The Drums and their Times - Part 1: 1800 -1870’s

#11 – The Drums and their Times Part 1: 1800 -1870’s[1]^{, [2]}

As we have seen previously, the Drums arrived in the valley that would soon take on their name around the time when the 18^th Century changed over to the 19^th Century. Abraham Drum is probably the first Drum to be born in the “Drums Valley” (1797) and we believe that Isaac Drum, born in 1799, is the first Drum to both be born in the Drums Valley and die in the Drums Valley, dying May 8, 1804.

We wonder if the Drums celebrated the new century or if it even made any difference to them at all. Of course, if they DID celebrate, the question becomes when did they celebrate, January 1, 1800 or January 1, 1801?

The question of when a century begins or ends has long been a perplexing problem apparently for, well, centuries! As the year 1999 was drawing to a close, great celebrations were planned to celebrate the start of the new century, the 21^st Century! Not only a new century, in fact, but a new Millennium, the third Millennium, as well!!

Just as soon as those plans were announced, however, the shouting began. It seems there were those, myself included, who tried to let the rest of the world know they were celebrating a year too early; the 20^th Century was not ending in 1999, it was ending in 2000. The 21^st Century would not start until the year 2001! After all, one counts “one, two, three…” not “zero, one two, three…”! The first year under the present calendar was the year 1, not 0, so the hundredth year was 100, not 99 and the second century didn’t begin until the year 101. It therefore follows that the first millennium ended with the year 1000, not 999, and the second ended with 2000, not 1999 making the beginning of both the newest century and the third millennium 2001, not 2000.

However, the 1999-year-believers, or as we called them, “the Early-Birds” (they called us “Killjoys”), celebrated the beginning of the new century, and the new Millennium, on January 1, 2000 anyway, and the rest of us (correctly) celebrated it on January 1, 2001.

So it was when 1899 arrived.[3]  So it was when 1799 arrived! In 1799, the “early-birds” were known as the “Ninety-Niners”. On New Year’s Day, 1800, the London Times editorialized against the Ninety-Niners saying that the new century would not begin for another 12 months.[4]

However, whether one day old or 12 months old, by 1801 the new century had begun. Although people argued over the century’s start date, there was no argument over if the new country, The United States of America, was up and running. It was! By 1801, the United States was already welcoming its third president, Thomas Jefferson. He promised to take the country in a new direction, different from the direction it had been going under George Washington and John Adams. Sound familiar?

In 1803, Jefferson sent his Secretary of State, Robert Livingston, to France to buy New Orleans. However, instead of just New Orleans, Francois de Barbe-Marbois, the French Minister of Finance, offered Livingston the entire area known as Louisiana, an area stretching from New Orleans to the present-day Canadian border and over to the Rocky Mountains, 827,000 square miles! The price was just $15 million. Jefferson thought New Orleans, alone, would cost $10 Million so this was a real bargain! The Louisiana Purchase was signed on April 30, 1803 doubling the size of the United States![5]

In the first six years of the new century, the Drums gained two girls, Mary Elizabeth born 1801 and Margarett born 1804, and a boy, William born 1805; but lost Isaac. During that same time period the United States declared war on the Barbary Pirates; power struggles and wars raged across Europe; and Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. It must have been a confusing time!

Even the currency one used to pay for goods and services existed in a cloud of confusion. On November 25, 1803, a man named John Santee[6] visited a Justice of the Peace named Isaac Hartzell in Easton, PA. Together they drew up a promissory note. 

I promise to pay or cause to be paid to Jonas Hartzell or to his order 

the sum of six pound seven shilling lawful money of Pennsylvania 

at or upon the 27 day of May next having for value recev’d on and

of John Fultons note settled by said Hartzell for me as witness my 

hand and seal, the 25 Nov’r 1803    John his mark Santee  SEAL

Attested in presents of

Isaac Hartzell

£ 6 = 7 = 0

First of all, note the “mark” made by John Santee. Usually, if a person was unable to write, they’d make an “X” (his mark) and the witnesses would attest the person of which the note was about, was the person making the mark. In John’s case, his make was not an “X”, but a “J”. Good job, John!

Next, did you notice the words “lawful money of Pennsylvania”? Remember, this was written fifteen years after the U. S. Constitution was ratified in December of 1787[7] and eleven years after Congress established the U.S. Dollar system in 1792[8]. These words are saying that in 1803 the currency in use in Pennsylvania was not, or perhaps, not only, the U.S. Dollar, but the earlier established Pennsylvania system of pounds, shillings, and pence. The Pennsylvania Pound was different from the British Pound. To be honest, my trying to follow all of this was a bit much and confusing. If it was confusing to me, now, what must it have been like THEN? There is a short piece on Wikipedia about the Pennsylvania Pound so if you'd like to be further confused try Pennsylvania Pound on Wikipedia.  I'm not a big Wikipedia fan but in this case it seems to be the only concise summery available. 

John did pay this note off, at least his estate did after he died. On the back of the note is the following endorsement written April 10, 1810. 

Note of John Santee

£ 6 = 7 = 0

          payable 27 May 1803

Debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$16=94

Ints 5yr 10½. . . . . . . . .   5=80

                                       $22 74

Received the 10 April 1810 from Mather

gress the above sum of Twenty Two

Dolls and seventy four cents

       Done Jonas Hartzell

That’s right! The debt created in Pounds and Shillings was paid in Dollars and Cents! Also, Lawyer Hartzell seems to have made a small error. In the original note, it was payable “at or upon the 27 day of May next” and since the note was written in November of 1803, “May next” would be 1804. Right? He wrote 1803, but by the time the thing was paid off, that detail must have mattered little, it’s the “Interest line” that is important and that one appears to be right.

On May 7, 1807, John’s sons, George and Leonard, settling their father’s estate, paid one of their father’s debts in dollars. The receipt to George Thompson reads:

Easton May 7, 1807  Rec’d of Leonard Santee and George Santee the executors

of their father’s will four dollars and eighty seven cents.

$4.87                                                                                           Geo. Thomas, DR

However, the day before, on May 6, 1807, Leonard paid his bar bill at Adam Heckman’s tavern – in pounds! 

Easton May 6, 1807

Mr. Leonard Santee

                               To Adam Heckman

                           Tavern expenses

                               to 1 pint of wine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . 9^s . ---

                             to 1 gill of gin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .          11^s . ---

                                 Received the above in full                    3 . 0 .

                                                                                       For Adam Heckman

                                                                             (Signature) Jn Heckman

George and his family were well established in the Drums Valley by 1810. One does wonder what currency George carried in his pants pocket, although by then it probably was Dollars and Cents. We also wonder what news made it to the valley about happenings around the country and the world. In 1811, did George and Philip know about the battle fought by William Henry Harrison near the river called Tippecanoe in the part of the northwest territory to be later called Indiana? It became the basis for the political battle cry heard in 1840, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”, as the Whigs ran Harrison for U.S. President and John Tyler for Vice President.  

From a book found in Jacob Santee’s Library. 

According to what he wrote on the cover page, 

he acquired the book in 1911.

Glee, Professor, A Journey Around the World (W.E. Scull, 1901) p 373.

Did the Drums take a side in the argument over the morality of slavery? From census data it appears that none of the Drums in Philip’s tree owned slaves. Pennsylvania, through the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, became the first state to pass an emancipation law but as of 1790 there were still close to 3,700 slaves in the Commonwealth.[9]

Of course, slavery continued to be the basis of the economy of the southern states. As the country grew, new states asked to join the union. However, in Congress, there existed a fragile balance between “Slave” states and “Free” states. Any additional states would upset this balance and so were resisted. In an attempt to quell the rising rancor, Henry Clay, a Senator from Kentucky, proposed a compromise, the Great Compromise of 1820. It suggested the area of Massachusetts known as Maine be separated from Massachusetts and be admitted as a new, free state and the territory known as Missouri be admitted as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance in Congress. It further marked the southern border of Missouri as the northern boundary for which slavery could be allowed in the U.S., the exception being the state of Missouri.

JQA as depicted on the cover
of a book in my library.

George Drum celebrated his 63^rd birthday anniversary in 1825. His son, Philip, turned 38 that year and Philip and Magdalene’s son, John, made his first appearance, 1825 being the year of his birth! Speaking of sons, in 1825 John Quincy Adams, became the first son of a U.S. President to, himself, be elected President, our 6th.  

John Adams, living then in Quincy, MA, was extremely proud of his son’s achievement especially since it came as the result of a highly contested and controversial election, eventually decided in the U.S. House of Representatives. JQA saw the Erie Canal open in New York on October 26, 1825. He also saw the publication of a new book that year that proved to become one of the most popular in history, still popular today, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.

Sadness came to JQA, and all the people of the United States, when both his father and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4^th, 1826. The country was amazed when they realized that the date was the 50^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that both had worked so hard together to create. In 1831 sadness came to the Drums when both George and his son, George, died.

However, the population of country as a whole was increasing. As shown by the census data of 1830, the U.S. population was twice the size it had been at the start of the century; now counting 13,000,000! And the Drums were growing right along with it! Between 1829 and 1836, at least ten children were added to the Drum family tree, followed by another ten by 1850.

This is my favorite Santa.
My parents gave him to me
one Christmas when I
was just a lad.

That’s twenty more children to celebrate around the Christmas Tree in the St. Johns Church (unless some of them were Methodist, of course)! Those twenty children, along with the rest of the country, were just then getting used to a new popular character introduced to the country in 1823 known as Santa Claus, or, rather, St. Nicholas as he was called by Clement Clarke Moore in his poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”; although the German parishioners of St. Johns probably would have played that angle down a bit. After all, they already had the Belsnickel, a tradition they brought with them from the Palantinate.

The Belsnickel was a rather shabbily dressed, cranky fellow, sometimes dressed like a woman, who visited children's homes in the weeks just prior to Christmas to check up on the children's behavior. Good children got candies and treats while bad ones got switched with a Hickory rod. Later on he became sort of a reminder that the children still had time to correct their behavior before Santa Claus came.[18]

The following photo is apparently of a whole wagon load of Belsnickels as they arrived in Conyngham.

The photo is part of the Conyngham Valley Historical Society's collection and presently appears undated on their web site.

Moore didn’t write the St. Nicholas poem for the country, however. He wrote it to amuse his six children. Somehow it made it's way into print anyway and changed the way children celebrated Christmas from then on. Moore gave us the story and, in 1866, Thomas Nast, a cartoonist in New York, gave us the man’s face.[10]^{, [11]}

Mom's Santa Sugar and Creamer set. Reproductions, of course.

Now if there are children, there should also be gifts. Store bought gifts cost money. So, if the Drums DID want to give their children gifts, a la Santa Claus, what did things cost in 1829 – 1835? Clothing is always a good gift choice. In Drums, for sewing boy’s trousers, a tailor would charge $.20 per pair. Sewing two boy’s shirts ran a total of $.25. [12] The wages were low but so were the costs of goods. A pound of feathers brought $.51 and 100 feet of yellow pine floor boards cost $.80.

There are many ways to keep warm and burning coal is one of them, although in this following case it was probably more for the blacksmith than the home furnace. In 1833 a ton of coal cost $1.50 but a ton of fine coal cost only $1.00. However, if you got your warmth from liquid sources, 6 gills of whiskey, supper and lodging would cost you $.75; lodging and bitters cost $.09; and 2 quarts of whiskey, and a tin cup, set you back $.35.[13] One glass of beer, one “smaller” of whiskey, or one glass of “Ciderial” or “Cider Oil” (cider) would cost $.03, take your pick! But if you wanted a barrel of cider, that was $4.00. A quart of wine was $.18, a gallon of Holland Gin came to $1.25 but a quart of brandy was only $.14.[14] In 1829, a citizen of Drums might find a bushel of dried apples being offered for $.50, a pound of lard for $.10, a pound of bacon for $.11, but a pound of pickled pork brought only $.07, and a pound of veal was only $.02![15]

If you were to ask me what a “smaller” is, I would not be able to tell you. My assumption is that it is a shot glass. I’ve always said “Google knows everything”. Now I’ll have to add “except what a smaller of whiskey is”!

Now this term “Ciderial” is also a point of confusion. This is another term I’ve never seen before, nor “Cider Oil”, for that matter. Nothing was found by Google that was relevant on these terms either! However, I now know more about both “sweet cider” and “hard cider” than I think I ever cared to know! And I’m not trying to be “Flip” about that (some readers caught that joke although not a cider related pun, I admit). For example, only Americans call fermented apple cider “hard cider”. Everyone else calls it “cider”. Go figure.

So, I guess, Google knows everything except what a smaller of whiskey is and what ciderial/cider oil is! Huh. Who’d of guessed that Google doesn’t drink?

Urban Thesaurus, when asked for synonyms for “cider” came up with 330, some obvious, some ridiculous or even offensively ridiculous or worse like: roflwqerioasdcinwipryhtrphsg (you’ll have to go to the site and look for yourself to learn what that means but my least reactive response, but not my only response, to it was, “Who thinks of these things?” Let’s just say it isn’t very nice.

When asked for “Hard Cider” Urban Thesaurus gave me 1,354 synonyms but, as they explain on the site, “…due to the nature of the algorithm, some results returned by your query may only be concepts, ideas or words that are related to ‘hard cider’ (perhaps tenuously).” Since the term included the word “hard”, I suppose you can guess what most of the “synonyms” the algorithm found referred to. However, of all those “synonyms”, not one was “Ciderial” or “Cider Oil”.

I am left to assume these were local terms used for what we today call “hard cider”.

Stringing the telegraph wire [19]

The Drum family was growing; as was the community called Drums; as was the country! People were feeling the effects of “progress” for better or worse!

In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse, using a code devised by Alfred Vail, sent a message between Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. He sent it on an invention of his own which he called the telegraph. His message read, “What hath God wrought?” After that, communication has never wrought the same again!

A dentist in Hartford, Connecticut named Dr. Horace Wells pulled a bad tooth. To numb the pain, he used, for the first time in this manner, a gas called Nitrous Oxide, better known as Laughing Gas. He knew it worked because it was his own tooth! No word on if his new discovery had him laughing all the way to the bank.

Across the ocean in England, Michael Faraday published his research on electricity shocking the world. Also, the scientist named John Dalton died, leaving behind his notes and theories which became the basis of the theory of the atoms.

All this in just 1844!

Not to be out done, 1845 started off on a strong but somewhat sinister note. One wonders if Philip ever read and enjoyed the poem “The Raven”. Perhaps it was more to the taste of his son, John, who was just 19, when first appeared the words “Other friends have flown before, On the marrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before – then the bird said, ‘Nevermore.’” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” first appeared on January 29, 1845 in the pages of the New York Evening Mirror.

It came on the heels of the story published in 1843 that begins “Marley was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that.” A Christmas Carol, once called “the greatest little book in the world”, was published by Charles Dickens in 1843. It was from this book, a ghost story, that the world gained the greeting, “Merry Christmas!”[16]

In 1845 James K. Polk was elected the 11^th President of the United States. His predecessor, John Tyler, had annexed Texas in 1844 but Mexico was not willing to give it up so easily. Polk’s war with Mexico sealed the deal, established the southern border of the United States as the Rio Grande River, and began the presidential career of Zachery Taylor. One might also argue it began that of Ulysses S. Grant as well, and, to a lesser extent, Franklin Pierce as well!  

Sutter's Mill[19]

It was also about this time when the potato famine began in Ireland sending many of the Irish to the United States. As the Irish rushed to the United States, many U.S. citizens, in 1849, were rushing to California. It seems that a fellow named James Marshall had found some gold while building a mill on John Sutter’s land near Sacramento, CA. That news started the great Gold Rush of 1849.

From Jacob Santee’s copy of Professor Glee’s
 A Journey Around the World
(W.E. Scull, 1901) p 381.

That event ruined more men than it enriched, including John Sutter! The 49’ers, as the men hunting for gold came to be called, killed John’s cattle and destroyed his property in their rush to find riches. Sutter eventually moved to Lititz, PA in 1871 where he died in poverty in 1880.[17] None of the Drums seem to have gotten caught up in the gold fever of 1849, although there are members of Philip’s family tree living in California.

In 1859, Charles Darwin shocked the world when he published “On The Origin of Species”. No word on if John Drum ever read it, or, if he did, what he thought of its conclusions!

John was in his 30’s during the years of the Civil War but there is no indication he enlisted to fight – on either side.

Along with his fellow citizens and President Grant, I’m sure he celebrated the nation’s centennial. John’s son, Nathan A. Drum, was seven years old in 1876. Was he aware of the centennial and what it meant? 

When the news came in 1876 that General George Armstrong Custer had been defeated and killed by the Plains Indians at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana, might Nathan A. have been outside playing “Cowboys and Indians”?

Return to the Drums of Drums, PA on November 19, 2018 for the 12th post, The Drums and their Times Part 2: 1870’s – 1970’s.

---

[1] Unless otherwise cited, historical information found in this post for the 19^th Century is based on information found in A History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year (in Three Volumes) by Edwin Emerson, Jr. (New York: P.F. Collier, 1901)

[2] Unless otherwise cited, historical information found in this post for the 20^th Century is based on information found in Pages From the Past Special Edition, Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Friday, September 6, 1991

[3] Emerson, Edwin, Jr., Volume 1, page 47

[4] Emerson, Edwin, Jr., Volume 1, page 47

[5] Louisiana Purchase. www.monticello.org accessed 2/20/2018

[6] A descendant of John Santee’s, a woman named Ella Santee, married a descendant of Philip Drum’s in 1919. His name was Elmer Alonzo Drum^{(Nathan A., John, Philip, George, Jacob, Philip)}.

[7] Observing Constitution Day, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/ratification.html  accessed 6/18/2018

[8] Coinage Act of April 2, 1792, https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historical-documents/coinage-act-of-april-2-1792  accessed 6/18/2018

[9] Sheldon, George G., A Field Guide to Pennsylvania State History (London: PRC, 2005) p 11.

[10] Handwerk, Brian, “Saint Nicholas to Santa: the surprising origins of Mr. Claus”, www.natgeo.com accessed 11/29/2017

[11] “On this day: December 25, 1866, www.nytimes.com accessed 2/9/2018

[12] Annals of the Sugarloaf Historical Association, Vol. 1 (Hazleton, PA: Sugarloaf Historical Association, 1934) p 81.

[13] Annuals, p 80.

[14] Annuals, p 81.

[15] Annuals, p 81.

[16] A Christmas Carol: The Original Manuscript, by Charles Dickens – a facsimile of the manuscript in The Pierpont Morgan Library (NY: Dover Publications, 1967) p ix.

[17] Sheldon, George G., A Field Guide to Pennsylvania State History (London: PRC, 2005) p 227.
[18] Lauer-Williams, Kathy, "The History of Belsnickel: Santa's Cranky Cousin," The Morning Call, November 29, 2013 http://articles.mcall.com/2013-11-29/entertainment/mc-belsnickel-christmas-pennsylvania-dutch-20131129_1_candy-pennsylvania-dutch-christmas-furs accessed 5/11/2018
[19] as depicted in: Devens, R. M., Our First Century: being a Popular Discriptive Portraiture of the One Hundred Great and Memorable Events of perpetual interest in the History of our country, Political, Military, Mechanical, Social, Scientific and Commercial: embracing also delineations of all the great historic characters celebrated in the annuals of the Republic; men of Heroism, Statesmanship, Genius, Oratory, Adventure and Philanthropy. (Springfield, MA: C. A. Nichols & Co.; Easton, PA: J. W. Lyon, 1876).

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