Josiah Beattie Moss

Josiah Beattie Moss was born in St. Joseph on July 29, 1849, the son of Preston Talbot Moss and Miss Susan Henry Beattie. At that time the family was living in a small frame house on the northwest corner of Third and Francis Streets, later the site of the Metropole Hotel.

Josiah was the eighth generation of the Moss family in America. The first Moss came from England to York County, Virginia, and died there in 1658. Frederick Moss of the fifth generation lived in Halifax County, and he married Sarah Tomkins, whose father was an Englishman, killed at Braddock's Defeat in July 1755. In 1787 Frederick Moss moved his family to Jessamine County, Kentucky, where he died in 1792. In 1819 his widow, Sarah, moved with her son, James Tomkins Moss, and his wife, Sarah Daniel Talbot, to the territory of Missouri-not yet a state. They spent the first winter near the stockade and blockhouse of 'Old Fort Hempstead at Old Franklin in Howard County. Their son, Preston Talbot Moss, was born on February 22, 182I. During the winter an older sister of the baby, Catherine Talbot Moss, who had come out from Kentucky with the family, met a young Tennesseean, Robert I. Boyd, and they were married. In 182I James Tomkins Moss moved his family to Boone County, Missouri. As soon as the Platte Purchase was open for settlement, in 1837, Robert I. Boyd took up land in what was to be Buchanan County, south of the Blacksnake Hills and Robidoux Landing near the future site of the fish hatchery. There he started farming with the negroes he had brought from Tennessee.

James Tomkins Moss died in Boone County in 1828 when Preston Talbot Moss was seven. He was sent to Buchanan County to live with his older sister, Mrs. Boyd. Mr. Boyd tired of farming and opened a general merchandise store at the little village of Sparta, the county seat of Buchanan County, and Preston was put to work as a clerk in the store.

Joseph Robidoux started his town of St. Joseph in 1843, four years after Sparta was established, but St. Joseph's location on the Missouri River and the growing steamboat traffic soon showed such superiority that in 1846 the citizens of the county voted to move the county seat to St. Joseph. The town of Sparta virtually disappeared. Robert Boyd moved his store into St. Joseph and the firm of Boyd & Moss (P.T.M. was twenty-four years old) opened for business on the northwest corner of Main and Jule Streets. Preston Moss made a point of getting to know the Indians, and learning the Indian words for various articles of merchandise the firm had to offer. Other merchants would invite the Indians into their stores, but the reply often would be: "No, we wait for Pres. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848 the great boom of western migration through St. Joseph began and the outfitting of the flood of emigrants made the Boyd & Moss business highly successful.

The Beattie family of Washington County, Virginia, in the western part of the state, was a prominent one. Several of the Beattie men had fought against the British at the Battle of King's Mountain in October 1780. David Beattie was a captain in the American forces. A generation later two of the Beatties came to northwest Missouri. Armstrong Beattie, St. Joseph's first banker, was born in Washington County, Virginia, in 18II, brought to Howard County, Missouri, in 1821, and reached St. Joseph in 1852. Colonel Josiah N. Beattie moved from Abingdon, Washington County, Virginia, to Savannah, Missouri, ten miles north of St. Joseph, which had been started in 1841-two years earlier than St. Joseph. Colonel Beattie had a daughter, Susan Henry Beattie, who had been born at 'Seven Mile Ford,” Smyth County, Virginia (the county adjoining Washington County), in 1828, and taken by her parents to Savannah. On May 29, 1845, when she was sixteen years old, she was married to Preston Talbot Moss in Savannah. Some years later another young Savannah girl, Susan Hallack, was married to James McCord. The young Moss couple took up residence at Sparta and then followed the community into St. Joseph. Colonel Josiah N. Beattie then decided to move from Savannah to St. Joseph. He built a large log structure at the corner of Main and Jule Streets, which he called "The City Hotel. He later opened a store on Main Street between Francis and Jule. To purchase goods for the store, he traveled to the East, and was returning with his stock when he was stricken with cholera and died on the steamboat near Leavenworth. His sons were too young to carry on the business so the stock of goods was sold to Tootles & Fairleigh. When Armstrong Beattie arrived in St. Joseph in 1852 he opened his bank in the building of The City Hotel.

The young couple, Preston and Susan Moss, lived in a small frame house at Third and Francis Streets until 1858, when their son, Josiah Beattie Moss, was ten years of age. The land was then purchased for the erection of a large hotel, The Pacific House, built at the cost of $120,000. It burned on December 15, 1870, and was rebuilt as the Metropole Hotel. Preston T. Moss had purchased six acres of ground “in the country north of Grand Avenue near Eleventh Street. While their house was being built there, the family lived temporarily at Third and Faraon Streets.

Joe Moss had a happy boyhood in the country location. He had a pony which he rode into town to school and he roamed the surrounding hills with the boys of the Joseph Davis family. They hunted, fished, swam, and explored. When the Pony Express started on April 3, 1860, ten-year-old Joe, on his pony, was there at the Patee House to see the rider start off. The Civil War came on in April 1861 when Joe was twelve, too young to join either of the two military groups of young men of the town. The Jackson Guards were headed by Captain Reuben Kay, who had graduated from the Kentucky Military Institute, and they eventually went South to join the Confederate Army. The Western Guards' under Captain Frederick W. Smith joined the Union forces. Northern soldiers were brought into St. Joseph and some two thousand of them were camped south of Grand Avenue at Eleventh Street. This was an exciting situation for the boys of the neighborhood, but after Preston T. Moss died, on June 1, 1861, it was decided that Mrs. Moss and the children would be safer in town, so they moved in to join the Boyd family at Ninth and Sylvanie Streets. Joe Moss was only twelve years old, so his uncle, the banker Armstrong Beattie, was appointed his guardian.

Joe Moss attended the St. Joseph schools and graduated from Bryant & Stratton's Business College. In 1865, when he was sixteen years old, he was approached by Mr. A. M. Daugherty who wished to rent some lots owned by the Moss family at Eighth and Edmond Streets for use as a lumberyard. Joe consulted with his guardian and borrowed $4,500 from him to become a partner in the business. Mr. E. W. Ray later bought into the company and Joe Moss remained in that lumber business for fifty-six years. He was one of the organizers of the Commercial Bank in 1887 and became a vice-president. That bank built the stone building on the southeast corner of Sixth and Edmond Streets which was occupied much later by the Empire Trust Company. Mr. Moss was always active in the management of his real estate holdings. These he managed from his office in the Moss Building on the northeast corner of Eighth and Edmond Streets. He built that building on the site of the old lumberyard. It was destroyed by fire on April 14, 1974.

In 1889, Joe Moss was forty years old and still a bachelor. He and two friends, Dr. Frank J. Smith and James E. Carbry, decided to make a Grand Tour abroad. They visited England and the Continent, but the high point of the trip was an evening at a nightclub in Cairo, Egypt. There they discovered a remarkable belly dancer and four years later, at the Chicago World's Fair, they were delighted to find their own judgment confirmed, with the discovery that their friend was none other than "Little Egypt of the 'Streets of Cairo concession.

During his European trip, Mr. Moss was much attracted to the graceful architecture and style of the French chateaux in the Loire Valley. On his return to St. Joseph he engaged the firm of Eckel & Mann to build for him the “Fabled Castle of Fantasic Medievalism’ on his property at the southeast corner of Ninth and Sylvanie Streets. There was oak paneling and stained glass, while the roof garden off the second floor became a vine-covered arbor of beauty and charm. The house was built while Mr. Moss was still a bachelor, and the plan was that his aunt would keep house for him.

However, by the time the house was completed, Joe Moss had decided to marry. On February 25, 1891, he was married to Miss Mary Word Leach, daughter of Lewis Leach, who had been associated with Tootle, Leach & Company, Nave, McCord & Company, Leach, Nave & Company, and Tootle, Craig & Company. There were two Moss children: Catherine Carbry who married J. Doyle Barrow, and Preston Leach who married Olivia Colhoun Motter.

Mr. and Mrs. Moss enjoyed entertaining in their comfortable home, and the parties for their friends and the friends of their children were always original in design and executed to perfection. The most gala event in the house was the wedding and reception of their daughter on October 15, 1919:

The service was read in the living room before an improvised altar of palms, ferns, and white chrysanthemums. Preceding the ceremony, an orchestra played. A quartet sang the “Lohengrin' march as the wedding party descended the stairs. Miss Henrietta Heddens was Maid of Honor, and little Margaret Augusta Motter the Flower Girl. The Matrons of Honor held white ribbons to form an aisle through which the bridal party passed. Albert Bartlett, Jr. was Best Man for Mr. Doyle Barrow and the ushers were Barret Heddens, Randolph Davis, William Bartlett, Mason Shoup, C. C. Burnes, Brittain Walker, Preston Moss, William Barrow, and Randolph Vories. The bride is one of St. Joseph's most talented girls. She studied art in Chicago and made a tour of Europe at the completion of her schooling. The bridegroom is a substantial young man of high standing. He was a Captain in the U.S. Army and served overseas.”

Joe Moss lived to be nearly ninety-three years of age, dying on April 1, 1942. He was gifted with a remarkable memory, and fortunately he was interested in recording his recollections of the rich history of St. Joseph which he had lived through. During the last five years of his life nearly two hundred installments of his Memoirs were printed in one of the newspapers. Excerpts from these accounts follow.

'EARLY SAINT JOSEPH

“The first settlement at St. Joseph was made by Joseph Robidoux for a fur trading post at a point about 1,000 feet north of the Francis Street railroad station, on the northwest side of Blacksnake Creek where it empties into the river. It was called Robidoux's Landing. "The old post, when I first knew it in the 1860's, had grown into a two-story and basement brick house, about 100 feet wide by 50 feet deep and was located at the foot of Prospect Hill. It was a very imposing looking building at that time. A large Indian cross stood on the hill, also one on King Hill. There were many Indian graves on these hills, some in the ground and many on scaffolding.

Finally the town was incorporated under the name of St. Joseph. It was a fine site for a town or city with numerous springs and branches running through it, situated on ground above the high water mark of the river and surrounded by the beautiful Blacksnake Hills. It grew quite rapidly and finally secured the county seat, which gave it another boom when the town of Sparta, the old county seat, dismantled and moved here bodily. It now had several large general Stores.

"At the Boyd-Moss store, northwest corner of Main and Jule Streets, steamboats would unload at their warehouse at the wharf almost daily and a string of wagons loaded up every day for the Utah, Oregon and Washington territories. Indians would come in droves to buy supplies for their villages. A large part of the trade of the town was from the Indians.

The early pioneers were generally a very hardy, healthy, honest set of men. It was a common occurrence for them to load several wagons full of goods for the West, go on with them and pay for them when they sold out and returned. The merchant never lost any money unless the traders were killed by the Indians.

“I knew but little about how the community was governed, but I did know it had a town marshal. When I was a boy there was a saloon on almost every corner, and two in between, with gambling rooms upstairs over all of them. There were several variety theaters, a chicken fighting main where they fought roosters and dogs, and where rat dogs killed rats for sport.

"There were all kinds of lotteries and every skin game imaginable for relieving the sucker of his money. Fistfights and fights with pistols were common occurrences. Painted ladies were much in evidence everywhere. When I was a telegraph messenger boy, I had entrance to all these places-sometimes went in with only a handful of blanks just to see what was going on. The marshal had a man's job, for this was the hottest little town in the Central West.

The mail came by stage and steamboat and one had to go to the post office to get it.

Main Street, as I knew it in the early 1860's, ran along the riverfront from North St. Joseph to King Hill. It was a wide street with the levees and steamboat landings all along its length to the point where now is the railroad bridge across the river. It is now all in the river from Francis on south to Atchison Street. The Washington Hotel, one of our largest, and the steamboat chandlers' stores (which furnished supplies for steamboats) were on this street, Horton and Kerr and H. Q, Ferguson's stores.

There were a good many hotels in town and all daily filled to capacity. There were regular steamboat lines running on regular schedule from New Orleans, Cairo, Cincinnati, St. Louis and from up the Mississippi River and several other lines which brought special cargoes, also several lines up the Missouri River running to Fort Benton. There were several Stage lines making connections with all parts of the United States, whose stages arrived and departed daily. The stage bodies were hung on leather straps instead of springs which made them rock and roll like ships at sea. The drivers blew their horns, cracked their whips, and started out in a gallop. I have seen the town crowded with loaded wagons waiting their turn to cross the river on the ferries to continue their journey West.

“The chief industries were outfitting and freighting to the West. As this was, at that time, a great hemp and tobacco growing country, there were several large warehouses where hemp was baled and others for tobacco. I have seen steamboats loaded to the chimney tops with baled hemp and hogsheads of tobacco.

"There were several pork packing plants, Henry Krug and Pinger and Hauck, flour mills, Ivan Riley’s, Anthony’s and Cargill's and Buell's woolen mills where the very best blankets were made.

The business center was on Main Street and up Water, Second and Third Streets to Isadore Street, and on Jule Street to Third. The town grew to the north at first.

My home at Third and Francis Streets was near the suburbs Wholesale dry goods and grocery stores were established and became one of our most important businesses.

The churches as I remember them were the Catholic Church at Fifth and Felix, the Christian Church at Third and Robidoux, the Methodist Church at Seventh and Francis, the Presbyterian Church at Fourth and Francis, the Baptist Church at Sixth and Francis, the Episcopal Church at Seventh and Francis, where it now stands. The Jewish Synagogue was at Sixth and Jule Streets.

“One Good Theater

“The only good theater was in the Odd Fellows' Hall at Fifth and Felix Streets.

"In the early 1850's, Kansas City did not exist. It was known as Westport Landing and had only a few houses along the river bank. Omaha, Nebr., did not exist. St. Joseph, Mo., Liberty, Mo., Weston, Mo., Savannah, Mo., Atchison, Kan., and Leavenworth, Kan., were good towns. Kansas and Nebraska were territories.

'St. Joseph's only legitimate theater that I knew of before the Tootle Opera House was built was in the second and third stories of the Odd Fellows hall at Fifth and Felix. On the fourth story was Odd Fellows’ hall, and on the first floor was Mintern's Grocery Store.

'Will Mintern, a boy about my age, and I served as ushers and often did errands for the theater actors and actresses and, of course, had free access to all plays.

“Charles Irvine was the manager of the stock company that played at the theater regularly. They had a company of good actors. Irvine himself was a fine actor and understood the technicalities well, but he had lost his voice, could only speak in a whisper. He could train an actor perfectly and his whisper had a wonderful tone.’

“THE WAY OF LIFE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

In 1858 after my father had sold our home at Third and Francis Streets to the Pacific Hotel Company, he bought about six acres near Eleventh and Moss on which he built a house. This seemed to me to be far in the country. There were no paved roads or streets and in wet weather the roads were axle deep in mud.

“My father had a large general merchandise store which he had operated since 1844 under the name of Boyd & Moss on the northwest corner of Main and Jule Streets. For our home storeroom he would send up from his store a caddy of tea, bag of unparched coffee, a barrel each of brown sugar and flour, a keg of molasses, a box of cheese, a box of figs, and a tall loaf of white sugar which we used when we had company. We had a little blade and hammer to crack off pieces to sweeten tea or coffee.

"Tallow Candles for Light

"All those and many other good things were kept in the store room. My mother kept the keys and issued the daily supplies to the cook.

“Our house and table were lighted with tallow or beeswax candles, which we moulded ourselves. I always liked to help mould them. The kitchen was lighted with grease lamps. Electric lights and gas were unknown in this part of the country.

When the apples were gathered in the fall we made cider and then vinegar by using some cider and apple peelings and other fruits. We sent out to the neighbors to borrow some mother of vinegar to get it started.

Delightful Winter Evenings

“The cellar was filled with apples, pears, Irish and sweet potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and parsnips. A part was buried in the ground, wrapped in hay for late winter use. We also had a large store of all nuts that grew around here, walnuts, hickory and hazelnuts that I personally had gathered, and which we liked to crack and eat as we roasted apples and popped corn before the open fire on winter evenings.

“Our fowl yard had turkeys, ducks, guineas, chickens and peafowls. "Window screens were unknown, and we used a brush made of tail feathers of a peacock to keep the flies away at the dinner table. It was manipulated by a small colored boy. He often became so interested in the conversation that he forgot his job.

'Hans Old and Mellow

“In the fall we killed and put up ten or more hogs of our own raising, rendered the lard, hung the bacon, hams and jowls in the smokehouse and smoked them with hickory or cedar logs and chips kept down to a smoking condition. My mother always had the fresh hams hung in the top of the smokehouse bringing the previous year's hams down to reach. She liked the hams old and mellow.

'We had an ash hopper in the yard to produce lye for making soft soap for washing clothes. We had a large iron kettle that we used to render out the lard and make soap.

‘Often we, or some of our neighbors, killed a calf, sheep or lamb for summer meat, sending part to several neighbors who reciprocated when they killed.

“We had an ice house in which we packed away the ice for summer use.

"No Sewing Machines

“Most of the people we knew lived similarly. We always had enough on hand to feed a large company. My mother was fond of company and often had a house full of relatives from surrounding counties spending a few days at our house. We occasionally loaded up a wagon with the children and servants and went on a round of return visits. “On Christmas our presents were simple toys and store candies for the children. For the others there were some useful presents in which the servants were participants.

“All the clothing for the family, except my father's which were made by a tailor when he went East to buy goods, was made in the home by hand sewing. Sewing machines were not yet in general use here. My mother cut out, fitted and did much of the work. The cloth was from our store, sometimes home weaved, brought in by farmers, All of our stockings were knit at home with woolen or cotton yarn.

"No Women's Stores

“Men and boys generally wore boots made by the local shoemaker. The general stores carried cheap kip boots and brogan shoes. Exclusive shoe stores or clothing stores for men and boys were unknown. Shops for women's dresses and undies came much later.

“We heated our houses with fireplaces in which were big blazing fires against a large backlog. Generally the cooking was done in an open fire place provided with cranes and hooks on which to hang kettles. We had a cast iron cooking stove, also a sheet iron stove in the parlor.

“Lived Mighty Well Then

“Our best furniture, rocking chairs, tables and sideboard, was made of mahogany and very good; rather massive but better than that of today. We had a piano on which my sister, cousins and visitors played. My sister took music lessons from Professor Otto Behr and was one of his star pupils. I had to drive her in for lessons twice a week, so the family, to pacify me, wanted me to take lessons, but not for me. I thought it a sissy job.

“We lived mighty well in those days. For breakfast we had broiled oldham, the odor of which would make your mouth water, bacon or homemade sausage seasoned with red pepper and sage, beaten or soda biscuits, corn griddle or buckwheat cakes with maple syrup from Uncle Boyd's or Joe Davis' sugar tree grove which I had helped to make.

'A Bounteous Dinner

At our company or Sunday dinners which were at noon we had turkey stuffed with corn bread and seasoned with sage, broiled quail, baked prairie chicken or venison, light bread or salt rising bread, all kinds of vegetables and pickles, preserved fruits and jellies, wild strawberries, pumpkin, apple and rhubarb pies and ice cream which was made at home.

“Our suppers were light, consisting of bread and milk or corn meal mush and milk, boiled hominy, bread and honey.

'We had a large fine vegetable garden and fine melon patch.

Business Was Good

Business was good. Everybody was prosperous through the trade from emigrants out-fitting for Oregon, Washington, Montana and Colorado, the Mormons for Salt Lake City, the freighters to the West, the great number of campers waiting to join a party and the Indian trade.

"After my father's death, the war being on and two thousand Union soldiers encamped in the fair grounds very near our house, Uncle Boyd and Aunt Kitty thought it unsafe for my mother and the children to live so close to them and had us move into their house at Ninth and Sylvanie Streets.

“Slaves Lived Well

"In ante-bellum days the colored people that I knew were well treated. In my father's family we had four slaves, George the gardener and stable man, Ann, his wife, who was the cook, Kitty, the housegirl and nurse, and Ann's child. They lived about as well as we did. On Sunday afternoon when they went to church they were well dressed. George, in his long Prince Albert coat, dark suit and shiny plug hat and gold headed cane. All the others were well clothed. Ann was a fine cook. Everything that came on the table was perfect.

"I never knew of any of the slaves in our family or the families of our relatives or friends that were abused or beaten. Sometimes it was necessary to scold a careless housegirl and have her do her work over. However, I did know of one case where a woman cowhided a house girl to death. The family left town suddenly the next morning for parts unknown for fear of a mob. I saw them driving rapidly away. They were never heard of anymore. In passing the house, I saw their colored coachman whom I knew. He took me into the house where I heard his story of the crime and saw the dead girl and the walls and ceiling of the room spattered with blood.

Slave Was Trusted

"The slaves all had lots of leisure time. Our George had every Saturday off to work for others and he made considerable money on the side (except when we were very busy). Then my father paid him a day's wages. He also made axe handles, or bows and yokes to sell and made quite a bit of money. Some others that I knew made beautiful bushel and half bushel baskets of hickory withes on their holidays.

“My uncle Milton Bryan had two slaves, Bill and Patsy. They were as much loved by the children as any others of the family. “Aunt Patsy was a fine cook and “Uncle Bill' a hard working cheerful man. When Uncle Milton went overland to the California gold placer mines he left Bill in charge of the family and farm until he returned. Aunt Kitty's cook, “Aunt Cornelia,' was also a good cook.

'Uncles in Opposing Armies

‘All of our servants and those of our relatives stayed on with their respective families long after their freedom until other darkies and the soldiers made them leave.

“My father, raised in a slave holding family and naturally a slave holder, had changed his mind in regard to slavery. He had gone to San Antonio, Texas to try to recuperate his health when the war broke out, and he was there when the rabble dragged the U.S. flag in the dust on the streets. He remonstrated with them and they nearly mobbed him. He was strong for the Union and did not approve of the secession. I had several uncles and cousins in the war, some in the Confederate army and some in the Union army.

Two of my uncles in opposing armies met on the picket lines at night and spent the night together exchanging family news.

'Hemp Was an Important Product

‘Today a man about forty years old asked me “what is hemp?' I told him that in my boyhood hemp was one of the principal farming crops in this part of the country. It was planted broadcast like wheat, and grew from six to ten feet high in stalks from a half to one and a half inches thick.

‘In the country surrounding St. Joseph the hemp fields were larger than the cornfields are now. Raising hemp was very hard work and could only be done at a profit with slave labor.

‘It was cut with what was called a hemphood, a curved blade, a cross between a sickle and a machete. The crop was cut and laid out on low ground through the winter and the spring rains to rot the outer bark and the woody part of the stalk.

‘It had to pass through a hemp break to get the outer bark loose, and to separate the woody portion. Then it was pulled through a hackle, a series of spikes, and reduced to the fine shreds of the inner bark, tied up in hands and put up in bales like cotton. It was used for making rope of all sizes, from steamboat hawsers down to twine, and was also woven into coarse cloth.

‘There were several large hemp warehouses in St. Joseph. A part of Robert W. Donnell and A. M. Saxton's large stone warehouse still stands near the southwest corner of Sixth and Messanie Streets, back of the buildings on Sixth Street. Steamboats went down the river loaded with baled hemp piled as high as their upper decks or smokestacks, with men with buckets of water to put out fire from sparks.

‘There were several large rope walks in St. Joseph where rope and cables were made. Men walked backwards and twisted the fiber into strands with something like a large spinning wheel, then into ropes of different sizes for cordage for sailing ships, clothes lines and hangman's noose-'stretching hemp' was the term used in those days for hanging a man.

‘It was the only rope known until the seagrass and manila rope came on the market at a much cheaper price. The seagrass grew unplanted and uncultivated in shallow sea water, and machines were invented to mow it under water and let it float to the surface. Manila rope has now supplanted both hemp and seagrass. It is grown mostly in the Philippines and other sea islands with cheap labor.

‘Governor Willard P. Hall, Henry Vories, William Sallee, Daniel Highly, Jess Davis, Samuel Green, the Cargills and many others were large hemp raisers.

‘As a boy I hunted over the hemp fields in the fall of the year, generally with Willard P. Hall, Jr., William Hall, Alex Vorhies and Joseph Sallee. (Judge L. A. Vories was too young and we would not let him go with us.) Quail and prairie chickens were then plentiful, as the hemp seed was their best and most available winter food.

‘Along the country roads one can still see wild hemp as a reminder of the past glory of hemp.

‘In the fall many large wagonloads of hemp were brought in from the surrounding country to the warehouses. Much tobacco was also raised by slave labor near St. Joseph. We also had several tobacco warehouses. At Glasgow, Hannibal and Paris, Mo. were large tobacco factories. The Glasgow No. I was the favorite chewing tobacco throughout the West.

“Corn was used only for meal, stockfeed and making “corn juice' which was thought to be a necessary product. We had several distilleries in St. Joseph.

"The Gay Nineties

“In the Gay Nineties-and earlier-we celebrated New Year's day by keeping what we called “open house.” Each hostess would assemble at her home some of her daughter's friends, or her own if her daughter's were not old enough, and it would be open to everyone who wished to call.

‘Some continued the reception through the evening with dancing. Elaborate luncheons consisted of all the good things the market af. forded, all kinds of cold meat, salads, hot oysters, lobsters, cakes and candies, egg nog, of course. Some had many kinds of liquors and cigars. The houses were beautifully decorated and brilliantly lighted and the women were in lovely evening gowns. Every home made a beautiful picture and breathed gaiety and warm hospitality.

‘Several young men would get a carriage and go the rounds together. We had our names printed on beautiful cards. I having been a lumberman, I had mine printed on thin sheets of wood that I had secured in Switzerland. When we entered, we deposited our cards in a basket provided for that purpose, one for each lady receiving. All vied with each other to get the most unique and attractive cards.

‘It was a fine social custom and one that should be revived. It made a day of great enjoyment for all, and was a wonderful way to start the New Year. Many of my friends, now grandmothers, grandfathers, or even great grandparents, will remember the New Year's Balls in the Gay Nineties. When I now meet or think of the girls and boys of those days, I remember them as they looked at parties and Sunday afternoon calls in the days of Auld Lang Syne.”