Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1898 — IN GENERAL [ARTICLE]

IN GENERAL

Former Secretary of State John Sherman and wife returned from Washington to their home in Mansfield, Ohio, and have departed from there for a summer trip to Sitka, Alaska. Fifty enterprising women from all parts of the country will gather at Tacoma, Wash., to start for Alaska, where they purpose establishing a town. Their leader is Lillian M. Lemmon of Chicago. She has notified the members of her party in Chicago, Milwaukee, New York and other cities to meet in Tacoma at once. She has also contracted with a steamship company to transport the party to the mouth of the Koyukuk river, via St. Michael’s. The party includes teachers, clerks, etenbarbers and several married women who are leaving their husbands at home. They will purchase a stock of merchandise and establish stores, a restaurant, hotel, newspaper and postoffice in their town, which will be named New Chicago. Bradstreet's says of the state of trade: “A total volume of business fully proportioned to or in excess of that usually noted at this season of the year is indicated by reports to Bradstreet’s this week. The exceptions are generally where weather conditions have made for irregularity and perhaps dullness. The volume of bank clearings, as was to l»e expected, shows the contradiction usual toward the close of May, but with few exceptions the crop situation, the volume of railway earnings and the reports from a number of leading industries point to a maximum volume of business doing in most phrts of the country. Relatively the best trade reports continue, as for some time past, to come from the central west and northwest, where the outlook, both as regards crop yield and prices, continues eminently satisfactory to the agricultural interests. The wheat situation shows little change, but this and next year's delivery appear to have parted company. Rather more business is reported at most eastern markets both in domestic and foreign grade of wools.”