Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-06-24
THE CHANGERS.

Their Centennial Recommendation the
Lads and Lasses and the JOviaI Old
Farmers Have Arranged TO See the Great
Exhibition. .. ... .-. r. ...u.
OF all the hotel enterprises born of the
Centennial, the most original and one of
the most gigantic is the encampment of
the Patrons of Husbandry, at Elm sta
tion, on the main line of the Pennsyl-
vania railroad. The fact that leading
officers of that great corporation have
their summer homes in the vicinity of
this sspot is strong gevidence of its superior
charms, even though compared with any
of the other natural beauties which have
won for the route of that line such wide
spread celebrity. Within three miles of
the grounds of the Exhibition, and on
the southern side of that great iron
artery which conducts the life's blood of
the continent from ocean to ocean, stands,
with the appearance of mammoth rail-
way station of Swiss architecture, the
Centennial home of the Granger. The
location is plateau near the southwest
ern corner of Montgomery county, and
centering in an amphitheater of hills,
thickly wooded with chestnut, on the
south, covered with rich pastures and
green waving grain among the groves
of elm and cedar on the east and west,
and romantically diversified with bold,
wooded bluffs and watered ravines on the
north. Not only the site, but also the
hotel, offers nearly all the inducements
of most eligible country seat.
While specially designed for the ac-
commodation of the Patrons of Hus-
bandry of the United States and Canada,
the hotel is open to all other respectable
persons. The structure is a rectangle,
minus one side, 496 feet long and 450
feet wide, with eleven instead of but one
wing in the center, and all these are as
long as the ends. The main portion is
two stories in height, elevated at each
flank and also in the center. The wings
are but one story in height. There are
on the first floor 1,020 sleeping rooms,
and on the second 1,180, having COM
Portable accommodations for 2,400 per-
sons. In the rear of, and separated
from the buildings described, thereby
keeping at distance that disagreeable
odor which frequently arises from agree
able substances is dining room capable
of seating several regiments at one time,
the simple comfort of which can be best
imagined by those having ever, when
hungry, eaten chowder in a tent on the
seashore, while the stiff, cool putting of
Neptune ran mischievously landward
with napkins and Mackinaws. Back of
this are the kitchen and laundry, models
of system and supplied with labor ami
hilators that would send John Chinaman
back to Hong Kong in despair after a
glance at them in practical operation.
The gas house supplies the hotel with
an article of the likeof which most cities
are innocent. Off in the grove of chest
nut trees is an hospital that makes one
wish he was sick-iust to loll on the
sweet-smelIing hrlsk mattresses and
listen to the singing of the birds in the
trees whose foliaged branches sweep the
roof and windows at every breath of
wind. Near this is the physicians resi-
dence, and also great crystal spring of
pure cold water, and an engine which
pumps it up the hill on the opposite
side of the hotel, where it is received in
two tanks, each having capacity of TO-
900 gallons. ... .....
There is also on this hill, which is
north Of the hotel, large hall for
dramatic, lecturing, religious and other
purposes. Semi-weekly theatricals will
be given there by companies from this
city, and neither for these nor for any
other entertainments given will more
ALo, 1x~, Go l. ol1 4
just enough to pay expenses. The
hotel, with its branch post-office, drilled
fire department and police force, drug
store, general store, and telegraph, bag
gage, express and railroad ticket offices,
is town of itself-and quite large ono,
too. No Intoxicating drinks can be had
on the grounds. Trains run between
Elm station and the Centennial depot of
the Pennsylvania railroad every half
hour, and baIween the former and
Thirty-second and Market streets every
hour. The ride from the station to the
Exhibition grounds occupies but ten
minutes. The immense parlors and sit
ting-rooms, furnished with organs and
pianos, face the hills and ravines, which
are but a few yards to the north, and
here, on moonlight evenings, lads and
lasses relieved from haymaking, jolly
old farmers grown too rich to work, and
buxom housewives ft1rloughed from the
dairy, sing, dance, talk tender things,
listen to the crickets in the woods, guess
at the size of the moon, and enjoy plea
sures unknown in cities-above all in
city hotels. When they retire tor the
night it is to room atmospheres redolent
with fragrance from the aowery lawns
surrounding the building, from the
courts, from the hillsides, and from the
very beds they are to lie upon. While
the furniture throughout must plea c
the finest taste there is not an ounce OF
paint in the whole structure. 1t is that
very air of refined rusticity which gives
a charm to the whole, and which, coupled
with the fact that the greatest circum-
spection is used toward excluding from
the hotel all persons of doubtful charac-
ter or not known to be respectable, has
attracted SO great a proportion OF Cen,
tennial visitors to the encampment OF
the Changers. Philadelphia Times.
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