In the 1920's, Attorney James Pollock Kohler wrote a series of letters about his early years as a boy in Milton Pa. The Miltonian published them under the heading "Reminiscences of Milton by J.P; Kohler".
This letter, published on August 4 1921 mentions the blacksmith, the Shearer and Bostion Pottery Shops, cabinet makers, wood workers, and brick making.
INDUSTRIES
At a very early age, I was taken the fair at Farley's below town. The fat pigs and big oxen did not amuse me as much as the attempts of men to climb the greased pole for the reward at the top.
The next day I attempted the trip to the fair grounds alone. When came to what senses I had, I was sitting in the doorway of a building near the bridge, watching a man putting shoe on a horse, at least this was where they found me. The blacksmith shop on the upper side of the Front street bridge remained for many year until one Brown replaced it with meat store. But ever after I gained most of my boyhood, amusement and instruction, from visits to the many small industries of the town, and during such visits became acquainted with the real mechanics of the day: when machinery was little used ii manufacturing.
There was a brickyard not far from the lock, owned by one Penny, when could be seen the clay placed in the forms and finished brick taken from the kilns. No machinery was used. I might note that the first labor strike in history was over the making of bricks in Egypt.
1858 Map of Milton, showing the Bostian, Barr, & Wertman shops
The next interesting operation in clay was in the big pottery shop of Bostian on Arch street, where the Reformed Church now stands. Big loads of clay were brought here by teams and piled up, and then ground in the big hopper by a horse, hitched to a pole, treading in almost ceaseless rounds, From the hopper the clay was worked into large cubes, and from these cubes smaller cubes or lumps were put on the potters wheel, and hand-worked into plates, crocks, bowls and other useful articles. These were afterwards glazed and burned in the kiln and sold in the stores for common household use, as machine-made pottery was then unknown in Milton.
Another pottery, near the planing mill, of one Shearer, was also an interesting place. There was a peculiar fascination connected with the modeling from clay, mud or sand ,that starts from the mud-pie period of early childhood and accompanies us through life. And among the most interesting records that many has preserved are the ancient mounds and homes that he wrought out of clay. The insects and animals, including the birds, have done much with the raw material that is everywhere accessible in great quantities. The other day from the inside of the lapel of an old coat hanging on an attic, was taken a wasp's nest made from red clay. On breaking it, we found carefully imbedded, a number of young spiders and along side of them, the wasp egg that would later become a wasp. It was really cold storage lobster or crab ready for the wasp larva to feed upon in its earliest stages.
As instructive to the boyish mind as the operations in clay were the numerous operations in wood that could be seen in the shops of Milton. On Broadway, opposite Back street, was a cabinet maker's shop, which I think at one time was owned by Mr. Buoy, the father of the present John Y. Buoy, Here were made by hand, bureaus, cupboards, tables, chairs, settees, cradles and coffins. Some of the valuable antiques of the present day were made in shops like this and many I an hour could be spent in watching these skilled workmen. There were no window displays of machine-made furniture, as most of what was sold was ordered, like clothes and boots, and the coffins were not handled by a trust as we find them now. There was another cabinet maker's shop of one Marsh on Front street, where similar articles were made at the bench, with the ordinary cabinet maker's tools.
One of the interesting "shops" of those days was that of John Houtz, which stood at the rear of his brick house on Broadway at the railroad. Houtz was a well known builder and in his shop were made doors, sash, blinds and other house accessories that later came from the planing mills only. The shavings were knee deep at times a when his men were busy.
On Arch street, just above Market the wooden parts of plows and harrows and other farm implements were hand made. Here Jimmy Longan, from a piece of oak or hickory, with his drawing knife and chisel could hew a plow handle with a curve that only an artist could produce. This was before and after he served in the the Civil War and long before he became a helpless cripple and kept a little store on Broadway.
Across the track from Houtz's shop was the carriage and wagon shop of Barr and Wertman. One could see the woodworkers take oak planks from the pile outside, carry them in and turn them into sleighs, wagons and carriages, without the aid of any machinery at all. Spokes came in by freight in bundles and were fitted into the hubs and rims made in the shop. Mr. Barr made wheels at the bench nearest the door, He was typical of the independent mechanics of the days when a well-learned trade constituted the greater part of their capital. He had a full beard, a brawny arm and a merry twinkle in his eye that welcomed the boys that negotiated repairs and braces for the wagons and pungs. He was always glad to help those who came for the oak chips that otherwise would feed the fire, constantly burning outside of the shop.
In boyish enthusiasm I applied to him for work one day and he offered me three shillings a day for turning the grindstone. I turned it constantly for three days, during which all the workmen in the shop sharpened their tools at the wheel I was turning. When no more came I stopped turning. He looked at me and asked what the trouble was that I was not turning the wheel? I told him the men had finished sharpening their tools. He said that made no difference, that he hired me to turn the grindstone and I should keep right on, so if the men wanted to use it, it would be running when they came. I demurred. I could not see the use of such wasted effort. But he insisted that I keep on. I then organized and conducted a one-boy strike and he declared a lock-out, after paying me off. This little incident did not break our friendship for in later years I always called in for a talk with him on my visits home, But we I never could determine which made the I most profit out of our nine shilling contract of employment.
These shops were swept out with the great fire. "Dad" Wertman conducted the blacksmith end of the business with three or four helpers, while overhead the painting and decorating of the sleighs and buggies was under the supervision of "Ad" Derr. The sleighs generally had two goose or eagle necks with carved heads extending out over the curved dash board, and a deer or eagle painted in the space behind the seat, and all of this was hand-work of a high quality. The buggies were light in build, black in color, with the spokes and shafts beautifully striped, I and they were much used by the Milton youths on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons to drive their girls to Lewisburg, Watsontown or Limestoneville.
For two dollars you could hire at Wilhelm's livery on Broadway as nice a rig as any girl would wish to occupy, and much of the courting of those days was done on wheels, by the one-armed experts who would scoff at the idea of using two hands to drive one horse. Each stanza of a song heard in those days ended with the line: "But where was his arm."
A similar 'business was conducted in the brick shops at Arch and Market street. Seydell and Tilden were the proprietors when the big fire came. In these shops were also the Meixel Pump Works, where the ordinary wooden well and cistern pumps were made, painted and sold.
The planing mill and saw mill were of course large affairs in the lumber line, but both had their attractions. The buzz of the planer and the buzz of the big circular saw threw out a pleasing melody, heightened when , they struck a knot to high C, and then 'gradually back to base, In the planing, Mr. Cooley operated the band saw, which cut the flowered diagrams and other scroll work from numerous boards held together and afterwards I used to ornament house exteriors. Inside ornamentation required the chisel, as the Shimer "header," then within the brains of two brothers employed in Milton planing mills, was yet un-born.
In 1890, at a trial in London, over a contract drawn in Austria, I was made to feel much at home when a witness described the Shimer "header" to the Court and jury. The same feeling overtook me years before when I saw on a sidetrack in Portland, Oregon, a Reading flat car made by Murray, Dougal & Co., Milton, Pa. However far away you go you may at any time run across some thing or person that reminds you of your home town. Ushered to a pew in a London Church, I sat down right in front of Mr. and Mrs. S. W. Murray.
The big saw mill supplied the town with slab-wood, sold by the wagon load, the cutting and piling of which was a boy's job while he was resting himself from other tasks to which he g might be assigned. Riding the logs out of the pool up the incline towards by the circular saw was a dangerous and thrilling 'amusement that hazard-loving boys indulged in.
The planing mill is still there, very a much as it looked fifty years ago, but older. Many fire alarms were sent out from it, but even the great fire spared it. It perhaps illustrates, as well as any industry, the great victory of machines over hand tools, of steam over muscle in man's progress toward the freedom that may rid him eventually I of all toil— the freedom of the day when his fly wheel will be the revolving earth on which he lives, and his belts will be the million electric currents tapped from the great dynamo he is gradually beginning to understand. When we look back fifty years and check up what the little mortal has accomplished we may safely I predict that in the next fifty, the power that Marconi is playing with, as Franklin tempted the lightning with his kite, will have become so useful that all his railroads, automobile and machinery of every sort will be started and stopped by a push button, which connects it all with his revolving ball —25,000 miles round and 8,000 milest hrough. If then is obeyed the edict of Moses: "The land (earth) shall not be sold forever," the human race may have happiness in the fullest measure here.
JAMES P. KOHLER
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More Reminiscences of Milton by J.P. Kohler [Index]
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Find More Stories & History Of Milton
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"Milton, Pennsylvania, the 19th Century Town on Limestone Run" by Homer F. Folk: On Front or Mill St. (now Arch St.) from Pine Alley to Walnut St. was the pottery of Jacob Bastian. He occupied that site from the late 1820's until his death on April 1, 1858. The pottery was then bought by William Freed and Francis H. Shearer, who operated it until 1865, when they sold it to the German Reformed church.
In 1834, he bought 2 acres, 84 perches in Turbot Twp., which was probably the source of wood for his kiln. The location of the pottery later became the site of the German Reformed Church (formerly part of the Harmony Church) which is now the St. John's United Church of Christ.
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