My Life, Conrad Kurtz

FOREWORD

Your name doesn't have to be Kurtz, Heckman, Axmacher, Neatrour, Hupf or Riek for you to profit from this book. From the title page you can easily deduce that it is an autobiography, but it is more than that. It is the story of the wave of Germans who emigrated to the United States during the second half of the 19th century. In a general way, it is also the story of all immigrants, from whatever country, before or after.

The narrative begins in northwest Germany, near the French border. A dozen pages are devoted to describing the beauty of the land and the happiness of the people. This was the view of a carefree child mixed with pride of origin. The land probably had some natural beauty, but the massive exodus of the people is certain contradiction of the happiness of the people. They had to be miserable and hopeless to even consider emigration. I was not able to identify any one thing as the trigger, but the diet was one easy clue. Conscription for service in the military seemed to be very distasteful, even though there was no mention of personal impact. Whatever, it takes more than an adventurous spirit to abandon your home and move your family across an ocean in a sailing vessel.

I must admit that I have an affinity to this book. I was born on that "miserable" Yoder Hill, which is now called Brownstown. The author's father bought his house and five acres of land from my great-grandfather. I knew several people who are mentioned, and many of their descendants in the following generation. A number of the buildings which are a part of the story were still around in my youth. St. Mary's Church, St. John's Church, the Park Building, Hawes Brick Plant, Cambria Brewery, Fifth Avenue Hotel, and the Stone Bridge are all very familiar. Although you may have less personal interest, I think that you are going to enjoy this look at history.

The book has been re-typed because the original was very difficult to read. With few exceptions, it remains as written. I did add a few commas, but only where it was absolutely necessary to clarity. I also changed some spelling and transposed a few letters, but only when it was an obvious typing error.

John J. Abele

April 18, 1985

Edited by: Tomiken Von Kendra

June 21, 2008

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LIFE OF CONRAD J. KURTZ ( Conrad Kurtz )

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Book First

The Province on the Rhine

In foreign lands, on the continent of Europe, there is a place called Province on the Rhine, so called after the River Rhine, which winds through the valleys of this district. A long time ago this Province was claimed by the French, but during the great war of 1812-1815 in the time of Napoleon I., it was taken from that government, divided into districts, and signed over to different German powers. This Province did, from time to time, cause great jealousy on account of its valuable coal and ore lands, and also for its great farming advantages, among different surrounding governments.

In 1870 another war broke out between France and Germany for some little reason or other, but in fact, it was all for the purpose of regaining the Rhine Province for the French government, but it failed, and the land still is held by the Germans.

This Province is noted for its great beauty; We often find in history where it is called, "That Beautiful Valley on the Rhine." We also find numerous poems and songs composed of this wonderful stream, in most every language of the civilized world. Standing on its banks we will often hear the loud sound of the great music or the sweet voices of jolly singers, the next moment we see a proud little steamer with astonishing speed plowing its way through these clear waters of the Rhine, and then dashing its waves against the sandy shores of this beautiful river.

The traveler will now step close to the water's edge, and, by waving the up-lifted hand, he will bring this beautiful boat to a landing. He will now go on board, where he will find on deck a hundred or more passengers, men, women and children, of all ages, entertaining themselves in every imaginable way. The boat will now pull out again, and, as it came all the way from the low lands of Holland, it will extend its way on up the Valley. As it pulls along quietly the stranger will enjoy the great sights of this magnificent country.

Making this trip in the early part of the summer, about the month of June, he will, in some places, see the stream almost covered with steamers, small yachts and boats of all kinds, chasing swiftly along the River, to reach their points of business, or the landing in some distant town or city. On both sides of the stream he will see the willows covering the banks, and farther on the land the green meadows, and the golden fields of ripening grain extending miles along the flat land, now and then he will see close to the River, a mountain high and steep like the Rocks of Gibraltar on the coast of Spain. At the foot of those tremendous rocks there are, the ruins of an ancient Castle, some of the cemented walls still standing, with their dark, odd color partly covered with moss and vines. Here and there they are yet in existence, Castles of the middle ages, large and beautiful, with their numerous spires pointing high up in the air. Surrounded with evergreens, and tall slim poplar trees waiving to and fro in the soft air of a summer day.

In a great many places there are nicely sloped hill-sides covered with vine-yards, from which that so much praised Rhine wine is produced of the pure grape, by the hands of those industrious people along the River Rhine.

MY NATIVE HOME

I will now draw the readers attention farther on up the alley, until we reach the City Koblenz, here we find the river Moselle connecting with the Rhine, turning from the latter, and following the Moselle on to the City Konz. Here we find the mouth of the river Saar joining the Moselle. Then following the Saar to the City Sarrbricken, then going to the North about four miles, we find a small country village still in the Valley, called Quirsheid, a rather peculiar name, but nevertheless, the place is a most beautiful one, a high hill to the north and east side, and large meadows and fields to the south and west. There are two large creeks passing through the village, but their water is not like in our streams here in Pennsylvania, covered with grease and full of sulphur from the numerous mines, but it is pure spring water, fresh and clear.

I am describing the place as it was about the year 1850, the one stream flows from the north towards the south, just along the bottom of the hill. The other comes from the west and empties into a small lake in the center of the village, about one hundred yards long and fifty yards wide. At the east end of this lake there is a large dam built across the valley, which hold the water in this place. In this dam at the south end there is built an arch-bridge of large sand- stone, for the overflow of the water. From here the creek extends down through the meadow about two hundred yards and connects the other stream, which then winds along the valley until it joins the Saar.

There are also two public roads from the south side leading to this place, one coming from Saarbricken through Sulsbach, and the other from Fishbach. These roads join together right at the stone bridge, and run along the top of this dam to the other side of the valley, then up the hill and on out to Merchweiler and Illingen.

Standing on the stone bridge, looking over the water, we see along the right-hand side of the water covered with different kinds of water plants, a great many of them bearing beautiful flowers. A green field joining along the side. Around the upper end we see along the shore green willows and a small tree here and there mixed in, this is a great bathing place in the summer time, on the left, down close by the bridge, the shore is a flat grade from the road to the water, here teamsters water their horses, farmers their cattle and in the spring time they bring their sheep here to wash. On a summers evening, when the sun is setting up the valley, and throwing its beautiful colors through the trees of the distant forest down on to the water, then it is a lovely sight. Turning around and looking the other direction, we see close by us in the corner where the Sulsbach road and the creek join together, at the bridge, an old log house with a straw roof, and a small garden in the rear. This is my native home.

Turning a little to the right, we see another small log house, and again a little more to the right, we also see a third one. Those were the first built in this village.

A long time ago in the days of the French revolution, there were three men which were three brothers, and sons of one and the same family engaged in that struggle, which was one of the most cruel wars in the history of the civilized world. As it happened so they were officers in the defeated army, and for such, there was at that time no pardon whatever, they were executed in the most cruel manner. Nothing but such a terrible death was supposed to end the lives of those three brothers, but it seems providence would have it otherwise. They managed to make their escape, and came from the inner of France, all the way to the place where those two little streams meet. Here where there was no living soul near, and nothing but wild woods as far as their eyes could see, here they settled down and built those three little log houses which I have already mentioned.

When and where they got married I am not able to say; They spoke the German language freely, and always made use of it here. They also selected a German name, they adopted the name of Kurtz, themselves and their offsprings are known by that name from that day to this. Their proper and original name was never known by anyone. They kept it a secret till into their graves. The man who lived in that little house close by the stone bridge was my great grand-father. My grand-father, my father and also myself were born in that same house.

MY BOYHOOD IN EUROPE

I was born August 15, 1845. My parents were poor but honest, they were good Christians and lived strictly according to the Roman Catholic faith. My father's name was John and my mother's name was Anna Maria; her maiden name was Raber, she was born in Merchweiler.

I was baptized in Illingen; my father's sister and my mother's brother, (both young folks) stood for me; neither of them ever got married, he died an old bachelor and she an old maid. Superstitious people would often say that I would never get married, but in course of time that proved to be a grand mistake.

When I was six years of age my parents sent me to our village school. I was not very smart at learning, but I would always manage to keep up with the balance of my class and age. We had a cross school master, and I was of a quiet nature, I was never whipped for misbehavior in all my school-days, but I often fell into the hands of the old master for making mistakes in my lessons. For such offense he would use a large flat rule on the palm of the hand, and sometimes on the point of the fingers, trying to drive the nails farther in. What we now call a teacher we would in those days call a school master; They were mostly old men too cranky for any other use, they did not try to teach children with kindness but would try to beat the education into them with the soft end of a club.

Whenever one of the scholars would fall asleep at school, our master would apply a dose of snuff still to waken them up. So one drowsy afternoon I happened to get my head on the desk and also fall asleep as misfortune would have it; the master in his usual way came sneaking up to me, and with a goose-quill blew snuff up my nose. I certainly awoke immediately and began coughing and sneezing; I got sick and worse, finally he told me to go outside. Walking through the schoolroom I staggered like a drunken man, against a bench upon which a few small boys were sitting. Over and down it went like a thousand of brick, and the little ones were like sweet-potatoes rolling on the floor. And now such a laugh you never heard, but the old master now being a little frightened, with a sharp voice bid them to hush at once. I made my way out the door and sat down on the step.

The master and his family was living in the school building, so the woman helped me into the kitchen, here I relieved my stomach on to her floor, and at recess the old gentleman sent my cousin in along with me to see me home. There I was sick for three days and would not dare to say nothing to my parents for fear of the worse when getting back to school.

We had no steel pens those days, we done our writing all with slate pencils and goose quills. We were not allowed to use a knife for sharpening slate pencils. At the school house door there was a stone steps; this had a dozen or more places wore down two or three inches by rubbing points to our pencils.

At the time of my snuff experience at school I was about eight years old. I had been getting around and about a great deal, and was well acquainted about our village. I ran along the roads hundreds of times in my bare feet, and often I would come in contact with a stone here and then a quick jump about two feet high and hop a few steps on one foot and then stain my foot prints with the red juice of my toes in the dust of the road. One time in particular I can never forget, I sounded a stone in the road with my big toe and I went down a sprawling and a dog just passing by jumped and bit me in the leg. I went home badly used up; my leg bleeding, my toe-nail half off and I thought I was hurt all over.

About the year 1849 our little home was destroyed by fire; the place was cleared off and a contract was formed for a new house; six rooms on one floor, stone walls and a tile roof. The work was begun at once. When the walls were built and the frame work all on the top, then as it was customary in that country, the contractor stuck a young pine tree about eight feet high decorated with bright colored ribbons on the peak of the house. Then a toast was given and the contractor, standing on the building at the side of the decorated tree, made a touching address calling God's blessing down upon the new building and wishing good luck, health and a long life to the family that will occupy it in the future.

While the construction of the new house was going on, we lived in with a neighbor by the name of Sebastian Best. When the house was complete we took possession of it, but only for a few years.

Our family at that time was seven of a number; my father and mother, one sister, two brothers and myself, and my father's sister Margaret, the same lady I spoke of previous to this in my story. She made her home with my father up to his death. My father was of medium height, stout and healthy. He was employed in the ore mines by the Stump Brothers, iron manufacturers at Neunkirechen, a short distance from our home. We got along pretty well considering how the people lived in that country.

I will here, my dear reader ask for your patience and allow me to draw your attention a little closer, in order to give you a better idea on this subject. We lived in a new house one story high, six rooms on one floor, we occupied three and my father's brother Andrew and family the other three. They built the house in company. About this time his youngest brother Nicholas got married and he built another room to the house and lived in it. We were then thirteen people to seven rooms. The cellar was divided up and partitions built in. The front part being used for cellar and the rear part for a cow stable with a door in the rear for the stable, and another in the front for the cellar. The second floor, which was the attic was used for a hay mow. The part which we occupied on the first floor, the front room was the parlor, the sitting room, the dining room and the bed room. In one corner stood a bed with a large curtain from floor to ceiling around it; this is where the old folks slept. Before it stood a cradle for the baby; under it stood a trundle-bed, which in the evening was drawn forward for two more children. At one side stood a table, at another stood a stove then a few chairs, that was the whole furniture.

Then there was still space enough left for two or three boys to play marbles. The stove had two lids on, it would answer for heating and also for cooking. In the evening, if a light was needed, the lamp that father carried to the ore mines was lit. In our other room (which was a small one) we had one bed for Aunt Mag and one of the children, a few chairs and a trunk or two. The third room was the kitchen. Here the floor was cemented and in one corner on the floor was the bake-oven; on top of it was the hearth, here the firing was done with wood, but for the stove we used coal. In the corner above the hearth was a large flue about three feet wide, in this we smoked our meat when we had some. In another corner stood a ladder to go up to the hay-mow. The balance of the space was used for a work-shop.

A handy man with some mechanical ideas could get along pretty well. Such was my father. His regular work was done by eight hour shifts, that gave him lots of time at home to do extra work, such as making furniture, wheel barrows, coffins and any thing imaginable. Very little was bought in the city, nearly everything in family use was made at home. The bedsteads were made of four square posts with the boards mortised in, or some times just nailed together, and the table the same, the chairs were made of white oak wood and long straw twisted into rope, then platted to it forming the seat; benches were more used than chairs. My father made all such things, also baskets and brooms, the latter being made of fine birch limbs. Coffins were made by taking boards, smooth them with a draw-knife and nail them together in proper shape.

There was no undertaker there, and there was none required; any one with a horse and wagon would answer the purpose. In case of a funeral if the wagon had lately been used for hauling coal, or manure, then straw would be placed in the bottom of it and the coffin on top of that. Then the funeral would start off and go three or four miles to the grave-yard, and the dead person got buried just as well as one at the present time with a hundred dollar casket, a fine hearse and a number of carriages, to give the undertaker a fat job and the people a good ride on a poor families expense, for which they then struggle and toil a long time until they get squared up again.

Clothing and eatables were also secured at home. What one family did not have another would have and they would lend and trade from one another. Sheep were raised for wool, geese for feathers, flax and hemp for linens; all was spun and woven at home, every family having a spinning wheel and most every village a weaver or two. The clothing was common; every day clothes were generally made of hemp and flax, some of the goods being dyed, but for shirting, toweling and bed clothes was bleached. For better clothes wool was used, which was also dyed or bleached according to fancy.

We wore no under-clothes, nor overcoats and furs, and no rubbers over our shoes; we carried no parasols to keep the sun off, these things were considered not necessary, in fact we knew nothing of such. One pair of shoes is all a person would have; they were all made by the shoemaker and nailed with flat- headed nails. Shoes for women and children having smaller nails in than those for men. They were worn all week and for Sunday they were cleaned and polished up with a dose of tallow.

There was no clothing nor shoes for sale at the stores. The clothing was made by the tailor, but only what could not be made at home. The coats they wore were short like what we might call a jacket; they wore very peculiar looking caps of different styles. If a man had a long coat and a felt that, he was an exception and he would only wear them once or twice a year. My father had a long coat made of good cloth and a high hat. I never saw him wear the hat and very seldom the coat but he kept them and took care of them till he started for America, when he gave the hat to a friend of his and the coat he took with him and kept it till he died, after which I do not know what became of it as I never saw it any more. I do not know whom the coat and hat were bought for in the first place, whether for himself, his father or grandfather.

My dear reader may think I am speaking fast or going a little beyond the mark when I am saying how long people in that country keep clothes. But, it is a well known fact that they often have them from generation to generation; Handed down from father to son, from son to grandson and mother to daughter, from daughter to grand-daughter.

I will now come back again to my subject, and tell you how handsome the little boys fixed up. They wear caps knitted of white, red, blue or any color yarn which were made wide enough for the head and then run up to a peak with a little tassel on. Old men wore the same only they had them of a darker color and a larger tassel. In the summer time the boys wore blue drilling trousers, with home made suspenders, the trousers being made big enough so the boy will not grow out of them in a few years. Just think for a moment, say you are going along the road and you see five or six boys playing, running and jumping around and if it is summer time you see the wide blue drilling trousers hung on some comic suspenders, the nice red or blue cap with its tassel hanging down at the side of their heads, you would think surely they were a lot of young clowns just escaped from old Adam Fourpaugh's show; nevertheless they were happy and healthy.

Women also dress common, in summer time a skirt down to the top of the shoes is generally worn, a sleeveless waist is attached to it; they are opposed to corsets or any thing tight about their person; the waist carries the skirt. In winter time a dress is worn over the skirt, a little shawl around their shoulders and a large handkerchief over their heads is the whole attire. For Sundays those that have a silk apron and a silk handkerchief for on their heads are proud of them and they consider themselves well dressed. Girls will always choose brighter colors.

HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE

The people of that country also set slim table, not only at one place, but in all towns and villages that are inhabited by the laboring class of people. In the morning breakfast was bread and coffee. Almost every family had a cow or a goat to get milk for the coffee. The bread was baked of rye flour; wheat flour was too expensive, at least the people thought so. Often we would have soup for a change. Dinner was about the same because mother did not have time to cook something else. When the table was set at meal time, a coffee cup was placed on the table for every one, then a loaf of bread and a knife on the center of the table, father cutting the bread for all, and mother giving us coffee. Nothing else would be on the table. There was nothing to spread on the bread; the milk was poured into the coffee-pot. When we got soup there was a spoon laid to everybody's place, then a large dish with the soup set on the middle of the table and everyone would help himself and eat from the same dish.

In the evening for supper we would mostly have potatoes, peeled, sliced and cooked in water with a little salt; they were also put in a dish and placed on the table and everyone would have a four pronged fork and help himself. Sometimes the potatoes were cooked with the jackets on and put right on the center of the table in a big heap. Then everyone would hold up his end of the tablecloth to keep them from rolling off to the floor. If one would roll close to my end, I would quick as lightning strike it a blow with my fist to make it lay still. Each one would get a pinch of salt put to his place to use with them. We would have bread and coffee with potatoes, odd times we would have pan-cakes or wafers and sometimes we would have a cup of sour milk with potatoes, then we were happy.

On Sunday we often got soup of beans, peas, rice or something in that line; we also had a white table-cloth and a plate for everyone on the table. On Easter Sunday, Christmas and two or three other days in the year we would have a few pounds of meat and some cakes of wheat flour, and we would have a grand dinner which we would talk about several weeks after. At Easter Sunday the children got one egg from the rabbit, three from the godmother and three from the godfather making seven in all. On Christmas we got a few walnuts, hazelnuts, a little candy and some cakes which mother bakes herself. It all was put on a plate and on Christmas morning a plate for each and every child in the house was found on the table, then we were as happy as little lords.

Amusements for grown up single folks were limited; four or five balls were given in a year. New Years night, Easter night, Easter Monday and one or two other days were known for that purpose. The folks are very sociable and trouble does not often occur except when parties from other places interfere, then there will be a little war; fist fighting is not known but they will have a rough and tumble fight; clubs, stones, knives, beer glasses, chairs and everything imaginable being made use of. Those dances are generally kept up twenty four to thirty six hours.

Besides dances, spinning parties in winter time are an every days occurrence and the girls will take their spinning wheels in the evening and all meet in one house; the young men also being there to make it more sociable. They will then generally have some old veteran to tell war stories or some other old person to tell old fairy or wizard yarns. When time to go home the young men will see the girls home and the next evening they go to another house and so on; this is kept up most of the winter time. Those that have no spinning to do taking their knitting along. Something must be done at all times; pulling and dragging from early morning till late at night, in order to live respectably and keep out of the hands of the sheriff.

The men do all kinds of work, some having trades which they work at as everything is made by hand; some are shoe-makers, others tailors, weavers, carpenters, stone-masons and here and there a blacksmith, some farming, some cutting wood and burning it into charcoal, but the most of them working in the ore and coal mines.

The most of those mines owned and operated by the government. Boys would always go to school till fourteen years of age, when they were employed about the coke-works. The bosses and superintendents of the works were put there by the government and received large salaries; they will tramp the laborer, cheat the government and work every imaginable scheme for their own personal benefit. The government don't look after them in the right way and the working man dare not say a single word; every step they make is watched and for the least offense they are kept from work four to six weeks or put to work in some bad place where they are not able to earn their salt. And for the next offense they are discharged and blacklisted, which means they can get no more work at any government works throughout the entire Kingdom of Prussia.

A young man reaching the age of twenty one will go to the standing army (to which he is compelled) and this is the first step to his poverty. He will be in the army three years and the pay he gets is not sufficient for his own necessaries of life. When he comes home again he is twenty four years old and he thinks about getting married and at the same time has not one dollar to rub against another. But, marry he will as soon as possible, in case the young lady to whom he gets married has been living out a number of years and saved a good deal of clothing and a little money which will help them along some. But, poverty is at the door from the start.

Several families in our town were pretty well fixed and lived in large houses close together at one end of the village on the hill where the road leads to Merchweiler. We call them farmers. They have horses, cows, pigs, chickens and sheep and they have eight or ten acres of land to raise hay and vegetables for their own use. Our family was none of them. Again there are a dozen or more families that live in small houses with straw roofs on and the man of the house works but half time; just whenever he gets a little job here and there. Our family was none of them. And again there are a number of families that have convenient homes, a little ground to plant and steady employment, although the wages are small, they manage to make a respectable living. Among them are counted our family; among such I rank my native home. We had a good new house to live in and a great many things that others did not have. We had about one and a half acres of land, a large cherry tree and a few prune trees, we also had a cow, a stove and white table-cloth. My mother had a silk apron and my father had steady work, a long tailed coat and a stove pipe hat.

We often hear people say "It is not all gold that shines," and it was so at our home. We got along all right (at least it was so looked at in general) but now and then dark clouds would gather over our little home and threaten to destroy our happiness. As I have all ready said my father was digging ore in the woods; sometimes they sunk holes down and got the mineral that way but the last few years he worked in a drift which he and two or three others had opened. In this drift they had a good vein of ore and under it a small vein (four or five inches thick) of coal. This coal was dug out with a pick and then the ore blasted down. It all was hauled out with wheel-barrow; the coal being put on a dump from which people carried home. That privilege was given them. My father still brought some home with a sack; women and children would also carry some home.

I was but a few years old when my aunt Mag one day took me along for coal. When we got to the bank the man with the wheel- barrow put me in it and hauled me to my father. I saw where and how he worked and to this day I know how the whole place looked as well as if it had only been a few weeks ago. The ore from this place was hauled with wagons to Neunkirchen, where the blast furnace stood. There was no regular team for that work and often the men could not get the ore hauled and so caused delay in their work and less money payday, then trouble would begin at home. Taxes were very high and so many different kinds that there is scarcely a week in which the people are not troubled by those collectors who are all hired by the government and therefore have a big feeling. They are so saucy and determined to get the money that when they come the money must be there or you will have a big expense put on you.

About this time perhaps there are two or three in the family needing shoes and father can't make up the money to go to the city to get leather for the shoemaker. Then perhaps the chimney sweep will come around (he comes about four times a year) and when he comes you must have everything in readiness, including the required cash. Now there is flour needed and the miller will give none without the money, the tailor wants his pay and so on.

Then father would get disgusted and cranky and nothing would be right; then mother would also have her trouble and she would sometimes scarcely know what to prepare for a meal. Besides this her regular work caused her a great deal of misery. For instance she got up early in the morning to make the fire, and, there being no matches then, (at least not with common people) here she used a steel link something like the link in a chain, but it was large enough to run four fingers through it to get a good hold on. Then she has a flint stone about as big as a silver dollar and laying a small piece of sponge on this she would strike it with the steel, producing little sparks and so setting fire to the sponge. Then by waving and blowing it till it burns more and more and holding a handful of straw or dry hay to it and still waving and blowing it she would finally get it to blaze; then some splinters would be lit and so on till she got a fire in the stove or on the hearth.

Just think for a moment, say you must get up from a warm bed on a cold winter morning and make a fire in the stove with such materials, you would say "It is impossible, no one can ever do that, we never will get any breakfast this day". After mother got the fire and things ready we took breakfast, then father went to work. My oldest brother, John, went to school, the schoolhouse was too small for all to go at the same time, so the large children had school in the forenoon and the smaller ones in the afternoon; so I would go in the afternoon.

Then mother and my aunt would start for their work; one would do the house work, the other would go out and carry home wood, coal and dry leaves for bedding the cow or also feed for the cow. Sometimes both would go and the children would be at home by themselves, but mostly mother would stay at home and aunt Mag would go out, then either John or I would have to go along. The coal I have already stated where we got it; the wood was got in the woods where we would gather up dry limbs that fell from the trees; the dry-leaves were gathered with a rake but only where large trees stood, elsewhere we were not allowed to touch them.

Feed for the cow was gathered in different places; there was a small plant something like dandelion which would grow very plentiful in cultivated fields; it had a large root but fine like store cord. We would go out from the village into the fields where the crops were taken out perhaps a half dozen or a dozen of us, women and children would go together with baskets and hoes and we would dig this out, root and all, fill our baskets, carry it to the creek and wash it nicely then take it home, boil it and feed it to the cattle, or dry it and store it away for the winter.

We would also go out into the forest or along the creeks and get grass. Sometimes we would cut it off with a small sickle but this was strictly forbidden for fear of injuring the small shrubbery. When the forester caught one with a sickle he would take it with him and make information against you by law and the consequence would be a fine to pay and four or six weeks imprisonment. We were supposed to pull the grass with our hands; this grass was then also taken home for feed, either green or dried for winter. This work was done day after day while the weather and season would allow it, but all this truck that was carried home from the forest was got by some chance or other. Some folks could get it on the sly and run a big risk of getting in trouble, some folks could get nothing without paying for it and others again made a compromise with the forester, by doing work for him at his home, such as making garden for him at his home, mowing grass, making hay, digging potatoes and anything imaginable.

My father did many a day's work for him in order to get such privileges and we could get most anything from the woods, yet it was all no honest business. The forester has no right to give any privileges in that way, by making people do his work for him, but he did it and anyone that did not keep on the good side of him would have to pay dear for everything either by buying it or paying fines for he would in such cases make out a report that would surely bring you in trouble. What he would say was evidence and you dare say nothing.

By doing all such work the women would spend a great deal of their time day after day. They would also do all kinds of work in the fields, such as make hay, hoe potatoes, help to get the hemp and flax in, even sometimes plough with a pair of old cows or oxen, and in winter time thresh the grain with flails. In the evening after supper they would sit up for hours and sew and mend old clothes till their eyes would no longer hold out, and they would at last go to bed to rest their tired limbs only to get up the next morning and again start at their tiresome work. And this is not all; we find in those forests where they cut down timber every winter a few acres for lumber and all kinds of building material. They will clear this patch off clean and nice and at different times in the year the forester will come around and stick up a notice for every family to send one or two of its members out to this patch of new ground. There they will have to work two or three days planting acorns, beechnuts or perhaps small plants of pine trees and again they will have to go there to hoe them when they are a few inches high. All this is done for glory, the people taking their own bread with them to eat, and there is no pay for the work whatever. My friends will now admit that the miseries of life will far balance the happiness of those people in that little town of my native home.

I will now say a few words in order to show my American friends how timber lands and forests are taken care of. I have shown you how the seed and plants of different wood is planted. While the small plants are growing up, they are cultivated and transplanted carefully, and later they are from time to time nicely trimmed, the lower limbs cut off clean and every branch sprouting out from the trunk is kept off, consequently the trees will grow up very high and beautiful. There is not a shrub or bush allowed to grow there, you find not a log, stump or stone among those trees. It must be perfectly clean at all times. The dry leaves are allowed to be taken partly from the ground, but some must remain for fertilizing the ground. Those trees are always arranged so that one place has all oak trees, another all pines, another hemlock and so on. At steep hill-sides they allow shrubbery of all kinds to grow up and here they get plants for such trees that bear no seed.

The forester walks about in those woods day after day and keeps close watch on them. There is no living animal allowed to go in those woods and the game is very tame for no one dare injure or scare them. Birds are very plenty in those woods and it will do a man good to walk through the forest to see and hear all those beautiful creatures. My mother often and often in later years expressed herself on the subject. She would tell us how pleasant it was to be back of our house in the garden, from where she could see over against the hill-side, where thousands of those little singers dwelt in the green bushes, where she could hear their numerous voices as if they engaged in their morning devotion, singing and praising their Lord and Creator. Now and then she would hear the loud voice of the cuckoo at a distance and the echo returning from the valley to the ear of her who did so greatly enjoy the whole display.

GOING TO AMERICA

In the year 1854 some time in the month of February, a man by the name of Anseln Maure, who was a native of our village but had been in America for sixteen years and lives in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, came back to see his old home and friends. This man was telling great things about America, this new land as it was then called; how people lived there and how well they got along; how free they are and what liberty they have. The news spread like wild-fire in a very short time the people in our village and the surrounding towns were all in great excitement. The consequence was that a large number of them made up their minds to go to America and among the rest the idea also struck my father.

This Mr. Maure, a lot of his friends and others got ready and started away about March 1, 1854. At this time my mother was sick and we could not go with them; nevertheless the idea and intention could no more be changed. My father and his two brothers (as you seldom see a case) were married to three sisters; those three families and several others made quick arrangements, sold out what they had for little or nothing, as it was all done in a hurry. What could not be sold was given away and as mother had got well in a short time everything was in readiness. There were now in this party three Kurtz families, John Hilgert and family and Jakob Bost and family from our village and John Robine with a large family from Merchweiler.

On March 15, early in the morning a team halted at our door and our trunks were placed on the wagon; teams came also with those other families and our family also got on the wagon and sat down on our trunks and the caravan was ready to start. We were altogether in the party besides myself, eight or ten children between the ages of six and sixteen years and we had been for some time learning a song for this day and when we were all on the wagons and the teamsters brought their horses in motion we began to sing our farewell song.

There was nothing to trouble us, we were as happy as the birds in the woods, but the old folks well knew what it all meant; their hearts were filled with sorrow, their minds were like bewildered and they now seemed to realize their whole situation more than ever before. They were now thinking of all their household goods, their little gardens, their meadows, fields, their houses and homes, their friends and relatives, everything that was near and dear to them which they labored and toiled for by the sweat of their brow. They are leaving it behind, they are leaving all for somebody else's comfort, for somebody else to make use of; and they are going away, not knowing what fortune or misfortune, what good luck or bad luck they will ever meet at their destination in that strange country. They were all in deep silence; their lips were quivering while whispering a short prayer to the Lord above, that He might spare their health and their lives on that long and dangerous way, and He might help them to establish homes again in that distant land.

O! Those were critical moments; the women were by this time weeping sadly and the men were sitting like lifeless statues staring continually before themselves and now and then large tears would roll down their cheeks. Our teams were slowly pulling away from our little town along the Sulsbach road, and, reaching a short turn in the road, we all turned our faces back and waving our hands, we once more bid farewell to our dear little village, we once more bid a last farewell to our native home. Our teamsters now increased their speed and the wagons rolled on faster and faster till sometime after dinner we arrived in the town called Fuhrbach. This was the nearest point for us to reach the railroad. We made a few hours halt here and sometime that evening we took the train. Railroad travel went slow those days and we did not reach the city of Paris till next morning.

We stopped a few hours in this city; while here we took in some of the sights among the rest we visited the great Cathedral Notre Dame. I well remember us being in that Notorious Church but I can describe nothing of it as our time was too short.

In the evening we took the train for the sea-port Harve. We reached that place the next day; arriving there we were told that the vessel on which the Maure party took passage had just left the harbor the day previous, and so we were compelled to stay there until another vessel got ready for a trip. We remained there several days and as there was no passenger ship in the harbor they fitted out a freight vessel with temporary bedsteads such as they were but we had a great time in that place.

While there we lodged in a hotel where there was only room for half so many people. By this time there were several more families from near our home who joined our party and who were also going to America. We all wanted to stay together, but we got in misery at this hotel, at night we were packed together like sardines in a box. We laid crossways in the beds, eight or nine in every one of what beds were there and the floor was also covered with people. Of course we all had to sleep with our clothes on no matter what our dreams would be. We also got only half enough to eat. The landlord was doing big business for his own benefit, but it did not last long.

The third day a gentleman came to the hotel and made inquiries for some persons by the name of Kurtz, he said he saw those names at the ship office. My father and his brothers were pointed out to him and he introduced himself as Lewis Zintz, and proved to be a cousin of my mother who had been in this city from his boyhood up to that time. He was well educated and had big influence with the higher class of people; he started in conversation with our folks and soon learned how unjustly we were handled at this hotel.

He at once went away, took two or three of the men with him and in a very short time he led them into a hotel where he seemed to be well acquainted. Here Mr. Zintz made arrangements for our whole party to take up quarters for the rest of our stay in that city. We paid our bills at the first place and that same day we all gathered ourselves up and went to our new quarters. At this second hotel we found everything first class; it was a very large building, with a great many bed- rooms. We got all the rooms and all the beds necessary for our accommodations; got good meals and suitable food for the old folks and the small children. We were there four or five days and we boys got pretty well acquainted in and around the place; we all had a good supply of marbles and during the day we would be in the alley playing marbles.

While so doing we made the acquaintance of a French boy who would come to us every day and play with us. He seemed to be a good boy and we all took a great liking to him, but he seemed so queer and odd to us because we could all speak to one another and he alone could not speak to us nor understand us when we spoke; we thought it a great pity, "the poor boy" we would say "He can't speak to anybody nor understand anybody". We looked at him as a deaf and dumb boy and when one of us won a marble from him we would always give it back again so he also thought we were good boys. After a few days we were notified that the vessel which we were waiting for was in readiness. The men now went to pay the hotel bills which were made very reasonable by the influence of Mr. Zintz.

On the morning of March 25, we went on board of ship and in the afternoon of that same day the vessel pulled out from the harbor. It was a bright day and the sun was shining bright and warm; we saw the city of Harve which we were just leaving, a little farther on we saw the long country roads winding from place to place and from town to town. Looking the other direction we saw nothing but water and far out it seemed as if the sky and water joined together. The ship was moving along slowly, by and by we could scarcely recognize the city; the buildings seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and at last it seemed to be only a dark cloud in the eastern horizon. As we were now pulling along the English Channel we could still see land on both sides; to the left, the coast of France and to the right the coast of England. But after a little while, it all disappeared and there was nothing more to be seen excepting here and there a small boat engaged in getting oysters from the deep waters.

The vessel we were on was a common sailing vessel. Steam ships were at that time very few; those that were in existence charged such high fare that scarcely any person could take passage on them, therefore sailing vessels were the only ships that emigrants would ride on. Our vessel was in pretty good condition, not being very old and everything being put in good order; the name of it was Seawhale. It had been taking a cargo of merchandise to Havre, and now it is on the way to New York with about two hundred passengers from all parts of Germany.

In the bottom of the vessel they had put tons of cobble-stones, such as cities use for paving streets and alleys, these stones were for balancing the ship and keeping it in proper position. On top of the stones there was a temporary floor; on this there were a number of barrels filled with water for cooking and drinking on the way. Then there was another floor called the middle deck. This place was occupied by the passengers; there were two rows of bunks along each side one row above the other, where the people slept; and along the center were put the trunks belonging to the passengers and they were fastened to the floor, to keep them from rolling over and over and injuring the people when the ship was thrown from side to side by the rolling waves of the ocean. Next in order comes the top deck. Here there is a row of cabins along the center of the ship but there is plenty of room for people to walk about on both sides. These cabins were occupied by the sailors and officers of the ship; one being for the captain, another for the sailors, another for the kitchen and so on. Between those cabins in three different places we find tremendous masts rising from the bottom of the ship up through all the floors and on up, high in the air, where they are rigged up with numerous ropes and sails, from the deck up to the very top. A sailing vessel rigged up in full bloom is a beautiful sight to look at.

We had by this time lost all signs of land; the sun had disappeared in the west and the night had begun to throw its dark shadows over the ocean water. The passengers were now beginning to get very sick; you could see them standing around everywhere and leaning against something to brace them up. I am not positive whether it is the moving and swinging of the ship and the people not being used to it that causes them to get sick. However it is a general occurrence that people crossing the ocean get sick; this sickness is called sea-sickness. It took about a week till some of the people began to get well and some were sick all the while we were crossing the water.

Some few were not affected by this sickness and my father was one of these, but all the others of our family took sick. I was also dragging and staggering about for a week or more but I pulled through the rest all right.

In general we were all getting along as well as could be expected; the most trouble we had was about cooking our meals. In later years passengers on the ocean were furnished with their boarding on the ships and the rates were fixed accordingly, but in early days when I came over everybody had to board themselves. We had a large box of provisions such as crackers, smoked meat, potatoes, beans, coffee and a few other things. The cooking was done on the top deck where there was a hearth at which only two or three could cook at the same time and everyone was to take his turn. The people would wait and wait on one another and sometimes one would slip in before his turn then there was a racket right there and then and perhaps some one would get a coffee-pot over his head for the winding up. We were also obliged to be very saving with the water as we could not always get the required supply. The water in those barrels in the bottom of the ship was supposed to answer until we reached land again no matter how long that might take.

We had good luck for about three weeks; the wind was in our favor and we were moving along at a fast rate but finally our luck changed. On the night of April 14 we met with a terrible storm. The day was clear and warm but in the evening dark clouds appeared in the north-west. The captain seemed to be excited and was rushing from place to place giving orders to the sailors who were running every direction; some climbing up the masts like cats, loosening sails and pulling them in, others were pulling on tackles and all were in a great hurry. The passengers had no idea what it all meant; they were all ordered from the deck and had to go down into the ship in order to make room for the sailors to work. Those sailors and officers all spoke the English language excepting one who could speak German but he was not allowed to speak to us at all times, especially when there was any trouble on hand. Therefore we could not find out what the trouble was on that evening but we managed to see that they were pulling in every sail on the three masts and wrapping them as tight as possible. Then we thought they were preparing for a storm.

About a half hour later the ship was swinging terrible from side to side, the waves were splashing terribly all over the deck and now and then the water would come down the stairway in streams through the doors. Everything was closed as well as possible to keep the water from getting in the ship, and also to keep the passengers from going up on deck. We had a fearful night. The storm lasted several hours and the ship was entirely helpless. Sometimes we thought we were going to be drowned, then again it seemed as if the ship was tossed about in the air. The people were praying and screaming and every moment seemed to be our last. We thought the ship with every living soul would be buried in the bottom of that terrible ocean.

The next morning the wind was more calm and by daylight we were allowed to go up on deck again. This was on a Saturday. The sun began to shine bright again but the air was much different than the day before; it was that cold that the people could scarcely stand it on the top deck. Everybody thought it was very strange to see the sun rise in a different direction (as we thought) but the change was not the sun, it was in the way the ship was turned for the night previous. The storm had driven us from the proper course and had chased our vessel hundreds of miles to the north. This was the cause of it being so cold and our ship being turned a different way than before.

About ten o'clock that morning we saw something away out on the water shining like the sun itself; no one knew what it was and as it came nearer it got larger and larger. When it got within about two miles from the ship it seemed to be about as high and as large as a three story building and white as china; some one asking the German sailor to tell us what it was he said it was an iceberg. Then we partly knew what it was and yet we were too ignorant to form an idea but finally we got satisfaction. It came within about one hundred yards from us and we saw with astonishment that it really was nothing else but a tremendous chunk of pure ice about forty feet high above the water, and two thirds were supposed to be under water.

It was wonderful to us; no one of us had ever seen such a thing before. That afternoon, the next day, on Easter Sunday, and on Monday we got a chance to see plenty of them of different sizes, large and small. They became so numerous that there were half dozen or more in sight at any time for three days and nights and our ship was in great danger for some of those ice-bergs came so close that only by very good management the ship could be prevented from suffering collision. On Monday we got so surrounded with those terrible things that one came rubbing along the side of the ship making it tremble all over, and the old German sailor said to us "That fellow came rather close, if he would have scratched us a little harder in the ribs our tub would have sailed to the ground right here". After this trouble we got along all right again.

A few days after that we again saw something at a great distance but no one could tell what it might be. One of the officers climbed away up one of the masts and looked at it through a spy-glass. After he came down we saw him give orders to some of the sailors who went in a hurry and hoisted a flag on the main mast. We all watched him anxiously to see what new danger this might be; it also looked white and nearly like the icebergs but not as bright and glossy. A short time after it looked like a few white handkerchiefs spread out in an upright manner on the water seeming to get larger and larger. In about a half hour we could see they were sails like those on our ship; a flag was waiving above them. The ship seemed to be coming closer and the sailors on our ship by this time were drawing in sails to bring our ship as near to a stand still as possible.

After a while we could see the full sails of a three masted vessel and everybody was getting excited to find out what was going to be done. By and by we could see the vessel making its appearance and a little while longer it got close enough for us to recognize the whole ship. It came within about a half mile and we saw the men lowering a small boat into which six men went and rowed towards us. The sea was quite rough and the water was rolling in great waves. Our eyes were now fixed continually on this little boat and our hearts were beating fast for fear of them getting drowned. Sometimes the little boat was away up on top of a wave and we could see them well, the next moment it would be down between the waves and entirely out of sight. "O! They have sunk" everybody would say, but the next minute they would pop up again and all were filled with joy. But again, it would disappear behind a large wave and the cry was heard that they were surely lost now, but the poor fellows appeared again and again, and came closer and closer until at last they reached our ship and everybody shouted and cheered.

Our sailors dropped the one end of a rope down to the men and the latter fastened it to their little boat. They then took hold of the rope and climbed up to the deck of our ship. They also hoisted up from their boat two or three large sacks of coffee on our ship and our officers gave them boxes of crackers and smoked meat in return. They lowered the provisions and the men down into their boat again and the latter rowed the dangerous way back to their vessel.

We then only found out what it all meant, for we were told that the strange vessel had been damaged in a storm and delayed for a long time during which they ran short of provisions. They had a cargo of coffee and so they came to our ship and exchanged some for other provisions. We could find out things better now than we did previous to this. There was a passenger on board, a young man, well built and possessed of a great deal of spunk. He made himself useful on ship wherever he saw a chance he would give a helping hand to the sailors and while so doing the German sailor would give him the news and he would explain things to us. We now sailed on a few days more until we met another ship. This one was altogether different looking than the first one; it looked so odd and strange, so dark and suspicious; it had no flag hoisted to signify peace and friendship; it came straight towards us, and by so doing met us in a short time.

Before it came near, our captain ordered every man from the inside of the ship to appear on the top deck at once. When they were there he placed them all over the deck in such a way that they could be well seen from the other ship; some of the officers were getting ready for operation, two small guns which our ship carried. The black looking boat passed us by at a distance of about one hundred yards. We could see a party of men on its deck, but one could see plainly that they were no passengers; no one said a word and no one made any motion with a hand or hat to show friendship and we were well pleased to see the pirates disappearing at a distance, for the occupants of that black looking vessel were pirates.

I will here ask the reader to place due confidence in me, as I am making all those statements according to my personal knowledge. I saw it all and although I was but eight years of age at that time and now am fifty-three I remember it all very well and will never forget it to the longest day I live.

Our ship was now making good time, everything went all right and now we began to think about land. Every morning we looked for the cherry trees of America, which we thought would be in blossom at this time. Day after day passed by and we were getting tired of the long and wearisome ride which had already lasted over four weeks and no telling how long it may last yet. What worried me most of all was that I was so badly disappointed with my marbles, for I could never play with them on the ship. If they had been square, they would have been all right but because they were round they were no good, they would not lay still anywhere because the ship rocked more or less at all times, and the marbles would roll all over the deck, and often roll out through the holes that were in the sides to drain the water off and that would be the last of them.

A few other things I must mention for the benefit of my friends, and in order to give a little knowledge to those that will never have the experience of such a ride themselves. We had two deaths on our ship while coming across; one child and one old man. I saw both getting buried; the man died first. The sailors acted as minister and undertaker; the corpse was wrapped in a white sheet and laid on a broad plank, then lifted up on the edge of the ship and held there for a few moments while the people whispered a short prayer; then the one end of the plank was raised up and the corpse slid off and down into the deep waters of the ocean. The little child was handled the same. Their wet grave could never be visited by their friends afterward.

Another occurrence I saw on board which excited us greatly was the following. One day when a large number of passengers were on deck sitting around batting about different things, we saw the cook walking along the ship from the bow. He was a tall mulatto (at least we thought he was one by his appearance) he did the cooking for the crew. We took a great liking to him because he gave us boys little bits to eat of what was left from their table. As he was coming along we also saw the captain coming from the opposite direction and when he met the cook he hit the latter, knocked him down, kicked him and tramped on him till we thought there was every bone in his body broken to pieces; then the captain drew cuffs from his pocket and put them on the poor fellows hands and walked away. A few minutes later the first mate came and took the man away and locked him up. We did not see him till the third day after.

The first mate was the highest officer under the captain, he was a man weighing about two hundred pounds, with a red face and very robust; he often handled the sailors very roughly, I saw him beat them terribly at different times. Some of them would get drunk occasionally. Where they got the drink I do not know but it was rumored that they coaxed the passengers for some whiskey. One old Irish sailor in particular would get drunk every now and then; I saw the first mate hammer him till he was not able to walk and then lock him up in a little coop in the bow of the ship.

During the fifth and sixth week of our ride we would often, in the morning when the German sailor came downstairs, ask him about the cherry tree, whether it was in sight yet, but the answer would always be "No, not yet." One morning he came down and the question being put to him he said "Whenever I see it I will tell you in time so you can all see it." A few days after he came down in the morning as usual and standing on the steps called at the top of his voice "Cheer up everybody for this is the day we have so long waited for, this is the day you will all see the cherry trees of America." Everybody went on deck but we could see nothing and we thought the old fellow had been fooling us but about ten o'clock we saw the captain standing at the bow of the ship with a spy-glass, that gave us a little hope.

After dinner we saw something like a dark cloud away ahead; about an hour later we could plainly see something but we scarcely believed our own eyes and yet it was true that it was land. There never was a happier set of people than we were; Christopher Columbus by the discovery of land in the new world could not have been happier than we were this day. By this time the crew were busy in the hoisting the United States flag and several other flags which were signals of some kind; they also drew in all sails.

About three o'clock a small steamer appeared and came up to our ship and our sailors pitched out one end of a rope about three inches thick. With this rope they hitched our ship to the steamer and the latter pulled us into New York Bay, where our crew dropped anchor and the steamer left us. At this place we remained that night. The next day about noon a steamer approached us again and moved in close to the side of our ship; a foot walk was then placed from our ship to the other. Then we all gave thanks and a hearty good-bye to the crew of our ship, and to the ship itself which we had occupied for six long weeks and which carried us three thousand miles over that fearful water of the Atlantic; then we walked over on to the little steamer, which carried us safe to the landing at New York. This was the forty-second day since we left the coast of France and the fifth day of May 1854.

When we stepped from the steamer you could hear from dozens of lips the words, "Thank God, we have once more solid bottom under our feet." But it seemed so queer; We had got used to the swinging of the ship that we thought we must always catch hold of something to keep us from falling as we walked along. We now went to a hotel and took dinner. While there we heard sad news; we were informed that the Maure people that left home a few days before us were all drowned and that the ship they were on came a short distance of New York, but during a heavy storm ran into a rock and was so damaged that she began to fill up with water at once, and the crew giving signal, a schooner came to their rescue but in vain, for the storm was so terrible that the little steamer could not get near; it approached again and again but the wind and the waves would toss it about so that no help could be given and the ship sunk with every living person on it.

While yet speaking of this sad affair, a tall gentleman came walking into the room where a lot of us were; he was no one else than the first mate of our ship. He came to us and with a fine German tongue began speaking, which surprised every one there, but he got no chance to say much till a man put a question to him as to why he did not speak German on the ship. He answered, "I will tell you." The captain was my superior; he gave all orders to me. I had to carry them out by all means. I had to guard and keep watch over everybody and everything. We undertook to bring you people across the ocean though our ship was no passenger ship; accommodations were not as they should have been, but under the circumstances I did all in my power to make everything as convenient as possible and as the sailors generally are a rough class of men, I always kept a watchful eye on them to see that you were treated with respect and kindness; I supplied your sick medicine and gave a helping hand whenever I could. But if you would have known that I speak German you would have troubled me at all times with all kinds of questions, and I could not have attended to my business without more or less neglect. I often stood or walked on deck when you folks thought I had nothing to do while at the same time my eyes and mind were engaged with my duty.

The folks on hearing this state-ment seemed to be satisfied and thanked him for his kindness, but he said "It is a little more than thanks I want; it is a favor I want from you. I have made application for a higher position and by getting the signatures from some of the passengers on my papers I will be elevated to the office of captain." The men seemed to be willing to give him their names, but one old man got up and said "I think you are too cruel with sailors; if you get to be captain you will whip them more than you did on our ship". Then the mate said "I am well aware that you folks think harm of me for punishing those men as I did, but supposing our ship met with a storm , an iceberg, a sand bank or supposing we met some other vessel on a stormy or a foggy day and some of the crew were staggering or lying about intoxicated with drink, what would be the consequences; I could not call on you if you were ever so willing for none of you could climb up those masts and away out on the cross beams and do the work".

One of the passengers said "I could not go up there anyhow." Another said "I would not crawl on one of those for the price of the ship". The mate said "And the intoxicated sailors could not. The result would be a wet grave at the bottom of the sea for each and everyone. We have no civil law and no other law on the waters to make those men obedient and here in the city we have no time to make information and bring them to justice for a crime. We must simply take the law into our own hands when we are at sea, and punish them at once and so keep the controlling power over them." The men all agreed and signed their names to the paper. Then the officer bid us all good-bye and left the hotel. That same afternoon we took the train for Pittsburg Pennsylvania where we arrived safe and sound on May 7.

MY BOYHOOD IN AMERICA

In Pittsburg we took quarters at the European Hotel on Liberty Street, where the Union Depot now stands. The first day me and some of the boys were in the back yard where a horse stable stood. There we saw a man feeding horses with corn, it was the first indian-corn I ever saw; it was on ears. We looked and wondered; we walked up close so that we could see it right. The man seeing how we were surprised, gave each of us a small ear of it and Oh how we wondered at it! "How yellow!" we would say. "How hard the grains are and how nice they are in rows!" I wish I had mine yet; It would be a good relic.

On Sunday morning we all went to the St. Philomina Church on Liberty Street, where it is at the present time. There we met three or four men whom some of our folks knew; they were from Fishbach and came to this country a year before; their name was Plank and some of them are now in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. From Church we all went to the hotel, took dinner and a short time after the Plank family left for their homes, taking my father and two or three others with them to where they lived to secure work and houses for us. On Monday evening they came back and on Tuesday a team was hired, our trunks piled on the wagon and off we started again.

Up to the day of our departure from the hotel our party had stayed together, but now getting employment in different places; we were forced to separate. Some went to the south-side Pittsburg and some to McKeesport; my uncle Andrew and family went to Sixmile-ferry. All stayed in Allegheny County Pa. at this time. My uncle Nicholas and family remained with our family. Our team pulled out from the city and on up along the Monongahela River about eight miles to a place called "Brownstown" at that time; it was close by the river. There were two coal mines there operated by W. H. Brown.

A number of common frame houses were standing along the road and we halted at one of them occupied by Peter Plank; we took dinner with those people and then made arrangements to get to our new home.

The mines were near the top of a hill which was called Squirrel-hill, from which there were inclines built down to the river for running the coal down. To one of those inclines we took our trunks and an old black-smith named John Leadbeater helped us to load them on the car. Myself and the rest of the family walked up following a small foot path till we got a little over half way up the hill where we found our baggage already unloaded. At that place there is a level spot where three houses stood, two frame, one on each side of the incline and a little farther away a log house. One of the frame houses being vacant we took possession of it.

We were now in America, in this new world, in this land of liberty; we had a place to stay and a house to live in but how odd and strange everything seemed to us. Those wooden houses where the floor would shake under your feet and how different this hill-side was from the hillside we left behind us beyond the Atlantic. This place looked so wild, with all kinds of trees and shrubbery mixed, half broken down trees some green and some dead; the ground was covered with old trees, limbs, stumps and stones so that a person could scarcely walk through.

At the bottom of the hill along the river was a wagon road or what in these days called a "plank road". The planks were partly decayed some of them good and some of them wore through by the wagon-wheels leaving holes which would be filled with mud and water.

At the other side of the river where Homestead is now, there were two of three farms having quite level fields and the grass and grain looked good, but such a condition as they were in! We thought it horrible; all those fences running in every direction over the lands, we thought those farmers were very foolish for running these fences in such a zig zag and waste so much ground. And then all the bushes, stumps and stones along the fences and in the fields even in some places there were large heaps of stones in the center of the fields. We would say "If those farms were in the old country they would not look like that; the people there would clear them off nicely and make better farms of them.". We now made arrangements to go into housekeeping, but God knows what circumstances we were in, all we had was what we brought with us in our trunks; some bed clothes, a few clothes to wear and a few articles of tin-ware which we had for use on the ship. We also brought with us a few books one of them being an old mission-book printed in 1772. Father had also packed in the trunk some tools, such as a saw, an ax, a hatchet, some augers and the lamp which he carried to the mines in the old country. The lamp has my fathers initials on it, J.K. and the date 1845. The lamp and mission-book I have in my possession at the present time. Besides those few things we had nothing in God's world. Father had paid $240 fare for our family on the ship. Our provisions, railroad fare and other expenses took all the money he had and consequently we spread our beds on the floor to sleep on.

Father started working in the coal mines; at the same time he got some old lumber about the mine and in the evenings he worked at it making bedsteads, a table and some benches, and in the course of time we had a fine set of furniture. Provisions we got at Mr. Brown's store. We were now getting along all right for about six weeks when the works shut down because the water in the river was getting too low for shipping the coal. Then father was idle all summer till sometime in the fall when the work started again.

During this time I had plenty of time to play marbles and looking for birds nests. But one day the neighbor's boy asked me to go with him to school. Then mother packed a little bucket for me and away we went to the public school. Me being a stranger and not being able to speak English, the scholars were taunting me a great deal. At noon when I went to eat my dinner it was all gone, someone had stolen it. I stayed all day without a bite to eat and that was my first day and last day at that school, for I could not be coaxed nor forced to go again. We lived there till some time the next winter when there was a party sold out to go west. From them we bought some furniture such as bedsteads, a table , bureau and some chairs. We also moved into a house which they vacated.

This was at the lower end of the little town and close by the river; There were about ten small log houses there hence the place was called Logstown. There are three or four of these houses there to this day but the one we lived in is no more. This was a cold winter; the river froze up in the fore part of the winter while we lived on the hill but opened about Christmas and then froze up again in the later part when we lived at the foot of the hill. This time it froze so solid that teams would haul over it; brother John and I crossed over it several times when we went to see uncle Andrew, who lived on the other side at Sixmile-ferry.

While living in that place I met with an accident in a peculiar way; once brother John was pitching wood down the hill to the house and I was just coming out of the door I was hit with a piece in the face. Such a terrible lick I never got in all my life before; I thought I saw the stars in London, and the blood was streaming from my mouth and nose, but the first thing I did, I begged pardon for John and said he could not help it.

Another day I met with an accident of a different nature; this was in the spring when the river was open. John and I were playing at the river. We nailed some old boards together like a raft and we stood on it and with a pole we pushed it along. The neighbor woman saw us and informed my mother about it, told her how dangerous it was and how deep the water is at that place; mother came running to the river and ordered us off from those boards at once. John ran away up the hill but I stood the ground and mother caught me by the arm and marched me along double quick and with a good sized stick kept beating my coat-tail all the way home. At the house she danced me around awhile always telling me "That is for boat riding on the river" and then she left me go. That was my first experience of boat riding on the Monongehela River. John came home sometime in the afternoon when he thought mother's excitement was over but he danced more rounds than I did before he got clear; he had to settle his case for the boat riding and also for running away.

It was now some time in the month of June; the river was getting low and the work shut down as it did every summer and in the winter they also shut down on account of the ice on the water. This way of working did not agree with circumstances, so father and uncle Nicholas made up their minds to leave this place and find some place where work was more regular. Uncle Andrew and the Plank Brothers also said they would go along.

Teams were hired to bring the furniture to Pittsburg, where we all took the train on the Pennsylvania Rail Road. Uncle Andrew and the Planks went to the top of the mountains to the old Portage Road, our family and Uncle Nick stopped at Johnstown Pennsylvania, where we rented a house on what is now called Adams Street. But times were bad in Johnstown; The Cambria Iron Works were doing nothing. If I am not mistaken they were idle on account of the mill being burnt down. This was June 1855.

We lived in this place two weeks and then father said we would go up the mountain where the other families are. We took the cars again and went as far as Cresson, from which place we walked up the pike to the Summit, a bright little town at that time which the Portage Rail-road passed. From here the pike still goes on up the hill a half mile then down on the other side, down the mountain all the way to Hollidaysburg. But, the Portage road ran from the Summit on a level around the hill a distance of one mile to No. 6 Incline Plane. We walked along this road a short distance away from the town and then sat down on a log to rest ourselves. While sitting there the engineer stopped and told us to get on. We crawled on the cars and rode on to No. 6 Plane where we got off and walked a few steps over to the pike; there we saw a few houses along the road and in a short time we found where uncle Andrew lived. This was about fifty yards below the Cambria County line in Blair County Pa. The house in which Uncle Andrew lived had six rooms, four of them being vacant. These four we rented and the next day when we got our furniture we took possession of them, our family and uncle Nick, two rooms each. The men all got work in the mines owned by John and Robert Lemon.

For the benefit of my younger friends I will here say a few words of explanation which you will seldom find in history.

THE PIKE AND PORTAGE ROAD

In the latter part of the eighteenth century when Pittsburg was building up to a bright little manufacturing town there was great trouble on account of not having any business connection with the eastern cities, there being no rail-roads and not even a wagon-road to give them a chance to ship anything to Philadelphia or New York, nor to get any merchandise from those cities.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a charter granted for building a turn pike in order to have a way for transportation with teams across the Allegheny mountains. This pike was then built and is in existence at the present time; it runs from Pittsburgh to East Liberty, to Wilkinsburg, to Turtle Creek, to Greensburg, to Latrobe, to Blairsville, to Armaugh, to Ebensburg, to Cresson, to the Summit and then down the mountain to Hollidaysburg and on to Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

On this road teams would be about two weeks making a trip. It required good men for teaming those days, one or two could not undertake the road for fear of getting robbed. This slow and dangerous hauling was carried on about twenty-five years. Emigrants wishing to go west would travel this road; anything and everything was shipped along this road. Live stock was gathered up all over the state by drovers and drivers along this way to the eastern cities.

In 1831-32 a canal was built from Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River to Freeport, then along the Kiskiminetas River to Blairsville and on up along the Conemaugh River to Johnstown. This canal was a narrow channel about ten feet wide and deep enough to hold from three to four feet of water for boats to run on. Some places where a steep hill is close to the river there were dams built in the river to back the water and the boats were run along in the river, then there was a narrow road a little wider than an ordinary foot path all along for the mules that were pulling the boats to walk along. There were generally three mules hitched to a boat one ahead of another. This road was called a tow path.

The boats were different from any other canal boats in the country; because every boat was built in three sections, but when in the water the three sections were so coupled together that they had the proper shape of a boat, the front part having a sharp bow and the rear section having a stern, the front part was sometimes used for a mule-stable, the middle for baggage and the rear for a cabin. East of the mountain there was also a canal built from Hollidaysburg to some of the eastern cities.

To connect traffic of those two canals there was at the same time a rail-road built across the mountain called Portage Rail-road. This road was constructed by building ten incline planes which were known by numbers from one to ten; five of these inclines were built up hill from Johnstown to the Summit, and five were from that point down hill to Hollidaysburg.

At the top of these inclines there were stationary engines, and a two inch wire cable by which the cars were run up and down the planes. Between these planes there were several miles of level track where the cars were run by locomotive. The latter were small and had only one driving wheel on each side; the cars were also small about ten feet in length and running on four wheels the track on the level was very solid; stones two feet square were set in the ground for ties, two rows, one for each rail; they were set apart about two feet in the rows; here and there a stone long enough to reach both rails was put down. In every stone two one inch holes were drilled about seven inches deep and filled with wood.

On top of the stones were put cast irons called chairs which also had two holes in to match those in the stones. Large nails were driven into these holes and so the chairs fastened on top of the stone; there was a slot from the top down in those chairs where the rail was set in and keyed tight with a flat iron wedge. The rail was a great deal like the upright part and the head of a T-rail.

In Johnstown and Hollidaysburg tracks were laid down into water of the canal where low flat cars were run in under water and the boats put on them, one section on a car, and this is why the boats were built in sections. In this way three cars were required for one boat, and three such cars were run up and down the inclines at a time. The mule team was in the front section all the way over the mountains.

The Portage Rail-road was located on level ground from Johnstown up along the Conemaugh River the distance of about three miles to where No. 1 Incline was; at the head of this incline a tunnel was built through the hill with very handsome stone work at each end, which can be seen yet. Though it is now surrounded with wilderness trees and shrubbery of all kinds, it looks odd and ornamental. Some of the stones having the corners hammered off by visitors getting spawls for relics; it is an interesting sight for anyone who is a lover of seeing old-time structures. I have myself a spawl of it in my possession, which I brought from there in 1897.

From this tunnel the road ran on a level about thirteen miles to where Sunman Station now is on the Pennsylvania Rail-road, there was No. 2 Incline, a short distance from that was No. 3, about two miles from that No. 4, where Lilly is now; three miles from this place was No. 5 and at the head of this incline is the Summit. No. 4 & No. 5 inclines and the level between is now used for a wagon road.

To give a proper under-standing about the "Summit" I must state this is a small village bearing that name, which was given it because it is located on the top of the mountain. From the Summit there is one mile level along the Portage, then No. 6 Incline; at the foot of it here is about two hundred yards of a level to No. 7 from there a few miles to No. 8, from the bottom of this plane to Hollidaysburg I am not acquainted, but the distance is about six or seven miles and No. 9 and No. 10 Incline Planes were located in that section. The Rail-road and the turnpike ran the same course and close together from the Summit down between the mountains to Hollidaysburg.

When we lived at No. 6 I saw day after day how the cars were run up and down the plane with the section boats on and the mules looking out of the window of the front section. I also saw during the summer a great many droves of live-stock passing along the pike all going east. Cattle were simply driven along, also pigs and sheep, but horses and mules were together two by two and a long rope run along between them to which they were fastened, forming a string sometimes about fifty yards long. Geese and turkeys were driven along by one man with a sack of corn taking the lead and now and then dropping a few grains to the ground another man drove them along in the rear.

We were now getting along all right in our new home, but it lasted only a few weeks. One morning some of the folks were rather excited about what they said happened that night. I haven't much faith in tokens, but I remember how they spoke together that morning; one party said that they heard voices at a distance singing hymns, another party claimed they heard knocking somewhere about the house; and another said they heard a racket and thought the kitchen cupboard with all the dishes had fell over. At noon the men came home for their dinner, as we lived close to the mines.

Uncle Andrew seemed to not feel well and his wife asked him to stay at home, but he thought he would get all right after working awhile. So he went to work; at about three o'clock in the afternoon came the sad news of an accident at the works, and a short time after uncle Andrew was brought home dead. Peter Plank and a man by the name of Jim Jenfer were also killed, a fourth one was badly injured. The men were about getting ready to go home and waiting on each other in order that they might go home together; just that moment a large piece of rock fell on them causing a terrible accident. The funerals of the three men that were killed took place at one and the same day; in the Catholic grave-yard at the Summit. This was a sad affair and was spoken of years after.

In those days there was at the Summit, a large hotel on the north-east corner where the Portage Rail-road crossed over the pike, kept by Mr. Riffle; his wife and himself sympathized greatly with those people who were affected by the accident, so they hired my aunt and her two children who lived there until some time after when aunt got married again to Ferdinand Simendinger. They moved to Pittsburg then, where they have since died. The two children grew up and got married. Mary got married to Lewis Sander and John to Elizabeth Schults; both raised families.

Our family and Uncle Nick and family remained at No. 6. That summer during the latter of July and the fore part of August I went with the neighboring children and women out on the mountain picking huckle berries. We went out day after day during the season. We would start out early in the morning and come back in the afternoon and then go to the Summit or Cresson and sell the berries at six cents a quart. Some days we went direct south from where we lived out in the woods, other days we got on the coal cars and went down to the foot of No. 6 and from there go out on the mountain, coming back also on the cars. Odd days I would go with my father to work in the mines.

In the Fall when school started I went to school, but school terms then only lasted three months. I liked to go to that school because the children were very sociable and the teacher was a kind old man.

That winter was a very cold one, and I saw more snow than ever before or after. Our house stood a little lower than the pike, and the snow reached the upper sash at the windows. My brother and I made a tunnel under the snow from the front door around the side of the house to the backyard. It snowed early in the winter and snowed and blew almost continually; it all kept lying on the ground. Sometimes the sun shone bright and softened the snow on the top, then it would freeze very hard at night and form a crust so that a man could walk on it, then snow on top of it again.

We boys had a great time sleigh-riding, in fact that was the best place for that purpose I ever knew. We would go to the top of the hill between No. 6 and the Summit, and we could ride for miles down the pike. That winter the old Portage Road stopped, and stopped ever after. This caused the coal mines at that place also to stop, and we were compelled to leave there again.

We hired a team and piled our furniture on the sleigh and started up the pike to the Summit, from there down along the Portage R.R. to the foot of No. 4, hauling along the level from No. 5 to No. 4 we could scarcely see the top of the fence posts above the snow. This was on the 18th day of April, that notorious winter of 1855-56. A great many old people this day remember that winter, but are not certain what year it was. Circumstances placed it into my memory and it always remained there.

Previous to this in 1851-53, the Pennsylvania Rail-road was built from Pittsburg to Philadelphia on a level grade over the mountains. This road runs up grade from Johnstown to Gallitzin, that being the highest point on the road. They cut through the hill by building a long tunnel at that place, from which it then runs down grade at Altoona. This road was a great improvement to this part of the country.

Later in 1854-55 the Portage Co. also built a level Road across the mountains, at Gallitzin they also built a tunnel a few hundred yards south from the Penna. tunnel. From the east end of those two tunnels the P.R.R. turns to the left and the New Portage R.R. to the right, winding around the hill to where it strikes the pike and the Old Portage Road at No. 6 Plane, crossing over both at that place, and winding along the hillside on down to Hollidaysburg. From the tunnel westwards it ran along at the side of the P.R.R. to the neighborhood of South Fork, from where they used the Penn. Road to Johnstown. When this New Portage Road was put in operation they stopped all traffic on the old road; and a short time after the Penn. Co. bought all claims and interest of Portage Co. They tore up both the old and new roads and that was the last of the Portage Rail-road and also of the canal. This was 1856.

At this time we lived at the foot of No. 4. During that summer while berry picking was in season I went with the folks picking huckle berries; now and then I went with father to work in the mines. The following winter I went to the public school. I learned pretty well during the short term, and advanced to the third reader and in other classes the same in pro-portion. I had no trouble with the teacher and the scholars were very sociable. They were not so bad and wild as they generally are in larger towns and cities. By this time I could speak English freely and so got along all right.

There was lots of fun for boys, and it was there where I spent the happiest days of my boyhood. There was a tannery there at that time and with the waste tanbark they had covered about two acres of ground; we called this the tan-yard. This was the play-ground for the school as the school house stood close by it; this was also the general play-ground for the village. By this tan-yard there was also a large pond of water dammed up to supply the tannery. This was a great place for bathing in the summer and skating in the winter.

There was a boy going to school by the name of Conners, he was about my size and age and he and I would often be wrestling. We were so well matched that neither of us was best. Sometimes all the scholars and even the teacher would watch us, but all in good humor, neither of us ever getting angry, and the soft tanbark saved us from getting injured. I was at this time eleven years of age. I had very light hair and red cheeks, and was a stout healthy boy with a smile on my face for everybody that was kind and true to me. My clothes were common, but I always kept myself clean and respectable. I was well liked by everyone at school. Among the scholars were three girls that were about sixteen years of age, they were handsome and always well dressed, belonging to rich families. Their names were Mary Brady, Bessie Scott and Emma Sharp. These girls would at every opportunity chat and joke with me. One day they wanted to find out which of them I thought the prettiest.

Mary said "Conrad, I am better looking than those two girls; am I not?".

"Oh, I don't know" was my reply.

Bessie then said "You would rather have me than one of them wouldn't you?"

"I don't want any of you" I said.

"Well, then, tell us which of us is the nicest girl.".

I said "Emma is," and they had a hearty laugh.

Then Emma said "I must give you a good kiss for that compliment," and she caught hold of me and kissed me, but I quickly pulled out my handkerchief and rubbed my cheek as if she had smeared it with apple butter. Then came another good laugh.

During this school-term there was a lady keeping Sunday-school in this same building. I attended it regularly and the catechism I used there I have in my possession this day. The nearest Church we could go to was at the Summit; odd times I went to Loretto Church by which occasion I saw at the front of that Church the Tomb of the famous priest Father Gallitzin, the Russian Prince of whom history of Cambria Co. Pa. gives full particulars.

The following spring I acted as servant boy for Richard White, a wealthy gentleman who lived next house to us; he was a brother to the present Judge White of Indiana County Pa. My work was to bring coal and wood into the kitchen and at meal time I would go about a quarter of a mile for a pitcher of fresh spring water for the table. He always kept a horse for going out riding; this horse I would take across the tan-yard twice a day to the creek for water. Mr. White said I might ride the horse that distance, which I did. But one day, I was riding him across the tan-yard when some one made a sudden noise and the horse made a side jump and off I fell, and the horse ran for the stable. I was lucky enough not to be hurt and I ran after the horse and when I got to the stable, Mr. White was there. I told him what had happened and he laughed and said "The horse wanted to teach you the quickest way to get off". That was my first experience on horse back. For my service to Mr. White I got my meals, which I ate along with the cook. I would sleep at home.

Sometime in the early part of that summer father had some dissatisfaction at his work, and we moved away from the mountains again and went to McKeesport Pa. There we lived on Dravos hill four weeks and then moved back to Squirrel Hill where we first lived when we came to this country; we occupied the log house which I previously mentioned in my history. Uncle Nick and family kept with us all the time. Father and uncle both got work in W.H. Brown's mines. This was in the fall of 1857.

I then started to go to a German school in East Liberty; this was about a four mile walk and a terrible road over hills and hollows, through rain and snow, and sometimes mud knee deep. I walked that road every day for three months and January 31, 1858 I went to first communion at the St. Philomina Church in Pittsburg. At that time I was twelve years of age. I then started to work regularly with father in the mines.

One day the mine boss came and asked me to take a job driving a mule; he said he would pay 50 cents per day, the same as I had been earning with father. I agreed to the proposition and father gave his consent; so I went driving a mule through the first hill of the mines. We called this the tunnel; it was one mile long and so straight that one could see through it from one end to the other. I had nothing to do but sit on the front car and ride in and out. I hauled eight cars in a trip, as the track was good and I had a large mule. All was going on well but one day I met with a painful accident. I started out from the rear end with a trip of full cars, and I stood between the two front cars instead of sitting on the front car, and about midway some slate had fell on the track which caused my front car to run from the track and the whole trip jammed against it, only the bumpers of the cars saving me from getting my legs crushed. But my one foot was caught in such a way that it was held tight, and I could not for anything get loose; it was paining terrible and I could not reach down with my hand to open my shoe to draw the foot out; I could do nothing to liberate myself.

No one would pass through there at that time of day and I was there alone, helpless and pinned tight. I cried and prayed and nothing helped; the oil in my lamp being all burnt my light went out leaving me in the dark and still no help. I could see the men at both ends of the tunnel sitting down waiting for me, but it was too far for them to hear my calling. Those at the front thought my delay was caused by me waiting for full cars and the men at the other end thought I was waiting for empty cars; so they were all waiting for me, but I did not come. My foot was paining worse and worse, sometimes I was afraid the old mule would get contrary and disturb the cars and make things worse, but he was enjoying a good rest and stood still. At last after being there about one and one half hours I took the thought to start the mule, not knowing whether my condition would get better or worse. I called to the mule by his name "Duke" and he began tramping about awhile, not yet eager to start; I studied awhile, not knowing whether or not to run the risk of him pulling on those cars with me in between and not able to move; my foot was paining terribly. "Duke" I called again and this time a little louder than the first time. Duke made a slow pull and I stopped him again instantly. I felt that I was not any worse off. I now moved and twisted my foot and finally got it loose.

I crept out past the front car and tried to walk, but it was as useless as trying to fly; I could put no weight on it whatever. I started to creep on my hands and knees and having no light I kept moving my hands along the rail till at last I got out to daylight. There was only two men there. I told them what had happened and they told me to sit down there while they went in after the mule and the cars but I crept down the hill to where we lived. I could not walk after that for several weeks my foot was so badly bruised.

When my foot was well I went to work again, and everything went all right till one evening as I was riding old Duke to the stable along with the rest of the drivers at a fast speed, we came to where there was a large mud hole in the road and old Duke being a clean sort of a fellow, he made a side jump to pass the mud and I made a side slip and down I went making a half turn on the way and landing on the broad of my back in the center of the mud hole. When I crawled out I saw my mule half way to the stable. I left the other drivers tend to him and I went home.

Mother said "What in the name of goodness happened to you? Did you fall from that old mule? You will break your bones some day.". I said "Don't worry Mother; I am not hurt. Old Duke acted kind enough to lay me down in a soft place."

During the summer when the river was low and we were idle I would spend my time by going in company with brother John into the woods, or out in the country, and to different places to get acquainted; and every day we went bathing in the river, or borrowed a boat and rowed about on the water. In the fall we went gathering walnuts which were very plentiful in the woods. Each of us had one of those woolen caps knitted of yarn and brought from the old country. These we took along to the woods and filled them with nuts, mushrooms and sometimes with apples. They would stretch out and hold about a peck. One day I thought of the good luck I used to have fishing along the mountain streams of Cambria County. Encouraged by the thought I rigged up a pole with a line and hook, and getting a supply of bait such as rain worms, grass hoppers etc. I went to the river and out on a raft; I then put my line into the water and sat down. I sat there a long time watching my line. Nothing touched it and I went to another place with the same result. I changed my bait from one thing to another but even the may-bug I had among the bait caught no fish. Disgusted and weary of such bad luck I threw my entire fishing outfit into the river and never again had any desire for fishing from that day to this.

While living at that place we went to Church at Glenwood, one mile from there. There was no Church building there, but Bishop O'Conner of Pittsburg Diocese had started a Seminary at that place and in that building a sermon was held every Sunday, but Aunt Margaret and I often went to St. Philomina Church in Pittsburg and by doing so arrangements were made for me to go there and study for priest. There were priests and Brothers of the Redemtoreitan Order there. I went there with a good will and with the hope of getting to be a priest. I studied in the forenoon and the balance of the day I helped the Brothers to do all kinds of house work, such as getting in coal and wood, making fire into heating stoves and helping the cook to peel potatoes and wash dishes. One time I assisted one of the Brothers to fix a handsome room for Bishop Newman of Philadelphia who came there to do confirming at the Church. I was also confirmed by him at that time. I was there about ten months and then my father not being able to pay for my boarding and schooling, I was sent home.

Shortly after that Mr. Brown reduced the wages of his working men which caused a strike. The strike was a failure and father, Uncle Nick and several others were discharged. Then we moved from there to the other side of the Monongehela River to Sixmile Ferry. This was the Fall of 1859.

LIVING AT SIXMILE FERRY

Sixmile Ferry was so called because the distance from here to the old part of Pittsburg City was six miles. The word ferry was added because at that place the people could always cross the river on small hand-boats that were kept there for that purpose.

Leaving the river and going south-west up a valley for several hundred yards you find a hollow turning to the right, called Glass Run. When we came there it was in this Run where we rented a house and moved into it. There were about fifty houses scattered about Sixmile Ferry at that time, most of them belonging to the three operators: Hays, Bushnell, and Risher. We got work at the Hays mines. Brother John and I were working together digging coal. Working in the mines in that district was hard work. We used to go into the mine at two or three o'clock in the morning, and come out at three or four in the afternoon. We made pretty fair wages while working in the Spring and Fall of the year.

When the works were shut down I spent my time in many different ways. I had a good sled about three feet long which I used during the summer time for hauling coal from the mines down the steep hill to where we lived. In this way I had stocked up coal enough to last all Winter. The neighbor boys did the same. We had pretty hard work pulling our sleds up the hill, but coming down we had lots of fun. We always had the coal in bags, and in case of a wreck or upset, the bag with the coal would often roll to the foot of the hill, while the sled would ledge against some tree or stump. I would then gather them up, put the bag on the sled again and pull it to the house. I also kept a large stock of wood at all times. I carried it from the woods and chopped it ready for use. In Fall I gathered a great many walnuts. I spent a great deal of my idle time about the river, bathing and boat riding. We always kept a boat while living at this place, mostly for the purpose of crossing the river on Sunday to go the Church at Glenwood. In Winter time I also spent much time skating on the river.

In the Summer of 1860 while we were idle I took a long walk with Father to Brady's Bend, Armstrong Co. Pa. We left home one afternoon and walked to Allegheny City with the intention of going by canal from there to Freeport. But to our surprise, we found the canal dry and the boats lying on the ground. For a while we thought to return home, but having plenty of time, the weather being warm and the nights moonlight, we came to the conclusion to walk all the way. We started from Allegheny in the evening about sunset and followed the canal bed as it was a good road to walk on. I enjoyed the walk right well. We walked slowly, and by the bright moon-light we could well recognize the locality as we went along. Sometime during the night we came to a place where the canal-bed was about twenty feet higher than the river, and here we found where the canal had burst out and all the water run into the river, thus leaving the canal dry.

Freeport is twenty-eight miles from Allegheny City. We arrived at that town about four o'clock in the morning. But before entering town, we found a good spring at which we made a halt and took some refreshments that we had with us, such as bread, bologna and some liquor of which we took a few drops with the water we drank. Such traveling in those days was quite different and more pleasant than now-a-days. You could walk for days and nights and no one would trouble or interfere with you; the country was not so full of idle men and there was no such rough and reckless characters tramping the roads as there are in later years. If you meet a stranger he would be a working man looking for employment in some other place where he thought he would rather live; and such were recognized wherever they would go.

After having a good rest we walked through Freeport that morning and took the country road leading up hill away from the town. At about seven o'clock we came to a blacksmith's shop in which a tall old man was hammering the hot iron and sending the sound of the heavy anvil far over the fields of the beautiful farm land. As father could speak no English I asked the man if there was any place near where we could get breakfast. He asked me a few questions, where we came from, and where we were going; then he told us to come with him, and he took us to his house which stood close by the shop, and told his wife to give us breakfast. He then went back to work. The old lady made a good breakfast for us, and when we had eaten, I asked her what the charge was, she said "O nothing at all, I would take nothing for that". We thanked her and went our way. Sometime in the afternoon we came to a little village called Middlesex.

At that place there was an old fashioned hotel which we entered and asked the landlord if we could stay there that night. He said "Yes sir". We had no desire for supper as we got plenty to eat along the road, so we told him we wished to go to bed soon. He took us up to the second story and showed us into a room. We also told him that we wished to leave early the next morning while it is cool walking. "Very well", he said, "any time you wish to go you can pass out the hall door; it is never locked. I have often heard people talk about not sleeping good in a strange bed, but you may bet your bottom dollar I slept all right that night.

The next morning about five o'clock we got up, went downstairs and got ready to leave, but no one came so that we could pay for our lodging. Father then pounded on the floor with his cane but no one made his appearance. We went outside and looked at the upstairs windows but could see no one. We then began to think the man did not want our money for sleeping there. Now whether we did right or wrong we started off, and walked nine miles from there to Brady's Bend, where we arrived about ten o'clock. At Brady's Bend we stopped with a family by the name of Lorenz, and one night with a family by the name of Peter Platt.

The works at that place were called "The Great Western Iron Works". These were not in operation at that time and the place looked very dull. Leaving Brady's Bend we took a different road than the one by which we went there. We went through Millerstown to Butlertown where we arrived in the afternoon. From there we walked thirty-five miles to Allegheny City where we arrived about noon the next day, and before sunset we reached our home at Sixmile Ferry.

About that time great excitement started all over the country; the Presidential Campaign began early in the Fall. Torch light processions were kept in the evenings, and tremendous crowds of people were marching from place to place to hear the great political speakers, in which everybody was so greatly interested at that time on account of the Slavery question that was connected with the political platform.

At the election Abraham Lincoln was elected and the following Spring, March 4, 1861, he entered his duty as President of the United States. The slavery states in the south did not accept the platform that went into effect under the new administration, and a cruel war that lasted four long years was started at once. Any History of the United States gives full account of it.

The following Winter when the works shut down I made one more attempt to go to school. The school-house stood just across the road from where we lived, and there were several boys and girls about my age who went to school, so one day I went along with them. The teacher, a very intelligent young man, soon discovered my poor education and he coaxed me to come all winter while I had no work; he said he would do all in his power to teach me some arithmetic and also spelling, which he claimed was necessary in my case. Well I went to school a few days, but the ice was so good on the river, and my skates looked so tempting to me, and my parents were like so many hundreds of people in this country, they did not urge me on to go to school, because according to their belief and as they were instructed, the public schools were not suitable for children of our faith to go to. So I neglected my last opportunity for going to school. I went skating and sled- riding day after day till the river opened up and work started again. The next summer when work shut down, father and uncle Nick made up their mind to go some where else to work, and me being father's favorite boy because I was more sociable to him than my older brother, he proposed for me to go along, which I was glad to do. We bundled up our mining-tools and took the cars on the P.R.R. and went to Johnstown where we got work in the Cambria Iron Co.'s Mines which was called "The Lower Cement Bank". It was at the bottom of the hill by No. 1 Blast Furnace.

We made arrangements for boarding by John Now on Broad Street, Cambria City, now 15th Ward, Johnstown. This was on Saturday. On Sunday I walked about to see the place and on Monday morning we started to go to work, but however father and uncle seemed to be dissatisfied, and arriving at the mines, father asked me if I would go up the mountain and see if I could find work there for us. I had no objections, so I started back to the boarding house, changed clothes and started off. I walked from Johnstown to Lilly, a distance of twenty miles, and arrived there about one o'clock. It was but a very short time till I found work and a boarding house. Then I went to the Post-Office and sent a postal card to father, telling him to come at once. Then I started and walked six miles farther to Galitzin that same after-noon thinking to still find a better place, but failed, and so I turned back to Lilly that evening and stopped with the Bost family whom I was acquainted with that night.

The next day father and uncle arrived. We went to work for G. McGonigle, and got boarding at Bost family. We worked there about three months and in the middle of August we quit. Mr. McGonigle gave us our checks, and the next day, (which happened to be my birthday) I boarded a freight train and went to the Altoona Bank for our money and came back on a passenger train. That day being a Holy Day by the Catholic people, I went out in the evening to see the young folks before I would leave for home. I went to a family by the name of Quartz near No. 3 Incline. These people had one son and four daughters, all grown up but none married. They were very nice people, and the young folks from the neighborhood often met there in the evening or on Sunday to have a jolly time. So the evening I went there I found quite a number of young folks there, and we had a good time, but however some one knew of that being my birthday and made it known, and before I knew what I was about, four or five big girls picked me up and gave me seventeen bumps against the door, this was celebrating my birthday. When it became time to go home, one of them insisted on me to take her home. She lived about a half mile from there. I went with her half way and then told her she could go herself the balance of the way, and I turned back and went to the boarding house. The next morning we took the train and went home. Later in the Fall we left Sixmile Ferry and moved to a place called Mount Oliver.

LIVING AT MOUNT OLIVER

We came to Mount Oliver in the Fall of the year 1862. The members of our family at that time were ten in number; Father, Mother, Aunt Mag and seven children. John, myself, Elizabeth and Peter were born in the old country; and three born in this country. Maria was born on Squirrel Hill the first time we lived there. Nicholas was born at No. 4 Cambria County Pa. Barbara was born also on Squirrel Hill Allegheny Co. the second time we lived there. At Mount Oliver we went to work in Jos. Keeling & Co.'s mines. I got driving a mule, hauling coal out of the mines@@ South Side Pittsburg was at that time independent from the City of Pittsburg and was called Birmingham@@ From Birmingham there was a public road started out and ran one mile up grade till it reached the top of the hill; this road is called Brownsville road@@ Just where this road reaches the level on top of the hill is where Mount Oliver is located. We lived in the first house on the left hand side.

There were about fifty houses there at that time. There were also a great many scattered about, some standing in groups and some alone. Wherever a few houses stood close together, there was a name for this place. There was Ormspees hill, Keelings row, Mongeltown, Hessenloch and some others. There were in all two or three hundred houses there.

The roads in that place would get very muddy in wet weather, especially in the wintertime. It was the custom in those days for men to wear boots and women high shoes; so the folks at Mount Oliver did not seem to mind the muddy roads, they were well used to them.

Every Sunday we went to St. Michael's Church in Birmingham, and it seemed to me as if everybody but myself had boots to wade through the mud and snow. Brother John had got a pair of boots sometime prior to this, and we had a racket in the house about them because he got them made against father's will; and father still wanted us to wear shoes because they cost a great deal less than boots. Nevertheless the time had now come for me to wear boots like the rest of the boys. I was old enough, and I was earning pretty fair wage. I thought I should have some, but how to get them was the question; I mentioned boots several times at home but father did not listen to it. Finally my shoes were worn out and I was compelled to get something to wear; so father told me to go to the shoemaker and have my measure taken for a new pair of shoes.

For awhile I knew not what to do, I felt sick and disgusted; I did not want to be an exception among boys. At length I came to a conclusion. I went to the shoemaker and ordered a pair of fine leather boots for Sunday's and told him to have them done by Saturday. I asked him what they would cost and he said "Six dollars". On Saturday evening I went and brought the boots home. I slipped them into the house so that no one could see them. It seems strange as I never was whipped, nor received any severe punishment from my father, and yet I feared a heavy storm would break out when father would see my boots. The only hope I had was if he would be in a good humor. Then it might pass off all right. However sometime in the evening he asked me if I had got my new shoes yet, and I told him I had, but I said, the shoemaker made a great mistake at them. Why? said father. Well I said, he put regular leggings on them. They are so high that they nearly go to my knees.

Then I got them and handed them to him. He looked at them all over and doing so I noticed a smile on his face. I then knew there would be no storm this time. He looked at them a little longer and then said "Well, now you have a pair of boots, and I think they are good ones. I hope you are satisfied now, and take good care of them." I was all right then and happy as a lord. The next morning I put my boots on, and on the way going to Church I had my trousers rolled up as high as any of the boys had.

Mount Oliver was a great place for young folks to have jolly good times. The people were all of German nationality except two or three families. They were very sociable together. I soon got acquainted with the boys in the mines, and after living there a few weeks there were two young couples got married, both on the same day and the both kept their wedding at the same house. That evening I went with the crowd to give those folks a serenade. After that was over the older boys were invited into the house to take part in the dancing; I went in with them. My brother John was also with the crowd.

When we got in the house, the master of ceremonies or whatever he was, did not recognize John and me because we were strange, but the pro-prietor of the house knew us and told us to stay and enjoy ourselves. I had a good time there, although I did not dance. I got acquainted with a great many folks, and particularly with a certain young lady who seemed to enjoy herself right good, and it seemed she made a point to speak to me at every opportunity. She was not very handsome, but pleasant and a good companion. Everything went all right that night and the next day I went to work as usual.

A few weeks later some one died in the village and in the evening I went to the wake. When I entered the house where the corpse was laid out I saw that young lady there also. During the evening I got speaking to her, and I asked her something about that night of the wedding and she said she knew nothing of it only what she heard, and that she was not there.

I said "Well that is queer; surely you and I spoke together".

"No sir" she said, "you are mistaken, for I was not there, that was my sister Lizzy.".

The following Sunday, going to Church, I met this lady again, and I asked her how she got along at the wake, and she said "I was not there, I can't tell you anything about it".

Well, I was astonished; I did not know what to think of it. Is that girl making a fool of me or is she not sound in the upper story? What does it all mean?

Then I said "Were you and I not sitting side by side at the supper table?".

And she said "No sir, that was my sister Lena.".

I was surprised and I never was more beat in my life. Another week passed by, and on Sunday I was on the lookout for this young lady. Finally I saw two ladies coming along, both of the same size, and both looked exactly the same; that gave a little light in the case. I looked at them and they laughed. I then learned that they were twin sisters, and I had seen the one at the wedding and the other at the wake. It was a time till I knew then apart; they looked more alike than any twins I ever knew. Their family name was Peck, and when both girls were together we called them half bushel.

GOING TO THE BALL

On January 1, 1863 the mines were not running as New Years Day was always kept as a holy-day by the people of Mt. Oliver. That morning I went to Church, and in the afternoon brother John and I took a walk around and about a while and finding no suitable company I said to John "I am going to see Peter Weiland". John said "I have a good idea what you want to go there for; it is not Pete you wish to see, but his sister Lizzie, and you sure don't know her, you have never seen her".

I started off without another word. John stood still and watched me; he was surprised and wondered at my undertaking to go to a house where I had never been before, and did not even know the family, but he knew no better, for I was acquainted with the man of the house and also with the son, as I was hauling coal from them at the mines. I had about ten minutes of a walk from where I left John till reaching the house where I intended to go. Arriving there I looked back once more and saw John still standing at the same spot. I rapped at the door and a ruff voice at the inside bid me to walk in. I opened the door and saw in the room only the old gentleman and a young lady, whom I thought to be the daughter. I inquired for Pete. He is not in, replied the old man "But come in a while, he may soon come home."

Then the young lady offered me a chair. I sat down, not caring whether Pete came at all or not. I chatted with the old man about the works, the weather and so on and whenever he turned his eyes away from me, I would size up the daughter. She was about seventeen years of age, tall and quite handsome. I stopped awhile, then excused myself and went out.

Just as I came out-side the door I saw a young lady by the name of Kate Walters coming from next door. We both met and shook hands. We knew one another for a long time, but never got acquainted. She asked me in the house, but I said I was going home. Then she said your father and Mother have both been here to see us, but you never was in our house and now you must come in awhile. Then we both entered the house. There was no one in excepting a few small children.

Miss Walters now said to me "I am going to make a proposition to you, and I want you to accept it. I want you to take Lizzie Weiland to the ball this evening." I said "I can't go to a ball. I never danced in my life". "Well then, you will just begin tonight and learn; you can't get a better chance". I then said "I am not prepared for a ball". I will tell you the whole plan, she said "You will stop here and have supper with us and then we will get ready and whenever we see fit, we'll start off, you and Lizzie, and Mr. Simmons and myself. There will be some more going that we know and we will have a good time, and don't you worry about not being prepared, we will see you through all right. I will now go over and inform Lizzie about it.

Then she went out the door. I was greatly surprised about the program that Miss Walters had evidently well planned, but I was a little uneasy about the idea of undertaking to go to a ball, and also taking a girl there, while my parents knowing nothing of my whereabouts, and they had never given their consent for me to stay out like that at night. John was nearly two years older than I, and had never been to a ball. All this seemed to make things worse for me. We had at different times been at so called home parties, but it was unknown to our parents. All these thoughts went like lightning through my mind at this moment.

"Nonsense" I said to myself, "why all this worrying, I am no school boy anymore. I cannot always spend my spare time at playing marbles and building mud castles in the back yard. I have arrived at the age where I need some liberty; I have entered into manhood; I am working every day and earning pretty fair wages, and I must have some privileges to a certain extent. I wish to associate with the people. I certainly don't want to do anything improper, nor do I wish to go to any disrespectable place, but I wish to live open-hearted. I don't think it right to steal myself home whenever I go out, neither do I wish to steal myself back into the house again, as I have been doing at different times; I want my parents to know where I go and how I behave myself. I am sure I will not disgrace myself, nor will I do anything to disgrace them. But again, the thought came into my mind "How can I go to a ball tonight, and also take a partner with me, with but one dollar to my name?" But I then thought of the words Miss Walters said, "We will see you through". That moment the door opened and in came Miss Walters and also her father and mother.

I now entered into conversation with the old gentleman about the war that was in progress at the time, while Mrs. Walters and the daughter prepared supper. Shortly after supper Miss Weiland arrived in her ball costume, and sometime after Mr. Simmons came. We then spent a few hours in chatting about one thing and another, by which we all got pretty well acquainted together. At about ten o'clock Mrs. Walters served lunch, and after taking some refreshments we started off for the ball.

There was a large building standing at the hillside of Birmingham, (now S.S. Pittsburg) called Franklin Hall. It was there where our footsteps led us to on that cold New Years Night. Arriving at the entrance, I paid 50 cents admission, leaving 50 cents in my pocket. I did not feel quite as pleasant as one that would have $5; I knew very well that supper would be given between 12 and 1 o'clock and that would take the remaining contents of my purse, and then I would have nothing left for refreshments between dances. Nevertheless I took part in the entertainments, and, as I never had much practice, I was rather awkward in dancing, but I got along as well as could be expected.

The time passed by and about 12 o'clock the bell rang for supper. Miss Walters came running to where my partner and I were sitting and said "We had a good lunch just as we left home, and we are not going to supper". That settled it; she seemed to be the boss of our gang and what she would propose, the others were agreed to. This last action of hers affected no one more than myself. For I knew now that I need not pay out my last 50 cents at once for supper; I saw now that I could make other use of it during the night. That was a great relief to me; the sound of the music now seemed to be much sweeter, my dancing went a great deal better, and I seemed to be a different boy than before.

The ball was grand. The hall was large and beautiful; sixteen instruments were engaged in delivering the music. At 5 o'clock in the morning our gang gathered and we started for home. At the house where Walters and Weiland lived we separated. The moon had already disappeared beyond the distant hills, daylight had not yet appeared, and the hills of Mt. Oliver were surrounded with the darkness of night. The weather was cold and the frosty snow was screeching under my feet as I was winding my way around the hillside towards my home. But again, that troublesome thought came to my mind. How will I be able to stand the weather at home, there will surely be a heavy storm blown up when I get there. I won't know who of the two, father or mother, to hear to the most. I will get a good old fashioned lecture anyhow, and I bet mother will not quit preaching for a week about this. While so thinking I heard foot steps approaching, and the next moment I met a young man whom I was slightly acquainted with. I said "Good morning to you" and seeing that he was dressed in good clothes I said "Where are you coming from?" He said "O there was some old fellow died up here yesterday and I was at the wake all night." "So there was a wake", I said "was there"? Then I walked my way, and at the same time there was a star of hope arose in my bosom, I breathed easier, and my footsteps went at a faster speed.

In a short time I reached home. I opened the door and walked in; there was no one to be seen. I was then satisfied that father had already gone to work. Mother had been in the upper room wakening John and was just coming down the stairway as I was pulling off my coat and hat. "Why hello" said she. "I see our lost son has arrived at last. You are a nice loafer, you are, leaving home at noon yesterday and never coming back for supper and staying out the whole blessed night. Where in the name of heaven have you been all this time"? But I had no chance to speak, she had so much to say just then and so I went up stairs and changed clothes. Then I came down to have breakfast. At last when she slowed up some, I told her that I got into Walter's house and they insisted on me to have supper with them, and after supper I went with some of the folks to a wake. Then Mother getting more calm said "But you had no need of staying all night.". "Well I said "I did not like to make an exception on myself by leaving alone so I stayed until some more of the young folks went home."

By that time John and I had finished eating breakfast and we started off to go to work. Now John had a great many questions to ask, such as where I was, how I got there and how I got along. I told him all about my whereabouts and he and I had a great deal to talk about for some time after. My sister Elizabeth also heard about my being at the ball, and in a few days mother found out all about it. So one day she started on me again.

She said "You rascal, why did you tell me a lie? You told me you were at that wake and at the same time you were at a dance."

I said "Mother, I told you no lie at all; I told you the truth, but you did not take the proper meaning from what I said. I did not tell you I was waking in that corpse room, I simply told you I was at a wake. I am sure there was no one sleeping where I was that New Year's Night; we were all awake and lively too". "I believe you" she replied "you bad boy; you always have some scheme to bluff me and to clear yourself."

The ice was broken. I had been at a ball and had made a start at dancing, and mother knew it. After that, when I went to a dance I did not go on the sly. I went so my parents knew it. I never went to dances often; I would only go at such times when nearly all young folks generally went. In fact I did not have the means to go to such places where big expense was connected with the sport. My father was always very close about giving us spending money and if I had some I was not in a hurry to spend it.

GREAT TIMES IN 1863-1864

There was no skating nor boat riding for me to do now, for the river was too far away. Therefore I made it my business to spend my leisure hours at home playing the accordion, or I would go to the houses where some of my comrades lived, and we would spend our time together chatting or playing all kinds of amusing games. When the weather was favorable we would walk about in the evening and by so doing would often get to playing harmless tricks.

One beautiful moonlight night in the month of August, four of us took a walk in the country. There was John Kramer, George Leech, my brother and myself. We went to a farm owned by a family of the name of Smith, with whom we were well acquainted. They had one son and one daughter. We did not go to this farm house, but we approached the place by going up a little hollow at the head of which the house stood, but before reaching the house we came to the spring- house which also stood in this hollow, and there we stopped. This springhouse was entirely hid in the shade of the trees but from there on up we could nicely see (bye the bright moonlight) all the way to the house. It was now late in the night, and we had a great desire for some refreshments. The spring-house was a cave built in the side of the hill and nearly fixed up, with the water of a large spring running through it. The door was not locked, for as I have said prior to this, the people in those days lived more safe than it is at the present time. The country was not so full of worthless characters then, and you would seldom see a lock on any out buildings.

We opened the door and struck a match inside, and then we saw all kinds of eatables such as bread, butter, eggs, milk and so on. We took a crock of milk, cut some bread with our pocket knives, and took some home-made cheese and sat down and had a good country meal. We also ate a few apples and sucked some eggs. The eggs we examined carefully for we wanted no raw chickens in our feast. When our feast was finished we put everything to its proper place; then we gathered up all the apple- cores, egg-shells, bread-crusts and what ever leavings we could find, and put them into the empty milk crock and set it nicely to the place it had stood when full of milk; then we closed the door carefully and started off for home, and we had many a good laugh on our way.

One would say "I wonder what the Smiths will say in the morning." John Kramer said "I would like to see my old aunt when she'll see the milk crock." This was Saturday night. On Sunday morning we all went to Church as usual; the Smith family also came in for Church, and on their way they told the folks about somebody being in their spring-house during the night and taking out a lot of eatables. The news spread like wildfire. After Church on the way home, you could hear the people speak of it everywhere, and the whole case was getting worse and worse, and you would hear all kinds of stories of how the Smith family was robbed last night, what all was taken from their cave, and some said they heard the robbers had entered the stable and also tried to get into the house. The next day you could hear of it all through the mines.

The following Sunday after Church Mrs. Smith stopped at Kramer's for dinner and John Kramer got talking to her about the robbery. He asked her how much money was stolen from them, and she said "There was no money stolen from us". "Well" said Kramer "how many horses were taken from the stable"? She said "There was nothing stolen from the stable, but there was a great deal taken from the cave, such as bread, butter, eggs and dear knows what all." "How many loaves of bread and how many dozen eggs were taken?" "Well" said the woman, "there wasn't that much stolen, but there was a pretty good hunk of bread cut from one of the loaves, and I don't just know how many eggs were taken. They even took one of our small cheese that I made purposely for the old man, he is so fond of them." "Well" said John "I suppose that party who took them was also fond of them and by what I learn from you it seems to me the whole robbery was not so great as it is rumored about.".

Why, it just looks to me as if somebody wanted a good country lunch and they simply helped themselves to save you the trouble of giving it to them; and moreover, I think that party acted very kindly to you, when they were so clean about the work as to even gather up the leavins, such as egg-shells, apple-cores, bread-crusts and then putting them nicely together into the empty milk crock; why you could feed them to your chickens. I don't see where there was any harm done." Mrs. Smith then said "You seem to sympathize greatly with that party, and I believe this minute that just yourself and some of your comrades played that trick on us." "Well, Aunt Margaret" said John, "I never eat a meal in my life that tasted better to me than those refreshments did that night, especially those little Dutch cheeses that you made for the old gentleman, they were elegant; well it is all in the family". The old lady did not know what he meant by those last words. About one year later my brother John was the husband of John Kramer's sister, and John Kramer got married to Mrs. Smith's step-daughter.

In those days our country was in a terrible condition. The war had already lasted over two years, the battles were getting more numerous and more severe every day; thousands and thousands of soldiers were losing their lives on the fields, in the hospitals and in the prisons of both sides. The government was paying $300 at that time to volunteers for three years service, but could not get troops enough to fill up the regiments, and so they were drafting men time and again to fill the vacancies in the ranks of the army as much as possible. The works were going good and wages was increasing, but prices were going up also. The people were living in great excitement those days. About Pittsburg you could hear the fife and drums at almost all times, as the soldiers were marching along the streets. At the camps you could hear the sound of brass instruments nearly all hours in the night, as troops were coming in and going out.

Wherever you would go you could see the boys in blue walking about, every day the bodies of the dead soldiers were brought home and the sad news received of more being killed. But in spite of all the trouble in the country and all the sorrow on the minds of the people, there were more dances and more entertainments kept those days than at any other time. If a few men would join the army there would be a dance kept to give them a good time before going away; if a soldier came home on furlough it would be the same thing. Then there were balls kept for the benefit of crippled soldiers and also for soldier's widows and orphans. There were also more stage performances going on than at other times, but anything and everything was carried on with kind of war system. The acting on the stage would generally represent soldier's life in time of war, and how their friends and sweet-hearts would continually live in hopes and fears at home. New songs were heard almost every day, the finest soldier's songs, the sweetest love songs and greatest war songs were composed in those days. You could hear them at all kinds of gatherings, they were sung in theaters, at dances, in saloons and in all kinds of home circles.

In 1864 the rebels advanced over into Pennsylvania, which caused a great excitement about Pittsburg. The city authorities at once made arrangements to build fortifications along the south side of the city. The manufacturers gathered their employees and started out on the highest hill-tops and put the men to work, and in a few days you could see forts rising up on all those hills. Intrenchments were also dug from fort to fort; every fort was built by a different corporation. The men would come to work every morning in military style, with their picks and shovels on their shoulders, escorted by music, and the stars and stripes waving over their heads.

I worked at Fort Keeling, which was so named after our superintendent. The first morning we went out to begin at that work, we all met at a certain place, about 100 in all, men and boys. A wagon loaded with tools arrived, and Mr. Keeling and some more members of the company came and marched us all in a body on to one of the Mt. Oliver peaks. In a very short time they had staked out the size and shape of a fort. The men were all placed around the circle and put to work. About a dozen of us young fellows were sent to the woods to cut and bring a flag pole. We went and got a tall sapling as large as we were able to carry. When we brought this to the place where the men were working, there was all ready a hole sunk for the pole. Mr. Keeling unfolded a beautiful new flag, attached it to the pole and then it began to rise amid great cheering for the red, white and blue, and a few minutes later the stars and stripes were floating high in the soft summer breeze. Then came three more rousing cheers for the Union, and we all went to work again. The next morning we worked a few hours and then a comrade of mine and myself sneaked away from the fort and went to see the two Peck girls. We found them busy at the wash tub, but that cut no figure with us, and in spite of us not being welcome under the circum-stances, we remained about two hours, taunting them and keeping them back from their work. At last we managed to get them angry and then we left and returned back to the would be fort.

Arriving there, our foreman heard about our whereabouts and said to us, "The next time you fellows wish to see the girls, you had better go in the evening." I told him that we had a desire to see that half bushel in the daylight this time, at which some of the men burst out in a laugh and the boss turned on his heel and walked away. There was no danger of getting discharged at that work. We were promised some pay, but never got any. We had lots of good fun and plenty to eat and drink while working there. We got ham, crackers and cheese, and as we were nearly all Germans, we also managed to get some beer. Some of the forts were well completed and guarded, but ours was just about half finished, when our soldiers got the rebels under control and drove them back. Then all the work on the fort was stopped. The work in the mines did not start just then, so brother John and I went to Lilly and got work in the mines there, but John had just got married a short time before this, so he got home-sick and went back home. I then worked in the coke-yard for Wm. Tyley, but soon heard of the works starting up at home, so I also returned home.

That year passed by and the following Spring I had a bad place to work, so I went to Westmoreland Co. Pa. and worked at Penn Station and at Shafton. At the latter place there was a shaft in which I worked. I had four different boarding-houses while there; one was too far from work, in another I didn't get enough to eat, and a third one I had to use my overcoat for covering every night. I was then paying $22 per month for boarding. One day during my stay there, Dan Rice's circus came to Greensburg, so I took the cars and went there to see the show. That was the first show I ever went to see. In the latter part of July I got a bad cold and got sick, and so I went home.

During the time I was in Westmoreland Co. my father took a trip to Johnstown Pa. and by so doing he came to the conclusion to buy a little home, if he could find something suitable. He wanted a place not in a town, but close to one; he also wanted to be close to the works and close to a German Church and school. He stopped in Cambria City (now the 15th and 16th wards Johnstown) and there he heard of a place containing 5 acres of land, and a new four-roomed house not plastered nor weatherboarded. A man by the name of Joseph Hupf was the owner of this place; he had bought it from the Cambria Iron Co. some time prior to this. His price was $800 for this place. My father took a liking to the location because it had just the conveniences that he wanted. He paid some money down and called it a bargain. He then went home and worked till later in the Fall, but at the same time making preparations for moving. The last full month I worked at Mt. Oliver I earned $92; then I worked a little over two weeks and made $56, and that latter amount I had to pay for a new suit of clothes and $4 for a hat, amounting to $60 in all. Such were the prices of clothing those days, and such were the prices of everything else in proportion.

ESTABLISHING OUR HOME AT JOHNSTOWN PA.

In the beginning of November 1865, we left Mt. Oliver and came to Johnstown. Arriving here we went to John Now on Broad St. Cambria Borough. There we boarded a few days until our furniture arrived. Then we went up on a hill then called Yoder Hill, in Yoder Township Cambria County, Pa. There we found our new home, which we took possession of at once. Father and I went to work in the Cambria Iron Co.'s Mill Mines. I was then twenty years of age; I had spent my last eight years in Allegheny Co., near the Monongahela River, on Squirrel Hill, Sixmile Ferry and the last few years at Mt. Oliver. The work was not very steady, but the wages were good and we got along all right. I had a great deal of leisure for myself; I was used to the work and acquainted with the people. I had plenty of enjoyments and a great many friends, especially in the last place we lived, and it was there where I saw the best days of my youth.

But now we lived on Yoder Hill in Cambria Co. and oh what a change! How odd and strange this place seemed to me. Close above the house were a few young fruit trees planted; the balance of the place was full of other trees, such as oak, maple, chestnut and so on; it was also full of stones, stumps and old logs lying about everywhere. There were only nine houses on the hill then, and they stood so scattered about that you could scarcely see from one to the other. The place was all surrounded with woods, but in the winter time when the leaves were from the trees, we could see down to Cambria Borough, commonly called Cambria City.

The work in the mines here was much different from that about Pittsburg. Here we worked day after day from one end of the year to the other, excepting Sundays. Father and I worked together, but we were newcomers and strange to every-thing. We had a very bad place to work in; it was very wet and full of bad air and gas; it was also dangerous and scarcely fit to work in. What coal we dug we could not get cars to send out. We took brother Peter in with us in order to get more cars, but it was all in vain; between the three of us we could not earn one man's wages, and what could we do about it? No one cared for us. Most of the men working there were Welsh, and whenever two or three came together you could hear strange language which seemed to us as if every one of them had ten tongues in his head. The mine boss could never be seen about the mines; the so-called suckers and favorites had everything their own way, and they would bum about in the saloons with the boss and invite him to sprees and Christenings. They made money while an honest man could not make a respectable living.

Father and I were disgusted and also our whole family. At the same time we were also affected by what is called 'home sickness' and that made us feel still worse. My sister Elizabeth was then about eighteen years of age; she and I would often sit together in the evening and talk about the pleasant moments and of the happy days that had gone past; talk about the friends and comrades we left behind us when we came to our new home; and then we would talk about the situation we were in now, about the wild looking country around us, our rough and inconvenient home itself, how friend-less and alone we seemed to be. Then my sister would burst out in tears, she would cry, and cry for hours; nothing would please her and no one could satisfy her. Then by her carrying on, the whole family would get into a sad condition. I was sick enough, but I kept cool in order to not make things worse. The first Sunday we all went to St. Mary's Church in Cambria City, and when we came out of Church father met John Now, George Heckman and his son-in-law George Blimmel. The latter two men he had seen in W.H. Brown's coal mines, where they had worked a short time while we lived on Squirrel Hill, Allegheny Co. Pa. We also met John Wass and Anthony Sure, who had worked on the mountains when we lived by the Portage R.R. No. 6.

The following week mother went to Church one morning, and on her way home some old lady recognized her. Knowing mother was strange, she thought that she must be the woman who lately moved on the hill. She told mother that she was the wife of George Heckman, and a young woman who came to them about that time Mrs. Heckman introduced to mother, her daughter Mrs. Blimmel. Then they entered into conversation, during which mother learned the old lady had a daughter about the same age as my sister Elizabeth; so mother begged the old lady to ask her daughter to come to our house and spend a few hours with our homesick girl, thinking that she might get over her spell sooner. That same afternoon the young lady came to see my sister, bringing a younger sister of hers with her. In the evening when I came home from work Elizabeth met me at the door and said: "We have some visitors; there are two girls in the room, one of them is a nice one." A half hour later I entered the room and Elizabeth introduced me to Miss Heckman and her sister. We chatted awhile, and after they had kindly invited us to visit them, they departed for their home.

SHORT HISTORY OF THE HECKMAN FAMILY

The Heckman family lived in a small house on the south-west corner of Broad St. and 4th Avenue now 16th Ward, Johnstown. The next house to that one was owned by the Heckman son-in-law George Blimmel, and the third one by John Heckman, a brother of George who lived on the corner. The ground occupied by those three parties was 75 ft. frontage on Broad St. The part belonging to George Heckman was years after, at the end of his death purchased by George Blimmel and in 1897 the Cambria Brewing Co. which was then organized bought the whole place. The old houses were moved away and the building of a large brewery was begun at once. At the present time the establishment is in full operation.

Mr. George Heckman and his wife were natives of Bavaria, Germany, where they were married. In 1845 they left their home and came with a small family to this country. They first located in Pittsburg Pa., then went to Brady's Bend, Armstrong Co., where they lived a few years and then they came to Johnstown Pa. where they purchased the ground on Broad St. which I have already mentioned, from J.P. McConaughy.

Mr. Heckman was sometimes employed in public works and sometimes worked at shoe-making, which trade he learned in his youth. At the time we came to our new home at Johnstown in 1865, the Heckman family consisted of the two old folks and four daughters. The oldest one of the four was Anna, she was but 20 years of age, but had buried two husbands and was at this time a widow. The next Maria Barbara 18 years of age; Elizabeth and Kate were still younger. They also had two older daughters Mary and Margaret, the former being married to George Blimmel. Mary and her husband are living at the present time in the city and have one son, John, and three daughters Mary, Rose and Kate, all married and living in this city. Some years later Anna got married to Anthony Sure; they have four children, George, Charles, Anna and Barbara.

The second Heckman daughter Margaret, was first married to Jos. Bindel, who joined the army and lost his life in the war. She later got married to John C. Garber, who had just returned from the war. They both lost their lives and three of their children, in the Johnstown Flood; two daughters are yet living and married. There is also one son and one daughter, Michael and Mary, of the first marriage (Bindel) still living in this city. As to the two youngest daughters of the Heckman family, Elizabeth got married to Anthony Rapp, but died shortly after. Kate got married to John Burkhard, and they are living and have a large family in this city. John Heckman the brother of George, was married and raised six daughters and no son. The oldest died in a convent in the state of Minnesota, four got married and have families and the youngest lost her life in the flood. A sister to Heckman was married to Louis Berg, in Pittsburg. They have a son and one daughter living.

MY SINGLE LIFE ON YODER HILL

One evening a few days after Miss Heckman and her sister had been to our place, my sister and I went to return complements by going to see them at their home. We found the members of the family all very pleasant and sociable people. The old gentle-man had served over three years in the United States Army and had just come home at the end of the war, a few months prior to this. He was interesting in his conversation, and had a great deal to talk about the war. He also possessed the proper ability for telling all kinds of yarns and stories of olden times. We spent a pleasant evening together. My sister and I were greatly pleased at having gained some new friends in this lonesome and strange locality. We went to see them quite often in the evenings, and sometimes on our way home from Church we turned in and chatted awhile.

When Christmas came near, father proposed for Elizabeth and me to take a trip to Lilly and spend a few days there, thinking that we might be more contented and satisfied in our new home after our return. We took the train and went to Lilly where we spent a merry Christmas with a number of friends. A day or two later we started for Johnstown. Arriving here at the depot we left the cars and walked down the rail-road a little over a half mile to where we turned from the road and slowly moved up the lonesome foot path towards home, which we could see before us at the edge of the hill. "There" I said, "stands our house all alone as if separated from this world and communication". Scarcely a foot-path broke through the deep snow to lead us there. Up on the mountains where we just came from, you could see numerous evergreens, pines and hemlocks mixed with other trees all over the snow covered hills, and here we see nothing but that cold frosty hill, and our home surrounded with all kinds of dry, dead looking trees. We really thought the snow was deeper, the weather cooler and the clouds darker than anywhere else. While so speaking, we reached home.

The next day I went to work again as usual. The time passed by, and before long I became acquainted with several young folks about the place, which put me in a more pleasant condition, but at the same time we kept going to see the Heckman family, time and again during the long winter evenings, and in the course of time I began to think that there was something more interesting than the old gentleman's yarns drawing me on to go there. My visits became more numerous and more regular, so I told my sister if she wanted to see those people she had better go herself, as she knew the road all right, and I could not have her with me always.

Our home, as I have already stated was a wild looking place. The soil never had been cultivated, but further up on the level there was a nice farm land composed of about 100 acres, which had changed owners different times and at last was owned by a Mr. Brown, who sold it to the Cambria Iron Co., the latter than sold it in small patches to private parties, but secured all mineral rights for their own use. There were ten families living on the hill when we came here, but the houses were scattered about so you could scarcely see from one to the other. The old farmhouse was owned by Mr. Habicht; the same party lives there at the present time. The house stands at the south end of Habicht Street. A little further north on the same street, stood a house owned by F. Kennedy, which is now being used for a stable by A. Shumaker. A few steps further down lived J. Murphy, whose house is now known as A. Riek's place. Still further down on the same side of the street, just where the road turns down the hill, there stood a house owned by McCabe.

The latter three men were brothers-in-law to one another. Their houses were only small shanties, the last one mentioned being now used by Andrew Nitrauer for a woodshed. The fifth one stood at the north end of Habicht Street, a sixth one was at the east end of George St. and is now burned down. A small house standing at the east end of Benedict St. (now known as the Jos. Stabb place) was then occupied by Mr. Beltzner, who had his both eyes burned out with powder in the mines, the same day we moved on the hill. The old Gilbert homestead on Gilbert St. was owned by the man by the same name. The Cowan family lived on Gilbert St., where the old lady is living at the present time. The house we lived in is now occupied by the Baker family; a short road leads to it called Baker St. I worked awhile that Winter, but we were earning very little, we could not get what was needed in the house for the necessaries of life, and my spending money that I had saved the last few months at Pittsburg was all run out, and no way to get any more; I was entirely penniless. At last father and I agreed that I should go back to Pittsburg and secure work in the mines and boarding with brother John.

After two weeks I received word to come back. Father had got a better place to work in, so we again went to work together, but still in the mines. In the Spring when the weather became warm, we all turned in and made ourselves useful at home. There was a great deal of work to be done in order to get our place in proper shape. We started cutting down trees, gathering stones and walling them up for fencing, graded a walk around the house and then got new lumber and bricks, and I weather boarded the house and built a brick flue in it; then we began to make a garden. I got the loan of a horse from Mr. Habicht and another from Mr. Gilbert and hitched them together to a plow. Then I started to plow a small patch of ground for potatoes, but that was a terrible piece of work; every time I run the plow into the ground it came in contact with a large stone or the root of a tree and the old plow would throw me about in every direction.

I never made a practice of cursing but as I had been driving mules in the mines, by which there is naturally often a word made use of that does not sound like praying, and I being very angry at my new work, for the horses were used to work together, and I was not used to them, so I also made use of one or two of those unpleasant words. But the moment I did, my mother came to me, and, having heard what I had said, and seeing how excited I was, she said in a kind manner, "Have patience, my son, and don't get angry. There is no one hurrying you. Take your time and do the best you can, then it is all right". That was the only time my mother ever heard such a word come from my lips. When she walked away, I said to myself, "What in the name of God ever encouraged us to come on this miserable hill? If I ever live to be twenty one years of age, I am sure I shall never stay here on this rough, cold hump of a hill, where no living creature had a happy moment since that unfortunate day when we came here six months ago."

That evening after supper I took a slow walk down the hill to Cambria, but not having any particular place to go, I walked about on the streets awhile but could find no suitable company, yet I was longing for some one to have a sociable talk to, and before I really knew where I was going, I stood by the door of that little old house on Broad St. After rapping at the door, I entered the room and found what I was looking for. I found what I thought the best company I knew of at the time. I spent the evening there, and on my way home I was in a better humor than at any time that day, but whether or not it was the old man's stories that caused it I'll leave the reader to judge.

Some time during the Summer, uncle Nick and his family followed us to Johnstown. He bought a half acre of land from Father for $50. The plot was cut from the south corner of our little farm, joining the Cowan property on the side, and a small water stream at the lower end where Gilbert St. is running along at the present time. Uncle secured lumber at once. My father and I helped him, and in a short time we had a two- roomed house ready for him to move into. Uncle Nick lived in it many years till it was destroyed by fire. Then he built a new house in which he lived till his death. The house is now occupied by his son-in-law Charles Herold. Shortly after uncle came here, brother John and family also came here. We went to work and cut down a lot of trees and built a log house for him above Uncle's lot. John lived in it about two years, and then moved back to Pittsburg, where he has lived ever since. A few years later this little log house was used one winter for a school-room and it was the first school we had on the hill. Later John sold the place to brother Peter, and about the year 1890 it was sold to Dr. G.B. Porch whom owns it at the present time.

When Uncle Nick and brother John brought their families here, I was better satisfied; we had more people around us, and I thought our place looked more like a home than it did before. In the month of August, the same summer, I was twenty-one years of age, but that made no change in my case, as I worked under the same conditions as I had been before. Father had yet $300 to pay on our property, and I was supposed to help to pay that. By this time brother Peter became more able to work, so he kept working with father, and I looked for other employment wherever I thought I could earn a little more than I had been. I left the Mill Mine and went to work in the lower cement mine with an old Scotchman, and a few months later I went to work in the iron works. I worked at No. 41 Puddling Furnace over three years. I was what was called 'Helping'. I received one-third of the wages, and the foreman two-thirds. I was earning from $40 to $50 per month; then the foreman was making from $80 to $100. This was very hot work, and I, not being used to such work, the heat affected me considerable at first, till I got more used to it.

The time passed by, we became more acquainted, and we got along better than at first. Father had temporarily given John a half acre of land to build and live upon, and he also had given me the privilege to pick a spot for myself. I picked on a place at the lower end, just at the side of uncle Nick. So, when I worked at the puddling mill, and only working five turns a week when on night shift, and if everything operated all right, the working hours were not very long, so I had a good deal of time for myself. Taking everything into consideration and while yet working for father, I formed a plan also to do something for my own individual benefit.

ESTABLISHING MY OWN HOME

Early in the spring of 1868, I went to the Cambria Iron Co's. Lumber yard and ordered lumber to build a house. I of course calculated on building a small one, as I did not think to ever have any use for a large house. The lumber bill amounted to $177, which I agreed to pay on monthly payments of $10. Doors, windows, nails and other trifles besides some tools, run the amount something over $200. I then did no more running around, neither did I need much company. I had all the pastime I wanted from that time on. I started leveling a place, and set props to build a house on. I prepared my lumber, then father helped me raise the frame work. I built with 12 ft. long plank, making the house one and a half stories high, with one room 14x16 ft. and a kitchen 8x10 ft. The whole building was small but I thought if I ever got married, I will only marry one woman, and for her and myself the house will be plenty large enough. Every moment I had to spare between my regular working hours, I made use of at my building. I worked hard, and often my sawing and hammering could be heard late in the night. Finally I got it completed. I then went to town and bought wall-paper, and put it in the room and kitchen. Some folks were taunting me at that time, saying that I had a house but no wife in it. I told them that I thought it proper to secure a cage first, then when I get a bird I have a place where I can keep it.

On the 15th of August that summer, I was 23 years of age. Father then told me to work for myself, and he would give me free boarding for awhile, to give me a chance to save a little money. I was paying $10 every month on my lumber bill ever since I started building. At the end of August I received my first pay and I then began to think about getting something to put into my new house. I then loaned $50 and started to buy in some furniture, some new, some second hand, and for the kitchen I made some myself, such as table, cupboard and other common articles. Everything went all right, but at the same time I was thinking of the words that the Scripture says, "It is not good for one to be alone". Therefore I thought it best for me to get a companion. The following Sunday I did not go to Church, and on Monday some one told me that the minister mentioned some young lady's name and my own in Church on Sunday, and that we were going to get married; I said, "I suppose he knows all about it".

That week I engaged a lady friend to assist me in my work at the house. We went to town and bought a lot of goods, such as are necessary for housekeeping. She also had quite a lot of handsome articles which she brought from her home, among them were several very nice quilts which she had made herself in leisure hours, such as a none-patch, a tar-quilt, an Irish chain and a so called flower-quilt. She also had a lot of linen articles trimmed with very fancy embroidery, all worked by her own industrious hands, such as pillow-slips and I don't know what all.

So she and I fixed up that little house tip top. It was new and everything was bright and neat, to speak in short words, it was a common but beautiful home. The next Sunday there was that same young couple again published for marriage in Church, and the following Thursday, which was the 1st day of October 1868, I escorted a young lady to St. Mary's Church in Cambria where we were married by Rev. Edmund O.S.B. The young lady whom I will now call my wife, was no one else but the party who gave me a helping hand while furnishing my house; she was the same young lady who proved to be a true friend to my sister and me in those lonesome days when we came as strangers to this place, and she was the same Miss Heckman who came to our house by my mother's request, on a dark, windy day, the first week we lived on Yoder Hill

My wife was 20 and I was 23 years of age when we got married. She was born March 25, 1848, at Brady's Bend, Armstrong Co. Pa. When yet a child she came with her parents to Johnstown, where they located on Broad St. and built that small house as I have already stated, and where they lived when we got married. After the marriage ceremony, we went to my father's house where dinner and refreshments were served, music was rendered by an accordion, and dancing went until late in the evening. The friends of my side and also those of my wife's were present. When the guests departed for their homes, my wife and I also went to our own little home, which I had built with my own hands and which my wife and I had furnished and prepared for our own use, according to our means and abilities. The next morning we went back to the old folks and had breakfast, after which we took a walk to town, where we ordered a lot of provisions, purchased a market basket, and packed it with various small articles which we carried with us. When we came home, we started a fire in our stove and prepared our first meal in our own home. That was on Friday; the next day we walked about to see our friends, and on Sunday morning we went to Church.

My wife and I enjoyed good health; we were both of medium stature, well built, well matched in age and we both had a good appearance, as I sometimes heard parties make the remark, "They are a handsome couple." The Church was small, no one could help but to see us; it seemed that Sunday the people were more interested in us than in the priest and his sermon. On Monday I went to work again as usual; I also continued to do some work at home. I first dug out a place under the house for a temporary cellar. I dug a round hole about 8 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep and closed up the place all around with stones, wood and ground, to keep the floor of the house warm. And that cellar we used principally for a wood shed over Winter.

The following Summer I dug it out entirely and built a good stone wall under the house. I then bought posts for a new fence; I cut down a large white-oak and a chestnut tree, from which I made several hundreds of pickets 4 ft. long and built a new fence all around the property. I worked the stones out of the ground and we fixed up a nice garden. I then built a stable and we bought a cow, so we had plenty of work, but we got along all right and lived happy. But there never was a day so bright, that was not followed by the darkness of the night.

SUCH IS LIFE

Sometime about the year of 1870 my work in the Puddling Mill became very disagreeable and there was no chance about the mill for me to make any change for my benefit. At the same time my brother-in-law Peter Baker, and uncle Nick were working together in the Lower Cement mine at a so called thick pillar, and my father had also been working with them, but was at home ill for a long while about this time. So speaking over the matter between us, I came to the conclusion to go back to the mines once more, and I went to work in father's place with uncle and Baker. That was an unfortunate step I made at that time. I was doing pretty reasonable for a few months till that pillar was worked out; then we went to work in the Slope Mine, which was just where No. 5 Blast Furnace is now. We had bad places given to us to work there.

So we worked there a few weeks, and seeing that we could earn no wages to live on, we secured work in the Mill Mine. There we got better places to work, but could not get cars enough to send out all the coal we could dig, and so our wages was still low. I worked alone for awhile, but later I was insisted upon to take a partner, a young fellow who had never been in a coal mine before in his life. Then my earnings still became less, because two men working together did not have the same advantages as a man had when working alone. I earned in those times no more than about $20 per month, and sometimes only $14 or $15, but I hoped from time to time that conditions would get better, but they got worse and worse. I tried time and again to secure employment elsewhere about the works, but in vain. A man who had to work could get no other job only by chance or influence, and such I did not have, for I never followed beer-saloons for the purpose of getting around the bosses to secure work.

During the summer of 1873 work was very slack in nearly all departments excepting the Steel Works. In the Fall of that year a great panic took place all over this country. Banks closed their doors and the manufacturers could not get no money to pay their men; that still made conditions worse than before. The Cambria Iron Co. at that time did not pay their men for three months. But some time during the Winter, the working men organized a Union under the name of Miners & Laborers Benevolent Association; it was so called to raise no suspicion. In the Spring of 1874 work brightened up some but wages did not increase; so on March 15th all hands came out on strike, except the steel workers and Blast Furnace hands. The principal parties concerned in the strike were the Puddlers, Heaters and Miners. The Helpers, Roll-hands and others also took part in it. They all demanded an increase of wages, which they never got.

I worked nothing for about six weeks. Under the circumstances I could not content myself to even do a little work about the house. We were keeping meetings nearly every day, and the remaining part of the time was spent by walking about and chatting to one another on the situation we were in. The company would not give in, and the men would not give up. So seeing no sign of any change, I bundled up some clothes and a few tools, and left home about the first week in May. I went to Westmoreland Co. and got work in the Loyalhanna Coal Shaft, one mile east from Latrobe. But as a regular custom, a stranger always gets a bad place to work which others refuse to work in. There were several others from here who had also, like myself, gone down there to work, among them were John Wass Sr., John Wass Jr. and George Blimmel. We were all boarding in the same house. Blimmel and I were working together, but we had a terrible wet place to work in.

After working a few days, I sent a letter to my brother John in Mt. Oliver, asking him to secure work for me there. A few days later I received word to come. I bundled up again, left my partners and went to Mt. Oliver. I worked there till the end of June, when they shut down the works for the Summer. So I left there, came to Loyalhanna to get my pay which I had coming there, and then I boarded a train for home. Arriving here, I found everything the same as it was when I left. The only change I could see was more new men going to work every day and taking our places. So sometime in July the strike was declared at an end. Then everybody had to go ask for work, and a great many were refused.

Mr. Morrly, the superintendent of the mines, asked me what I did during the strike; I told him that I was away from here, and so I was allowed to go to work again. But if work was bad before the strike, it was worse after it; the mines were overcrowded with men at once and there I was in the same misery as before. I again tried to get work in some other department time and again, but in vain. I worked on till in the year of 1877, when my wife's father, who worked at the Blast furnaces, secured work for me there. It was in the month of June when I left the coal mines and started to work on the trestle at the so called old furnaces.

It was a big undertaking for me to come from the mines, where there is never any rain or shine, no heat or frost, and where I had worked so many years and then go to work in the heat of the sun from morning till night, in the hottest time of the year. I thought I could never hold out; I often went for a drink of water or walked away pretending to go on some other business in order to get a few minutes to cool off in the shade. The wages at that job was at that time 87 cents per day. I worked at that a few weeks till No. 4 Furnace (which was newly rebuilt) started operation. I was then put on the Pig-bed for helping the "keeper". At that job the pay was $1.08 per day. At that work I could make $32 by working every day in the month. The work there was hot and heavy, but it had been a long time since I earned such wages, and therefore I was determined to hold out at that place, and at least never go back to the mines again.

Late in the Fall of 1879, I worked a two weeks' notice and quit that job. I then came to the Steel Works and was hired by Rees James, who had charge of all the machinery in that department. I worked in the 'repair gang' for 92 cents per day, which was laboring wages about the Steel Works at that time. That was small wages, but we did a great deal of extra work those days, and in case of a break-down we would work day and night until it got fixed up ready for operation. I often went to work on Saturday morning and worked till Monday night; by doing so we were paid double time, that is, for Saturday we got 10 hours, but for Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday night, we were paid 2 hours for 1 hour, and so making 88 hours in succession. Those were long turns to work, but such work was done different in those days than at the present time.

There would always be a large number of men working together, and at night-time some would hunt a warm place and lay down a few hours while the others were working, and then change off so that all would get a little rest now and then. While working in that gang I used to earn from $40 to $45 per month. I did not appreciate that work very well because I had very little time to myself; I could scarcely do anything at home, and had to work every Sunday. So I made application for a job 'firing boilers'.

On the morning of June 1 1881, the foreman sent me to the Blooming Mills Boiler House, where I started to fire boilers on 8 hour shifts. I averaged about $50 per month for a while at that job, and had plenty of time to myself to do work at home.

We will now go back about ten years, and I will tell you a little about my family's circumstances during that time.

In the year of 1870 we had our lumber bill paid off, and we were getting along good. That summer we took a little trip to Pittsburg, my wife, myself and a bright little daughter about 1 year old. We spent about a week seeing our friends and places of interest in that smokey city. When we came back home, we started in at our work again as usual. The following year my wife had a severe sick spell, and we were obliged to keep a hired girl for some time.

In the year of 1872, we bought a tract of land in our neighborhood containing 5 acres. My uncle Nick and I bought that place together, and divided it in two equal parts of two and one-half acres each. I paid $350 for mine. It was the place where the two Schuster brothers are living at the present time. We had a little money saved and I loaned $200 on six percent interest and paid for the place, depending on good health and prosperity in the future. But my work was getting bad, and my earnings were getting less every month and were not sufficient to pay our store bill. If we had been dealing at the Company store, we could not have got half enough to eat, but we were dealing at Kintz's store in Cambria. Our credit was good there, but when our bill was not squared up for a few pay days, and still run higher, then we could see a different smile on the face of the store keeper. My wife and I had no courage to buy even the greatest necessaries of life, and still we had to live.

To make our condition worse, I got sick and was not able to work for several weeks. Our taxes and the interest on the loaned money had to be paid in the proper time. We had a good cow, which was a great help in our family, but as misfortune would have it, after feeding her one whole Winter when hay was very high in price, in the Spring she died. The price of cows then was from $65 to $75. We were not able to buy another one at that rate, and so we had to get along without one. About the year of 1875, I loaned another $100. With that we paid our small debts in order to hold up our credit, and also bought some necessary clothing. But circumstances did not get any better.

In 1879, my father had his entire land surveyed and divided into equal patches, which he sold to his children in order that they might own and improve then for themselves, as some of us had already houses built and were living in them. Sister Maria had gone to a convent in the state of Minnesota, and therefore had no use for any land in this part of the country. So father added half of her share to brother Peter's place and the other half to sister Elizabeth's place, with the agreement that each of them pay to sister Maria the sum of $25, which they both paid. There was nothing put on paper about the agreement, but it was known and understood by us all. Sister Elizabeth got for her share the spot where father's house stood on, and for that reason she and her husband were supposed to support father and mother when they became old and feeble.

There was also a large portion of land that went into roads. There had been a public road made from Cambria, past our place which ran along the little creek, cutting the entire width of the road from the lower end of our land. Father had also made a road from this public road up to his house, and an alley from the same public road passing up along the south east side of my place, and running all the way to the upper end of the little farm. Uncle Nick, and brother John and Peter had their lots on the south-west side of this alley, and on the opposite, or in plainer words, on the right-hand side going up the alley was my place, that of brother Nick, and that of sister Barb. Between the latter two places another short road was laid out from the alley to the land owned by George Alberter at that time, for which he paid $12 to my father.

During those years I often thought to sell out and leave Johnstown entirely, for I thought this was the worst place in the country, because everybody seemed to be governed by the Cambria Iron Co. Whatever prices the Company-store put on their goods, other business people would have the same; and whatever wages the Company paid to their working men was also paid by others or parties. A person had very little choice to better himself; if a man could not work for that company he might just make up his mind to leave the town, for there was no other work here to amount to anything. But to leave here and go somewhere else, my wife did not like it, for nearly all her relation lived about this town. So we stayed here. At one time we thought to sell our home for $500, and buy the corner lot on Broad St. and 5th Avenue, where the 5th Avenue Hotel is now; it was offered to me for $500. That time my father interfered and said, "Why do you wish to move from the hill and go to live in town, where you can plant nothing, nor have much chance to keep any domestic animals?" Finally we made up our minds to remain in our little home.

In 1881 we sold a lot of ground from our place to Peter Schroeder for $100; he again sold it to Joe Schnatter, and the latter built a house on it, which he occupies at the present time. That lot is 50 ft. front at the public road, and extends 166 ft. up hill along the property of my sister Elizabeth; it gets gradually narrowed as it extends up the steep grade, and is only fifteen ft. wide at the upper end.

In 1882 we also sold the two and a half acre plot for four hundred and fifty dollars. That was rather going backwards, as you might call it. I believe today that we could have held that patch of ground by having patience a little longer, but we were disgusted and tired of living in such a condition as we did for several years. We never suffered with hunger, but we always selected our groceries of the cheapest in the store. Dry goods and clothing we bought only when we could no longer do without.

A few years prior to this I had built an addition of two rooms to our house, and a half story on top, making it a four room house with a kitchen attached to the back of it. By so doing we had another lumber bill of about $200 added to our debt, of which we had part paid by making monthly payments.

Our family was from time to time increasing, and in order to have sufficient room, we were compelled to make improvements on the house. Then when we received the money for the land that we sold, we paid back what money we had loaned, for which we had so long been paying interest, we paid the remaining part of the lumber bill, and squared up our store and other small bills and debts. We started to buy some furniture and other articles, which we badly needed in the house, and also some necessary clothing for ourselves and the children to wear. We were almost like beginning house-keeping anew. But then my earnings were sufficient at that time, to give my family a good support. We were also beginning to get help from our boys, who were starting to work. So after having everything squared up, we got along all right.

A FEW POINTS OF INTEREST

In 1886, I was again obliged to enlarge our residence. Our kitchen being 16 ft. along the main building, 10 ft. wide and one story high, with a bank about 6 ft. high in the rear of it. So I went to work and dug out 6 ft. back and 16 ft. long of that bank, and built a stone-wall the height of the kitchen. I then bought lumber, and built a story on top of the kitchen 16 x 16 feet and a partition in the center, making two neat little bed rooms and seven rooms to the house in all. Some furniture was also ordered, and a handsome bureau I made myself, according to the latest style, which my wife and I have for our own use ever since. Our family at that time was larger than ever before, and it never became any larger after. We had eight children, six sons and two daughters, all living. We had two more daughters later but they died in their infancy.

Our children all received pretty good common school education, the younger ones more so than the older ones, because the older ones (to satisfy our parents) were sent to German school more than to the English, and also had to go to work at a younger age than the others.

During the past years Yoder Hill was built up to quite a little town, and the people nearly all being German, the place was for a long time called Dutch-town, until the people of the place held a meeting and named it after Mr. Brown, the man who last owned the whole place. They called it Brownstown, which name it bears at the present time.

In 1886 there was great excitement among the people of western Pennsylvania on account of the natural gas that was so plentifully discovered in the counties of Washington, Allegheny and Westmoreland. It was forced through pipes into the works and other buildings where it was used for fuel in place of coal. There was also that same year a large pipe-line run from Grapeville, Westmoreland Co. Pa. all the way to Johnstown, a distance of 52 miles, and the gas was so brought to our town. Here the gas was also used in all kinds of buildings and shops, but principally in the Cambria Iron Works. The mines were shut down, and all men employed in digging, hauling, handling or burning coal, lost their jobs. But the Cambria Iron Co. were running their works lively in all departments, and consequently the men here were not thrown idle, but were transferred to other work.

At that time firing boilers was also changed, and gas was used instead of coal, therefore I also lost my job. I then went to work in the repair gang of the same department and for the same foreman. I worked awhile about the Bessemer Steel-works and then my foreman put me at doing the repairing in the boiler-houses at the steelworks and Blooming Mill, that is cleaning out the boilers, and keeping up the pipe work. For that I was getting $1.35 per day. Then I had to work every Sunday, packing all crystal-valves at the steel works. I worked on like that till sometime in 1888, when I had a fall-out with my boss, Smiley Wilson, on account of working every Sunday, and I gave him my notice and two weeks later quit working for him.

I then went to the Rail Mill and was hired by Alex Hamilton. I was laboring during the summer under John Price for $1.10 per day. That was all outside work and I am not used to work out in all kinds of weather, it affected me greatly, and the wages being small made it worse. I had asked Mr. Price to give me some inside work but he marked me down for heavy work. In the Fall he put me in the steel gang, for loading steel billets. That paid better, but it was heavy work and also out in all kinds of weather. I worked at that all Winter and until the day of the great flood May 31 1889. I will not spend much time on the subject of the flood, as it is plentifully explained in different books. I will only remark on it as it concerned myself and my family.

The day of the flood I left home in the morning to go to work as usual. It had rained hard all night, the streams were high, and the water was rising over the banks, and spreading over lower parts of the town. Arriving at the works, I saw a number of men asking our foreman to excuse them from work that day, as they wanted to go home again and see that the water would not damage things at their homes. I also told him that I would like to go home, and he said "Surely the water will not reach your place in Brownstown. "Well", said I "but there is water in streams running all about my property, and I should be there to drain it properly". "Very well", said the boss, "I will force no man to stay here today under the circumstances". So I went back home and did a little work there making ditches for the water to run in proper directions.

About 9 o'clock our boys came home from the works and said that the water was getting into the Mills, and that the men were all sent home. That aroused my excitement and I could no longer stay at home. I started down the hill at once. In Cambria I was told that the toll-bridge was flooded away. I went up to see, and found that only one span of it had been taken away, but yet while I stood there looking at it the whole structure was swept away. The bridge was a large one; there was a broad gauge and a narrow gauge rail-road track on it, and also a way for teams and a side-walk for the public. This bridge was on the spot where the A.J. Haws Brick-yard office now is.

About 12:00 o'clock I went home for dinner, and after that my wife and I both left home and went to see the high water. The streets by that time were nearly all under water. We walked up the rail-road and it being higher than the streets, it kept dry. From it we could see the condition of the town. We went over the stone bridge and up as far as the depot, which was as far as we could go. Along Iron St. the houses were all in water, and men on rafts were getting some people out. We again turned back, and when crossing the stone bridge, crowds of people came running down the rail road the same direction as we were going, screaming and crying "Run for the hill; the dam is bursted". We turned from the rail road, and like the balance of the folks below the bridge, walked up the steep hill as fast as we could til we reached half way up that high hill just south of Cambria. There we halted. There were already hundreds of people there, as it was the nearest place of safety for them.

Looking back over the town above the stone bridge, I saw a dark foggy smoke all over the town, and could hear the dull sound of crushing and cracking, but could see nothing of the town. By that time the water was rising fast, and was running swiftly through the streets and alleys in Cambria. Knowing that my wife's relatives were all living in Cambria, I thought it to be affecting for her to stand there and see their destruction in such a fearful manner, so I told her to walk up home which she did.

I then saw my brother Peter standing among the crowd not far from where I was. I went to him, and while speaking a few words, we saw stables and all kinds of small out buildings swiftly floating along between the houses, and a moment later I saw old Mrs. Ream's house moving and then two or three others, and then I saw buildings in every street sweeping away; some falling apart at once and others floating a short distance and then crushing against another and both going to pieces. A great many houses were floating around with a dozen or more people on the roof, and we could hear their pitiful cries and screams and a moment later their floating homes would crush into a mass of fragments. Some of them would perish in the terrible water at once, while others by chance clutched a stick of wood or a board, only to lose their lives a few minutes later by drowning or being crushed to death among the debris which gorged up in great heaps at the sides of the valley.

The sight we saw from where we stood lasted about 15 minutes, and all was over - half of Cambria borough was swept away. This was only a small portion of the flooded district, but we saw too much for us to think of any more. My brother and I went home at once to see after our families. Our boys had been away from home nearly all day, walking about, and this caused me to be uneasy about them, thinking that one of them might have been caught by the terrible waters. But reaching home, we found our folks all in safety, but our homes were crowded with people from Cambria, whom were there to seek shelter, as the night was coming on and everybody was chilly from being out in the rain and wet all day.

After dark we saw the sky greatly illuminated in the direction of the town, Brother Peter and I started for town, to see what caused the light. We then only began to wonder in what condition the town must be. We went down the hill and walked up the rail road as far as the stone bridge, where we could get no farther. The sight that I saw there I can never forget. There were the two streams, the Conemaugh and the Stoney-creek, from the bridge on up, all the flat along Iron St. and all the lower part of the town filled with debris as high as the stone bridge, and looking over all this, and all the way up over the town, you could see dozens and dozens of places where debris had caught fire and the fire was spreading so rapidly that in a few hours the whole place appeared like an ocean of flames. (see history of Johnstown flood).

We went home and put the women and children to rest, while the men were sitting about the stove speaking of the terrible flood and of those we knew who had perished. Thirteen of our friends from the Heckman family had lost their lives on that fatal day; one sister, one cousin to my wife, one brother-in-law, and ten nephews and nieces. We had from 20 to 30 people at our house for about a week, and some were there several weeks. I was very uneasy at first while so many were with us, knowing that our provisions would soon run out, and not knowing where to get more, as the stores were swept away. One small store was in Brownstown, but it was soon sold out. But affairs turned out better than we expected. It was wonderful how quick help and relief was at hand. Already on Saturday fire engines were sent here by rail road to put out the fire, and on Sunday and Monday train loads of provisions, clothing and everything imaginable arrived here for the people about the valley who escaped death in that terrible flood. After the water had lowered it took but a short time to construct foot bridges here and there, for the people to cross over the streams.

Then the Cambria Iron Co, notified their employees to appear at the works for the purpose of removing the debris out of the mills and shops. We were paid $1.10 per day, and for a few days got our dinner given to us at the works; it consisted of bread, crackers, and boiled ham. It lasted but a short time till the company put the works in operation one department after another, as fast as the damaged machinery could be repaired. (I mean the power works, as the Gautier or upper works were entirely washed away). The steel-gang in which I worked before the flood did not get started to work for some time, so I went to work in the rail gang. I was loading rails until the following Spring when the natural gas seemed to run out, and I came back to the Blooming-Mill Boiler-House to fire boilers. I worked at that one week, and then the gas became stronger again, so the fires were again changed from coal to gas. I then worked awhile in the repair-gang from which I was sent to the so-called old gas-house to tend water at 6 boilers that were there, fired by gas. A few months later I was transferred to the Bessemer-Boiler house, where I fired 2 boilers and tended water at four. I worked there a few weeks, and then the boilers were stopped working and were moved out of that place.

That put me back into the repair gang again and that was all under the same foreman. But working in that gang did not satisfy me, as the pay was only $1.10 per day and work every Sunday. By that time the gas had entirely run out, and coal was again used for fuel all over the works. I then made application for a job firing boilers again. A short time after that there happened to be a vacancy, and I was sent there to fill the place. This was at the upper end in the Blooming- mill Boiler-house. This was some time in 1891. I was well pleased at getting that job, for it was working only 8 hours, and the wages was $1.40 a shift. It was firing tube-boilers with the Murphy Smokeless furnaces attached to them. After working at that about one year, our wages were reduced to $1.20 and in 1895 we were changed from three turns as we had been working, to two turns. That put us to work 10 hours daytime and 14 at night, instead of 8 hours as we had been working before.

Our wages was also changed; in place of paying us by the day, the company set our wages at 33 cents per hundred tons of steel that the Blooming-mill turned out on our run. Some of the men were not satisfied with all those alterations, and they quit working there. But I made up my mind to stay and work on. For I knew the bosses were determined to have that work done so in the future, and I also knew that if I quit, somebody else would be glad to take my place, for it was a steady job, and an inside job, where a man was not so exposed to all kinds of weather, and, as I was getting up in age, I had a poor chance of bettering myself. So I worked on, and sometime in 1896 our wages were reduced to 29 cents per hundred tons, which it is yet at the present time. (For what steel is rolled on our turn). I averaged about $44 a month. I am working at the same place and work at the present time. There have also been great changes made about Johnstown in late years. Up to the time of the flood, Johnstown was a borough which was surrounded by 8 or 10 other boroughs of different names, but just after the flood, in 1890, all those boroughs excepting 2 or 3 joined together and secured a city charter, and so from that time on Johnstown has been a city.

Brownstown, the place where I live, was also greatly improved from year to year, as the time passed by. After the flood, a great many people came on the hill, bought lots, built houses on them, and made their homes there. There are now in our little town about 150 houses, 4 stores, 1 meat market and 1 barber shop. We have also a good four-roomed school house, and our school-terms consist of eight months per year.

MY HOME AT PRESENT

Long ago when we first lived on this hill, my wife and I were young and in our prime. Our home then was a rough wild looking place, covered with stones, stumps, and all kinds of old trees. Our little house which never was touched with a paint brush, turned black after it stood a few years, and strangers passing by often used to make the remark "I wonder who own that little black house". But years have passed by, and that little black house has long been changed to a seven room house, finished according to the style at that time. In place of the wild forest trees, we now have fruit trees, if not very many, still we have a few of various kinds. The front of our lot between the house and the street we have put up with sod and different kinds of ornamental shrubs and plants, which in summer time, when properly tended, make a good appearance. Strangers passing by often say "Isn't that a lovely place". In the rear of the house we have a small patch for garden truck and a handsome little vine-yard with nearly 100 grape vines. We have also two grape-arbors, a good well and the required out-buildings. The residence itself was at one time occupied by my wife and myself alone, but is now occupied by ourselves and four children; and sometimes on Sunday, when the weather is favorable our children all meet together at home. We then have the house pretty well filled up, as we have eight children and so far eight grand children.

SHORT FAMILIES RECORD

George Heckman, my wife's father, died Jan. 8, 1885, at the age of 69 years; her mother died about four years sooner at the age of 67 years. They had three sons who died in their infancy; six daughters lived and got married. Anna and Elizabeth died long ago, and Margaret was drowned in the flood, as I have already stated. My wife and two sisters Mary and Kate are still living.

My father died March 29 1880, at the age of 64 years; my mother died Nov. 7 1890 at the age of 75 years. My parents both were quite healthy people until they got up in age, when mother became very delicate, and father suffered much with sick head-ache, but never had a toothache, and he took a good set of teeth to his grave. I never saw him smoke a cigar but he always was great for smoking a pipe. Mother suffered a great deal with toothache while she was in the old country, but never in this country. Neither mother nor father ever had a tooth pulled by any doctor or dentist.

My oldest brother John was married at Mt. Oliver, to Kate Kramer, and they are living in Allegheny Co. and have four sons and two daughters; John, Maggie, George, William, Jennie and Jesse. The latter is yet at home but the others are all married.

My sister Elizabeth was married to Peter Baker and had six children, four daughters and two sons. She died shortly after my father. Baker again got married, to a widow by the name of Mrs. Wissel, and is living in the old homestead here in Brownstown.

Brother Peter got married at Mt. Oliver to Anna Miller; she died, and he got married to Mary Goldback, who also died, then he came to Johnstown and got married to Maggie Reinhart. They are now living in West Virginia and have four sons and one daughter. Sister Maria is still in the convent in the state of Minnesota. (Sister Bernarda)

Brother Nicholas got married at Fair Haven, to Kate Englert and is living at that place at the present time; they have two sons.

Sister Barbara was married in Johnstown to Theodore Axmacher, and they are now living in Pittsburg and have two sons and two daughters.

In regard to myself and family, I have this to say. I am now 53 years of age, my height is 5 ft. 6 inches and my average weight during middle life was 170 lbs. but at the present time I tip the scales at 190. My wife is now 50 years of age, her height is 5 ft. 1 inch and her average weight for the last 12 or 15 years was 170 lbs. She had a severe sick spell once, which was when our son George was born. I have not been quite so lucky, though I never had any serious sickness, but I have often had the La Grippe, which causes me some trouble nearly every winter these last years. I have also been quite lucky in regard to accidents, though I have worked in the mines and Iron Works for the last 44 years, but I had never a limb broken. I met with a few slight accidents but never was injured seriously.

We are now married 30 years; we have 6 sons and 2 daughters living, 2 daughters who died in their infancy. Those living have all grown taller than myself, excepting the youngest and third youngest, and by all appearances they will also grow taller than I am. Daniel C. is the youngest and is 13 years of age. Amelia K. is the oldest; she is married to Frank Cowan. George C. is married to Elizabeth Weinsirl. Edward J. is married to Theresa Schuster. David P., Anna B., Thomas N. and Daniel C. are yet at home. Those who are married were married in Johnstown and reside in this vicinity. Our children all had 5 or 6 years of common school-education, in English and German.

Thomas the second youngest, had a little more than common-schooling; not because I wished to do more for him than for the others, neither did I intend to favor him more than any one of the other children, but during his school-days he was so determined to study and determined to learn something that would help him along in the battle of life. When he had gone through all the studies of our public school in Brownstown, he desired to go to a higher school. I did not give my consent at once; finally the older children requested me to let him go to a college school. That was the point which I was waiting for - I wanted them to express themselves. When our older children reached the age of about 12 years, I did not have the means to send them to a higher school, neither did they have such a desire for studying as Thomas had, and more than that, boys at that time could get employment at the works and be kept from the streets, but it is not so now, as boys under 16 years are prohibited by law to be employed in public works. Besides that, our family was in such circumstances that the assistance of the older children was greatly needed in order to get along.

When Thomas left the public school, he was examined and received a diploma for public school education, the first one ever issued in Lower Yoder school district. He was but 13 years of age. He went then to Rowe College 12 months; he graduated in the Business and Shorthand and Typewriting courses, for which he has also two diplomas. He also worked as janitor at Rowe College for 7 months, receiving instructions in some higher branches, such as Latin, Algebra, Geometry etc. He has now a position in the office at A.J. Haws & Sons Brick Works in this city and is but 15 years of age. He is getting $30 per month which is a great help to his parents. I hope he will have good luck and be successful; and I also hope that his parents may not be blamed by his brothers and sisters for spending what money we did to accomplish his education.

I am not able to say at present what can be done with Daniel; if he would be willing to study, I would be ever so glad to let him get the necessary education. I am sorry that I was not able to give all of our children a good schooling. I would advise everybody to give their children education, all they can, for it is the best thing they can give them, and no one can ever take it from them.

NOTES OF DIFFERENT NATURE

When I began writing this book, my object was to give my children an opportunity to know at all times who their father was, what he was and where he came from. I often hear parties speak of that subject, and then I often hear them say they do not know where their family originate from. They do not know whether their parents originate from England, Germany, Italy or Turkey. And they do not know whether their fore-fathers were convicts, high-way robbers or honest, industrious and respectable people.

When I was young, I was careless like most people are. I was not anxious to improve my knowledge; in fact I did not realize what good it would be to me. But when I reached the age of about 20 years I began to see that I knew nothing, to speak in short words, I could enter into no conversation excepting the works, or of our Church, of which I was a strong member, but even speaking of the Church I was not able to express myself when speaking the English tongue, for I had no education, nor the required practice. I knew scarcely anything about this world. I never read history, and I never studied geography in my youth; I did not know what geography was or what it was good for. At one time when I was already married, I came to a house where two men were having a conversation about certain cities in Europe, and they had a geography in which they were locating those cities, and that time it came into my mind that that must be an interesting book, and I thought it must be something great to have some knowledge about the different parts of the world. So at the first opportunity I bought a geography, and as soon as I had examined its contents I considered it a book of great value. From that time on I always kept a geography in the house, and often when I was longing for something interesting to pass time, I would take that book and I could spend a few hours very nicely studying the maps and reading short sketches of history from various parts of the world. I got a desire for general knowledge. I secured different books from time to time, and I did some reading when I had time. I was fond of reading good history.

For a long time I still did my reading in German books and papers, and that was a great mistake. I could understand it best, and I thought it was too late for me to begin to do my reading in English print. I was mistaken. A person is never too old to learn more or less. After I got an English daily paper, and our children gathered a lot of reading matter in the same print, then I soon became familiar with it, and at the present time I never wish for German books or papers. I am only too sorry for not practicing reading and writing in our country's language, rather than holding on to German for so long, which is of no use here whatever, only to support those German paper men.

In regard to Church and religion, I have always done my share in money matters for the support of the Church. I also used to be a good attendant of the Church, but in late years I do not go so regularly, so if the floor in the Church wears out too fast, then I am not to be blamed.

I was at one time for several years one of the trustees of St. Mary's Church. And at the same time I was also one of the trustees of St. George's Beneficial Society, which I helped to organize in 1870. Later I was elected Vice-President of the Society, which office I held a long time. I was also a member of the St. Joseph's Society in this town during those years. But at different times those organizations had troubles which were neither becoming to brotherhood nor for Christian people. Such difficulties were sometimes brought forth by members of the Society and sometimes by the parish priest himself. Such actions were very disgusting to me, especially while I was at the head of the Order. In those times there was an organization in existence in the Anthracite Coal Regions, commonly called the Molly McGuires. The proper name was Ancient Order of Hibernians. That Order was a terrible one. Murders and crimes were committed day after day by its members, till at last they were caught up and brought to justice. There were some 16 or more executed in the Counties of Luzerne and Schuylkill.

There was also in those days a society organized by the Irish people of Johnstown, bearing the name of the Ancient Order Of Hibernians; this society was at first strictly forbidden by the parish priest of the St. John's Church. There were then some alterations made in the by-laws of the Order which made it more satisfactory to the priest, and the Order was allowed to exist. Nevertheless the name of it alone seemed terrible to the majority of the people for years after. So, it happened, in Feb. 1889 the Hibernians of this town sent an invitation to our society requesting us to take part in a street parade which they were going to have on St. Patrick's day. At the meeting of our society there was a motion made regarding taking part in the turnout. I protested bitterly against it, but the motion was carried in favor of going. Struck with anger I rose to my feet and said to the members "Do as you have decided, but I shall never be seen in a street parade with an Order bearing that blood-stained name of Hibernians". I kept my word, and more than that I never was seen in a meeting of the St. George's Society.

I had during my time heard a great deal about secret Orders. I had heard so much good and bad talk about them that I often wished to know some facts about them. My own common sense did not allow me to believe that those Orders were really as black as they were painted by a great many people. So after I was independent from all organizations, I took it into my head to find out something about secret Orders. I became a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and also a member of the Knights of the Golden Eagle. I received all degrees in both Orders, but I never rode a goat, I never signed my name with blood, as I often used to hear people say; nor I did not sign myself to the devil, and I never saw one there. I never was forbidden to go to Church by those Orders, neither did I ever see or hear anyone being interfered with or a word said to anybody in regard to his religious faith. But our Church strictly objects to such Orders, and not wishing to raise any excitement or make an exception of myself, I was compelled to quit both Orders, which I did, after being a member of them for several years. So at the present day I stand alone, independent of any organization excepting Cambria Relief, which is kept in existence here by the request of the Cambria Iron Co., and to which every employee of the company is compelled to pay his monthly dues, in order to get benefits in case of sickness or disability by accident at his work.

In politics I am Democratic, but I do not always vote the full Democratic ticket because I belong to that party. Sometimes I support a man of the opposite party, when I think he is a better man for the office and for the interest of the people than a man of my own party, which is often the case at local elections, where a man is often personally acquainted with the candidates. As far as I am concerned, I never held a political office excepting School Director. I am at the present time serving my fourth term on Lower Yoder School Board. I was Treasurer of our school district four years, and every school building in the township at the present time, was built while I was a member of the board.

It was during the time I was School Director that the law came into effect in Pennsylvania for all school districts to furnish all books and writing material for the Public Schools. This was in the year 1891 or 1892. About the same time there was an act passed in the Legislature, for the state to appropriate a large sum of money annually to the public schools which amounted to about $1,100 annually for our township. Prior to this time children were obliged to furnish their own books. During those years I was greatly interested in the improvements which were made in our district from time to time, and I often had the opportunity to take a trip to Ebensburg, our county seat. I have also been at the Ebensburg Court several times, and I was on the Grand Jury one time at the District Court there in Johnstown, which was held in the Parks Bldg. on Main St., in the year 1874. At such places a man can always learn a great deal, and I was always very fond of going to places where I could see and hear something that was new to me.

In Oct. 1899, my brother Peter and I took a trip to Washington D.C. I paid $7.40 for a round trip ticket from Johnstown. We left here on Monday morning and arrived in Washington about 9 o'clock that evening. The Knight's Templar degree of Free-Masons were holding their Convention there, which caused the city to be over-crowded with strange people from all parts of the United States. So, getting there late in the evening, my brother and I had a great time to find a place for lodging. The first-class hotels were too expensive for us and the other ordinary places were all more than filled with people. We walked around for a long time, and were beginning to fear that we might have to remain on the streets all night. But at last we went into a hotel on some side street and we asked the man behind the bar for lodging.

He said "You can stay here if you are satisfied with such as it is".

We told him that we were not very choosy at all. He then took us up to the third floor, and into a room where we saw eight or ten cots on the floor, most of them already occupied.

"There", said the man "are the beds which are supposed to be paid for in advance".

"And what do you charge?"

"One dollar for each" he replied.

We paid him and he left the room. My brother and I felt tired and drowsy from being on the cars all day; so when we were once stretched out on those little $1 beds we were there but a short time till we were fast asleep, and I know I slept good that night. Whether I got a dollar's worth out of it or not I do not know but I think I did. However the next morning we started out to see the sights of the city. It turned out to be a beautiful day, which gave us a chance to get around nicely. We were at the Capitol, at the Treasury Building, at the White House, at the top of Washington Monument and at different other places. I have in my possession today a gravelstone which I picked up that day on the bank of the Potomac River in that city.

In the afternoon the Knights Templar parade took place. I have often seen grand parades in Pittsburg, but I never saw one so great as that. My brother and I stood at a certain point on Penna. Avenue, which is a very wide street and beautifully paved, giving the thousands of Knights an opportunity to do the drilling in proper order. They were all dressed in full knights uniform, and a great many of the music bands from distant places had beautiful new suits for that day. Every Commander carried a rich banner, beautifully decorated and the emblem of cross on it, with the inscription "In Hoc Signo Vinces".

There is no need for me to mention anything about how the city at large was decorated, for it was plain to be seen that neither money nor labor was spared for that purpose. The U.S. treasury building seemed to take the eye of the people more than anything in the line of decorations; it was entirely covered with flags of nearly all sizes. Some were flags that have been taken from the enemy in time of war, others were such that waved over the Union Army during the was of 1861 to 1865, and the Mexican war in 1848, and again others were the stars and stripes that waved over our Union soldiers while they were shedding their blood in different other wars and troubles for our country's cause.

My brother and I stood on the same spot about two hours, and, seeing no end of the parade we pushed back from the crowded street and went into a lunch house, where we took some refreshments and then started out to see other places where we had not yet been. Sometime that evening we walked along Penn. Avenue with the intention of going to Georgetown to a hotel, to stay that night, but all of a sudden brother Peter stopped, and looking at me he said "Let us not stay here to-night, let us go to Baltimore?" "Very well", said I "it will soon be dark and then we can see nothing of interest, but we can do our traveling just as well as by daylight, and then we need not waste any time on the road tomorrow." So we went directly to the Penna R.R. depot and shortly after a train started out which we boarded for Baltimore. Arriving in that city we left the train, following the crowd with the object in our mind that by so doing we would surely get into some business part of the city. We walked along the street in a straight direction, and we saw some people turning off here and some few there, and to our great surprise, we finally found ourselves all alone.

The street was a little down grade and it was a long one, which we could tell by the gas lights that we saw all along at an equal distance apart. There seemed to be no business houses on that street whatever, as the side walks were rather dark between those street lights, but both sides were built up closely with large brick buildings. We walked along slowly and in course of time we met a policeman, whom we asked where we could find a hotel or lodging house, and pointing down the street he said, "down yonder you can soon find a place for lodging, but I would under no consideration advise you to go there, because it is a rough place for strangers to go to, and especially at night, but you go down to where you see that second gas light there you will find a boarding-sign at the door of a building. In that place you may stop if they are not over-crowded. And if they are, then you will find another boarding-house across the street at that place".

We thanked him for the information, and then walked on. Arriving at the second gaslight we soon discovered the small boarding sign at one of the buildings which the officer had mentioned to us. We rang the door-bell and soon an old man appeared, to whom we made our desire known. He said he could accommodate us. By our request, the man led us to the second floor, where he opened the door of a room which we entered and he disappeared. It was a well furnished little room in which we slept that night.

About 6 o'clock the next morning we heard heavy footsteps which seemed to be all over the house. When we came down stairs, we walked into a large dining room, there we saw about a dozen men sitting at a long table eating breakfast, as we thought. The old man whom we spoke to in the evening came to us and said: "Whenever you men are ready, you may sit by the table and have your coffee." So we sat down and a minute later the old fellow brought two large cups with coffee, and also two light cakes about 12 inches in circumference, which he put on the table for us. After we ate our breakfast (as we may call it) we asked the old man what the amount of our bill was and he said "Twenty-five cents each, for your lodging; the coffee goes into the bargain". We thought that was very reasonable; we paid and started off to see the city.

Walking along the streets awhile, we went into a tobacco store to get a few cigars; the man was a German. We asked him a few questions about the city, and finding that we were strangers and that we belong to Johnstown, he became interested and asked us a great many questions about the flood, and he pulled on his coat and hat and went with us. He showed us all through Druid Park and other places, and said he would now go back to his business. We then went to the ship-landing which we thought the most interesting place in the city. There were a great many ships there, but no deep water vessels such as cross the ocean. We walked about all that day from place to place, and in the evening we took the train for Philadelphia, where we arrived late that night.

We had no trouble in finding a place for lodging in that city. We stayed there Thursday and Friday. The most interesting points we saw there was the old Independence Hall and the new City Hall which was not quite completed. We were also in the Girard College which is without any doubt one of the greatest institutions in this country, and there is an interesting history connected with it.

After leaving there, we came to a very large round structure at which we saw the inscription "Palestine at Home". We certainly were anxious to know what was to be seen in that large concern. We went in and found it to be an exhibition showing Palestine as it was 1900 years ago. In the center there was an elevated platform from which we could nicely see all around, and which made it appear like standing on the round knob of a hill. From there we could see far down a green valley. Here and there were blocks of moss-covered rocks along the side of a small stream, which was winding its way through the valley. Looking across this valley, we could see that ancient city Jerusalem inclosed on all sides with a tremendous stone wall.

In the city we saw that great Temple built by King Solomon. We could also see a great many other buildings and places of interest, such as The Palace of Herod, the Residence of Annas, of Pontious Pilate and Caiphas the High Priest, and the building in which our Savior partook of the last supper with the Apostles, and also the court in which He was sentenced to death. At the one side of the city was Mount Olive and the garden in which Christ was betrayed by Judas. Farther away from the city was Mount Cavalry; there was three large crosses made of heavy rough timber planted in the earth, and our Savior with outstretched arms, large nails being driven through his hands and feet, and so pinned fast to the middle of the cross; robbed of his garments, stained with blood all over, and facing the city Jerusalem, from which he was sentenced to that cruel death.

The victims at the other two crosses were condemned as murderers. They had their arms raised up and drawn back over the cross beams, then ropes were lashed around their upper and lower limbs, and in this way they were fastened to the crosses. On this execution ground were a great many people, some who were engaged in that terrible work, and others who were merely spectators. The Panorama seemed very natural.

Turning our eyes from this scene more to the left we could see a dozen or more small villages and towns in different localities, which all represented certain places, such as Jericho, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other places. Some of these villages seemed to be very close, while others seemed to be miles away. And then we could see a great many roads and foot paths winding through the country from place to place. On those narrow roads we could see here and there people of that country in their peculiar costumes traveling along, some on foot with a dry limb of a tree in their hands for a walking cane, and perhaps another such stick on the shoulder with a large bundle hanging at the end of it; others would ride a camel. The whole scenery looked so odd and strange, and yet so beautiful and interesting it was the greatest exhibition of its kind that I ever saw.

After my brother and I left there we went to the European Museum on Chestnut St. then to the United States Mint or in common words, where they make silver money. There we could see how the silver was melted and cast into bars about one foot long and about three inches in thickness, how it was rolled out into strips something like hoop-iron, then it is run into a machine which cuts it out, and then another press stamps it, and the ready coin drops down into a box.

From this place, we took the street cars and rode out to Fairmont Park; there we were in a large green-house where we saw a great many strange plants and trees, such as we had never seen before. From there we returned to the city.

We were always in a hurry, and spent no more time at any place than was positively necessary. We paid no attention to meal times; whenever we wished to eat, we simply turned into a lunch house to satisfy our stomach, and then started off again; and whenever we became thirsty we walked into a saloon and took a glass of beer or two and away we would go again. On Friday our feet became very sore. We had been tramping about on those hard sidewalks for four days. That evening we went to the P.R.R. depot and took the cars for Johnstown, where we arrived in our home the next morning about 10 o'clock.

That was the longest and most interesting trip I ever took. But I have often taken a trip to Pittsburg or to some smaller town in western Pennsylvania. I have also at all times been very fond of going out for a walk into the country. When I had time and could get a partner for company, I would start off in the morning on a nice Summer's day and walk all day over hills and valleys and come back in the evening and then feel better than one who stayed at home all day. On a walk of that kind we would never follow the same road more than once; if there was any possibility, we would go out on one road and come back on another and then the next time we would perhaps take a different direction entirely. My brothers were also fond of going out into the country, and it was in company with one of them that I would always prefer going out. A great many folks, when away from home at meal time they become disgusted, weary and sick because they cannot go to the table and eat a hearty meal. This would never trouble my brothers and myself. Sometimes we would go to a farm house and ask for milk, bread and butter, which we would pay for, and make a good country lunch of it, but if we could get nothing, it was all the same, we would not shorten our trip on that account.

I never did any hunting but I love to be in the wood in Summer time. I always followed such amusements that were less expensive. I never appreciated much company, because it is always more or less expensive. When I go to town I go alone; then I can transact my business and go back home. If I wish to have a glass of beer, I simply walk into a saloon and drink one or two and then go my way.

I never was a fighting man, I always prefer peace and friendship with everybody. I never was arrested nor a prisoner in my life. I never prosecuted anyone, neither did anybody ever enter suit against me. I never was a witness on a witness stand in my life, and never paid a fine for violating the laws anywhere or at any time. I never try to harm or impose on anyone, which is done so often and by so many people everywhere and especially in the public works. I was always kind and accommodating to my fellow workmen, but if anyone acted mean and dirty with me, I would never seek revenge, but it was carved into my mind and I could not have the same friendly feeling towards him as I had before. I never cursed at anybody, neither do I curse or swear at my home, or in the presence of my family. I never made a habit of such language, and never thought it becoming to any man. I never disappoint anyone by a promise, if I make a promise to a man I always come to time if possibility will allow me. I never use tobacco excepting what I smoke in my pipe. I never drink whiskey excepting what I use for medicine. I never spent money on luxuries. I have never eaten oysters or ice cream more than about a half dozen times in my life, even in my childhood and boyhood I never spent money for anything like candy.

I would buy toys for amusement, but I would always take good care of them and I would have them a long time. I have been always fond of some amusements. I have been at almost all kinds of plays, shows and exhibitions but never went to see them too often. To dances I would also go now and then; dancing was a great favorite of mine. When I heard music in my young days, my feet could not stand still. I could not go to a dance for the purpose of looking on as some folks do; I would have to dance and dance as long as I could hear a sound of music. I was always very fond of hearing good music or singing, not so much for lively airs as for slow, soft and sweet airs. I was no singer myself, but would walk a long distance to hear good singing. I always had a great desire to see curiosities and often went to so called side-shows which generally travel with circus troops, for the purpose of seeing curiosities such as they would have on exhibition. I saw nearly all living animals that were on exhibition in my days. I also saw people of all descriptions, such as giants, dwarfs, fat people and living skeletons; and also a great many disfigured ones, some of which were horrible to look at while in other cases it was a miracle that they could live.

I never did any useless roaming about, and therefore I did not get over the United States as much as some men do. On a few occasions I left home when I was a young man, for the purpose of seeking work, when there was no work at my home. I never went outside of Pennsylvania excepting when I took the trip to Washington D.C. In Pa. I have been in the counties of Fayette, Somerset, Blair, Armstrong, Butler, Allegheny, Westmoreland, Indiana and Cambria.

In regard to Church, I may state that I have heard sermons in Churches in nearly every denomination that is in Johnstown, and I have also been in 42 Catholic Churches in my time. I have often gone to a strange Church for the purpose of hearing a good sermon or a good choir, something that would be new and interesting to me.

Now before bringing my little history to a close, I have but a few more words to say. Though I have nothing to boast of, for I neither accumulated wealth or glory for myself and children, but looking at the matter from a different stand point I may also state that I have not caused poverty or disgrace in my family. And to my children I will say this; you may at all times stand up with pride and tell any one who your father and mother are. And if you see or hear any person or persons who seem to have no friendly feeling for us, remember it is so not because they have been ill treated or because we did harm to them, it is simply jealousy because they cannot show the honest upright family record that we can. Therefore I say to you, use your judgment and do what is right. Be honest and respectable; do not speak what you cannot prove; don't promise what you cannot fulfill, be true wives and husbands, good fathers and mothers, be strict but not cruel; be good but not foolish Christians; be sober, industrious and good citizens. Then if anyone call you chips off the old block you need not get angry, for it will be an honor to you.

And when you are no more about your mother's hearth, when you are scattered in different directions and have established your own homes elsewhere, then you will sometimes pass along by the way of Gilbert St. and you will see the old Homestead on a well known spot on the hill-side; then think for a moment, and say to yourselves "There is our good old home where we spent our happy days of childhood; the old pleasant, beautiful days of youth, when we had neither trouble or sorrow.

And when years have passed by, and your mother and myself are no more to be seen about the old home, when we are moulding in our graves, and when other folks are occupying the old residence, then still remember that in that home you have learned obedience, good behavior and Christianity from the lips of a kind and loving mother, it was in that home where you learned friendship, love, and truth from a worthy and honorable father, and it was in that home where you were born to the name which was kept free of crime by your forefathers from generation to generation up to the present time, and I hope and wish that it may remain sootless at all times in the future as it has in the past.

Amen.

C. J. Kurtz