Memories

Memories. Settled 1852. , Lancaster as we remember 1890-1900 ------- , Each morning the tinkle of the cow bells as the milch cows drifted home from their daily pasture on Ten Mile Creek, on Sundays the melody of the church bells--day after day the ring of the anvils in the blacksmith shops of A. Deam or Murphey Moore--the clang of Ben Johnson's hammer in his tin shop, the tap, tap, tapping in Joe Fromleth's Shoe Shop, the swish of the plane in Dave Barrow's wood workingshop. Gone forever is the livery stable - in that stable a beautiful, high stepping bay named 'Jolly' and the lucky boy who could spare $2.00 for the evening. And the Lancaster Flour Mill presided over by Jim Guinn. We ate hot biscuits concocted from its flour every day, cooked with wood we cut and carried to the wood box. And its flour sacks what a wonderful assortment of clothes they furnished the younger generation - - - - - There was no youthful delinquency in those days yet it is a mystery who it was on April Fools' night, 1896, put Gene Murphey's wagon on top of the livery stable or who on October 31, 1895, absconded with six 'Chick Sale' houses and placed them prominently around the public square. Many a Lancaster boy has been sent on an unaccomplished task searching for a 'left handed monkey wrench' or a 'chimney stretcher'. Did you ever see a 'hot seat' erected--a wooden dry goods box nailed to the front of a frame store and equiped with a plunger which darted a needle up through a hole in the box when a string under the sidewalk was pulled some distance away.--The finest event of the year was the annual visit of the school children to the State Fair. It was usually the HT& C 'Dummy' piloted by Engineer Mat More-land which transported us. No modern entertainment can compare to the picnics in Strain's Grove-fogs of dust, barrels of ice water and tin cups on strings, political speeches, fried chicken, pies, and cake and for days after ticks and chiggers. On May 31, 1899-the first Commencement Exercise at Randolph College. On the program were many members of the '1900 Club' Passing through reorganization-Then the fire the college became only a memory of days gone. An old home town that ceased to exist as we knew it, but with memories as happy and eagerly remembered as a sweetheart's first kiss., written 1955 by the 1900 Club