Connecticut western news., 1921-06-30
A REMINISCENCE
 BY C. H. PIE ASE
Son of the Founder of the Connecticut Western
 News

Little did I think, in 1871, when playing around my fathers office in the old town hall in Salisbury, the birthplace of the Connecticut Wes- tern News, that I would be called unon to contribute to the columns
 of that same paper fifty years later
 To my youthful mind at that time
 half-century in the future was
 synonymous with eternity, but to
 look back over the same period the time seems short.
 It is with mingled emotions of joy
 and sadness that l recall the history of the News career, and the varied iexperiences of the people connected with the publication of i'. This alone would furnish material fer a large
 book, and the changes wrought in
 the vicinity covered oy the papers
 circulation, most of which were
 chronicled in the News and some
 were not--would fill another volume
 of no mean proportions.
 Tn those days there were no tale-
 phones, automobiles, bicycles, elec-
 tric lights, not even potato bugs, and
 we'll do I remember the pioneer
 "Hne-back" as he walked the railroad track through Salisbury in 1873.
 He was saved" and shown about town as a curiosity.
 Although my career in printerdom began when about eight years old } by setting the type and printing , name labels for my school books, at { which time was officially initiated l into the mysteries of the "art pre-. I servative of all arts" by the 'type f louse" method, it was at the age o1 !, fifteen, f0ur years after my father: n death, that I entered the printing @ business at the News office in earnest I My first d1ty was to assist in the in s stallation of the new Campbell l press, which did good service on tn J. paper for thirty-nine years, or anti a few weeks ago.
 q The first compositor, printer i! rressman and general utility ma l. whose handiwork was seen in th e- first issues of the News, was And
 Johnson, who was later succeede y by Rob- Cooley, in those days cor D. sidered a wonder at the case as h Q, piled up his two columns a day c i- those little leaden emblems o le thought" and pushed down tn n, spaces between the words with tn @. nail of his little finger, which
 I permitted to grow to at least hal O. inch beyond the end of his finger fc as this special purpose.
 nd Many of those who did their bit ,t, the work of placing the paper befol ar the public each week since that tin IT, sorts of professions from clerg Id men, lawyers and politicians to tl IT. faithful old colored Charlie Brow re and his lazy son, Hobart, nickname ar "Cube", who furnished the moti' ar power to turn the old Guerns' Ny press in Salisbury, at the exorbita he price of fifty cents a week, and WI we possessed just enough intelligenc in to follow the old crank around al n' grin, without knowing enough to g fix tired. Truly, ignorance was t v's bliss of Cubes existence.
 his That old Guernsey press was
 a man-killer, not only to propel b en- was responsible for the loss of SC ,rv eral human fingers and smash re- hands. A steam engine finally su vas planted man power, and later, as far experiment, a farmers horse-pow rge was brought into service to grind c my the weekly issue. For several yes a a water motor did the trick, until on electric motor now in use was .ar, stalled.
 ter Another old relic of mechani ces genius, the old Adams press, alm