Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-08-28
Ehesatttp Tl1at


llS automobiles passing that point
on the pike in the forty-fve minutes
between and 7.45 Sunday evening.
Carriages, wagons, trucks. street cars
ana multitude of motorcycles pass-
ing up and down the pike at the
same time were not counted, but
must nave run the total up close to
the 200 mark.
The Carlisle pike is now being re-
paired by the State, but the work
has been greatly delayed by INABILITY
or the highway department to keen
laborers, who are leaving CONSTANTLY
TO take jobs they consider easier. The
other day 9 dozen or more left in
a punch because the pay was not up
TO what they thought they ought To
have and which they were able to
get elsewhere. When this stretch of
road is completed there will be no
nner piece of highway in this yicin-
ity than the road to Carlisle. Indeed
TINS good road extends all the way
through to Pittsburgh without a
preak and is as smooth as any to be
round anywhere in this State or
Traffic along the pike between the
city and Camp Hill has grown Won
oertuliy in the past few years, so
Ihat now at times the road is as
dangerous for pedestrians as Market
street at midday. This is easily un-
uerstood when it is pointed out that
the Carlisle pike is the only high
way petween the two points named.
II is the outlet for the whole Cum
perland Valley on one side and for
harrisburg on the other. It is for
the reason that this road soon will
ps unable TO take care of the stream
OF traff1c flowing into it that we'll
known West Shore people have be-
come Interested in opening the pro
posed new road through the subway
under the railroad at the upper end
of Wormleysburg. This highway
would traverse the old lime quarry
pack of what is known as the Brin-
ton farm, skirt a pretty brook for n
quarter-mile and come out in Camp
Hill. The plan has the approval of
Warren Fl. Manning, the landscape
architect. and no doubt will finally
pc adopted in order to give much
pike.
another much needed road, au-
thorized and now under way but
neld up Ly reason of inability to
get labor, runs out from a point
where the trolley line crosses the
pennsylvania railroad at Overview,
Just above Summerdale, and along
the line of the mountain. There are
many farms and summer cottages
back along this stretch of what is
now little better than a mountain
trall, although the district will not
come into its own until the road is
made possible for automobiles which
nave difficulty now in negotiating its
gullies and mires. The land back
along the mountain is picturesque
ana wild and not few Harrisburg
people have erected thereon, not
withstanding the difficulties of
transportation, summer homes that
would do credit to the city itself
from an architectural standpoint. A
tramp back along this wretched
piece of highway we'll repays the
pedestrian for his labor, both as to
the view spread out before him when
he reaches height half way up the
mountainside and in the surprise
that is in store for him in the way
of unsuspected cottages of pretty de-
sign tucked away in many hooks and
corners.
James Foust. Dairy and Food
Commissioner, and Col. Thomas NJ
Jones, dean Of the newspaper corre-
spondents of Harrisburg, were guests
at the reunion of old canal boatmen
Sb DaAiDuiJ Oll OdluIudN. over E,UuU
people, boatmen and their descend
ants, attended the big outing and
Commissioner Foust says more tales
of the raging oanal' were recounted
than would fill fair-sized book. Mr..
Fousts father was one of the canal
builders. He went into canal work
as boy and died still in the serv-
ice. In his youth Mr.. Foust him
self was employed on a canal boat
n tho dave xrrIa hAofg -;
ed the Pennsylvania canal from
tidewater to Hollidaysburg, and up
into the coal regions via Sunbury
and the route north. Colonel Jones,
among other youthful activities dur
ing his boyhood in Hollidaysburg,
made many friends among the boat
men and got glad hand at the re-
union on Saturday. His father wrote
the History of the Juniata Valley
and thus lot of valuable historical
data came into the possession of the
son who has added to 1t during a
long period of newspaper work. He
made an address Saturday on the
history of the canal, relating many
interesting anecdotes of those early
days.
Speaking of the old canal-or
canals, to be correct, for there were
somebody with the knowledge and
the ability has not set into print the
story of these formerly great inland
waterways of the State, now for the
greater part filled in to make room
for encroaching railroads, or lying
in ruins along hundreds of miles
of flowing rivers that once fed them.
The younger generation knows them
merely as interesting relics. A few
years hence and they will be lost to
sight almost as completely as though
they never had existed. In them lies
buried a chapter of Pennsylvania
history at once romantic and prac-
tical. The building of the system was
herculean task and accomplished
only after tremendous difficulties.
The canals form the link between
the wagon and stage routes and the
railroads. Tho highways for the most
part have come back into their own.
but the canals apparently have gone
forever Who shall say, that, how
ever, when only few years back 1t
would have been the height of folly
to predict that the time would come
when people would prefer the turn
nilxa IN the railroad for a trip across