The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1874-08-10
somerset a. outsiders See IL.

"Hear. land O. cakes and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Greats,
IT there's a hole in a your coats
Irede yc tent It,
A chiefs amang We takln' notes,
And faith, he'll prent it"
Frank Cowan, of whose visit we made
brief mention last week, has this TO say of
Somerset:
SOMERSET ON THE HALF-sHELL-Som-
erset now, with a national reputation for
butter. maple-molasses, snuff rubbing.
buckwheat, bundling, and other delica-
cies innumerable in and out of season, is
anxious TO become a second Saratoga
summer resort before which Bedford will
bite off her own nose out of pure envy,
and such like pony built places as Ebens-
burg, Ligonier, and Falls City, shrivel out
of existence altogether. Already John
Hill, at the Barnet House and George
Tayman at the Somerset, haYe crowded
houses, and half a hundred visitors are
chartered on the town but not satisfied, a
large hotel is in construction on the Dia-
mond which will be almost exclusively
devoted TO the accommodation of summer
resorters. Well Somerset is a fine, healthy,
happy mountain town, with a thousand of
a population of as good, generous, and
genial people as you would find in a weeks
trayel. and though surrounded with an in
congruous county wherein the above men
toned delicacies obtain almost exclusively
the most fastidious and Frenchy will find
the town itself to their liking within civil
lied bounds. But alas local option pre-
walls there: and the nearest breweries are
at Johnstown and Cumberland; so that so
%iourners must fall back on very small beer,
or bolt about as villainOus a compound un-
der the name of Brandy" as ever com
mtnted on the folly OF legislating morality
into a community. The craggy, shaggy,
scragyy ravine, up which the Somerset
Branch courses from the Pittsburgh, Wash.
ington & Baltimore Railroad at Mineral
Point, is replete with wild and weird
beauty in the form of majestic pines, ieath-
cry ferns, beaches, bergamots, tiger-hlies,
blackberries, &c, in rank luxuriance and
protusion, and the speed at which the sin
gle car train move along does not prevent
you from seeing and enjoying the same, OF
of o~vertaking any snails on the track and
thereby precipitating a collision J Visl
tors, too, will find many places of Interest
in and about own to make their stay de
lightful and variegated-the "WhitC
Horse" (remindful of Death on the pale,
the Break Neck Rocks" (also soothingly
suggestive), the Bear Rocks" and RAT
tlesnake Den" (oh, charmingly inviting y
as well as the artificial objects of interes
and happy association the Poor House, anC
the County Jail-the latter so highly
scented it has been surmised that if thu
longest nosed man in the county could only
wear il as a breast pin, his nose would
turn stub in an instant, and point heaven
ward ever afterl Strangers, moreover, 0
an investigating turn of mind, by wander
ing off into Conemaugh, Paint, and Shad,
townships particularly, can learn all Their
is to know about the mysteries of bund
ling, and live in regret ever after tina
Beecher and Tilton had not resided Their
instead of Brooklyn, that the pulpit an'
the press of the country might have beeI
saved their most disgraceful scandal.
Somerset talked last spring orcompetin!
with Connellsville in the eUke business
talked a good deal about it. \ company
sprang fully equipped like Minerva from
the iovial head of an enthusiastic gentle
man who happened to stumble against
lump of coal, picked up in the ~neighbor
hood, and found TO be of a good cokin.
quality. But it was short-lived. AtteI
leasing enough coal territory to have
converted into a good grade of coke-stOch
ed the market for the mex quarter of
century, it collapsed before a respectabl
bill was run up at the local printing offices
1t is supposed now it was the comet tina
knocked the bottom out o it-in christian
charity, some interstellary cause howeve
remote must be assigned.