The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-09-18

WHO his apprentice pullS dI tne pelloNs
pole just as we used to do, thirty odd years
ago. He pounds with hammer, rasps
and files it and heats it again, plunges it
into water, greases it with tallow and in
the owner has now an ak just as good as
new-for lending.
Time is up. The engineer has risen from
his nap. The fireman has quit kicking
flies and slowed away fresh qud of to-
bacco. We enter car as the train comes
in on the main line direct from Baltimore,
and soon are once more a traveller.
Here we go, out from the echoes of Per-
ryville that was, skirting along between the
hill and the broad, beautiful river. There
is none too much room for railroad here.
The river intended to occupy about all of
this valley, and to be admired from the
uplands high above us. Over yonder, on
the /" Haverdy" side of the stream, there
are green hill-sides, gentle slopes, attrac-
tive farms, pleasant groves and evidences
of thrift, wealth and beauty.
| Now we come to Port Deposit, long,
narrow village laid out under and along the
hill, close to the river, like the long lash Of
stage drivers whip stretched out on a
barn floor, close to the hay NOW, to dry.
This is a spasmodic intermittent village of
eighteen hundred inhabitants. About eight
| hundred millions of cubic feet of pine lunn-
Der come down the Susquehanna river each
year in high water time, and stop here at
the end of the run. When the logs and
the lumber come down, then things are red
hot here. Everybody is on the jump
The broad river is here dotted with eilor-
nous rocks or abutments of stone to which
huge iron rings are fastened. To these
anchors" thousands of RATS of lumber
are tied as they come to the end of their
first journey. All along the shore, RATS
are made fast, and to these RATS others as
they come, are in turn fastened, till far
along the shore and half mile out in the
river are RATS. They are here made over
and towed by steamers, in fleets, down the
bay, and on to market at Baltimore, Phila-
delphia and other places. Much of the
| lumber is taken from here by cars. The
canal bears away several millions of feet,
and were it not for the fact that the lum-
Der yield of the pine forests of Pennsylvania
is rapidly diminishing under the axman's
blows, Port Deposit would be forever known
as the greatest Port or lumber depot in the
| Western World.
| There is here an immense stone quarry
operated by E. D. McClenahan & Brother.
They employ from one hundred and fifty
to two hundred and fifty men the year
round. The quarry is at the extreme upper
end of the village, where all the workmen
have to do is to drill and bore into the hill
of rock that rises about three hundred feet
above the river, put in a ton, or less, of
power and then run to get out of the way,
as from eight to fifteen thousand tons of
gray granite come crashing down at a
blast goes off. After this men set to work.
They drive in wedges to force the seams
open. They cut it into blocks varying in
size from the twenty ton square rock, pre-
sented by E. d. McClenahan to the Masons
of Philadelphia and by them used as the
corner stone for their elegant Masonic Tenn
pie, to the small cubes four to eight inches
square, and used in cities for Belgian pave
ment over which wagons and carts make
such terrible racket as they are hurried
along. The firm gets out bills of stone
for bridges, piers, foundations, buildings,
churches, sidewalks and the Lord only
knows what else or what not. Customers
come here from Boston, New York, Phila-
delphia, Baltimore and other cities. They
are to fill large order for large stone, to be
use in the construction of the great bridge
between New York and Brooklyn. They
| fill orders for stone to be used for streets
and public buildings, but tell us that they
do not care to fill orders for the contractors
and authorities in New York city, there
is always so much Ring greasing and such
uncertainty as to receiving pay that they
prefer to deal with other cities where there
is less profit, less risk, surer returns and
reward for honest dealing to follow their
business efforts.
| The workmen here employed earn and
receive from three to five dollars per day,
| according to their skill and experiences at
the business of stone dressing. The pay
| is sure, and made at the end of each month.
| None but sober, temperate, industrious
men are here employed. The McClena-
hans, father and sons, from Alpha to
Omega, are temperance men, successful
and deservedly thrifty and popular. Until
the temperance rule was adopted some
years ago, the workmen were always in
debt, had three or four fights between SUM-
down Saturday and Sunday, and then were
cited to appear i'll court on Monday. The
order at last went out that none but tenn
perance men could find employment here.
The great majority gave cheerful consent
| to the new deal-those who did not went
elsewhere. The saloon keepers bewailed
because the fanaticism of men who wished
to attend to business and to make money
for themselves and their employees, took
the bread out of the mouth of the man
who sold rot gut, and he was not happy.
If man is ever justified in finding fault
with "fanatic - on the temperance ques-
ton, it is when that "fanatic" prevents
| two or three hundred of his employees from
spending from two to six dollars per week
each in the vllianous compounds the saloon
keeper sells over his counter, to the ruin
ing of the health of his customers and to
the making poor, miserable, wretched and
degraded the family of the man who earns
money only to turn it down his throat in
the shape of poison. If we owned poison
place and our neighbors would not employ
men to enrich us through their depraved
| tools rather than to increase his own bust
ness and profits-if he would not employ
men who would squander the bulk of their
EARNINGS for our special benefit, we should
denounce him as a fanatic" sheer at him
as "milk sop" pack caucuses of law
makers against him, and use portion of
our profits to elect none but whisky guz-
zlers to office, and to control legislatures to