The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1895-04-18


r~1 ing ut six o'clock,
~ homeward bound.
Now but ninety hands were employed,
including the Office force and boys,
and work was over every afternoon at
four o'clock.
The majority OF the men whiled
away the interval between quitting
time and their supper hours in the
stores and saloons, which surrounded
the public square. Manchester had
its public square, as every well ordered
county seat should have, and the ad-
vertisiug leaAet, issued by the NAL
chester Improvement Society, con.
tanned n most alluring picture of it.
There were also in this leailet some
fine "half tone" engravings of the
court house, the new high school, NAL
chesters four stone churches, the
stores of her leading merchants (who
paid S25 "to defray the actual cost of
preparing the engraved plates, the
new depot and the old round house Of
the Jacksonville, Manchester and
Springfield Railway. The leahet also
called attention, in bold, red display
type, to the fact that Manchester was
division point on the Jacksonville,
Manchester and Springfield Railway,
and that for overs n quarter of CEN
tury from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred employees of the road had
made the town their headquarters.
One afternoon, as President Mitch
ellis stenographer, Frank Ashley, was
tidying up the papers on his en-
30, "a assk, ne Came across the
leaflets OF the Manchester Improvement
Society, and the display note about
the Jacksonville, Manchester aud
Springfield Railway reminded him
that 1t was high time TO go over to
the round house and near story
which his old friend, Commodore
Foote, the engineer of locomotive
No. %, had promised to tell him the
next time he came around.
Now, even if the buildings in which
locomotives are housed are universally
called round houses, each one, l sup
pose, has its shady side. | remember
the one Mt Manchester was SO blessed
and here, at six o'clock, well ont oI
the burning rays of declining sum
mer sun, on portable and improvised
bench, made by placing broker
freight car door on two discarded
''draw heads" sat Foote and young
Ashley. jim Walsh, the fireman, wa!
oiling, polishing, watering and gene
rally preparing No. 02 for her ap
preaching run. Presently the fireman
had tipped the long shouted oil car
enough to suit even the critical com
modore, and, as if half in sympath,
with the mechanism of his engine, tn,
commodore's power of speech hecam,
fabricated, and he began:
"It's u true story. l knew Harry
Powers, the engineer of old No. AZ
before the war, when his wife wa
station agent at Manchester, and trains
were run wholly by time table. Their,
were no such things rs telegraphit
train orders in those days.
''Powers made his headquarters q
Malche ster, and his wife, being tn,
station agent, the company let tn,
family live in the upper story of tn,
depot without paying rent. Power
and his wife and their little girl Elsi
lived over the depot for fifteen years
hand running with the exception o
about two months, when Elsie wa
sick with typhoid fever, and the
hired cottage mp in the town, wher
she wouldn't be disturbed 10y the noIs
of engines and trains. 1t was shortl
after Elsie had pulled through an
they had all moved back into the depo
again that the thing happened l al
going to tell you OFF.
"Elsie was twelve years old then
The doctor said it would hasten he
complete recovery if she was out c
doors as much as possible, SO almos
every afternoon her mother sent lie
berryipg.
about mile and half down tn
track toward Millegeville, in clum
of woods, was fine blueberry pate
and here you could find Elsie almos
every afternoon. She could fill he
pail quickly there, and then she like
The woods anyway.
"One afternoon she had been slow
or the berries were not as plentiful O
usual, for it was after six O'Clock whe
she started for home. AS she WI
about to leave the woods and strik
the railway tracks she was suddenl
confronted by three masked mel
Now Elsie was weak and nervous froi
her long sickness, and when she r,