the bottoms of ladies’ dresses was used originally to switch the flies from the back of a horse, and the mattress on which you sleep so comfortably served the same use before it fell into the manufacturer’s hands.
Your dainty toilet soap - dear me, how can I tell you! - was made of dead cats and dogs, found in the streets, and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond "bitter almonds" which so delightfully flavors your candy came from the horrible smelling coal tar, while the choicest are as deliciously flavored with -- putrid cheese. The scent hairs of that offensive creature, the skunk, furnish some desirable additions to the toilet table, used for removing freckles and tan, and the dreadful stuff left in drains is changed into a fashionable toilet article, and adorns the face of ladies. To be sure these disagreeable materials have some pretty rough handling before they come out in their new colors. The old boots, for instance. They do not step from the gutter into the jelly kettle by any means. They go through a long process of washing and soaking in lye and smoking with sulphur, and steaming and boiling, before they come out white and delicate, and fit for the table. T
he coal tar to grow into perfumery goes through the hands of chemists, who treat it with I don’t know what dreadful chemical processes, and the dead dogs and cats are boiled to extract the grease, purified, whitened and perfumed before we use them as a soap. The doll whose ancestors inhabited a rag man’s den endured unheard of operations of washing, soaking, bleaching, chopping, molding, and so forth, before she took her place in the nursery to amuse the little folks, and the clay from the mud hole was washed and patted and whitened and kneaded, and baked and glazed before it ventured to call itself china, and take its place on the tea table.
The horse tails that stiffen the dresses and stuff our mattresses are washed, and soaked, and boiled and baked before we use them, and the intestines which make the voice of guitar and piano went through long processes of scraping, soaking in lye, and washing, before they were drawn out into the fine, tough strings you are familiar with. The rat skin which we eat under the name of gelatin first flourished as the thumb of a kid glove, and after being worn out in that capacity went through ever so many purifying processes, somewhat as the old boots did, before it ended on our table.
Nearly all the things that we throw away in [?] or even in our drains - the most disgusting things you can think of - are valuable, and after going through the hands of skilled workmen, come out in new shapes and have new fields of usefulness. The feats of old fashioned fairies, who turned pumpkins into carriages, and shabby old gowns into elegant robes, do not compare with these wonders performed in our work shops by rough looking men in shirt sleeves and white aprons.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 22, 1875
(Hoosac Tunnel) B.N. Farren will at once begin drawing gravel from the west side of the mountain to ballast the newly laid track in the tunnel. The engine to be used on the gravel train is the old lo
(Hoosac Tunnel) B.N. Farren will at once begin drawing gravel from the west side of the mountain to ballast the newly laid track in the tunnel. The engine to be used on the gravel train is the old locomotive Deerfield, which Mr. Farren purchased of the Connecticut River Railroad, and has furnished with a new boiler. It was taken to the tunnel station Fri. the 12th.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, February 1, 1875
A lecturer, wishing to explain to a little girl how a lobster casts his shell when he has outgrown it, said: "What do you do when you have outgrown your own clothes? You throw them aside, don't you?
A lecturer, wishing to explain to a little girl how a lobster casts his shell when he has outgrown it, said: "What do you do when you have outgrown your own clothes? You throw them aside, don’t you?" "Oh no" replied the little one, "we let out the tucks".
Gazette & Courier - Monday, January 25, 1875
Manure
Manure - Every farm has the material, if rightly used, to vastly improve its capability to improve crops if not to make it as fertile as need be; and money is often expended for commercial fertilizers, when one half used in working on the farm would do more good to the present crops, and have a more lasting benefit. Every pig kept till 9 months old, if rightly supplied with material, would make 5 cords of valuable manure, which would pay his keeping and fatten him so that his pork would be clear gain. Every well fed cow, if all her droppings and http://www.cowurine.com/ urine are saved and composted with suitable absorbents, will during the year make 8 cords, with the labor of good brains and elbow grease. And the sink slop and waste materials of the house, with night soil and other offensive, decaying materials, would if properly composted, make 10 cords of valuable manure for corn or grapes. Then muck, leaves and the deposits in fence corners and hollows would furnish much, and weeds, too! rich in everything required by plants, if composted before the seeds ripen, would return what they take from the soil and also from the atmosphere, thus increasing the richness of the soil, instead of filling it with seed to be battled with for several years. If farmers would save and increase their manure heaps on the farm there would not be so much complaint about worthless commercial fertilizers (Utility).
Gazette & Courier - Monday, January 11, 1875
More Josh Billings
Hotels - by http://www.dailycelebrations.com/041205.htm Josh Billings . This seems tew be the whole thing and it is the whole thing in most cases. You will diskover the following deskription a mild one ov about 9 hotels, out ov 10 between the Atlantik and Pacifick Oshuns, akross the United States in a straight line. Your room is 13 foot 6 inches by 9 foot 7 inches parellogramly. It being court week (as usual) all the good rooms are employed by the lawyers and judges. Your room is on the uttermost floor. The carpet iz ingrain - ingrained with the dust ov http://sniff.numachi...LCRN;ttMUSSLCRN.html kerosene ile and ink spots ov four generashuns. There is two pegs in the room tew hitch coats onto; one ov them broken oph, and the other pulled out, and missing. The buro has three legs and one brick. The glass tew the buro swings on two pivots, which have lost their grip. There is one towel on the rack, thin, but wet. The soap is as tough tew wear as a whet stone. The soap is scented with cinamin ile, and varigated with spots. There iz three chairs, http://basketweaving...eat_weaving_site.htm kane setters ; one is a rocker, and all three are busted. There is a match box, empty. There is no kurtin to the windo, and there don’t want to be enny; yu kan’t see out, and who kan see in? The http://www.stairropes.com/bellropes.html bell rope iz cum oph about 6 inches this side of the ceiling. The bed iz a modern slat bottom with two mattresses, one cotton and one http://www.chicagohi...ody/Sheet/sheet2.htm husk , and both harder and about as thick as a http://ship25bsa.org...or/sea_biscuits.html sea biskitt . You enter the bed sideways, and kan feel every slat at once as easy as you could the ribs ov a gridiron. Your bed iz inhabited. You sleep sum, but role over a good deal. For breakfast you have a gong and rhy coffee too kold tew melt butter, fride potatoze which resemble the chips a two inch augur makes in its journey through an oak log. Bread solid; beefstake about as thick as a blister, and az tuff az a hound’s ear. Table covered with plates, and a few scared to death pickles on one ov them and 6 fly indorsed crackers on another. A pewterinktom castor with three bottles in it, one without any mustard and one with two inches ov drowned flies and vinegar in it. Servant gall, with hoops on, hangs round you earnestly, and wants tew know if you will take another cup ov coffee. Yu say "No mom, I thank you" and push back your chair. You haven’t eat enough to pay for pikking your teeth. I am about as self konsalted as it will do for any man tew be and not crack open, but I never yet konsaited that I could keep a hotel. I had rather be a highwayman than tew be sum landlords I hav visited with. There are hotels that are a joy upon earth, whare a man pays hiz bill as cheerful az he did the person who married him; where you kan’t find the landlord unless yu hunt in the kitchen; where servants glide around like angels ov mercy; where the beds fit a man’s back like the feathers of a goose, and where the vittles taste just az tho your wife or your mother had fried em. Theze kind of hotels ought to be built on wheels and travel around the kuntry. They are az phull ov real comfort az a Thanksgiving pudding; but alass, yes, alass! they are az unplenty az double-yolked eggs.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, December 28, 1874
(Greenfield) As will be seen in a special notice elsewhere, Mr. Babbitt, the Fitchburg hair dealer, will visit Greenfield next week, taking a room
(Greenfield) As will be seen in a special notice elsewhere, Mr. Babbitt, the Fitchburg http://www.hisandher.com/faq_about.asp hair dealer , will visit Greenfield next week, taking a room in Pond's Block.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, December 21, 1874
(Wilmington Vt.) George S. Clark has sold his house (the old Baptist church) to F.W. Jones and is going on to the Bucklin farm in Halifax
(Wilmington Vt.) George S. Clark has sold his house (the old Baptist church) to F.W. Jones and is going on to the http://www.bucklinsociety.net/PlacesNamBuck.htm Bucklin farm in Halifax, which was recently purchased by S.B. Barnard of this place.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, December 14, 1874
(Whitingham Vt.) Samuel Winn Jr. and William H. Lynde have exchanged places, and are to take possession of them next spring.
(Whitingham Vt.) Samuel Winn Jr. and William H. Lynde have exchanged places, and are to take possession of them next spring.
Gazette & Courier - Monday, December 7, 1874
A ten thousand dollar girl
A ten thousand dollar girl - On a certain day on a Pennsylvania railroad, a belle of a thriving Pennsylvania town, the daughter of a wealthy lumber merchant, was traveling in the same car with a shrewd old citizen of her native town, and an agreeable young gentleman from the West, who tells the story. The latter had been talking to the belle, but as night drew on and the young lady became drowsy, he gave up his seat to her and placed himself beside the somewhat cynical Pennsylvanian. The latter began conversation by pointing to a high mountain past which they were whirling, and said: "You see that mountain? Six or eight years ago it was covered with as fine a forest as ever grew, and worth $10,000 and upward. Now, without a tree, covered with stumps, the land is scarcely worth a continental. The net produce of that mountain lies over there in that seat", and he pointed to the recumbent belle: "That is my calculation. It has just absorbed all of that lumber, which her father owned, to raise and educate the girl, pay for her clothes and jewelry, bring her out in society and maintain her there. Some of you young men, if you were given your choice between the mountain yonder as it now stands, and the net produce on that seat would take the net produce, but as for me, give me the stumps".
Gazette & Courier - Monday, November 23, 1874
(Greenfield) Richardson's new block, altered from the old Willard house, is fast approaching completion, and some notice of the improvements that have so thoroughly transformed the old tenement hous
(Greenfield) Richardson’s new block, altered from the old Willard house, is fast approaching completion, and some notice of the improvements that have so thoroughly transformed the old tenement house into a fine appearing block for business purposes, may be of interest to our readers. By extending the front out to the line of the street, he has obtained two excellent stores. Mr. B. takes the one on the east side for his business. The well lighted front is connected with an ice cream room in the rear by folding doors, the two rooms measuring 36 x 14 1/2 ft, and attached is an extensive pantry, while an elevator is constructed to bring up the ice cream and refreshments from the kitchen below. The store and hall are warmed by one of Lawson’s Diamond furnaces, and a better arranged suit of rooms for the purpose to which they are to be devoted, it would be hard to find. Mr. Richardson has a large back sitting room for his family on this floor, while the store on the west side measures 89 x 14 1/2 ft., a convenient and pleasant place for some light business, such as a ladies’ furnishing store. The extensive arrangements for kitchen and work rooms in the basement are worthy of special mention. By excavating and grading the ground away in the rear (over 1000 two horse loads of loam have been taken out, much valuable room has been gained. Mr. Richardson has in this basement one of Robbins’ patent ovens measuring 8 x 9 ft., an improved arrangement for baking purposes. There is a large kitchen and family dining room, a room for making ice cream, and a large ice room with a pantry attached. Hot and cold water is carried through these rooms, and every convenience needed for the extensive business has been added. The upper floors have been greatly altered and improved. Thee are 18 rooms in the block, besides the stores and wings. The latter remain as they were before. Besides the rooms occupied by Mr. R’s family, are several that he proposes to let singly or in suits. He has fitted up a bath room, and has piped the building for gas. The alterations have been under the direction of Philip Traver, and will cost some $4000, making the entire cost of the block some $14,000. Mr. Richardson intends to occupy his new establishment soon after the first of December.
- Sun, Feb 22, 2009
