The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-03-17
I

all these things happened. The early pio- neers in our industrial activity have mostly passed away. and the few that are left may be pardoned, I hope, tor thinking that all these workers should be remembered with gratitude, not only for their achievements but for the founda- ton they laid for future generations.
 Tn the later seventies Birmingham had only few hundred inhabitants, and in , dulged in one three-story building, which was the wonder of the neighborhood. The streets were unpaved and danger signs were stuck around in mud holes warning the countryman to look out or he would lose his team.
 When this good town was organized there was a great discussion. as to the name that would be given it. Some sug gested calling it Powellton after Colonel Powell. at the head of the Elyton Land company; others wanted to name it Mil ner1ille or Morrisville. Mir Josiah Morris objected very strongly to those names, and looking out of the window, said there was a distinguished citizen who was a native of an adjoining town whose name would be particularly appropriate. and to name it after Judge Mudd and call it Muddtown. l presume the meet ing decided on Birmingham, because they had nothing here that even resembled it. Sentiment again.
 Coal and iron are Siamese twins, firm ly joined together. but this fact was only discovered here after charcoal had proven too expensive for smelling our red ore The hundreds of problems that the old fellows solved and settled are entirely too numerous for me to dwell upon. Whether the writ of ad quod damnum applied to our industrial corporations or not, whether our little branch railroads should be treated as full-hedged com mon carriers or not-why one of our imported experts actually issued annual passes over his switch running into his factory yard and got transportation by exchange with all the great trunk lines. Well, l must not be too garrulous It's d failing pardonable in veteran.
 "Gentlemen, I thank most gratefully our guests for the honor of this visit"
 Judge Brown Speaks.
 Among other things. Judge Brown said :
 Colonel Mcclure told me some weeks ago that he had been invited to visit you. l told him l would like to go with him. He told me he didn't know whether he could get me in on the in vitation, but said he would do what he could for me. In a short time he re- ported to me that he had heard from Alabama; it was all right and l could go along. My wife pushed in on the invi- tation as did my friend Hensel and his brother. and here are in this beau tiful southland. in the enjoyment of your proyerbial hospitality.
 Just 90 years ago last month I was first in the south, from a far-off home in Pennsylvania, then ice-bound. I came as a child with my father and mother and in a little more than 24 hours opened my eyes and ears to singing birds and blooming trees and flowers in a new home, in South Carolina, where for more than two years happy, sunny days of childhood were lived among people of boundless and proverbial hospitality. But for the shadow that fell upon the south land when John Browns fanatical raid was made upon Harpers Ferry. followed by great clash when MT. Lincoln was nominated and elected to the presidency of the United States, who would have been the chief executive of the. people of the south, as well as of the north with their interests as close to his great heart and clean conscience as those of any other portion of the union, as the people | of the south have long since known, ] my lot would have been cast among you: i and today Instead of being citizen of l Pennsylvania I would be voter in South 1 Carolina.
 1 ''1 am on my way there now, to revisit l the scenes of my boyhood, to hunt up, ! if any be living. of the then friends l of mv aoH" father and mother to go into l the church from whose pulpit he preached " -e of which i he is still remembered by that people as
 5.. D. ssilent; to trac. rough the woods. if still there, where ] 1 have followed other boys with Unai- | Harvey and the dogs hunting the pos {, sum and the coon; to go aioI e s-.. ] where with a fish hoo. e ~''t z 1 pin l used to catch the little sunnies. I a arf1 n nlf .GA
 l most of those whom l then knew are in i, the graveyard, l hope to take by the hand some whom I then knew; somc with whom I then romped and played and live with them again in happy mem ory of the days of long ago. Not Quite Stranger.
 "So you see we are not quite strangers