Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-14

like hill top is now at its height for this
season. The berry crop was never larger,
and every day thus far the barren has been
one great, busy, frolicking, boistreous,
sweating camp, In which there have been at
no time less than 300 people of all sorts and
sizes, while on Sundays the gathering has
been increased TO more than 1900. The
scores of tents that whiten the sun-burned
barren Hken the scene to some great gather
ing Of gipsies, or to big military en-
campment 4 large portion of the campers
is made up of family and social groups, who
remain two or three days on the ground,
picking berries for their own domes-
tic uses, and the rest are professional pick
ers, picking for the market and living on
the barren until the season is over. These
pickers frequently consist of entire fami-
lies. from the gray-haired grandfather down
to the toddler just big enough to pick d
elert enough to keep an eye out for rattle
snakes. Tents are struck by the dozen
every day by parties breaking camp, but
other campers are continually arriving to
take their places; and thus while the scene
is always changing it still remains the same
from the beginning to the end of the
season.
The Law of the Right of wav.
There is but one way by which the sum-
NIT of Huokleberry Hill can be reached
with teams and that is by the old road that
the lumbermen cut in the side of the hill
years ago to get the pine logs down to the
Pine Creek valley. This road is q mile in
length, in which distance 1T climbs to an
elevation of 800 feet On one side the steep
escarpment of the mountain pitches down
into the valley, with but foot or two be-
tween 1t and the outer edge OF the road
The other side is the crowding front of the
mountain that lifts itself above the road.
This thoroughfare is so narrow that it Is i'm
possible for teams to pass one another, and
as conveyances of all kinds are constantly
arriving from all directions, laden with
berrypickers with their boxes, baskets,
barrels and pals, and seeking passage from
the valley up the great hill, and as other
conveyances that have come before and
secured their loads of berries are Just as
constantly seeking passage down the hill to
the vall>Y, not much progress could be
made by either going or returning caravans
If 1t were not for peculiar law of right of
way which has been established. During q
certain hour teams going up the hill have
the right of way, and teams headed for
home must wait until that hour is up
before they may start down. A man
at the bottom regulates the up
ward train Of wagons, while a man at the
top of the hill holds the downward teams
in check. When the hour is up no wagon
is permitted to start up the hill, no matter
how many may be waiting at the bottom.
The ensuing hour belongs to the down COM
ing teams, and so they go and come every
other hour. AS many as 80 teams have been
passed up the hill in an hour Some of
these come from the farthest boundaries of
the country and from over the New York
State border, many Of them travelling all
through the night to reach the spot in good
season. During the recent insufferably
hot days, when most people were melting
in the coolest places they could find, hun
dreds of men, women and children were
eagerly fastening to the summit of Huckle-
berry Hill to pick berries in the full glare
of the broiling sun and among close grow
ing bushes that glow like furnace.
The Gay Scenes on Sunday.
On Sundays this great huckleberry camp
becomes a veritable Vanity Fair in the will
derness Then hundreds of people 60 to
Hill as they would to circus
or county fair, or other gathering where
curious things are to be seen or pleasure ex-
pected. The fakir with his wares; the
wheel Of fortune man and the she'll game
sharper; the rustic swain and his radiant
5WcctucdTI, Wlsu Hcr lucVltdDlo Wulbc OuE-
day dress and red and green ribbons; the
smart town fellow with his smarter girl;
the brawny log-chopper, boisterous and
rough; the staggering bark peeler, not only
ready but looking for fight-the town. the
farm, the backwoods flock to the huckle-
berry barren of Pine creek on Sunday.
Here Is dancing platform and a blarins
band. Yonder is a tent as big as a circus
tent, where can be obtained what no other
place in Potter county may supply
whisk y, gin, beer, cr what tipple you may
and not eingle glass of beer has been le-
yally sold within its boundaries for more
han so years But Huckleberry Hill is
law unto ITSELF 1t keeps and sells its
'pirituous wares ostensibly as antidotes
or snake bites, but careful man,
7iewing the effects of the liquor on nearly |
I'll who test it, might well prefer the |
quality of the rattlesnake poison to that of |
he venom in the tipple. But to the sound |