The Newtown bee., 1895-09-20
A, G. Bakers Ady't.

Did you ever live on the frontier and have
SquatterS and settlers come in and stake out
claims all around you, and frighten away the
big game and in numerous other ways break
the unwrltten laws and recognized rules of
the frontiersman? Mop Well then you can
hardly appreciate our feelings, when one
morning, last week, we heard the sound of
saw and hammer, and upon going out to in
Vestigate found new conner, a ''tendertoot,"
81 fellow from away over the divide had NOV
ed in and WAS putting up wagon shop, yes
sir, real bonafide wagon shop, right here In
HawleyVille, just like they have back in the
settlements, and making noise enough to
bring on rain and thoroughly stampede all
the big game within ave miles of US. 1t fairly
took our breath away to think that an ordi-
nary sized man with one suSpender broken
and no gun in sight should have the audacity.
yOu can't call IT courage, to without leave or
liberty from us few settlers, thus invade the
sanctity of our rural retreat. 1t reminded US
of times in the far West when years ago we
occasionally helped move men over into the
next county and sometimes at the point of
Winchester rifles when they committed such
little breaches OF etiquette as this. Four short
summers have scarcely passed since we came
to Hawleyville, staked out our claim and
erected furniture wareroOms here in the tall
grass and among the stately forest trees, that
we might commune with nature and be at
rest, far from the maddening throng, and the
tumult and strife OF the settlements. We were
so tar out on the frontier at that time that we
remember one prominent newspaper publish
ed in a nearby saltwater hamlet, called
Bridgeport, in commenting upon our enter
prise said that "the man must have money to
burn, but was undoubtedly crazy, tor there
would be lust as much sense IN building
opera house on Pixies Peak,as such large fur
niRre salesrooms at Hawleyvile.' You
have no idea about the wildness of this sec
ton. Why, we have within year been out in
the morning and seen-wlthin 100 feet OF our
salesrooms, the tracks where bear, and deer,
and elk, and Indians and other large game
had passed in the night. tell you it made as
ache to Jet out our trusty rifle, yet If we had
followed them up undoubtedly Barnum or
Buffalo Bill, some of those old hunters
would have claimed to have been on their
trail fiji st and il we had killed anything they
would have made us whack up with them on
the meat, and now just think OF it we have got
a wagon shop here, and other emblems and
forerunners OF civilization are creeping in
and If we do not rise in our own might and
put them down, we are liable to become
town, borough, q city with paved streets,
and sidewalks, and stores, and banks, and
churches, and theatres, and billiard rooms,
and we shall have to pay our share OF all the
heavy taxes, and bursted water mains, and
leaky gas pipes, and annual vaccinations
and we shall have typhoid fever and organ
grinders, and measles, and our best men will
abscond with the public funds, and our near
est neighbor won't speak to US because we
favored the other fellow at last municipal
election, and we shall have war to the lxnite,
over who shall the post master be, and our
great north frog ponds and poliywog hatcher.
ies-the glory and beauty OF Hawleyville--
will be filled in to make room for the new
gas works, and all our homes Will be filled
with public sewer gas and aspirations to get
ON the police force, and we shall hay5 the
deadly live wires, and lawyers,and strife, and
contention in every quarter, and street aud
saloon fights, and circuses and inauguration
balls,and doctors bills and hundreds OF ways
in which to spend our meagre incomes that
are unknown to the frontiersman, and then
we shall have to advance the price of furni-
ture, but until all these things come to pass,
we shall continue business on the same old
lines, but all joking aside, we should like to
have you consider for moment the many
advantages of our location and compare the
difference in the expense between handling
furniture here and in the city, and then come
and look us over before you buy.
A. G. BAKER, Furniture Warerooms,
Opposite Union Depot, Hawley-
vile. Conn.