Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1917 — HAD A MOST ENJOYABLE TRIP [ARTICLE]

HAD A MOST ENJOYABLE TRIP

Editor, Wife and Son Reached Home Friday Evening. The editor ' and wife and son Delevan returned home Friday evening, reaching Rensselaer about S o’clock,’ from,, their auto trip to Otsego county, New York, where they visited two brothers, a sister and several other relatives of the former, whose boyhood home was in Decatur and Worcester, in that county. Wd had a most enjoyable trip and one that we mean to take again within the next few years, if circumstances permit. Including the running about there we traveled in all nearly 2,5 09 miles on the round trip. Perhaps a brief account of this trip may be of interest to numerous readers of The Democrat. Omitting many minor details, we will endeavor to write what we think will be of the most interest to our readers, some of whom may perhaps some time desire to take an auto trip over much of the route we traveled. Leaving Rensselaer at 5 a. m. Wednesday, August 29, we stopped the fijst night at the Crosby House in Defiance, Ohio. ~ We w’ent via Monon, Monticello, Logansport. Peru, Wabash, Huntington and Fort Wayne, and made nearly 200 miles the first day. There had been heavy rains all along the route but we had gravel or stone roads all of the way except where we had to make a detour in southwest of' Defiance, where they were building more concrete roads. We had found some concrete before reaching this point and were congratulating ourselves that we w r ould have fine roads for many miles when we reached the end of the concrete and found the -road closed and it was necessary to detour over three miles of clay roads where the clay clung to the wheels of our car so thick that it rubbed against the fenders and the tracks we left looked as if -a traction engine had passed through. However, we soon Struck a very good stone road again and reached Defiance about 7:30 in the evening. Next morning we pulled out abomt 5 a. m. after having had several hundred pounds of clay washed off the car the evening before, crossed the Anglaze river, a beautiful stream, which we followed most of the way to Florida and Napoleon, in which latter place we stopped for breakfast.*' From Napoleon we went through McClure, Bowling Green, Pemberville, Woodville, Fremont (a fine business town which we liked very much), Bellevue, Norwalk, Wakeman to Oberlin. At ttye tatter place we thought we would stop for a moment and make inquiry about Ed J. Stone, ■who was foreman of the mechanical department of The Democrat some eight or nine years ago, and with his wife is known to many Ren«-

selaer people. Seeing a business place with “The Oberlin Printing Co.” on the window we stopped in front of the place and the writer went in and asked the girl in the front office if she knew E. J. Stone and she replied that this was Mr. Stone's print shop. Mr. Stone was out at the .moment but the' 1 girl called him and he soon returned to the office.and was very glad to see us.’ Nothing would do liut- we had to drive down to his home ,a riel see Mrs. Stone, and it was hard work to get away without remaining over night with them. However, as w-e wished to push on to our-journey's end we were obliged to decline the invitation with a promise of possibly stopping on the way back, and were soon in Elyria, Ridgeville, Dover, Rocky River and entered the suburbs of Cleveland over Lake avenue boulevard, irp Euclid avenue and through to Willoughby, about twenty miles east of Cleveland, where we stopped for the. second night. | We got our first view of Lake Erie before reaching Cleveland and ] stopped on Lake avenue, a beautiful asphalt boulevard, and walked down a short distance to the lakej shore. At this point the lake lay j perhaps 100 feet or more below us | and the bank was perpendicular j and of solid rock. / . ' We had found fine tarvia, con-, crete apd brick roads all the way j from near Oberlin and had made! thirty to forty-five miles per hour : over them. Cleveland is a big city, I and by reason of this winding. Lake avenue, over which one enters, the city. it is a difficult place to get in and out of, especially so as we had to detour around a few ' • ", ’• , -I streets on account* of the building of a new viaduct, and the progress made through the heavy traffic of the business section of j Euclid avenue, which is most noted because of it being the "home for many years of the Standard Oil magnate, John D. Rockefeller. Mr. Rockefeller’s fine dwell-' ing is still retained by him there In Cleveland but we. believe that he claims his residence now-—-for taxpaying reasons —in New- York state, near Tarry town. where he has a beautiful estate. It was perhaps 7:30 o’clock when we reached Willoughby, got supper and- put up for the night.

Willoughby is a rather small place and there is no all-night gar-! age there, so it was about 7 o’clock j next morning before we were on our way again. The drive from j Willoughby to Painsville, ten miles, is over a fine brick road twenty feet wide —and, by the way, the brick roads we shall mention are, laid on a concrete base and are! much smoother than any of the brick streets in Rensselaer, being j practically as smooth as concrete to drive over. Fine residences and estates, owned by wealthy people, abound on either side of this road with beautiful grounds and flower; gardens, making it one of the most splendid country drives it has ever been our fortune to see. On through Madison to Geneva, at which latter place we stopped for breakfast, then Ashtabula, where we crossed a very high bridge, and where our fine brick, concrete and tarvia roads ended, and Conneaut, where another long, high bridge spanned a valley and where a toll of 5 cents for our ear and driver and 1 cent for each additional occupant, 7 cents in gll, was exacted.

Soon after leaving Conneaut we crossed the line into Pennsylvania, and apparently this state has done the least toward ‘improving its, highways of any of the Eastern states. This, road is traveled extensively and by practically all tourists, and while most of it has been graveled at some time it is not in very good condition, especially from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Westfield, Xew York. We had paid all the way from 21 cents to 2 6 cents for gasoline along the way, bu*’ at Erie, Pennsylvania, the price was 28 cents. From there on to the end of our journey the, price run all the way from 23 cents to 28 cents per gallon. From Painsville, Ohio, to Westfield, New York, we passed thousands of acres of Concord grapes— several peach orchards, but there were very few peHches in evidence. We found on our return trip via Buffalo that grape culture was the principal industry in western New York in the section along Lake Erie. People grow grapes there like they grow corn here. We were told that they had had a very wet, backward season and the grapes were much later in ripening thap usual. They were all still green when we went through but were ripening, and ths farmers

f were beginning to pack them for shipping on our trip. It was no uncommon Sight to see a ( carload or more of crates and kets on hand, ready for the packing. Many of these grapes go to the Welch grape juice factories. 1 while hundreds of thousands of J baskets are shipped to all parts of the country to be retailed out byj the grocers, and some" of them we get right here in Rensselaer.' ' Strainge as it may seem; we were * told that frost seldom strikes that section until early in November and j frequently not until the )ast of NoI vamber, on account of its proxim-, ity to the lake. ; I At Ripley, shortly before reach-, 'ing Westfield, we stopped and had 8 *an excellent dinner at “Ye Perry ! Inn” at 60 cents per—one of the |best “feeds” we had found on the trip, and w© also stopped there for breakfast on our return. From Westfield on to Binghampton. possibly over 300 miles, with the exception of some tw-enty miles' of good gravel, we had almost 1 every foot of the way over state roads—as they call the highways improved under the —$Uito highwuycommission—either brigk or concrete and generally twenty feet wide. Think of it—one can go from the western edge of the state clear through to Albany and then down the Hudson river to New York j city over state roads, of which we shall say more in detail in Satur-' day’s Democrat.. I From Westfield, where a twentyfoot brick road begins, we drove ( to Mayville, thence to Hartfield, and down along the east side of, Chautauqua lake to Jamestown,. one of the most beautiful drives ■ imaginable, wit lithe lake close on * our right and in view all of the 1 way over a“ road as smooth as any. sidewalk in Rensselaer and twenty j feet in width. The scenery all along is great. About Jamestown! and on east it was quite hilly,* some of the hills being quite long 1 and rather oteep. so that it was j * necessary to shift gears before' j reaching the top. John M. Knapp, who was form--1 erly in the livery business here, is * located at Panama, not far from J | Mayville, and we had intended! 'stopping to see him on the way 'home, but the fact that the district! exemption board had exempted sev-* eral who were-drafted and made it | necessary for our son to go out | with the first 40 per cent. fromj Jasper county, instead of the * second 40 per cent., as had been j expected, caused us to curtail our ! visit at our old home and forego ! the pleasure of calling on Mr. and i t Mrs. Knapp. Froinii Jamestown we followed the state road winding around the ! hills and up the valley among the i Allegheny mountains to Salamanca, ! a pretty little city of about 10,000 j population, where; we stayed at a splendid hotel on our third night. The weather had been fine all along and we encountered no dust at all until we reached the edge :of New York state. The Allegheny river flows through this valley and Salamanca is a division point of the B. R. & P. and Erie railroads. The Pennsylvania road also runs through Salamanca. We had driven 545 miles on reaching Salamanca, so the speedometer informed us. At 5 o’clock next morning we j were on the way again, passing j throuigh Carrollton, Alleghany, . j Olean (where we breakfasted), ' j Cuba, Friendship, Belvidere, Bel- . mont, Scio, Wellsville, Andover, , Alfred, Almond, Hornell, thence

across to Savona, Campbell, Cooners, Painted Post, Corning, Big Flats, Horseheads, Elmira, Lowman, Chemung and. W.averly, stopping, of course, for breakfast and dinner. Here we again stopped' for the night at a good hotel, and next morning were off for pinghampton, forty miles up the valley, passing through Barton, Smithboro, Tioga Center. Owego, Appalachin, Vejstal, Endicort and Johnson City. While twisting in around the hills and up the valley' not far from Hornell we met a dilapidated looking outfit drawn by one horse and a mule with a burro following along behind, and just as we get up to it we saw that it was old Colonel Thatcher and his outfit jogging back Westward. He had the same old spring wagon loaded down with tin cans, out of date automobile number plates from many different states, with numerous other junk. The colonel was sitting on top of the load looking as happy as though he was driving a Packard twin “six.’’ As we were hitting the high places at- about thirty-five miles an hour we did not stop to renew acquaintance with this interesting old gentleman, who, it will be remembered, passed tlirouglj Rensselaer last May wuth this same outfit, and informed us then that he was on his way to New York and Boston to locate a

route through to New York and Washington, D. C., which he Would recommend to the viar department to transport army supplies and food in case of congestion on the railroads. Colonel Thatcher is a good 1 roads advocate and has devoted | many years in this work, according to his story. Ho has visited I Rensselaer twice in the past few years and says that he travels with I his unique outfit for the reason that it always draws a crowd, and after the crowd has gathered he preaches the good roads go-; to it. * ; ' A " ‘ • W© took breakfast at Bingliamipton, and at about ir. 3" pulled out up the Susquehanna valley on the last lap of our journey, ninety miles eastward, passing through Port Crane, Sanitaria* Springs, Belden. Harpursville- Nineveh, Aft on, Bainbridge. Sidney, Unadilla, Wells Bridge, Otego, Oneonta, Colliersville, Maryland and Scbenevus. Here we took a branch state road, eight miles northeast to West ford, the end of our journey, which v- -*• reached at about 3:30 p. m., on the fifth —day —omt —and - w here w©* made our headquaiters while vbiting our sister and husband and a brother and a niece in Maple Valle:' and a brother and family in East Worcester. Besides the relatives whom we had not seen for a number of years we visited the little old red school house where, as a boy. we sat on one of the long wooden benched and took our first lesson? at school. Another interesting feature of our.visit, to us, was a call; made upon us by Revilo Holn •- . who taught this school more than forty-five years ago when nearly fifty pupils attended. Now they have but four,' Mr. Holmes is now a retired farmer and quite well to do. He toid us that in his early days of teaching, he had come West one time and taught school over in Iroquois . county, Illinois, at Martinton, which is onlj- some forty miles distant from Rensselaer. We had a very interesting visit with this old teacher and his wife, and found that the fornier has kept track <. most of his pupils of nearly a half century ago, and he told us that he believed lie could tell off-hand ! the name and within a year of the ! age of every pupil who went to I school to him at Maple Valley 4n the early seventies. He is a very I intelligent and well preserved man had he remained in Illinois or ( went on farther West it is probable I that he would have achieved na^

tional prominence. All through the cential part of j New York dairying and potato growing are the principal indu?-] tries. It is quite a broken country however, and what is known as the hill farms are very low in price. They are as productive as the farms in the valleys, some even more so, but as a rule they can b.e bought for about what the improvements are worth. The more industrious farmers are seemingly all prosperous and one frequently sees where a fine large ham - some of the finest and largest bams that we ever saw—have been put up. very recently, indicative o' much prosperity. We saw some barns that must have cost as high as $5,000 or $6,000 to build. The farm houses, especially in the valleys, as a rule are good and comfortable and some of them are exceptionally fine. Produce of all kinds brings good prices and eggs w r ere 48 cents per dozen there at the time we left. The Binghampr ton and Elmira papers state that the potato crop will probably be quite light, owing to many fields having been affected by blight, and | the growers are looking for $1 per bushel or better for their potatoes right from the fields.

We had intended to return via Utica, Syracuse and Rochester, but a Chicago gentleman whom we met in Worcester told us that he had just driven through over; that route with his family—Worcester was his white’s old home—and he had found-the roads quße bad between Utica and Worcester. „ So we decided to return as far as Elmira or, in fact, as far as Savona, the way we had come. Here we branched off through Bath—one of the prettiest towns we had seen on our entire trip, with wide, well paved streets, beautiful shade trees' fine residence and extensive and well kept lawns. Thence to Wayland and Dansville. Avon, Caledonia, Leroy, Stafford, Batavia, Eaijt Pembroke, Clarence, Wißigmsville. Snyder and into Buffalo. The state roads here were mostly tarvia, but smooth, wide and it was not'so hilly. From Elmira to Buffalo we do not think we had to shift gears for any inclines. The first night out on our return trip we spent in Elmira, and the second night at Angola, abont twenty miles this side of Buffalo,

on Lake Erie. The- rani rams along the lake *32 lit* way from. Buffalo to Erie, and frank. Westfield, New York, i& Fort Ways*. Indiana, we followed jßaaaacaffly the. same rente as . wheat .-going. .." Osr Airil oat are spent' in PainsriUe, wikere *e grit excellent a<-comm©«lst*B»s as tile- Parmly Hotel, and «sr-" fwnrti night we stoppejl tIK- ICmAiF Ho-use in Twfemr» WHeK. »* bad stayed on * - - -———— ; ;We' : -.bad traad sme very rough taryia road? about Logansportin going mrorrx and decided not to return that way. Instead we came from Fort Wayne to Sc nth Whitley and lienee to North Manchester—lt Wf'cM ■ lave- been better and a few mSee shorter to have cone, directly to North Manchester —thence t.o ■ftacheeter, Kewanna, Winamae.* FrineesTnSe and home. While we had ihsristdr no auto trootle whatever ta going, not having to chance ©r pot more air in any tires, we had a few blow-outs of old .cassis. ea ear .recirn trip, .ui.::h we iai ;f. • ; .-a:.ed.N)ut no other tronfole whatever, and the ret are- - ■&-]■ —was —saeweaEfni: —finewearier all the way and we enjoyed every cirrs of she trip. We have already written. about three times as mnei as we intended to when starting oat.: but ’believe that.,, mass of it will not be without interest to oar readersgtd in a later issue we want to far someimimc rt:re about the New York / slate roads, which we know will be of ixcersst. for everybody nowadays is ixisrestei in the rood roads mweSi^S-