Early History

The earliest settlers of the valley were mainly  Scotch-Irish. These people came from Northern Ireland and they were  descendants of the Scotch Presbyterians that had migrated from Scotland  to Northern Ireland during the reign of King James I of England. This  ruler, a Protestant, had encouraged people from Scotland to cross over  into Ireland, a distance of eleven miles, by water, and take up land  that had been seized by the English crown. The Irish, who were  dispossessed, were Catholic and had revolted against the crown because  of restrictive religious laws that had been imposed on them.

Thousands of Scotch families went to Northern  Ireland and settled in the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Caven, Donegal,  Fernmanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone. This is the part of  Ireland where religious conflict between Presbyterians and Catholics  continues to this day.

After James I the English government did not  always protect and encourage these Scotch-Irish in their new homes and  because of difficulties with Roman Catholics and later English rulers,  many of them began to come to America. When William Penn founded  Pennsylvania as a colony for free lands, free religion and self  government, thousands came. In September of 1736, for instance , one  thousand immigrated to the colony.

The Scotch-Irish began to fill the Valley,  clearing the forest and carving out their farms. Between 1771 and 1773  over twenty-five thousand came. These people were the true pioneers of  the Cumberland Valley.

Among the earlier Scotch-Irish were Benjamin  Chambers and his brothers, James, Robert, and Joseph. Benjamin and  Joseph acquired lands at the confluence of the Conococheague Creek and  the Falling Spring. This was the beginning of Chambersburg. James made a  settlement at Green Spring, near Newville, and Robert settled at Middle  Spring, where Shippensburg now stands.

Locally, the Scotch-Irish founded the Moss Spring  Church in 1738 - a Presbyterian Church made of logs and located  northeast of where Greencastle now stands.

It was the Scotch Irish who fought off the Indians  along this frontier territory and as they came in greater numbers they  were the first to establish schools in the community. They were leaders  in the movement to gain freedom from England. They fought in the  Revolution and later served in the conventions that led to the making of  the nation's constitution.

In 1741 Antrim Township was formed. Originally it  included all land in what is now Franklin County, with the exception of  Fannett, Metal and Warren Townships. The name for this new township, of  course, came from northern Ireland where Antrim County was located.

German settlers followed the early Scotch-Irish.  These were a people who came from the many different German states.  Their basic reason for leaving their homelands was to find religious  freedom and as they moved into this frontier region along with and after  the Scotch-Irish, they, too, acquired lands and became the leading  farmers of the local area.

An early writer describes a visit to the home of  Jacob Snively in 1748. The Snively holdings lay to the northeast and  eastward from what is now Greencastle and the writer describes corn  growing to a height of ten feet and "remarkably fine grasses" for  pasture land. Jacob Snively was described as an "honest schweitzer" and a  member of the German Reformed Church.

These German pioneers fought in the French and  Indian Wars and provided money, leadership, and men for the War for  Independence from England, alongside the Scotch-Irish.

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Antrim Township is older than Franklin County and older than Cumberland County by nine years. Antrim is also the oldest of all the townships in Franklin County, from which the majority were all subdivided.

• Antrim Township – May 1741 quarter sessions court of Lancaster County. At that time Antrim Township included "all" of present day Franklin County except Warren, Fannett and Metal Townships. Antrim Township was in Lancaster County.
• Lurgan Township – 1743 (from northern part of Antrim Township)
• Cumberland County was established in 1750, in which Antrim Township was then included.
• Peters Township – 1751, was named after Richard Peters, who was the secretary for five Pennsylvania provincial governors – Thomas, Palmer, Hamilton, Morris, and Denny from 1743 to 1762. At this point in time, Peters Township also included the land of Montgomery and the western part of St. Thomas.
• Guilford Township – about 1751, named after a town in England.
• Hamilton Township – 1752. Was named after James Hamilton, Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, twice between 1748 and 1771.
• Fannett Township – 1761. The township, originally settled by the Scots-Irish, was named after a place in County Donegal, Northern Ireland called Fannett Point.
• Letterkenny Township – 1762, during the latter part of the 1761 Cumberland County quarter sessions, and adopted at the March session. It was subdivided from Lurgan Township.
• Washington Township – 1779, during the Revolutionary War, from Antrim Township. The new township was named after George Washington.
• Montgomery Township – 1781. The petition presented at the 1780 October quarter sessions of the court of Cumberland County was accepted at the January quarter session in 1781. The township subdivided from Peters and was named after General Richard Montgomery, who was killed in the attack upon Quebec on December 30, 1775.
• Southampton – 1783, carved off of Lurgan Township. It was named after a British city because a large number of British settlers lived there.
• Franklin Township – 1784. Franklin Township was established the same year as Franklin County but, Franklin Township only existed for 53 years. In 1803, the Borough of Chambersburg was established in the middle of Franklin Township. As the Borough of Chambersburg grew, the square acres of the township gradually shrank, until its borders finally disappeared about 1837.
• Franklin County – September 9, 1784, from Cumberland County.
• Greene Township – 1788, from Antrim, by decree of Franklin County. As was the style of the time, Greene Township was named after General Nathanael Greene, who had such a fine Revolutionary War record in the south against Cornwallis.
• Metal Township – 1795. Metal was subdivided from Fannett Township. Its name came from the rich minerals that lie in its mountainous slopes. 
• Warren Township – March 29, 1798, once part of Bedford County was annexed to Franklin County, by an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature. It is the smallest township in Franklin County and was named after another Revolutionary War general, General Joseph Warren, who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1776. 
• St. Thomas Township – about 1818, based upon the memories of the eldest residents of the area. The official records were burned during the Burning of Chambersburg in July 1864.  St. Thomas Township was created from the lands of Peters and Hamilton Townships.
• Quincy Township – 1837-38 was the last township to be created in Franklin County.  Again because the records were destroyed, the township could have been established at the end of 1837 or beginning of 1838 by the Franklin County court. It is named after President John Quincy Adams.

Borough of Greencastle

In 1738, the East Conococheague Congregation established the Presbyterian’s red meeting house at Moss Spring; the site selected due to this water source. By 1741 Antrim Township was established, including all the land in the area.

The land at the center of the township, would become Greencastle at the intersection of the much traveled trails, Baltimore and Carlisle pikes. Here is where Allison’s Tavern hosted cattle and sheep herders and businessmen who would make their way south from Harrisburg and Carlisle to the Potomac to sell their wares or from Baltimore north to Pittsburgh bringing goods and then purchasing other items wanted or needed before the trip home.

William Allison, who operated the tavern, gave his son John 300 acres of land. With the help of school teacher James Crawford, the land was surveyed and developed into 246 building lots. The area began to  grow once it was founded by John Allison in 1782. The name Greencastle  was a reminder of the town in northern Ireland from where many of the  new residents’ ancestors had emigrated.

The Scot-Irish Presbyterians were followed by the Germans, Lutherans and Reformed. All the settlers and their families brought  their unique customs and names with them, adding to the culture and eventually, the history of the region. By 1794 there were reportedly 60 houses in the village and George Washington passed through Greencastle in October of that year, stopping at McCullough’s Tavern on the southwest section of the Square.

The Borough of Greencastle, by an act of the Pennsylvania Assembly, was incorporated March 25, 1805. Tickets had been sold years earlier, at about $8 each for a lottery to be held; the winner would receive one of the building lots. These lots were along main streets:  Baltimore and Carlisle, the chief roadways, or along North (now  Madison), West (Jefferson), South (Franklin) or East (Washington)  streets. Lot 1 of the new borough would include a hotel where Allison’s  Tavern had stood, in the southwest section of Center Square; Lot 2,  continuing south around the Square or “Diamond” as it was called, would  become the first commercial building; and so on until homes and  businesses stood surrounding the borough’s center and beyond.

Carl’s Drug Store began in Greencastle in 1825, opening a  storefront on South Carlisle Street. The business is the longest,  continuously operated drug store in the United States. The business  would later move to three more locations, however all its years of  service were within the borough’s limits.

The railroad brought a different means of transport and receipt  of goods for business and home. The Franklin Company placed a line to  connect Chambersburg and Hagerstown, Md. In 1840, the company laid the  tracks and ties in the center of Carlisle Street bringing both cargo and  passengers through the borough. In 1849 a printer with a Mormon group  who settled in the area because they thought they had found their “New Jerusalem,” began distribution of a weekly newspaper. The Conococheague  Herald would later become the Echo Pilot Newspaper , still a part of the local business scene today. The religious group, however, had moved further west by the mid-1850s.

The people farmed the land, there were cabinetmakers, blacksmiths, printers, coopers, milliners, grocers and more as the area grew and prospered. Manufacture came to the community, first employing men in a new work as farm implements were built and sold.

The area was touched by Civil War as Southern troops made their  way along Carlisle Street headed for Gettysburg. Capt. Ulrich Dahlgren  and his small group of men captured for the Union messages meant for  Gen. Robert E. Lee, making a difference in the outcome of the famous  battle. Union troops camped in the area and skirmishes were a part of the people’s lives. Corporal William H. Rihl of the First New York Lincoln Cavalry, was the first Union soldier killed on Union soil June  22, 1863, on farmland just northwest of the borough’s limits.

By 1869, the First National Bank of Greencastle (established in 1864) constructed their building on Center Square. The clock above the building, owned by the borough, was added in 1872, purchased through donations of the citizens. It would become a symbol of Greencastle. By  1901, the borough would boast a second bank as Citizens National (now Susquehanna) opened its doors to business.

Fire protection was formalized in the borough in 1896 when the  Rescue Hose Company organized. Meeting in Council Hall (constructed in 1888), the company purchased and retains a 1741 hand pumper- brought out on special occasions for demonstrations. 1896 was special for other reasons: the first telephone was installed in Carl’s Drug Store and the Carl residence, and electric lights were made available to homeowners and businesses.

In 1902 many of Greencastle’s former residents would plan and  gather for an Old Boys’ Reunion. It proved to be so successful that it was planned again in three years time and would include the women - the event has been held every three years since. The August celebration means cleaning and painting, keeping the borough a beautiful small town  at its best, as visitors and former residents, are welcomed “home.” The  entire program, from parade to fireworks to pageant, is offered  commercial free - financed only through the sale of badges and  donations.

In 1923 one of the “old boys” donated five acres of land to the people of the community in memory of his late brother Jerome. The David  D. King donation became the Jerome R. King Playground, dedicated during  Old Home Week of that year. Including a veteran’s memorial band shell,  pavilions, tennis courts, baseball field, swings and slides, the park now covers 15 acres within the borough’s limits.

War would again touch the lives of the people as many of Greencastle’s young men and women would answer the call to serve. Frank L. Carbaugh, killed during World War I, would have his name live on as American Legion Post 373; Harry D. Zeigler would be honored through the name of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6319 following World War II.  They would leave their homes during the Korean War and the young men and  women would travel to a place called Viet Nam and other unfamiliar  places.

In 1955 the by-pass would become part of the landscape as Route 11 was moved from the main streets to a site further west and named Antrim Way. Along this road too, as well as the “downtown” area, business and jobs would be offered. In the 1960s, Interstate 81 would be completed and bring additional growth to the area as businesses and residences were added. Ease in travel to cities - 84 miles to Washington, 70 miles to Baltimore, D.C., 63 miles to Harrisburg, 158 miles to Pittsburgh and 152 miles to Philadelphia - would bring new travelers.

Greencastle is also home to the Lilian S. Besore Memorial Library, open to the public; a school system that includes  Tayamentasachta Environmental Center; the John L. Grove Medical Center;  and much more. In 1994 Allison-Antrim Museum was formed for the  preservation of local items of interest and for the promotion of the  area’s history. The Rescue Hose Company building includes the HOCO  Museum in its fire hall on South Washington Street. Both of these  facilities are open to the public on various occasions - for additional  and more in-depth study of the local area.

Above information from: http://greencastlepa.gov/borough-history

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Pawling's Tavern

by William P. Conrad

Henry Pawling came into the Cumberland Valley in  the 1740s when he purchased lands in southern Antrim Township. His  holdings lay in the path of what was to become the King's Highway, a  primitive route designed by colonial authorities to connect the  Susquehanna and Potomac: rivers. He had come from the rural area near  Philadelphia in what is now Montgomery County. After erecting his log  home he married Mary Hicks, daughter of a neighbor, Nicholas Hicks.  Their first child, a son, was named for the father and their only other  child, a daughter, was given the name, Eleanor.

Pawling farmed his grant and eventually used his  dwelling as a tavern to accommodate the traders with their pack trains  engaged in the profitable Indian trade with the tribes of western  Pennsylvania. A mill was also built along the stream which ran through  the property, but the tavern was the principal business.

The pack trains coming down the Valley from posts  along the Susquehanna River and Carlisle or those returning from western  Pennsylvania would stop at Pawlings. Here they could rest their animals  before resuming their 'journey. As many as several hundred horses could  be seen at a time as they pastured in the grass and wooded lands  adjacent to the tavern, located south of present day Greencastle.

After a rest of from three to seven days the  trains were reloaded to continue westward or to their eastern places of  business. Those who were bound for the west would follow the stream at  the tavern to the creek. From there they would use a path along the bank  of the West Conococheague which led to Black's Trading Post in what is  now the Mercersburg area. From here they would continue into the  mountain country to the west. This route, like others, connected the  interior settlements of Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, and western  Maryland, by way of the Potomac River, to the port of Alexandria,  Virginia.

Records of Cumberland Valley's early years tell of  the retreating army of Col. Thomas Dunbar resting at Pawling's  following the defeat of Braddock's forces in July of 1755. During the  wars with the French and Indians it was called the "limit of safety on  the western frontier."

After the death of his father in 1761, Henry  Pawling Jr. continued to operate the business. The earlier log building  was replaced by one constructed of rough cast stone. By this time a  wagon road extended from Carlisle to the Potomac River, but cargoes  destined for the western trade were transferred to pack trains carrying  merchandise to Fort Pitt and posts along the way. The James Smith affair  of 1765 started at Pawlings when protests were made to the  representatives of the Boyton, Wharton, and Morgan firm about the cargo  being sent for trade with the western tribes. Smith represented the  feelings of the frontier people as they protested against shipping such  goods as whiskey, hatchets, knives, firearms, and gun powder to trade  with the very tribes who had ravaged their homes for nearly a decade  before the defeat of Pontiac and his allies.

During the Revolution the tavern continued as a  stopping place for the pack , trains carrying military supplies to Fort  Pitt. One account tells of an artillery company, commanded by Captain  Isaac Craig, hauling gun carriages and horse shoes to the western fort  coming to Pawlings May 27, 1780. By June 29 the march was completed. The  elapse of one month, from the time Craig left the tavern. until he  reached his destination, indicates the speed with which these trains  traveled

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Henry Pawling Jr. married a "lady from Virginia."  There were no children and the records indicate that he died in 1794.  Apparently the property reverted to ‑ his sister, Eleanor, the wife of  Dr. Robert Johnston. At her death, in 1818, a 200‑acre farm on which the  tavern stood was willed to her niece, Rebecca Prather, who had made her  home with Mrs. Johnston after her husband's death.

Rebecca  had married her cousin, John Morgan Pawling, in 1811, and they made  their home with Eleanor until she died. Rebecca's husband, a nephew of  the first Henry Pawling, had lived in Montgomery County. They and their  family moved back to eastern Pennsylvania, but returned in 1827 to  occupy the property inherited from Eleanor. From this time until his  death in 1838, John Morgan Pawling operated the hostelry and mill. He is  said to have been a hard drinking man of prodigious strength, being  able to lift a barrel of flour from the floor by his teeth.

Seven children were born to Rebecca and John ‑  four daughters and three sons. The youngest child, Thomas, born in 1824,  continued to live at the home place helping his mother conduct the  business and farm their land. He married Malinda Benedict of Quincy  Township and their family of eight children grew up here.

By then the family was supported mainly by farming  and the mill operation. The coming of turnpikes, canals, and railroads  connecting western Pennsylvania with the eastern markets left little  commercial trade for the ancient hostelry. Eventually, Thomas built a  new one in Greencastle which he called the Antrim House. However, the  home place continued as part of the Pawling holdings. A map of Antrim  Township shows it to be owned by the family as late as 1868.

Today there remains little evidence of where the  hostelry or mill stood. Older residents tell of seeing its foundation  stones in the field where the Milnor Road meets the highway to  Williamsport, Md.

However, as if reminding us of the past, one can  still see horses in the field where their forebearers once grazed and  waited to carry their burdens to the next destination.

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Greencastle's Original Water Supply.

(Commonly called, "The Dipping Box".)

Far back in the early 1700's a small cluster of  houses, an inn, and a black-smith shop were already established at the  cross-roads where Greencastle now stands, but it was not until 1782 that  John Allison, who owned much of the ground in the vicinity, laid out a  town of right-angled streets and allies, offered lots for sale, and  christened his new town, "Greencastle".

Naturally, the new town's first need was a supply  of pure water for domestic purposes and for fire protection, and  accordingly on March 8, 1785 Mr. Allison, the Proprietor entered into a  perpetual agreement with a Mr. William Rankin, who owned a fine spring  known as Moss Spring just east of the borough, to divert water from this  spring by means of an artificial watercourse thru the town.

This watercourse was laid out in an irregular or  zig-zag course across the town so that it might reach as many of the  inhabitants as possible. Originally the water was conveyed in a heavy  wooden trough, or trunk, about 15 inches square, and for the most part  covered on top to keep out contamination. Where the course crossed  public streets or allies it was lead thru iron pipes or brick culverts.  At each street and alley, and on most of the private lots, a large  wooden box was sunk into the ground and kept filled with water from the  wooden trunking. This box was deep enough so that the citizens could dip  up water with a bucket and carry it to their homes. It was for this  reason that the whole system came to be called, "The Dipping Box".

Later, the more ambitious persons tapped the  wooden trunking with hollow logs and conveyed the water to other  premises not along the direct route of the watercourse; and it is said  that at one time about Civil War times this system was quite elaborately  developed with hollow wooden logs running here and there on trestles,  some as high as six feet. At a later date. a number of wells were dug to  supplement the water supply and to serve persons who lived at some  distance from the main route.

In the early days, when fire protection was  provided by "bucket brigades" or the old fashioned hand pump  fire-engines, water was carried from the dipping boxes and poured into  the fire engine, but later when the town acquired a steam fire-engine a  system of large brick fire cisterns were built along the water-course  and connected to it so that they were always kept filled. It was into  these cisterns that the old steam fire engine thrust it's suction hose  and no doubt prevented many a serious conflagration.

It was naturally important that such a  watercourse should be kept clean and free from leaks, and the early  borough policemen and constables had quite a job on their bands making  weekly inspections; and many were the citizens who were haled before the  magistrate for failure to keep their trunking clean or in good repair.

Such was Greencastle's main water supply until  about 1895 when the first gravity water system with a reservoir and  underground iron pipes were put into operation. From that date on, the  old water course rapidly deteriorated, the wooden trunking was allowed  to rot without replacement, and no longer was any great attempt made to  keep it clean. It is true that for some years afterwards many persons  used the water to irrigate their gardens, or for other purposes when  purity was not necessary, but by 1922 the whole system bad become so  neglected that it was finally abandoned by order of the Board of Health.

A few of the old fire cisterns still remain in  serviceable condition and here and there may be found rotted pieces of  the old wooden trunking, but in a few more years it is likely that all  trace of a water system that served the town for more than 110 years  will be completely obliterated.

And yet, John Allison's fore-sight in obtaining a  water-right so many years ago still serves the town in good stead, for  at the present day the water of Moss Spring is now being pumped into the  borough reservoir and is again being distributed to the people of  Greencastle thru the piping of a modern water system.

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Ginny: Henry, can you describe Grandpa Walck's cradle shop?

Henry: Obviously the building had been built in three parts on the side of the hill. The oldest part was the farthest down the hill. The very old part had a hard-packed floor—I don't know what they are really called--like you sometimes see in old houses in England. This first section was where the cradles were really assembled. The next section was a little higher, and there was a step up to it. It was very efficient at catching a young lad. There were two or three steps from that section up to the new part. The oldest part housed the things that were done by hand. There was no powered machinery in that section at all. There were three or four benches. There were marks dug into the hardpacked flooring to measure the size and angle of the cradles. Also, there was a potbellied stove and a coal bin. Very close to that was a bench where Grandpa had his nap every day. In front of that was a home-made desk, and he did his book work there. To digress just a moment, he had the strangest filing system I have ever heard of. All the orders, letters, bills, --whatever he got in the mail--during a week were tied up with a string and hung up on the wall. I don't know how he decided what to throw away, but I do know that when he died, or we moved, there were a lot of these packets, and I burned them in the pot-bellied stove. One of Mother's cousins from Hagerstown came by as I was doing this, and he really stormed at me, claiming I had burned hundreds of dollars worth of stamps. To get back to the building—there were two or three steps from the old building up to the floor of the new one. This new section was two stories high, and all the machinery was run by one stationary steam engine. A belt ran from the engine to a pulley on a shaft which ran the length of the building, and there was an idler pulley and a regular pulley at each piece of machinery. Some went upstairs to the second floor, others were running machines on the first floor. There was a band saw and at least one circular saw. Unfortunately, the circular saw took off one of John Greenawalt's fingers. This was before I was born. However, I did see him cut an artery in his leg when he was taking the bark off the planks with an axe. Other machinery on that floor included an ordinary lathe and a sanding machine, and a boring machine. But to me the most interesting machine was on the second floor. This was a lathe; it would not be recognized by someone who operated a normal lathe. This lathe was used to make the cradle handles. The handle of the cradle was cured in two directions, and it was round and smooth. This lathe did its work by having a saw touch a little bit into the wood which had been cut and sawed in shape, but which had the earners still there. The function of the lathe was to turn these squarish pieces of wood into round ones. There was a pattern which was about the same width as the saw teeth, but larger than the piece of wood it was to form. This pattern revolved at exactly the same speed as the piece of wood being shaped. The whole top of the lathe rocked back and forth touching the saw blade as it went This was a very complicated machine, which I believe was invented by Grandpa. Power for it came from the shaft below through an opening in the floor. Also, on that floor was a sanding machine. For efficiency, it was not far from the lathe. The sanding machine was also powered from below. It had two pulleys and the sanding belt. The snath (handle of the cradle) was held against the sanding belt between the two pulleys. During the part of the season that the lathes were being made, the belt was re-sanded each evening. This meant putting on a machine that could be turned by hand. As it was turned by the belt, glue was applied with a brush and then sand was applied. After drying all night, it was ready to be used the next morning. Coming back to the first floor, there was the boring machine near the stairs to the second floor. It was run by the same shaft. The table on this machine was arranged to slide to the rake head. This provided the correct angle between the ground and the rake as it was used in the fields. The table that slid back and forth was boring the holes to put in the teeth. Also, there were two holes for a cured, round support to keep the angle between the rake head and rake handle correct. No hand work was done in this section of the shop. Handwork was done in the old section by machinery that did not require power, beyond manpower, that is.

Ginny: Henry, what years are we talking about in this description?

Henry: I was born in 1908 and my first job was to blow the whistle. Grandpa held me in his arms, and he had fashioned a wire with a hook on the end to extend the regular whistle pull.

Ginny: Did many people hear the whistle?

Henry: Neighbors in quite an area around heard and the story was that they set their watches by it because Grandpa was very particular about the time.

Ginny: This must have made a little boy feel very important.

Henry: I suppose so; at any rate I always wanted to blow the whistle longer than Grandpa would allow.

Ginny: How about telling the story that Mother told me about your first day in school.

Henry: Well the shop whistle blew at 11:30 a.m. as usual, and I walked up and told the teacher that I had to go home now because Grandpa's whistle blew and it was lunch time. She let me go, but said I should ask Mother to explain it to me.

Ginny: And Mother told you that the rest of the world did not run on Grandpa's schedule.

Henry: I don't know if she said that, but I went by the school's lunch schedule the next day and thereafter.

Ginny: Where did Grandpa get the lumber for the rakes, forks, and cradles?

Henry: Well, Grandpa would drive around the countryside with his horse and buggy and look for likely trees. When he saw one that he thought was suitable, he went to the farmer and negotiated to buy the tree. Then the shop crew plus Grandpa Zeigler would go cut the tree down and cut it into proper lengths. Grandpa Zeigler furnished the wagon and horses. The logs were rolled up on the wagon which was usually pulled by four horses. Then we went to the sawmill, Sam Fenwick owned the sawmill. It was about a quarter or half mile from home. Here the logs were sawed into planks of the proper thickness. I went a number of times to get these logs, and I was allowed to drink coffee from the jars they had. I was very annoyed that Mother would not let me have coffee at home. One of the trees was on the banks of Antietam Creek. It was a very hot day, and Dad let me go in the creek swimming, but I didn't know how to swim. All of a sudden, John Greenawalt ran out to me, picked me up, and carried me to shore. I had no idea what was going on, and he pointed to a snake swimming down the stream. John thought it was a water moccasin, but I was not sure.

Ginny: After the prime days of the cradle shop, did you spend a summer repairing cradles for local farmers?

Henry: Yes. That was the first summer after Grandpa sold the business, and I used the spare fingers for the broken cradles. There were a lot of fingers left over, and that was the thing that usually went wrong. The farmers didn't keep them adjusted correctly, and when they would swing into the wheat, "snap" would go the finger. To do the repairs, I used the marks on the shop floor to put the fingers in correctly. Each finger had a heavy support wire running from the finger to the snath. This wire could be adjusted by a metal key. When the wire was adjusted properly, you tapped it tight. I used all the fingers Grandpa had; I was able to hand carve some for the smaller cradles from the bigger ones.

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Footnotes:

L. R. Walck, son of Henry Stickell Walck built his first hatchery near the cradle shop in 1908. In 1925 he built a second hatchery in Greencastle. In 1928 the hatchery at Canebrake bunred to the ground. He was in the hatchery business until his death in 1942.

Henry Zeigler Walck was a publisher. He served as president of Oxford University Press in New York from 1948-57. At that time he bought the Children's Book Division of the company and began publishing under his own name. He sold his company to the David McKay Pub. Co. in 1973. He had been associated with Putnam's and Prentice Hall before joining Oxford in 1936.

Circa 1928 the machinery from the cradle shop was sold to Christian Bricker who lived on Allison St. in Greencastle. Mr. Bricker sold the equipment to Ira Lesher of Marion circa 1936. Mr. Lesher incorporated some of the machinery into his furniture-making shop which he had founded in 1929. Mr. Lesher's son, J. Ira and his two sons, Jay and Dean, still make furniture and clocks in their Marion shop. J. Ira Lesher donated the Walck equipment and machinery to the Tayamentasachta Environmental Center. It is located in the barn on that property