Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-09-19
A WOMAN coBBLER.
A Daughter of st. crispin Working
at the Bench.

Can you tell me where Mrs. Gill lives,
little girl 4" was the question a New
I York Press reporter asked yesterday of a
tiaxen-haired urchin in Mulberry street,
after he had spent a fruitless hour in
search for that lady.
:" You mean Mrs. Gill, the shoemaker,
do you - replied the urchin, and when
the reporter said that was the very per-
sonage he was looking for, the clid
pointed down the street, indicating
where the only woman shoemaker in
New York was TO be found.
The reporter had little difficulty in
reaching Mrs. ellis little cobbler's shop
in one of the tenements in the rear OF
old st. Patrick's Cathedral. There was
little 10 distinguish it from the ordinary
cobbler's stall, except, perhaps, an un-
wonted tidincss and pretty ornament
here and there that at once bespoke a
woman's taste. Mrs. Gill herself rose
from her cobbler's bench, where she was
busily engaged in mending pair of
child's shoes, TO greet the reporter, and
when he said he only dropped in to have
a quiet chat with her she wiped stool
with the corner Of her apron and asked
him 10 be seated.
He saw IN this one brief moment that
Mrs. Gill was a woman that might be
possibly 80 years ofage, gray haired and
pleasant faced. She was evidently quite
ready for n chat, and began by saw
ing that she had been told she was the
only woman shoemaker of the old school
in New York, or perhaps, the whole
United States She said she wouldn't
vOuch for this being absolutely true, but,
howeveF, she had never heard of any
other woman following the trade at tho
bench.
"Of course, she glibly taxed on, with
very little prompting, there are hun I
dreds of women working in the modern
shoe factories, but any OF them would
be insulted if they were called shoe 7
makers. Now, l glory in being men,
Der of st. Crispin's gentle craft, and,
though the shoemaker of the olden time
has long since been pushed to the wall
by modern inventions, | propose to stick
10 the bench to the end.
"Were you regularly apprenticed to
the trade 4" ventuled the reporter.
81 was born to it, proudly replied
We OiQ MOilltus W AtbliCI Wis u hllOC-
maker of Northampton, England, when
i was the great shoe emporium OF tho
Did country, and learned the trade as
naturally rs duck takes to the water.
watched my father by the hour, and
when he saw what a taste had for
Gather he fostered it more to humor me
han in any hope that would ever mas
er the craft. But l did, and before
vas IL years of age / made pair of
hoes for my mother that DON think L
.ould better now. When l was Old
nough / went to work in factory in
Northampton at shoe fitting, and L
worked in Massachusetts factories after
nv father came to this country in 1868.
have been working here nearly ten
ears and have all that can do. as you
nay see, -" and the old woman swept
he little shop with wave OF her sturdy
I'm.
''My work is the ordinary run Of work
one in any cobbler's shop. l repair
len's women's and children's shoes,
nd may say have the entire mending
the neighborhood to do Sometimes,
erhaps from curiousity, I have call
rom fine lady to mend her own or her
hildrens fine shoes, and l have never
ad any one to find fault with my work"