Carrollton Patriot Newspaper

16 Feb 1922
"Disgrace" Is '22 Viewpoint
Friend Bradshaw: The picture of the old "Sky Scraper" school building in a recent issue of the Patriot takes me back some fifty years. I did not start to school the first year that building
was used, but soon after viz. 1872. Miss Lizzie Fenner was my first teacher.
"Pride of Carrollton" -- Well, perhaps the application was excusable then, but now with all due respect to those who could have conceived of such a monstrosity of a building for school
purposes, that "Disgrace to Carrollton" would be more appropriate.
The building was a veritable firetrap, with those long draughty halls, long and seemingly endless stairways; detrimental to the high school girls who had to climb and keep on climbing until they finally reached the old high school room. There was no adequate way of heating the building; the immense cast iron stoves they used were big as hogsheads, and had large sheet iron drums up on top. These stoves had a wonderful appetite for coal--surely they were the largest stoves ever made.
Imagine having to carry all the coal up those many flights of stairs that these monster stoves required? Is it a very great wonder that a former janitor, driven to desperation, would set
fire to and destroy such a nuisance?
According to the law, this janitor committed a crime, but from every humane standpoint he, unintentionally no doubt, conferred an everlasting benefit to posterity.
It is no doubt the only way the community would ever have gotten rid of that very unsuitable school building for many, many years. At the time it was destroyed, I remember many though that the punishment given the janitor was too light. I wonder what they think about it now?

Transcribed 19 Aug 2003 by Grace Karr Gettings

23 Feb 1922
First sewing machine here
The first sewing machine in Greene county was bought in St. Louis by Thomas Black, hauled up from there in wagon, and placed in his home, the old Black homestead, now owned and occupied by his son, Robert T. Black. This was in the year 1855. The machine was a Wheeler & Wilson of very primitive type, having a curved needle, and both threads being unwound from the original spools, one into a disc bobbin, the other onto a specially made spool, placed in the rear of the arm, tensioned by a thumb screw, and moving up and down the same as the needle at the other end of the arm.
While this machine proved a valuable asset in a large family, no one ever learned to operate it successfully except Mrs. Black, for it had as many tantrums as any broncho ever had, or as the most primitive flivver. No parts and no needles could be obtained nearer than St. Louis. No one knew anything about it from experience, and no adjustment rules came with it. But David Hartwell, Charles Eldred, William Ward, Henry Black and others were quite interested in the new invention, and realized the possibilities of the sewing machine. They gave valuable assistance in taming it, and although it never quite quit it’s “bucking”, it was used for many years. Its original cost was $126 in St. Louis.
06 Apr 1922
Wire Binder Came in 1878
“Anuther Oldtimer,” in fixing the date of the grain binder’s first appearance in this county, probably meant 1878 when he wrote 1887. Mrs. Mary Mungall calls attention to the evident error and gives her first recollection of the wire binder:

“In the harvest time of 1878, Keller Heist, who lived where Clark Thomas now lives, went to town and hired a gang of men to bind wheat after the reaper. When he went to the field with the men, they refused to work for less than three dollars a day. He told them to get into the wagon and took them back to town. Henry Sieverling telegraphed for a Walter A. Wood wire binder which arrived a few days later. Wm. H. Sieverling, then in this ‘teens, and another man shocked all the wheat. They changed teams on the binder every two hours, and kept it going constantly.

“The wire binder did the work satisfactorily, but the wire proved a nuisance. In plowing the ground afterward the ploughshare was continually running into pieces of wire and had to be taken to the shop every day. Small pieces of wire got mixed up with the wheat and made it very undesirable for milling.

“At that time (1878) there were quite a number of reapers in the vicinity, but there were also two headers in use that I know of. One belonged to John Hobson, the other to W. D. Thomas, and that season they headed wheat for several farmers in the neighborhood. The following year, 1879, quite a number of Walter A. Wood twine binders were ordered, three of them coming to Centerville. Keller Heist and Elisha Eldred each bought one, and John W. Black and James Mungall bought one in partnership, the latter afterward buying his partner’s interest.”

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