Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1902-11-13


My helpers, the printers, were about to
go away to pastures new. They were in
debt; the town was small; they could not
make living. So they offered me their
outfit for $1,000. / accepted the PROPOSE
tion.
I decided to run the Philistine Magazine
for a year, to keep faith with the mis-
guided who had subscribed. and then
quit. To fill in the time we printed a
book. We printed it like Morris book,
printed it just as well as we could. It
was cold in the old barn where we first set
up the Philistine, so L built little build
ing like an old English chapel right along
side of my house. There was basement,
and one room upstairs. wanted it to be
comfortable and pretty, and SO we fur
nished our little shop coZily. We had four
girls and three boys working for us then.
The shop was never locked, and the boys
and girls used to come around evenings.
1t was really more pleasant than at home.
I brought over a shelf of books from my
library. Then / brought the piano, be-
cause the youngsters wanted to dance.
The girls brought flowers and birds, and
the boys put up curtains at the windows.
We were having lot of fun, with new
subscriptions coming in almost every day
and once in awhile an order for a book.
The place got too small when we began
to bind books, so we built wing on one
side, then wing on the other side. To
keep the three carpenters busy who had
been building the wings | set them to
making furniture for the place. They
made the furniture as good as they could.
Folks came along and bought it.
The boys picked up field stones and
built a great, splendid fireplace and CHM
ney at one end of the shop. The work
came out so we'll that said: "Boys, here
is a great scheme. These hardheads are
splendid building material" So we ad-
vertised we would pay dollar load for
niggerheads The farmers began to haul
stones. They hauled more stones and at
last they had hauled 1900 loads. We
bought all the stone in the dollar limit,
bulling the market on powders.
Two stone buildings have been built, a
third is in progress, and our plans are
made to build an art gallery of the same
material-the stones that the builders re-
jected
Sammy the Artist blew in on the way to
Nowhere, his baggage a tomato can. He
thought he would stop over for a day or
two. He is with US yet, and three years
have gone by since he came, and now we
could not do without him.
Personal History.
Of himself Mr.. Hubbard says inter
ALA:
I left school at fifteen, with a fair hold
on the three RS, and beyond this my
education in manual training had been
good. knew all the forest trees, all
wild animals thereabout, every kind of
fish, frog, fowl or bird that swan, ran or
flew. l knew every kind of grain or vege-
table and its comparative value. | knew
the different breeds of cattle. horses,
sheep and swine.
1 could teach wild cows to stand while
being milked, break horses to saddle or
harness. could SOW, plow and reap; knew
the mysteries of apple butter, pumpkin
pie, picked beef, smoked side meat, and
could make lye at a leach and formulate
soft soap.
That is to say, was a bright, strong,
active country boy who had been brought
up to help his father and mother get a
living for large family.
I was not so densely ignorant. Don't
feel sorry for country boys; God is often
on their side.
At fifteen 1 worked on a farm and did a
mans work for a boys pay. l did not
like it and told the man SO. He replied,
''You know what you can do"
And | said, Yes" 1 went westward,
like the course of empire, and became a
cowboy, tired of this and went to Chicago
worked in printing office, peddled soap
from house to house, showed lumber on
the docks read all the books 1 could find,
wrote letters back to country newspapers
and became a reporter; next got job as
travelling salesman; taught in district
school.
And so the story goes until he sold
out his interest in a soap factory for
$75,000 and toured Europe. Then came
the Roycroft shop. Its success is COM
plete. The other day Hubbard re-
ceived this note with life subscription
to the Philistine:
Your politics seems a trife scrambled
and your theology no better yet l have
decided to chance your company for a
limited time-say ninety-nine years.
THOMAS BRACKETT REED.
Nothing could be more characteristic
of Reed than that note.