Autumn Leaves Addendum

Contemporary History 4 -Autumn Leaves Addendum

On October 14, 2018, I posted “Autumn Leaves”. Quite a few of you have enjoyed it, well, “enjoyed it” might be a bit too strong. Let’s just say quite a few of you have read it. It began by telling the story about my friend Bernice and her leaves, eventually getting around to MY leaves in Drums. Oddly enough, and totally by coincidence, about the same time I was posting that post I received a package from Bernice. It was a book, The Last Breed, by the Jamestown, North Dakota author, Louis L’Amour.

If it had not had her return address on the package, I’d not have known it was from her. No letter, card, nothing. Nothing, that is, until I opened the book. Scattered throughout the book are leaf-shaped stickers; if I found them all, 34 to be exact. Upon closer examination, one notices that on most of the pages with a sticker, there is the word “leaf” or “leaves” underlined as can be seen in the image below. Now if you read closely, you’ll notice there is a “leaves” not underlined, sixth paragraph down. Perhaps she missed it or perhaps she chose NOT to point it out because, as you can see, it is referring to “dead leaves”.

 

Six of the 34 leaves in the book are not associated with the word “leaf” or “leaves”. They are just added for excitement, I suppose; five inside the book and one stuck snugly on the back.

By the way, as an aside, one of the leaf stickers, the one on page 176, was of HERBAL TEA leaves! When I read the sentence in which the word “leaf” was underlined, the use of that specific sticker made more sense. Bernice wasn’t just running out of stickers and turning to any she could find, the sentence reads, “On the side of the…dish…, he saw a tea leaf.” Nothing about it being “herbal” tea in the story but one has to make do with the resources one has at hand, I suppose.

Now the L’Amour’s story isn’t about leaves. It’s about an Air Force Major whose plane is downed in Siberia. The Major, Major Joe Mack, after escaping from his Siberian Prison Camp, calls “upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness” as he makes his way back to the U.S., or at least that’s what it says on the back of the book – I haven’t read it yet, just paged through it looking for leaves. 

On page 1, I finally found a note (page 1 is actually the sixth page in, 11^th if counted front and back). I almost missed it. No leaves there! It reads, “10 – 2018 To Ron, My favorite Louis book and there are leaves, where he wrote leaves. Enjoy. Blessings, Bernice”.

I got a good laugh from that! Shaking my head in amazement, I placed the book in a place of honor on the Living-room Bookshelf. 

Then on October 25, 2018, another package appeared in my mailbox, this time a large manila envelope. Same return address. “Bernice! You already SENT me my 2018 leaves!” I thought as I re-crossed Butler Drive, dodging cars on my way back to the house from my mailbox. This package contained a report, of sorts, about Bernice’s 85^th birthday party held August 18^th in Bismarck, ND.

I’d been invited but it was a bit too far to go, Pennsylvania to North Dakota, unfortunately - although Bernice says in her note that her friend, Maxine, the one who organized the party, and whom she represents as being sometimes a tad silly, had “expected me to fly in on a leaf”. Truth be told, I considered it! Although if I had, I probably would have used a more conventional mode of travel such as Delta or American Airways.

Below is a photo of what I missed! Bernice says the food was catered. Of course, the hotel provided breakfast as well as the conference room where the party was held, complimentary. Only right since Bernice’s party filled quite a few of the hotel’s lodging rooms!

The decorations were `a la Maxine. The pieces hanging down from the pennant line are words, A to Z, that the decorator (Maxine) said were words that described Bernice. For example, Bernice reported the W’s included “wacky” and “wonderful”. “Most were good!” she adds.

BTW, in this party photo, that’s Bernice in the chair, back to the camera, red jacket, white hair. Since you need permission to post people’s photos on the web, and I don’t have said permission, I’ve blurred those faces that could be clearly seen. So, no, it is not your eyes or a bad photo.  

She also sent me my copy of a page from her scrapbook. It tells the story about us and our leaves. She and I will have to argue about some of the details, however. She suggests the collecting of the leaves occurred on their last trip to D.C. My memory is that is was on their first, and each thereafter. She also suggests the first leaves I sent were sent a few years later. My memory is that I sent some with my first thank you note but then didn’t send more until a few years later. Although she may be right on both points, she usually is right, I like my version better.

Her scrapbook page also mentions a trip my wife, Phyllis; son, Philip; and I made in 2013 to visit her in North Dakota. She is right about that! We had a great time and she made sure we saw all the sights to see including the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, ND.

In fact, here we are! Bernice and I are the two smaller folks standing in front. I believe that’s Lewis, or maybe Clark, kicking me in the rear while they talk to one of their Indian friends. We are all standing in front of the Center. As you can see, it was a beautiful day, in many more ways than one.

And with that we should be up to date on the Bernice Autumn Leaves story. However, this “addendum” to my previous post did give me another opportunity to wish my friend, Bernice, A Happy Birthday for this year and many more yet to come.

  

The Stage Coach

#10 - The Stage Coach

In our previous posts we saw a community emerge and take on the name Drums, mostly because the family of that name was playing such a prominent role in the community’s growth. George was a leader in his church, provided a means of communication with the world outside of the valley through his “de facto post office”, offered a source of food and lodging for travelers passing through the valley via stage coach or otherwise, and legal services as a Justice of the Peace.

As far as we know, at least three of George’s sons, at least one of his daughters, and a number of nieces and nephews played a role in the operations of the Drum’s Hotel and of a second hotel built by the Drums that was known as the Stage Coach Stop Inn. A number of his descendants played a role in the Drums area postal services. A few even served in government. However, it can sometimes be confusing to know, and difficult to discern, which member of this family was involved in what, when, and how.

Part of the problem with this family in following who was involved when and in what way is that so many of the children were named George or Jacob or Philip. A record will state that George Drum did this thing or Jacob Drum did that thing, but the reader is left with the question of which George Drum, or Jacob, or Philip, is being referred to! For example, a notice that appeared in the Hazleton Sentinel on August 12, 1880 read, “Geo. Drum, the popular landlord from Butler, spent a few hours in town yesterday.”[1] Problem is, there were at least five George Drums alive in 1880, and although it might be a stretch for one or two of them to be called a “landlord”, any one of them could have been this “popular landlord” – John’s George B., Jacob’s George, the deceased George Jr’s George W., Abraham’s George, and the son of Abraham’s George, also named George. By George, that’s a lot of Georges!

However, we’ll have a go at it. It appears that in the 1820’s George’s son, George, Jr., helped with the operation of the hotel, primarily serving as the “postmaster for a time in the late 1820’s”.[2] In one of the tricks that history often plays, George Sr. and George Jr. both died in 1831, George, Sr. succumbing to a gunshot wound on February 27 and George, Jr. passed nine months later on November 24, 1831. George, Jr. was only 39 when he died.

   

George, Sr.’s son, William, may also have helped with the hotel’s operation and mail service in the 1820’s. One account states he became the “Postmaster” of Drums in 1826 and, although this source does not say it, it’s only logical that he was operating out of the Drum’s Hotel. This source goes on to say that William then helped establish the Post Office in Conyngham in 1828.[3] However, information published in the Hazleton Standard-Speaker in 1991 indicates that William became the first Postmaster of the village of Conyngham in 1826.[4] This agrees somewhat with the Drums Lions Club’s account in that they say 1826 was the year the valley received its first Post Office and that it was located in Conyngham.[5] However, the Conyngham-Sugarloaf Bicentennial Commission reported in 1976 that Samuel Harmon built a tavern in Conyngham in 1815 and later “became the first postmaster”. We are left to assume the Post Office was in Harmon’s tavern. The Commission did not give a date for the Post Office’s establishment; however, they do go on to say, “William Drum kept the office in 1830.”[6]

Getting back to Drums, however, after both of the George’s die in 1831, it appears that George, Sr’s son, Abraham; Abraham’s son, George; and Abraham’s sister, Margarett (known as Peggy or Aunt Peggy[7]), operated the hotel through most of the 1840’s and into the 1850’s. In the late 1850’s Philip’s son John took over the Drum’s Hotel when Abraham, George, and Margarett built a new inn a few miles northeast of Drums Corner at Sand Spring and called it the Stage Coach Stop Inn. After Abraham died in 1862, his son, George, took over this Inn. This is the George, Abraham’s son, that is most likely being referred to above by the Hazleton Sentinel as “the popular landlord from Butler”.

An interesting side note concerns the U.S. Census. By 1850, census data included not only just the names of the household heads, but now included the names of everyone staying in the household. In the case of a hotel, that meant the guests and boarders were included as well. In the 1850 census, Abraham Drum is shown as the household head, listed as “Abm” and marked “Landlord”. His age looks like it is listed as 55, however it should be 53. His real estate value is listed as $12,000 ($368,000 in 2018 dollars)[8]. Listed after him is his wife Margaret, age 50 (also known as Molly[9]), his children who were still living with him in 1850 (George, Josiah, Ellinor [listed as Ellen], Elizabeth, and Stephen), and his sister Margarett, listed as “Peggy”. Following these are listed six people as follows: Maria Balliet, age 20 (who is probably engaged to Josiah, they will soon marry); Alfred Gordan, age 25; Barbara Machamer, age 22; Stephen Drumheller, age 25, Merchant; Evan H. Drumheller, age 13 and Jonas Kidney, age 22, Stage Driver.

On April 26, 2018, My wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. As I came around one of the corners, there in front of me was a picture of the stagecoach just leaving George's Hotel!
Well, of course, this isn't George's Hotel, it's someplace in New York, but one could certainly imagine it to be!
This painting is entitled Landscape with a Stagecoach. It was painted by Henry Boese in 1856, oil on canvas.
The sign said it was OK to take photos so I did, as you can see.

There is no question that Stage Coaches stopped at both of the hotels operated by the Drum’s. According to one account, arrival of the coach was quite thrilling! It reads, “The old four-horse Concord Coaches, with the great stage driver, his whip and horn waking the echoes that had so long slept (in) the surrounding mountain sides, thrilled the very soul.”[10]

In 1953, Nora A. Drum^{(Nathan S, Philip, George, Jacob, Philip)} described the Stage saying^[11]: “The stagecoach route from Philadelphia to Wilkes-Barre passed trhough (sic) Drums. Horses were changed at the hostelry of George Drum, Sr., later owned by Abraham Drum and his son. The driver and patrons remained over night (sic), and the next day resumed their journey. Sometimes the coach had four horses and at other times six.”   

It appears that the passengers overnighted at the Drums Hotel in the earlier days but at the Sand Spring location in the later 1800’s. Either way, after leaving Beaver Meadows on its way to Wilkes-Barre, the stage made a short stop in Hazleton and then continued north to Drums, a trip that took approximately five hours.^[12]   

In 2009, Ed Deets, owner of the Stage Coach Inn Restaurant from 1988 - 2013, unveiled “an exact, authentic replica of a Wells Fargo stage” and had it on display at his restaurant. A photo of the Stage was included in a story about the Stage’s unveiling published at the time by the Citizen’s Voice.[13] Ed Deets recently passed away at the age of 89.[14]

The first Concord Coach[15]^{, [16]} was built in Concord, New Hampshire in 1827 by Lewis Downing, a wheelwright from Lexington, Massachusetts who moved to Concord, NH in 1818 and J. Stephen Abbot. Each coach was custom made and individually numbered. The tall and wide vehicles weighed 2,500 pounds each and were equipped with long-spoked wheels that made it easier to get through muddy and rutted roads. The coach was held up by a pair of bull-hide leather straps called “thoroughbraces,” that replaced the steel springs found on earlier coach-types. It was believed that the leather thoroughbraces gave the passengers a smoother, less jarring ride. But these coaches didn’t come cheap. A Concord Coach cost between $1,000 and $1,500 each (approximately $24,000 - $36,000 in present-day dollars).[8]

It must have been worth it, though. One passenger, the famous author and humorist Mark Twain, described a trip out west in a Concord Coach in his 1870 book Roughing it:

“Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage, of the most sumptuous description – an imposing cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome horses, and by the side of the driver sat the ‘conductor,’ the legitimate captain of the craft; for it was his business to take charge and care of the mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We sat on the back seat, inside. About all the rest of the coach was full of mail bags – for we had three days’ delayed mails with us… We changed horses every ten miles, all day long, and fairly flew over the hard, level road.”

In the 1970’s, Eleanor Drum, Harry Drum’s^{(Elmer,Nathan A., John, Philip, George, Jacob, Philip)} wife (my mom), conducted oral-history research on the valley “before we have lost everyone who knows about the history of Drums,” she said. She was very good about writing down what she learned. She was not very good, however, about writing down her sources. Her notes include a route she learned the stage took but in addition to not noting her source, she did not record the years when this route was used. Of course, the route changed over time and, in fact, there may have been more than one route and/or stage depending on where you wanted to go.

One source mentions Conyngham as having a stage coach stop[17] and a close examination of the 1850 census for Butler Township shows another landlord named Samuel M. Santee recorded. In his household list one finds Lafayette Phillips, age 30, Stage Driver. However, Mom’s notes describe the route as follows (altered slightly by me for clarity.):

The stage coach brought mail once a week and the road was the main route to Wilkes-Barre back to Harrisburg and Philadelphia. From Hazleton it (followed) Church Street (north toward the Routes 309/940 split. Staying on 309, the stage passed through Harleigh and Milnesville), down around the curve, down the old mountain road (where) it cut right and went down past Grammy’s house (in) Fritzingertown, up through Drums, over Straw Mountain, down to Rumble’s Corner, (and) on up and out to Stage Coach Inn.”

Mom's notes

Anyone from the Drums Valley would recognize this route. Of course, she is describing the route using the landmarks that exist today, not exactly as they were in the 1800’s. 

If you don't know what “Church Street” is, it is the part of Route 309 that passes through Hazleton. 

Some folks may struggle a little with the landmark “Grammy’s House”. Mom is referring to the home of Elmer and Ella Drum, my grandparents, which they bought from the Embling’s in 1919. It sits in Fritzingertown just at the foot of the foothills where South Old Turnpike Road, heading South toward Hazleton, makes a curve to the right before it almost doubles back on itself to begin the run up the mountain. “Grammy’s House” is on the inside of that first curve.

When the coach was running, I don’t believe either the house or the curve existed. The “old mountain road” is the part of South Old Turnpike Road that runs up and down the mountain. Mom’s notes imply that in the days of the stage coach, when heading North (down the mountain) on this road, it made a sharp northerly turn further up the mountain than it does now. It may be that it turned north in the area of the road known today as Short Road instead of proceeding to the large horseshoe curve we find today. This map from an 1873 Atlas appears to show this configuration.

The yellow/green line is the stagecoach route. The red line is the road approximately as it runs today. "Grammy's House" would be about where the green and red lines touch across from the name "S Roth" on the map.
Atlas of Luzerne County Pennsylvania from actual surveys by and under the direction of D. G. Beers 
(Phila: A. Pomeroy and Company, 1873), p 39.

South Old Turnpike Road runs North through Fritzingertown, over the Little Nescopeck Creek, past Drums Elementary/Middle School, and through Drums Corner. At this point it becomes North Old Turnpike Road (NOTR).

This maps picks up where the previous one left off. I've circled Drums Hotel at Drums Corner and The Stage Coach Stop Inn in the upper right of the map. Straw's Mountain begins about where "D. Durst" is on this map and ends just north of "266" on the map. Rumble's Corner is the crossroad where "A. Straw & Son" is marked on this map, the one that is marked north of the river.
Atlas of Luzerne County Pennsylvania from actual surveys by and under the direction of D. G. Beers 
(Phila: A. Pomeroy and Company, 1873), p 39.

NOTR continues north over “Straw Mountain” (the ridge between Drums and St. Johns where members of the Straw family built several homes) and crosses through “Rumbles Corner” (a crossroad which got its name for similar reason involving members of the Rumbles family). North Old Turnpike Road then follows a more or less straight-line northeast to Route 309, joining Route 309 just below (south) of the location of, in the 1800’s, the Stage Coach Stop Inn; Stage Coach Inn Restaurant in the second half of the 1900’s: and today, 2018, the Four Blooms Restaurant.

So this doesn't look so bad in the photo. The photo lies.
We are going up (out of the valley) on the old mountain road (SOTR).
The mountain is to our right. The Valley is to our left.

There are two sections of this route that give almost anyone pause who has ever driven this route, “Old Mountain Road” and “Straw’s Mountain”. Both are very steep and narrow “paths” with the vehicle up against the mountainside on one side of the road and looking over a drop-off to the valley floor on the other.

This is the valley view on the left.
As can be seen, there is Guard Rail...
and then valley.

Even in a car driven today on these very much improved, paved roads, with guard rails, these roads can be scary. 

It is hard to imagine a Stage Coach, pulled by four to six horses, making its way down either of these steep grades, unpaved in those days, no guard-rails, especially in the rain or snow! The trip down would be, at best, treacherous on either of them and the assumption is that many passengers experienced both in one day! I am sure many a passenger must have made these parts of the trip with his or her eyes closed! Who knows? Maybe Jonas Kidney had his eyes closed too!

Abraham and Aunt Peggy opened their new Inn on the Nanticoke Trail near the spring fed pond called Sand Spring. Nanticoke Trail largely follows what in the 21^st Century is called Hunter Highway/Route 309. In 1947, Peter and Esther Solutko built a restaurant on the Sand Spring Pond location and called it “The Stage Coach Inn” to “commemorate its history.” They knew about the stage coaches on their way to Wilkes-Barre in the 1800’s that stopped at their location to change horses and spend the night.[18]^{, [19], [20]}

The Stage Coach Inn Restaurant was a popular restaurant in Drums for many years. One of its more famous frequent patrons was Hazle Township native and Drums resident, Oscar-winning actor Jack Palance[21]^{, [22]} However, the inn’s long run ended in 2013 when its third owners, Ed and Betty Deets; who once employed Susan Kalada, owner of The Bird’s Nest Shoppe and presently living in the former Drums Hotel built by George and Abraham; closed the Stage Coach Inn Restaurant’s doors for the last time.

Return to the Drums of Drums, PA on November 5, 2018 for #11 – The Drums and their Times Part 1: 1800 -1870’s.

---

[1] “Personal”, Hazleton Sentinel, August 12, 1880

[2] Drums, PA, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Drums,_Pennsylvania&oldid=726559076 accessed 9/20/2016

[3] Drums, PA

[4] “Red Letter Days”, Pages From the Past Special Edition, Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Friday, September 6, 1991,

p A4 and “Conyngham Named after Revolutionary War Hero”, p A10.

[5] Two Hundred Years of Progress: Butler Township, 1784-1984 (Drums, PA: The Drums Lions Club, May 1984) pp 15-16 [page 16 is numbered incorrectly as 17; the number 16 being missed].

[6] Bigelow, Mrs. John L. and Mrs. E. B. Mulligan, Jr., Eds., Let Freedom Ring (Conyngham-Sugarloaf Bicentennial Commission, 1976, Limited Edition) p 14

[7] Helman, Laura M., History and Genealogy of the Drum Family (Allentown, PA: Berkemeyer, Keck & Co., 1927) p3.

[8] Conversion calculator located at: https://www.officialdata.org/

[9] Helman, p 25.

[10] Bradsby, H.C., ed, History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: S.B. Nelson & Co., 1893). Chapter XXI (continued): Butler Township. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/luzerne/1893hist/ accessed 6/7/2016

[11] Drum, Nora, Miss; Mrs. R. S. Small, and Mrs. Millard Shelhamer, Drums Methodist Church and Valley Notes (Drums, PA: St. Paul’s Methodist Church, 1953)

[12] “Stage Coach Inn – N. Hunter Hwy Drums, PA”, http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/pennsylvania/41375-stage-coach-stops-pennsylvania.html Accessed 1/16/2017

[13] Dino, Jim, “Stagecoach Inn now has Piece of History” Citizen’s Voice, July 18, 2009

[14] Kalinowski, Bob, “Business Leader Deets, 89, Dies, Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Tuesday, June 12, 2018, p A1  

[15] http://concordhistoricalsociety.org/the-concord-coach/ accessed 2/20/2018

[16] https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/corporate/stagecoach accessed 2/20/2018

[17] Biebel, Mary Therese, “Hometowns: In Conyngham, quiet, historical – and don’t forget the food” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, February 19, 2017

https://www.timesleader.com/news/636170/hometowns-in-conyngham-quiet-historical-and-dont-forget-the-food

accessed 2/19/2018

[18] Gaydos, Kristen, “Stage Coach Inn home to Rustic Charm” Citizen’s Voice, March 24, 2011

[19] Dino, Jim

[20] Greenberg, Lara, “Historic Restaurant Up for Sale” WNEP-TV, 2013

[21] Gaydos, Kristen

[22] Greenberg, Lara

Autumn Leaves

Contemporary History 3 - Autumn Leaves

MINE TOO!! BOTH!!

BTW, this is a photo of a comic that appeared in the Hazleton Standard-Speaker September 22, 2018. I hope this is not a copywrite infringement but it just SO captured my content below that I decided to use it and offer every apology that exists if this is breaking the rules. I hope not. If it is, I’ll remove it ASAP.

It was the Fall of 1981 when I first actually met Bernice. We’d been talking by phone that summer as we prepared for her group of adults to attend a program I coordinated in Washington, D.C. I had just been employed again as a staff member of the National 4-H Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. My job was to coordinate a civics and heritage education program for adults called Know America. The Center is run by National 4-H Council, a foundation that supports the programs of Cooperative Extension.

Cooperative Extension reaches many people with its research-based educational programming including youth (4-H), single and low-income mothers and families (EFNEP [Expanded Food and Nutritional Education]), gardening enthusiasts (Master Gardeners), Crop Farmers, Ranchers, Dairy Farmers, Beekeepers, small business-people, community leaders, and many, many more; programs differing depending on which state you are in (Extension seeks to meet the needs of the local citizens so programming will differ state to state and even in some cases, county to county).

How many people do you know who own pins like these?
You’d own some of them too if YOU were made an
Honorary North Dakota Homemaker like ME!

One of these groups that continues to be a large part of the Extension community are people who call themselves Homemakers, mostly women, mothers and wives, who seek the most appropriate and economic ways to maintain a quality home life - make nutritious, affordable, meals; maintain a budget; and so forth. Finding the dissemination of information somewhat easier through group settings, Cooperative Extension programs across the country created clubs for these (mostly) women to join and called them “Extension Homemakers Clubs”. 

National 4-H Council is an organization that supports the work of Cooperative Extension, primarily the youth development education arm of Extension, by providing educational programming and raising funds through private donations in support of the work of Cooperative Extension, especially if it supports the youth development work; and what better way is there to provide such support than to offer programs for the moms of the young people?

The program Know America, then, was created to provide an away-from-home experience that utilized the resources offered by the nation’s capital to teach civic involvement and cultural heritage to Extension Homemakers and other, interested Adults. KA was a trip to the nation’s capital, including tours of historic and civic importance, opportunities to meet with their senators and representatives, and workshops on how a bill becomes a law and the importance/value of voting. It was a wonderful, educational, way for adults to see Washington, D.C. It became, for a while, a very popular program.  

In 1979, after spending the summer as a member of a team of young adults implementing a similar program at the National 4-H Center for teenagers called Citizenship Washington Focus (my first full-time job), I was asked to “stay on” and coordinate this adult citizenship education program through the fall. In November of that year I was invited to take on the role of “Advisor” to the National 4-B Program of Botswana; a “volunteer” position (I received lodging and a monthly stipend of approximately $300 for food and other minor expenses) that would send me to live and work in that southern African nation for 18 months. January of 1980, I departed out of Dulles Airport; returning home in July of 1981. In August, the KA Coordinator position was open again, I applied, and they hired me back.

So, it was that summer that I got back in 1981, shortly after I regained the KA reins, when I was first contacted by the President of the North Dakota Extension Homemakers, Bernice Larsen. She was interested in bringing a group of North Dakota Extension Homemakers to the Center to participate in the Know America program. We talked. I sent her information. We talked again, many times. Eventually plans were in motion for her to bring her group and I began to make the D.C. area arrangements.

I am a fall leaves enthusiast. I’ll drive miles out of my way to see a red maple in full fall blush. The one in the photo is in Orono, Maine. I’m certain my neighbors hate me because I am ever so much happier shuffling through a pile of Fall Leaves then I ever am for raking them up! My leaves stay where they fall, unless they get chewed up by a lawn mower or blown into the neighbors’ yards by a good fall gust of wind.

That then is the reason that I misunderstood what was happening on the last day of the first KA visit from the North Dakota Extension Homemakers. The driveway of the National 4-H Center is lined with American Planetrees, also known as Sycamore Trees. These trees have very large, maple-like leaves, sometimes as wide as a dinner plate, or even larger. However, they are not great leaves for the fall. They just tend to turn brown and fall down, no great color. But there those women were, Bernice in the lead, all out picking up those huge, brown Sycamore leaves off the ground! “We don’t have a lot of trees in North Dakota! At least, none like these!” she exclaimed as she chose another specimen for her scrapbook. “But these leaves are nothing!” I exclaimed. “I wish I had the time to show you REAL Fall leaves!” But she was happy with the ones she collected so off they went, happy with their big, brown leaves.

As soon as I could, I went out and found some far better Fall leaves for Bernice - red and orange Maple leaves, yellow Aspin, orange-red sassafras; leaves with beautiful, vibrant colors. I included them in the envelope along with my thank you letter I sent them for attending the program and inviting them to come again. That’s when I learned the truth. Bernice loved the leaves I had sent but told me that it wasn’t the colors the women had wanted, it was those particular leaves; the great big, larger-than-a-dinner plate Sycamore leaves! Bernice explained the best they had in North Dakota were Cottonwoods and their leaves are small at best! These women had never seen leaves so large and THAT was why they were being collected.

Every time we saw each other after that (Bernice brought groups a few more years to Know America and we’ve remained close friends ever since), we’d laugh over those leaves. And each fall, she got more leaves from me, sometimes real, sometimes printed table-place mats, metal napkin rings, or picture frames decorated with metal leaves and I got the same - door decorations, coasters, and more!

This year Bernice celebrated her 85^th birthday anniversary. So, this year she received 84 fall leaf stickers and one nylon fall leaf for her refrigerator to mark her 85th birthday plus an additional nylon leaf that carried my wish for many more birthday celebrations in the future!

Now, although that was a nice trip down memory lane, it only touched on the real reason for this post, the FALL LEAVES! Yes, THAT is the topic of this post – Autumn comes to Drumyngham and brings with it AUTUMN LEAVES! 

And what is the best Autumn month? Why, October, of course!

October! Cooler temperatures after that hot, sweaty summer, but not yet giving us those cold, frosty blasts of winter; big, orange pumpkins; dried cornstalks standing in the field rustling in the breeze; big, yellow and black sunflowers; Orion to keep you company in the night sky overhead; big, fat, orange and black wooly bear caterpillars to “warm” your toes; leaves of red and gold and orange and yellow and brown all falling down around you like the glitter in a snow globe. Rake them into a pile and jump into it! Burn them and fill the air with that wonderful toasty, smoky, sweet aroma. Halloween, filled with the laughter of children! Bobbing for apples. Going on hayrides. Drinking Apple Cider (the freshly squeezed, brown, sweet, non-alcoholic kind you buy at a roadside farm stand that comes in those recycled one-gallon plastic milk jugs). Pumpkin Pie! My BIRTHDAY! I mean, what is there not to like?

#9 - George builds a Tavern; a Place Gets a Name: Drums

#9 - George builds a Tavern; a Place Gets a Name: Drums

Previously we learned that the valley’s settlers, mostly of German descent, knitted themselves into a community as strong as a family.

As the 19^th Century rolled forward, the country grew, and the valley community grew right with it. John Balliet realized early on the need for a tavern and Philip Woodring set up the first blacksmith shop in 1800. In 1809, Nescopeck Township was split to create Sugarloaf Township to accommodate administering the growing population and in 1810, Philip, now 23 years old, built the valley’s first wool processing mill. He built it on the Little Nescopeck Creek near “Ashville”, what is known today as Fritzingertown.[1]

More roads were built as people traveled between population centers, selling goods and services, trading, visiting, and so forth. New conveyances, such as improved stage coaches, were devised to help these people make these trips and, of course, travelers would need food and lodging at the end of the day. Realizing his land was situated on one of the major cross-roads in the valley and on one of the major thoroughfares through the area, a natural trading point[2], 57-year-old George built a tavern. That crossroad soon became known as Drums Corner and the area around it simply as Drums.

Drums Methodist Church and Valley Notes included the following passage[3] about the building.

The first hotel was built by George Drum in 1820. It was located in the building owned by Mr. George Reisenweaver[4] across from the Kermit Reisenweaver Store. Much of the building is the original lumber employed when it was constructed. In the basement there is a hugh (sic) fireplace which was probably used in preparation of food. In the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Miller, Jr., the old stair rail and spindles show the beauty of the work done in the early days.

This may be the earliest photo of the Drums Hotel in existence. It is the building on the left in this photo of the village of Drums taken in 1908. A chimney, that was later lost to a fire, can be seen on the back of the structure. One of the horse barns can be seen behind the building. On the front of the structure there appears to be a two-story porch that is now only the first floor. The building served as a hotel probably into the 1920's.  It next served as a boarding house.
Across the street from “our” building is the “future” location of the Kermit Reisenweaver Store that opened in 1954. I believe at the time this photo was taken the building was the location of  Brighthaupt's Dry Goods Store.
This postcard is posted on the St. Johns – Drums page of the “History of Freeland, PA” website.

Today, 200 years after the tavern was built, the building that began as a tavern and grew into a hotel, then a boarding house that evolved into an apartment complex, has now been renovated into a single-family home by its current owners, Kevin Kania and his wife Susan Kalada.[5]

When viewed from the rear one can see the smaller original
structure that was George's tavern. As mentioned above,
missing is the chimney that once served the tavern's fireplace.

Kevin and Susan also own and operate “The Bird’s Nest Shoppe and More”, a small boutique that you could say is really for the birds! 

Seed for bird feeders and the feeders to go with it; Goldfinch Feeders, Hummingbird Feeders, bird houses, bat houses, rain gauges, garden ornaments, you name it, can be had there! If they don’t have it, they’ll do their best to get it, if it is “for the birds”!

Their store is located in the building that was built for, and once served the community for many years as, the Drums Post Office; right next door to the building that once was called “The Drums Hotel.”

 “You know, I think I’m actually related to the Drums!” Kevin told me as we discussed the property’s history. Kevin was focused mostly on an uncle of his who married a woman named Drum. What intrigued me more was when he mentioned he thought his grandmother was a Drum too. “Wouldn’t it be something if I was related to the Drums who built the house I now live in?” He asked and then chuckled, as if he didn’t think it might be true. After all, there are more people named Drum than just those related to Philip and George. Turns out Kevin is related to Philip and George. His Grandmother was Mary Elizabeth Hill (Born 1902; Died 1991). Mary first married a man named Fornwald. When he died, she married Albert Richard Drum^{(Percival, Richard, Jacob, Philip, George, Jacob, Philip)} (Born 1897; Died 1968) making Kevin Albert’s Step-Grandson. 

The horse barns that once sat behind, on the right side of, and across the street from, the structure, as well as the hitching rail that once stood out front ready to hold tavern-visitors’ horses, are long gone; long before Kevin and Susan came on the scene. The wonderful stair rail and beautiful spindles that had once guided residents, hotel staff, and guests between the first floor and the second in the “newer” 30’ x 60’ front section that was probably built by Abraham, had to be removed; safety took precedence as their years of service finally grew too great. However, under the modern woodwork that make up the stairs today, still hide the original boards. The “huge fireplace” also still stands in the basement of the 20’ x 20’ “older” two-story section in the back that was once the tavern built by George. Much of the stone foundation appears to be original as well.

Lumber and stones may not be all that is still “original” in the house, however. Not that she believes, completely, in ghosts, but, on certain days, and nights, Susan has been given reason to wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, mind you, maybe a few of the many souls that passed through the building across its 200-year existence just may have stayed. A curtain that seemed to rise by itself, as if someone were looking out at the world passing by, was cause for a brief moment of alarm. And a child’s rocking horse, although a modern toy of the 1960’s, has given the home’s owners reason to think it was giving another child, of an earlier time, some childish pleasure as it appeared to begin to rock on its own. “I don’t go up in the attic anymore, or into the cellar,” said Susan.

Soon George’s Tavern was playing a significant role in the lives of the valley’s residents of the 1820’s. Not only was it a place for refreshment and socialization, and perhaps warmth on a cold winter’s night, it became the Post Office before there was a Post Office! In the early days of our country, long-distance conversations were conducted by letter. Although there were regular postal routes that postal riders used to carry mail from location to location, some established long before the American Revolution[6], much mail traveled by private carrier as well for areas without regular postal service.

The long-established practice was that one would write a letter and address it to the intended recipient and their town. One then tacked the letter up in a place where travelers gathered so it could be found and carried forward. Most taverns and similar such places had a designated location for such letters – usually a post holding up the bar; thus, the term “posting a letter.” Incoming letters, if not handed directly to the recipient upon arrival in the area, were also tacked to the post for the person to whom it was addressed to find it on his or her next visit.  Since Drums did not have regular postal service until 1832, George, of course, had such a “post” in his tavern making his hotel the de-facto Drums Post Office.

Here is an item of mail that is similar to those you might have found "posted" to George's post. This one wasn't.  This document probably was “posted” at Easton and was sent to Wilkes-Barre so highly unlikely it ever saw Drums Tavern unless it happened to be in someone’s pocket when they stopped by for a Gill of Whiskey.

The document inside is dated July 27, 1824 and there is a postmark-like stamp in the upper left-hand corner that appears to say “27 July”.

Actually, this is not an envelope as we’d use today. It is the back of the same document that needed to be mailed. It was simply folded written side in, addressed, sealed shut with wax and sent, apparently for what appears to be 10 cents. 

When regular postal service finally did arrive in Drums in 1832, the Post Office was designated as the East Sugarloaf Post Office and was located in Henry Yost’s store at Drums Corner near Drums Hotel. Henry Yost was named the first postmaster. In 1839, Sugarloaf Township was divided in two with the eastern section being named Butler Township. Since the name “East Sugarloaf” would now no longer do, the name was changed to the Drums Post Office.[7]

Of course, George never saw the regular postal service come to Drums, which in-essence “moved” his “Mail Post” out of his hotel; he died in 1831. Circumstances of his death involve a tragedy for which the details have been covered over by the sands of time. All that has come down to us today is that George died as the result of an accidental gunshot wound[8]. He was 68 at the time of his death.

Like the lives of his grandfather and father before him, his, too, was an intriguing and remarkable life! As a boy of 12 he outsmarted the Indians that attacked his home. When a young man of just 20, he became a Continental Soldier fighting for freedom in George Washington’s Army. In the 1790’s he brought his family over Butler (Bucks) Mountain to join the growing German community in the valley. Once there he worked with his neighbors to establish a church, members of which still gather to worship God today. In 1811 he became a Justice of the Peace and in 1820 he built a tavern that served as the community’s first "Post Office". His memory lives on in the name of the village that took him in and looked to him for guidance.

On October 22, 2018, return to the Drums of Drums, PA and take a ride on The Stage Coach.

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[1] Butler Township History, Butler Township website, http://www.butlertownship.org/about-us/history/Print.html accessed 6/14/2016

[2] Bradsby, H.C., ed, History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: S.B. Nelson & Co., 1893). Chapter XXI (continued): Butler Township. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/luzerne/1893hist/ accessed 6/7/2016

[3] Drum, Nora, Miss; Mrs. R. S. Small, and Mrs. Millard Shelhamer, Drums Methodist Church and Valley Notes (Drums, PA: St. Paul’s Methodist Church, 1953)

[4] This statement is referring to the present (when the statement was written). George did not put his tavern in Reisenweaver’s building, Reisenweaver eventually purchased the building that had once been George’s tavern.

[5] Kevin Kania and Susan Kalada interview conducted April 5, 2018

[6] The History of the United States Postal Service. https://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/welcome.html accessed 2/19/2018

[7] Two Hundred Years of Progress: Butler Township, 1784-1984 (Drums, PA: The Drums Lions Club, May 1984) pp 15-16 [page 16 is numbered incorrectly as 17; the number 16 being missed].

[8] “Conyngham’s Grand Old Man Dead, Honorable George W. Drum is no more – was the town’s oldest native citizen” Valley Vigilant, November 14, 1913. P 23