The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-03-31
LEST We FORGET !"
Marker Street, Philadelphia. TO be Repaved with
Wood, Stone or Asphalt.
MARKET STREET BUSINESS MEMS ASSOCIATION PREFER WOOD
HemOck Paving Dyberry Lack
awaxen.-An Ill Wind Blew Boys Good

filled with powder and furnished with
machinery in such manner that on
rubbing against any object in the stream
they would explode. These were the
torpedoes invented by David Bushnell,
of Connecticut. Tie British vessels in
Philadelphia had been hauled into the
docks to keep clear of the ice, and thus
escaped any injury from the torpedoes.
One of the kegs exploded, however, near
the city, and produced intense alarm.
Not stick or chip was seen floating
for twenty-four hours afterward but it
was fired at by the British. This circum-
stance afforded the theme for Hopkin-
sons poem, "The Battle of the Kegs"
The Pumpkin Flood was occasioned
by incessant rains along the eupper waters
of the Susquehanna, resulting in an in
undation of the plains of Wyoming,
which drove the settlers to the hills and
swept away nearly all their possessions,
the pumpkins being buoyant and float
ing in the rushing waters to almost in
credible distances down the stream. The
| Paving Block Freshet' came about in
this wise: Deacon Homer Brooks the
pioneer of the family, and his second
son Ezra, built in 1S42, sawmill on the
point near the Dyberry Falls, (now
Tanner Falls) almost directly in front of
the residence of William F. Riefler, in
! Dyberry township. The former had
been engaged in general numbering for
fourteen years previously, scoring and
hewing wharf timber for the Philadel-
phia market, which he ran out of the
! Dyberry and Lackawaxen in single RATS
and down the Delaware in what was
called a a"double Delaware, being made
up of four ''colts'' lashed together.
When the new mill was built the firm
engaged in the manufacture of shovel
and hoe handles, and later, Charles w.
rorrey, of Bethany, took contract to
furnish Philadelphia from it with hem
lock paving blocks, polygonal in shape,
about foot in diameter by eight inches
in thickness. Several consignments of
these symmetrical segments were sent
down on RATS, and for while seemed
to make an ideal pavement. There was
no noise from clattering hoofs or whirl-
ing wheels. Horses secured good foot
ing on them ; the draft of loaded vehi-
cles was reduced to minimum pleas
ure carriages glided over them without
rattle or jar. But, like the Deacon's
"One Hoss Shay when they collapsed
they went to pieces all at once. They
became slippery to a dangerous degree
in wet weather ; they warped and split
and splintered they got curvature of
the spine, and presented hump back
ed appearance from end to end of every
street in which they were in use. Then
came natural revulsion of feeling as
to their merits and a reversal of the pop
ular judgment in their favor. A stop
was put to further delivery of the blocks,
just at a time when the Dyberry saw
millers had perhaps thousands of them
ready for shipment.
Shortly afterward an unusually high
freshet occurred in the stream on which
the mill was located. Both branches of
the Dyberry came down from the hills
'1oaded for bear" and when they Join
ed forces swept everything before them.
The mill dam, the mill and the hundreds
or thousands of paving blocks, yielded
to the irresistible flood. Much of the
wreck soon found the bottom, but the
hemlock blocks danced gaily on the sur
face, as if on their way to the Quaker
City to fill rush order. When they
reached Honesdale another "Battle oi
the Kegs" scare was narrowly averted.
The LackawaXen was filled with the
bobbing, whirling mass, filling all with
curiosity and some with apprehension
as to their origin and object. The great
body soon passed but loiterers strag-
gled along for days, and indeed, it was
years before the last of them were seen.
Such as were caught in eddies, or on
sandbars, or among bushes by the re-
ceding of the first flood, were dislodged
by the rising waters of the next; and SO
on for many years.
Needless to say that this river tiotsam
was godsend to many of us town-boys
of that period. We carried the six-sided
chunks up the cliffs, (there were very
few houses on the Ladywood lane side OF
town in those days,) and sent them
bounding back down the steep hillsides
for another splash into the river. Like
jim Smiley's Jumping Frog" one
: block didn t seem any better than any
other block when they were "tetched
, off, for their race down the long slopes
bub oftentimes there was wide differ
ence in the time required for them tc
reach the bottom. They frequently fol
lowed eccentric courses, moreover, "tool
the bit in their teeth" so to speak, and
DETECTED by stone, or some other OBJ
struction, would scoot off in some entire
ly unexpected direction one especially
fagrant runaway crashing through the
: roof of kitchen thought to be entirely
out of the range of danger. In the rive
we nailed cleats across their tops and
made for ourselves capital floats from
E which to fish and dive and, for the
g more venturesome, sometimes to go owe
the tfoundrvp or UKimhla millit doms