Smyrna times., 1883-01-31
For the Smyrna Times.
Letter from Lebanon, Pa.

A ride of about three hours and a
half from Philadelphia, on the Phila-
delphia & Reading Railroad brings US
to Lebanon. When you first leave the
cars, in which you have been slowly
but surely roasting, you could almost
imagine you had been set down in
some stationin Holland. Everywhere
around you people are jabbering away
in strange language, which, as the
saying goes, is Dutch to you; and in
deed that is just what it is, and the
worst kind of Dutch too. Four or five
fat little urchins are pushing their way
through the crowd with " fresh prst-
zels " in big baskets. We go to the
nearest hotel which is the best in town. |
Lebanon is about twenty FIVE miles |
from Harrisburg, and is situated on the
Lebanon Valley Railroad, branch of
the P. & R., is the county seat of Leb- |
anon county and has about ten thous-
and five hundred inhabitants. The
chief industry of the place is its iron
works prominent among which are the
Colebrook, Honeybrook, Brock and
Cornwall furnaces. The Cornwall is
said to have the finest furnaces of any
in the United States. They mine their
own ore at Cornwall, about five miles
distant and employ about 500 men.
Some other time will tell you about
the workings of this great furnace.
There are five or six other furnaces
and rolling mills around here and
several machine shops. Among the
new industries is bolt and nut works
which was started up the first of this
year; they have about twenty acres of
land around their place and very large
shops. 1t will be great place in the
course of few years. The general
manager is Delaware man, James
Lord, formerly of Camden. The town
/. is quite lively and nearly all seem to
enjoy themselves in Dutch. l read in
the TINES that you were enjoying
, yourselves hugely in the snow. Well,
so are we. The other evening four
jolly boys started for sleigh-ride; one
was the native Dutch, the other three
represented Jersey City, Reading and
J Philadelphia. Well, what a ride that
was with the great electric light, the
moon, hung up in just the right spot to
show everything off nicely. Pretty
7 soon we came to big gate clear across
7 the road, out of little house popped q
! little Dutchman, we paid him ten cents
e open flew the gate and off we sped.
t never saw a country look so much like
}, Delaware before. Everywhere yor
= = looked were farms, and fat farms too
The country must certainly be a sistel
9 to Kent county, Delaware. But wha
!, shall say of the houses don't be of
, Tended, but if the Delaware farm
e houses would pattern after these lit
d tie, it would do we'll. The house
y were not only pretty, but all painte'
: white, even the barns, and they wer
barns, too, as white as the new-fallel
snow around US. Most of the fence
Ie were white-washed, broken here ant
n there with a gate, which was a brigh
red. After a ride of seven miles an
,e going through another toll gate, W
arrive at Mirestown, a place of abou
er 1000 people. Hearing that sleighin
d party from Lebanon had gone there
t. little while before, we went to th
se hotel where they were, and put up ou
to horses. 1 could hardly describe th
le fun these people. had. We went int
X the room where they were. Introdu
IN tionP no, if you waited for that yo
ly would be left: just join right in, an
OF so we did.
n One pretty little miss commence
of jabbering away to me when said, q
nix for stay" which made her laue
III heartily. They did some dancing, b.
u kissing games they seemed to like bes
TO- One of them, girl or boy would sit
ret a chair in a circle and the others wou
nd join hands, walk around and sin
when she would choose partner tn,
lat he would sit in the other chair kiss h
he and she would join the circle, &c.
ew another, all would stand up witho
Isi- saying a word, when girl would wa
he up to boy, kiss him and then
m. would go inside the circle, till he ma
ith up his mind who to kiss, &c. They d
or not kiss like the kissers of Delawa
IT," do, behind the ear or ON the nose, b
they would cast their eyes up at Y
of like dying mackeral and kiss squa
ex. in the mouth. Oh it makes you siC
ere The blind mans buff and other gam
NE were also played. There was roc
de- fitted up for beer, and the girl that y
b q had been thrown with for that event
Try would have thought you mean if y
ace did not treat her to beer, like the av
in age Delaware girl to ice cream. W.
,im as it was getting late we ordered {
air, team and left the merry party enj,
ion ing themselves only as Germans c
one Another sleigh-ride and we we're bs
+ to the hotel at Lebanon.
ntil a5g nsi n DO" c
LEBANON, PA, January 23rd, 1SS
i'm ~. s...s - III.
way The society editor of an exchai
hat soys aTrha ,ro,,av oa,,or g..