It Was a Death Race

Image from Wikipedia

IT WAS A DEATH RACE.

Whaleback’s Efforts to Pass the Virginia Causes a Steampipe to Burst.

Chicago, Ill., June 24. — The whaleback Christopher Columbus steamed up to the last point Saturday night struggling beyond its strength to win a moonlight race of excursion boats, and was a cripple at its dock early Sunday morning. There was a big hole in the top of the last of its battery of six boilers, the varnish of the cabin was steamed into wrinkles, and in the salon there was the smell of salves on the red wounds of six of the crew caught in the hold when the pope to the engine was blown into fragments. This terrible accident was caused by the summer folly which makes the lake captains crazy to race their ships into port.

Two men were killed and thirteen were seriously or painfully injured. The dead are:

E.J. STITE, fireman, 24 years old; lived at Paxton, Ford county, Ill.; died at 8:20 this evening at St. Luke’s hospital.

UNKNOWN MAN, supposed to be Frank Wilson, a fireman; face so badly scalded that he has not yet been identified; died at 5:15 o’clock this morning at St. Luke’s hospital.

The injured are:

John Hoppe, fireman, resided 200 West Madison, flat 3; inhaled steam and lungs badly scalded; hands, arms and chest seriously scalded; will probably die at St. Luke’s hospital.

Frank Rosner, fireman, resides at West Newton, Nicollet, Minn.; face, hands and arms scalded; at St. Luke’s hospital; may recover.

Arnold Keine, deaf mute, lives at Dubuque, Ia., aged 21 years; face and both hands badly scalded; at county hospital; may die.

George W. Kehoe, waiter in cafe; face, hands and arms scalded and right hand ct. Resides 122 Carol street, Buffalo; at St. Luke’s hospital; may not recover.

James Larimer, fireman, scalded on face and body; may recover.

Miss Boxheimer, pianist Bowman orchestra; severely burned about face and hands.

H.H. Darrow, 278 Chestnut street, Chicago; musician; face badly scalded.

George W. Kell, waterman, Buffalo; badly burned about face and hands.

J.E. Ryan, fireman, 614 Forty-sixth street, terribly burned about face, body and arms.

Nix Seter, waterman; terribly burned about head and face.

Miss Jessie L. Stone, 262 Campbell avenue; scalded in face, not seriously.

The inquest began at 2 o’clock this afternoon. Steamboat Inspector Stewart H. Moore stated positively that the accident was not due to any overpressure of steam, nor was it the result of racing with the Virginia. An expert in marine boilers ventured the explanation that water had accumulated in the pipe leading from the boiler not in use to the steam dome. When steam was turned on in this boiler the water was shot with resistless force against the iron-casting leading to the dome. As the accident occurred the instant steam was turned on it would seem that there is a good deal in this explanation.

Image from Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Chicago, Ill., June 24. — Stewart H. Moore, local government inspector of steamboat boilers, has made an examination of the steampipe which burst on the whaleback steamer Christopher Columbus on the southbound trip Saturday night, injuring two persons fatally and a score less seriously. “The breaking of the steampipe, to my mind,” he said, “is an accident that could not be foreseen, nor anticipated. It only serves as an illustration of the treachery of cast-iron, and cast-iron is the only thing for boiler makers to use on pipes of this character. So far as I can see, the break was not the result of a flaw, but the metal was in good condition. That it should happen could not be guarded against, and the officers of the boat are in nowise to blame for the injury done.”

The Columbus has a batter y of six boilers and it was the connection of the sixth one with the main steam pipe that had been blown loose at both ends. Everybody who was in the engineroom was burned by the escaping steam and the roar caused a panic on deck. Engineer Webster heroically performed the task of shutting off the valves on the different boilers, preventing further escape of steam. In doing this he was badly burned. The ship was then off Waukegan and she laid there until the injured had been cared for and arrangements made for using a battery of three boilers.

Hobbling along like a lame horse the Columbus finally reached her dock at Chicago at 5 a.m. It was charged that the Columbus was racing with the Virginia and that in trying to catch up to the Goodrich steamer the whaleback’s boilers were crowded beyond the legal limit, which was 170 pounds. Officers of both steamers, however, deny that they were racing.

Centralia Enterprise and Tribune (Centralia, Wisconsin) Jun 29, 1895

Image and article from Tower Accidents and Other Stories

Midsummer Folly and a Wheelbarrow

Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Texas) Aug 2, 1949

Midsummer Folly

This being the socalled silly season, we are moved to interest in Larry Hightower, cowboy poet, who has started to push a wheelbarrow around the world. He expects to consume the nest 12 years in this useless task. Of course everyone should have a purpose in life and if one’s purpose is to trundle a wheelbarrow 25,000 miles or more, we wish him success. To those of us who hate to push a lawnmower around a yard once a week, this man’s self-imposed stunt seems the acme of foolishness if foolishness has any acme. Yet we wonder if a lot of us aren’t just as foolish without realizing it.

Many of us are pushing wheelbarrows, figuratively speaking. We are trundling a load of unnecessary worries up hill and occasionally butting our heads against stone walls. We are loading ourselves down with self-imposed burdens and hoping someone else will lighten the load. Many of us are pursuing the wrong path, keeping the wheelbarrow wheel in a rut, so to speak, when we ought to go ahead and reconnoiter along the road and see if we shouldn’t make a turn somewhere. Oh, well, if Larry wants to push a wheelbarrow around the world for a dozen years back to where he started that’s his business. On a rough road with plenty of cream he could churn some butter while he’s a-wheeling. Maybe he isn’t much more foolish than some others. The broad highway is filled with all kinds of wheels within wheels.

Syracuse Herald Journal (Syracuse, New York) July 15, 1946

Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Mar 16, 1950

Wheelbarrow Express Starts Up Pike’s Peak Despite Falling Snow

Colorado Springs, Colo., March 11 — (AP) — Larry Hightower an his “Wheelbarrow Express” began the 62 mile round trip to the summit of Pikes Peak at 8 a.m. today despite falling snow and scorning grim legends of death and disaster to winter travelers atop the peak.

Hightower is the Ellensburg, Wash., man who started pushing a wheelbarrow on July 4, 1846 and has since pushed it a total of 18,212 miles through 48 states, five Canadian provinces, Mexico and Guatemala.

“I’ve seen worse weather than this,” he commented drily abut the snow which had started falling during the night. “I’ll make it if it takes all winter.”

He carries a supply of food which includes crackers, sardines, some GI emergency rations and a thermus jug of coffee.

He has only one blanket, but wears four shirts, two pairs of trousers and four pairs of gloves.

He said he will release a red flare if he gets into danger. On reaching the summit he will set off four flares to announce his arrival.

If he gets stuck for the night in the higher altitude where there are no houses, he said, he will dig a burrow in the snow and hole up. For warmth, he said, he will depend on a flask of partly filled with sand, into which he will pour wood alcohol, making a tiny stove.

He estimated it would take him from six to eight days to make the trip.

Greeley Daily Tribune (Greeley, Colorado) Mar 11, 1950

PIKE’S PEAK SUMMIT, Colo. (UP) — Larry Hightower, the only man to push a wheelbarrow to the top of Pike’s peak, left the deserted summer house and started back to Colorado Springs Thursday.

It took him five days to reach the top of the 14,110-foot mountain. Going down, he figured it would take about two days to cover the 26 miles.

Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, Idaho) Mar 16, 1950

BOISE, (UP) — Wheelbarrow Trundler Larry Hightower headed west again Saturday after obtaining Gov. C.A. Robins’ signature on a treasured Washington state flag.

The wiry Ellensburg, Wash., World War I veteran said he would try to make Pendleton, Ore., within the next 20 days. But he won’t hurry.
After all, he said, he’s been on the road more than four years — walking every foot of the way. So a few more days, or weeks, are of little importance.

Hightower caught Gov. Robins in his office late Friday after making an unsuccessful first try at getting hte chief executive’s signature on a flag which already has the names of 13 governors on it.

Hightower and his “Irish baby buggy” arrived here Thursday night after a tough trip across the Southern Idaho desert. The wheelbarrow survived the heat well, but Hightower had several blisters atop blisters before he reached the sanctuary here.

IN HIS carefully kept log book, the deeply suntanned wheelbarrow pusher chalked up his 19,448th mile. He explained that his tour since he left Ellensburg has taken him through most states of the nation and several countries of Central America.

Hightower, who lives on a government veteran’s pension, wore out 19 pairs of shoes and 1217 pairs of socks on his trip. He wears levis and a cotton suntan shirt most of the time. A pair of gloves helps absorb some of the punishment of pushing the 120-pound ‘barrow, into which are neatly piled all of his belongings.

HE SAID the idea of setting a world record for wheelbarrow travel struck him about five years ago.

“Men have accomplished many things, but no one picked a wheelbarrow for something like this,” Hightower said. “I picked the most primitive type of travel — a one-wheeled vehicle.”

HE CALLS HIMSELF a “messenger of good will,” and has delivered 332 lectures in schools, colleges and other institutions on Americanism.

“I’ve been trying to get across the idea that the American way of life is the best in the world,” Hightower said.

When asked how he managed to live on just a pension, he replied:

“You can’t throw a whingding, but you get by  somehow.”

Hightower hasn’t made up his mind whether he’ll go back to Ellensburg and settle down or not. He thought for a while of traveling to Hawaii or perhaps the Phillippines, but the Korean was situation has soured him on making a trip across the Pacific.

“Guess I’ll just mosey along and see how things turn out,” he said.

Idaho State Journal (Pocatello, Idaho) Aug 20 1950

Long Beach Independent (Long Beach, California) Aug 27, 1947

Walla Walla Union Bulletin (Walla Walla, Washington) Sep 28, 1950

Wheelbarrow Valued Highly

MOSES LAKE (AP) — Someone else is pushing Larry Hightower’s wheelbarrow and the former Ellensburg cowboy doesn’t like it.

It’s the one he pushed up Pike’s Peak on the jaunt that took him through the western United States and into Mexico and Canada. The one-wheeler turned up missing Thursday night, he complained to police.

Police should have no trouble identifying it. It has two headlights powered by a generator, a radio aerial topped by an American flag and the base is painted red, the interior white and the outside blue.

It’s worth a lot to Hightower, too: $40,000 was the estimate he gave police.

The cowboy said he suspects two juveniles.

Tri City Herald (Pasco, Washington) Jul 23, 1954

*****

Idaho Family Girl is (at least was – searching for her great-grandfather’s log books) to put in a museum. Read more HERE.

Recent post by Idaho Family Girl with more pictures.

Footage of Larry Hightower pushing his wheelbarrow on youtube:

Larry the Wheelbarrow Pusher

Just a Little Around the Edges, Please!

The President’s Budget

Where to Start

Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Jan 17, 1948

When Adam Was a Boy

Image from the London Metropolitan Archives

When Adam Was a Boy

Earth wasn’t as it is today
When Adam was a boy;
Nobody’s hair was streaked with gray
When Adam was a boy.
Then when the sun would scorch and stew
There wasn’t anybody who
Asked, “Is it hot enough for you?”
When Adam was a boy.

There were no front lawns to be mowed
When Adam was a boy;
No kitchen gardens to be hoed
When Adam was a boy.
No ice cream freezers to be turned,
No crocks of cream that must be churned,
No grammar lessons to be learned
When Adam was a boy.

There was no staying after school
When Adam was a boy,
Because somebody broke a rule
When Adam was a boy.
Nobody had to go to bed
Without a sup of broth or bread
Because of something done or said
When Adam was a boy.

Yet life was pretty dull, no doubt,
When Adam was a boy.
There were no baseball clubs about
When Adam was a boy.
No street piano stopped each day
In front of where he lived to play;
No brass band ever marched his way
When Adam was a boy.

There were no fireworks at all,
When Adam was a boy;
No one could pitch a drop-curve ball
When Adam was a boy.
But here is why our times are so
Much better than the long ago —
There was no Santa Claus, you know,
When Adam was a boy.

— Nixon Waterman in Woman’s Home Companion, January number.

Portsmouth Herald (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) Jan 17, 1906

Another Midsummer Folly

Image from TIMEbinder

Midsummer Folly.

The hot, hot days will soon be here,
The idea makes one nervous;
But where is there escape that’s sure?
And what is there to serve us?
It isn’t wise to calmly wait,
And say “Good Lord, preserve us!”

We try the country boarding house
It is not as was stated;
The beds are hard as two-inch planks,
The board is overrated —
The rooms so small and close and hot
That one might be cremated.

The watering place among the hills
Is open to objection;
The cottage by the sea may be
Unwise in its selection;
Dissipation surrounds them both
And brings with it dejection.

The season o’er, we homeward go
Back to the city’s bustle,
And once more join the busy throng
Who never cease to hustle,
Without a sigh for balmy airs
Or leaflet’s giddy rustle.

— Detroit Free Press.

Newark Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Aug 13, 1889

Poor Imogene

POOR IMOGENE.

Down by the river — the dark surging river,
Where the waters fretfully foam,
Where the flexile willows bend and quiver,
And the long marsh grasses sigh and shiver
And the watersnakes make their home.

There, bearing a load of shame and sorrow,
A scoffed and tainted name,
Bowed by a grief that may not borrow
A ray of peace from the hopes of to morrow
The hapless Imogene came.

Here was a face the sweetest and fairest,
Deep eyes of the softest blue,
A winsome mien and a grace the rarest;
To see her but once was to love her the dearest,
And warm was her heart and true.

And once was the life of this beautiful maiden
As pure as the angel’s are,
The wings of her morning came joyously laden,
And sweet were her thoughts as the breezes of Aiden,
Unvexed by a shadow of care.

And thus as she stood in her virginal bower
The ruthless spoiler came;
He wove round her being this treacherous power,
And then, like a crushed and faded flower,
He left her alone in her shame.

And now to her breast may come again never
The peace which innocence knows;
One moment she kneels by the deep surging river,
One moment she plunges, then darkly forever
The cold waters over her close.

— B.F. AWYE

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jul 25, 1882

Midsummer Folly

Midsummer Folly

Dressed to kill
Applies to those
Who in midsummer
Wear winter clothes.

— Helen Van Dusen

–O–O–

Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Jan 16, 1948

Expecting Snow?

Nice for fall, but for now, uh-uh.

Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Jul 20, 1948

Remembering Caraway Cookies

Image from Attic Paper

AUNT LUCINDA’S COOKIES.

Oh, baker, you haven’t in all your shop,
A cookie fit to be tried,
For the art of making them came to a stop
When my Aunt Lucinda died.
I can see her yet with her sleeves uprolled,
As I watched her mix and knead
The flour and eggs with their yolks of gold,
The butter and sugar, just all athey’ll hold,
And spice them with caraway seed.

Oh, that caraway seed! I see the nook
Where it grew by the garden wall;
And just below is the little brook
With the laughing waterfall.
Beyond are the meadows, sweet and fair
And flecked with the sun and shade;
And all the beauties of earth and air
Were in those cookies so rich and rare,
My Aunt Lucinda made.

So, add one more to the world’s lost arts,
For the cookies you made are sad,
And they haven’t the power to stir our hearts
That Aunt Lucinda’s had;
For I see her yet, with sleeves uprolled;
And I watch her mix and knead
The flour and eggs, with their yolks of gold,
The butter and sugar, just all they’ll hold
And spice them with caraway seed.

— Nixon Waterman.

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Dec 29, 1900

Image from Homemade Dessert Recipes

Longing.

O, for the meadow-lands, warm and sweet,
Where the tall grass whispers the whole day long,
And the meadow lark on the old rail fence
Floods all the silence with exquisite song;
To lie on the south hill slope and dream —
O, wonderful dreams that never come true;
Then home to the kitchen, cool and wide,
Where grandma’s caraway cookies grew.

O, heart of mine, ’tis a weary way
From the city’s streets to the meadows wide,
From the clearer vision of manhood’s years
To youth’s sweet dreams on the south hillside;
So far from the ways that bruise the feet
To the grassy paths that my childhood knew,
From crowding walls to the kitchen wide
Where grandma’s caraway cookies grew.

— Florence A. Jones, in Good Housekeeping.

Daily Republican (Decatur, Illinois) Jul 27, 1899

Here are several Caraway Cookie recipes from various newspapers – published from 1891 – 1981:

The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) Jul 4, 1891

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For the Nutmeg lovers:

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) May 12, 1898

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The Wellsboro Agitator (Wellsboro, Pennsylvania) Aug 24, 1910

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This one gives the option of using the newfangled “butterine”:

Lincoln Daily News (Lincoln Nebraska) Jan 17, 1919

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This holiday recipe uses rose water and rose-flavored icing:

Hamilton Daily News (Hamilton, Ohio) Dec 2, 1926

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For leaf-shaped cookies:

San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas) May 17, 1936

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This special family recipe includes honey and English walnuts:

The Maryville Daily Forum (Maryville, Missouri) Sep 8, 1941

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And finally, this “modern” recipe (1981) from the American Rose Society includes rose syrup:

The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) Nov 11, 1981

What This Country Needs

What This Country Needs

St. Paul Crescent

What this country needs in not a new birth of freedom but the old fashioned two-dollar lower berth.

What this country needs isn’t more liberty but less people who take liberties with our liberty.

What this country needs is not a job for every man but a real man for every job.

What this country needs isn’t to get more taxes from the people but for the people to get more from the taxes.

What this country needs is not more miles of territory but more miles to the gallon.

What this country needs is more tractors and less detractors.

What this country needs isn’t more young men making speed but more young men planting spuds.

What this country needs is more paint on the old place and less paint of the young face.

What this country needs isn’t a lower rate of interest on money but a higher interest in work.

What this country needs is to follow the footsteps of the fathers instead of the dancing master.

The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pennsylvania) Jul 26, 1922

Running Fire: A Race for Liberty

Shortly after 1 o’clock this morning John Riedmiller’s valuable pacing horse, with a mark of 2:20, was standing, hitched to a post at the corner of Wayne and Calhoun streets. Officer Bower saw the animal there and had been watching it for some time. A few minutes after 1 o’clock the policeman saw a negro step into the buggy quietly and drive away without any evidence of being in a hurry or any movement to conceal his identity. The officer watched the colored man drive the horse east on Wayne street.

Image from WHDH 7News

The carriage was about a block east of Calhoun street, when in an excited manner Mr. Reidmiller made inquiries concerning his horse.

Officer Bower informed him that a colored man whom he supposed was a stable boy taking care of the animal, had driven it east. After a hasty exchange of explanations in regard to the disappearance of the horse, both men concluded that the animal had been stolen.

The patrol wagon was called out in a few minutes and sent east over the East Wayne street pavement at a wild run, manned by Capt. Borgman, Sergt. Dasler and Officer Gallmeier.

The officers flew down the thoroughfare with the horses at breakneck speed. Near the Concordia college they met a farmer driving into the city. He have the officers a clew and the panting patrol steeds were turned south on Walton avenue. Through the drizzling rain, with mud flying in all direction, the steeds galloped in a maddened run.

Fresh tracks were noticed on the Wayne ?ace going east, and the officers turned in that direction. In the darkness a few hundred feet away they saw the outlines of a carriage. The speed of the patrol wagon never faltered, and the policemen yelled “halt.”

The vehicle in front forged ahead with unchecked speed. Several shots were fired into the air to frighten the driver of the horse in front of the patrol wagon. The running fire had no effect. After a hot chase for a quarter of a mile, with neither the police nor the fleeing horse-thief gaining or losing any ground, there was a sudden halt.

The carriage in front of the patrol wagon stopped and almost instantly the patrol wagon wheeled up beside the foaming horse.

The drive had escaped, and only a few seconds before, as the lines were warm where he had held them in his grasp.

The ditch, culvert and fences in the vicinity were searched in vain. Not a trace of the horse-thief could be found. He successfully eluded the officers and escaped. The horse and carriage were brought back to the city.

This is the wildest ride the Fort Wayne officers have experienced since the patrol wagon has been in the police service.

The thief’s daring was bold in the extreme, and his escape was miraculous.

Fort Wayne News (Fort Wayne, Indiana) Oct 5, 1894