Early this morning we traveled to Myerstown to observe the Grundsau Lodsch Nummer Siwwezeh am Union Kanaal (Groundhog Lodge Number 17 on the Union Canal) consult with their groundhog “Uni” (named for the “Uni”on Canal) make his fearless prognostication on the arrival of Spring.
In the video above the forecast is given in Pennsylvania German, which all local groundhogs appear to be fluent in. For the language challenged the video below is presented in English.
ABRAHAM K. NEWCOMER, one of the prosperous and best known farmers in Manor township, ·Lancaster county, Pa., and residing two miles south of Mountville, was born July 8, 1842, and was reared on the old homestead. He was educated in the public schools, and. at nineteen years of age began learning the carpenter’s trade with Jacob Sneath; this trade he followed for eight years, and then began farming near Safe Harbor on a tract of thirty-seven acres. Seven years later he purchased forty-two acres of the Lehman farm, to which he at once removed, having sold his farm at Safe Harbor. He passed eighteen years on this new property, then without selling it, returned to the old Newcomer homestead in 1896, on which he lived until the spring of 1899, when he located on his present farm, south of Mountville. He now owns the forty-two-acre Lehman farm, forty acres of the Newcomer homestead, and six and a half acres where he resides near Mountville. In conjunction with general farming he has done considerable carpenter work and has erected all his own buildings as occasion required.
Mr. Newcomer married, Nov. 19, 1868, Miss Mary Ann Rutt, a native of Lancaster county, and a daughter of David Rutt. To this union have been born nine children, in the following order: Alice, wife of Frank Hershey, of West Hempfield township; Amos, farming on his father’s place and married to Clara Witmer; Martha, wife of Milton Millhouse, a farmer of Manor township ; Abraham, also a farmer in Manor township and married to Ellen Dombauch; Mary; Ellen, Elizabeth, David and
Annie.
Mr. Newcomer has been an active member of the Mennonite church about twenty-three years, and for a long time has been a member of the official board; in April, 1899, he was made a deacon, and his life has been one of quiet usefulness and industry. The family stand among the county’s most worthy and respected citizens, and although unassuming in deportment, ‘are effective in their usefulness.
Biographical Annals of Lancaster County,1903. pp 335-336.
A collection of links and information from recent journeys through life and the internet. Irregular describes the schedule and the path.
A Century of Dining Out – So if you miss eating out as much as you did pre-pandemic here’s a treat. Peruse menus from 1841 – 1941. You can admire them for the art or for the dinner faire. There are menus for restaurants and banquets. Be sure to check out the Broiled Squirrels a la Maitre d’Hotel at the Fifth Annual Reunion of the Railroad Conductors’ Life Insurance Company. For a deeper dive check out the other Grolier Club Online Exhibitions. Thanks to Paul for sharing a link to the Magazines and the American Experience Exhibition which I originally intended to highlight here.
All Aboard! – get these free sample train coloring pages from the Dover Coloring Book series. I used to sell lots of the nature related ones and the best thing about them was they usually included a permission statement on the first page for copying for personal or classroom use. You can sign up to regularly get these samples somewhere, but you’ll have to explore the Dover site for that. I have saved far too many of these files by right clicking on the coloring page and saving it to my computer. You can just print the .jpg file out or paste it into a Word page so you can easily manipulate the size. You can get more at http://www.coloringbookday.com/ .
Audubon’s Birds of America at Bowdoin College – One of the silver linings to the COVID disaster is that fascinating on-line opportunities have proliferated from colleges, non-profits, and individuals. Bowdoin college has these and some pre-covid recordings to watch in it’s page-turning events. It’s probably enough to say I was attracted by the idea that each event shows a page of Audubon’s double Elephant folio (that’s a BIG book), but what got us there on March 5 was an opportunity to hear our friend, Scott Weidensaul share the story of the book, Birds of Maine. His presentation will appear there if it hasn’t already.
Emerson and his Friends – The story went something like this when a customer noticed the Emerson pins available at the Walden Pond gift shop where a friend of mine works. He asked, “How about pins for Lake and Palmer?” With all my study of Emerson lately I completely forgot about them. Seriously, the link takes you to a Royal Albert Hall performance. I missed one of their performances at the Rock Festival at the Pocono Raceway in 1972 (I do have a limited double album vinyl press their performance released in 2019). My girlfriend at the time took me as a graduation present but storms and technical problems extended the concert to well past when we could stay with ELP playing at dawn the next day. I finally got to see Palmer a couple years ago after both Emerson and Lake left us. He played a short set before Todd Rundgren and Yes and I would have rather he kept playing rather than Todd for sure and even Yes. You can get an inkling of his performance starting at 1:01:48 in the Albert Hall Performance. Funny, my favorite was always Emerson, but I have a new appreciation for Palmer as well as Lake through his performance in several concerts available on youtube and his solo of one of my favorite ELP songs, You Turn Me On.
A collection of links and information from recent journeys through life and the internet. Irregular describes the schedule and the path. It’s a sort of occasional Magical Mystery Tour that helps me share these links as well as preserve them for myself.
Today in History, February 17 – The House of Representatives, breaking a tie in the Electoral College brought an end to one of the most acrimonious presidential campaigns in U.S. history and resolved a serious Constitutional crisis. I learn lots of things from the Library of Congress. Most come by way of email lists I have subscribed to or the inevitable rabbit holes they lead me down. Since there is a somewhat, I believe, false lull in the political turmoil (at least by comparison of the past four years, this link struck me. It sounds too much like today though it refers to 1801. You’ll have to click on it to see who the declared winner was.
Virtual Woodworking Show – In January of 2020 I finally got to travel to the Woodworking Show in Timonium Maryland after missing it because of work even though I worked in the area very close to when it was held. I traveled with Mike and his wife Lois from our scrollsaw club unaware that he would die just two months later. It was a good day. This year the show is virtual and stretches over all the weekends in March. Visiting the vendors is the best part and free. Classes cost a little something but are worth it.
Perseverance – Seeing a live space event, like the landing of the Mars Lander Perseverance on February 18 can still bring tears to my eyes. Being a part of these great explorations is pretty amazing these days watching it live from the Jet Propulsion Lab control room via my iPad. With this link the adventure can continue as you can virtually follow the rover around mars. I’m sure there will be additional Reflection links for the Mars Helicopter that rode along and of course pictures.
Bang – Whether they truly were “America’s answer to Black Sabbath” or a misfire, Bang was a Philadelphia group I discovered browsing the LP bins in the early seventies when an interesting dust jacket would result in a purchase. I rediscovered that they still have an internet presence with some free ringtone downloads if you’re into that kind of thing. Maybe it’s time I abandon the old man ringtone I have… a ringing phone. And on YouTube there are some songs from the album like The Queen.
Emerson’s Complete Works – In 12 volumes that you can read online or download from the Internet Archive. This search gives you a complete matching set from the Boston Public Library.
I’m often finding things to photograph to use as a desktop background. This wall is in a cemetery in New Castle, Delaware. It leaves space for folders and toolbars and as all the photos I choose turns my computer into an interesting scene to work against different from the usual panoramic landscapes that usually distract more than inspire. To save the full image to your computer click on the image to open the full file in your browser and then right click to copy it to your computer. Click on the BACKGROUNDS tag at the right to see all that I post. I’ll add more.
We departed from our usual Monday tour and went on a Tuesday in order to visit the Museum on Industry in Baltimore and see the Linotype there. It was, in fact, a relatively normal tour, normal in the way that it was NOT like our usual… unusual spots tours. It was non-the-less a great day pretty much spent in two museums that are very much worth the visit. It was especially good visiting the B&O with Craig in tow, who has become a walking database of train history and who was able to answer our questions and point out unusual aspects of the collection even better than the local docents there.
We visited:
Not that I get in the area much, but would love to visit this museum. In lieu of getting on a plane and going there you can view a slideshow of many types (pun intended) of letterpresses in this guy’s collection. There ARE actually some models I could fit in my basement… or my pocket for that matter.
If you find you HAVE to see one in the flesh come on down to the corner of Oak and Main in Ephrata, PA on a Saturday morning between 9 am and noon and we might even let you take one for a spin.
Check out, literally, like from a library, but online and free, NASA publications. Ton’s of them here.
There’s a great site about printing in Lancaster County called THE BLACK ART located at www.lancasterlyrics.com which includes valuable information about Harry Stauffer (shown here) and his Conestoga Press which I now help operate at the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley.
(Image: Harry Stauffer at the Ephrata Cloister, Lancaster County. With Joseph Bauman’s Ouram Printing Press. Photo by Mel Horst. From BLACK ART site.)