May 2005, Volume 8, Issue 3
From the President’s Desk
In the January 2005 Annals, I wrote about the amazing George W. Ziegler family legacy, which was left to those of us who live in Greencastle-Antrim. In January 2004, I began researching the history of the Dr. Adam Carl family and the drug store in preparation for the Images of America Greencastle-Antrim pictorial history book. I cannot express how fortunate Greencastle-Antrim is to have had two families in this area that had enough forethought to save all that they did, which survives to this day. The great number of Carl pharmacy-related artifacts is phenomenal. It is not an overstatement to say, if space permitted, there are enough Carl pharmacy artifacts from the museum’s collection and that of Frank Ervin’s to set up an interpretive drug store from several different eras.
Among the museum’s Carl Collection are three tooth keys. They were used for extracting lower molars and upper and lower front teeth. The molar tooth keys were used by placing the hinged cycle-shaped tooth clamp over the crown of the tooth at gum level, toward the tongue side, with the roller bar, at a right angle to the clamp, on the cheek side. Leverage was then used to extract the tooth by rotating the roller bar and handle outward, toward the cheek side. The universal instrument for removing teeth in the front of the mouth, both upper and lower, was used in a similar manner. The front teeth were pried out with forward leverage, either up or down, toward the one holding the instrument. Please bear in mind, there was no Novocain available.
Like the Ziegler family letters, the drug store day books and annual books allow one to travel back in time to the 19th century. George W. Ziegler and Adam Carl were contemporaries of each other. Adam Carl arrived in Greencastle in 1825 at the age of 25 and George W. Ziegler arrived in town eight years later, in 1833 at the age of 23.
The period from 1780-1860 has often been called the age of heroic medicine. Today, we’d categorize it as medieval medicine; but it was modern medicine at the time. For most ailments, physicians prescribed extensive bloodletting. In addition, they administered huge doses of calomel and other dangerous mineral drugs as well as purgatives, such as senna, and emetics to cleanse the system of all irritants. The leading emetics were ipecac, tartar emetic and sulfate of zinc. Cathartics or laxatives were tamarind, manna, cassia, castor oil, magnesia, and rhubarb. The more drastic were jalap, croton oil and calomel (mercuric chloride – used as a disinfectant and fungicide and later it was used in photography). Just as today, the average patient insisted upon receiving the treatment which was currently most popular. Whether the cure was bloodletting, alcohol, opium or stimulates, patients insisted upon it.
By the time of the Civil War most towns had several physicians and numerous druggists who were available for prescriptions as well as homeopathic cures. A small, leather bound, pocket-size day book, which covers the time period from April 15, 1861 to December 31, 1869, is part of the museum’s collection. With dip pen and iron gall ink in the proverbial doctor’s handwriting of Dr. Adam Carl and the more elegant script of his son, William, are mentioned the following doctors as having purchased items, such as catheters and syringes, and numerous medicines from the Carl pharmacy: Doctors L. M. Miller, McDowell, William Grubb, D. Neiswander, H. S. Chritzman, Strickler, Victor Miller and his brother Alburtus A. Miller.
The first entry in the day book on April 15, 1861 was for George Gaff, who seemingly had many health problems, as presumed by the medicines prescribed throughout the journal. His name appears to be the most frequently recorded one in the journal. The early medicines Gaff used included cleansing liq---, syrup of Iodide Iron, liniment, liver pills, and cough lozenges. Then on January 18, 1864 William Carl gave him laudanum. Gaff’s visits to the drug store gradually became more frequent as he became more and more dependent on laudanum and paregoric. The addiction became quite bad in the middle of 1868 with visits every one, two and three days for more laudanum, which the Carls did not dispense in any greater dosage than $.25 worth at a time. The last entry in the day book for George Gaff was on January 3, 1869, which I assume indicates that George Gaff passed away about that time.
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Shown in the above photograph are two pages, from December 28, 1862 to January 6, 1863, from the Carl day book. The handwriting is fairly legible and shows a wide variety of items that were sold, including envelopes, saltpeter, alum, gum powder, liniment, castor oil, an emetic, and croup syrup. |
An entry on May 21, 1861 was, “for blood purge 25 cents.” Some of the medicinal remedies that were sold included nitrate silver solution plus the cost of a bottle, calomel, cod liver oil, itch ointment, iron pills, one large bottle olive oil-50 cents, croup syrup, slippery elm, zinc, cream of tartar and sulpher, alum, aloe and qui ac pills, sweet oil, elixir bitters, gum powder, clove oil, spirits of lavender, cinnamon, pulverized ginger, ipecac, digitalis, arsenic, quinine powder and pills, morphia powder, opium, laudanum, saltpeter, charcoal, saffron, cough syrup, camphor, liniment for “his” shoulder, and plasters. Some familiar surnames of the day that appeared on medicine labels were Dover’s pills, Ayer’s pills, Harbaugh’s liniment, Hunt’s liniment, a bottle of Swain’s panacea-$2, Wright’s pills, and Schneck’s liver pills. The Carls procured on commission from H. Bell of Hagerstown, Md. Bell’s expectorant, white oil, horse and cattle powders, worm confections, anodyne carminative, baking powder, and Bell’s soothing cordial. Upon the sale of these items, Dr. Carl would pay Bell or the unsold medicines could be returned with the receipt. Other items sold in the drug store were paper, envelopes, sealing wax, pens, pen holder, ink, pencils, spectacles and cases, blacking, soap, sponges, hair oil, a tin of liquorices, peppermint, tooth brushes, camel hair brushes, gum nipple for a baby bottle, horse pills, and a great amount of horse powder. In December, Carl’s Drug Store stocked Brainard’s Garden Seeds papers which they purchased for three and four cents per paper for the coming spring’s planting. On April 5, 1861, a paper of peas was sold for ten cents for a profit of six or seven cents. Some of the varieties sold included mustard, beans, peas, cucumber, cabbage, and turnips.
On February 7, 1866, a prescription of pulverized alum, an injection of sulphate of zinc, and eight ounces of water cost Arron Ward at Upton $1.50. James K. Hicks was prescribed five ounces of sarsaparilla. Some of the town’s businessmen who entered Carl’s Drug Store were George W. Ziegler; Thomas Pawling proprietor of the Antrim House; Jacob B. Crowell who established Greencastle’s first industrial park; Alexander Schafhirt and Addison Imbrie, warehousemen; George Ilginfritz, proprietor of the woolen mill on North Carlisle Street; Jeremiah Detrich and Augustus Shirey, both of whom were undertakers and cabinetmakers on West Baltimore Street; Mr. Hoover a carriage maker; George Lewis, an African-American Civil War veteran and town barber; and John Ruthrauff, the Lutheran minister. Then there was Phineas B. Hollar, who during the Civil War was charged with possession of government issued materiel and the selling of such for his own profit. Well known surnames of this area that are recorded in the day book are Goetz, Koons, Shank, Kauffman, Carbaugh, Coffee, Gearhart, Bitner, Henaberger, Pensinger, Bert, McCauley, Pitinger, Byers, Martin, Miller, Myers, Snively, Fleming, Whitmore, Adams, Crooks, and Conrad.
The letters, journals, papers, books, and artifacts of the Ziegler and Carl Collections connect us to our past by allowing one to visit Greencastle-Antrim on many days throughout the 19th century. The Ziegler and Carl legacies aren’t just a part of Greencastle-Antrim’s history, they are part of American history, because our history mirrored and continues to mirror that of our nation.
Field Notes 1930
Sunday, May 4…For the first time in several years I visited my old haunts along Second Dam. I arrived about mid afternoon and found the hills alive with birds.
I was particularly anxious to find some purple finches, which are always associated in my mind with one dewy green spring morning years ago in the same spot. Luck was with me – for as I sat on the west slope of a ravine, with the bright gold sun behind me, a stream of purple finches poured down the hillside and set to work in the tree tops almost in front of me. They seemed to be eating the yellow blossoms. Mingling with them were goldfinches and, I think, pine finches, and to my intense surprise, I also saw a blue grosbeak feeding among them. On my way home I caught a glimpse of a Carolina wren in the dense shrubbery along the back cemetery road. This road was aflame with Judas tree for nearly its entire length.
Earlier in the day I visited Enoch Brown Park and Hother. In the park we found the loveliest violets I have ever seen – white violets as well as blue. At Hother I gathered a quantity of wild columbine.
G. Fred Zeigler
Friday, May 9…Spent four hours this morning working my way around the ravine on the Carl farm and came home with some unforgettable memories.
Shortly after entering the ‘park’ I noticed some myrtle warblers in the trees lining the south hillside. While watching these I came across a pair of blue grosbeaks and had them under observation for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was the second time within a week that I saw this rather uncommon bird. As I was watching the grosbeaks I heard the song of a scarlet tanager and after a half hour watchful waiting I was rewarded by the most dazzling views I ever obtained of any bird. The tanager was in the top of an elm, in full sunlight against a background of fresh green foliage – the richest and most flaming red I have ever seen. The ravine also yielded good views of the blue jay and white crowned sparrow. I heard chats and Maryland yellowthroats but did not see them.
On my way to the ravine and on my way home I saw a bobolink on the fence at the north side of Carbaugh’s pasture field. Found two vesper sparrow nests – one with four and one with five eggs – and also the nest tree of a bluebird. Got some dogwood.
Incomplete list of birds: grackle, red wing, bluebird, bobolink, cardinal, catbird, chat, towhee, chickadee, crow, cuckoo, flicker, goldfinch, blue grosbeak, blue jay, junco, martin, meadowlark, nighthawk, Baltimore oriole, wood hewer, robin, song, field, chippy, vesper, white ____, white crowned sparrows, starling, barn swallow, chimney swift, wood thrush, titmouse, towhee, myrtle warbler, downy woodpecker, house wren, quail, ringneck, buzzard.
G. Fred Zeigler
The above are the last two of three journal entries that were transcribed from a small, lined tablet that was given to the museum by Glen Cump. They were written 75 years ago, this month, in Mr. Ziegler’s familiar descriptive style, while on two of his frequent nature jaunts about the area’s countryside. The first of the three entries was printed in the May 2004 Annals newsletter. The Carl farm that he mentioned was that originally belonging to Dr. Adam Carl. On the 1868 map of Antrim Township, it indicates that the Carl farm was 140 acres in size. The Carbaugh property referred to is located, going north, along North Antrim Way just before the Sunnyway Diner. The large yellow bricked house was the residence of the Carbaugh family in that era and was a favorite sledding place.
The Barn
The museum hired a general contractor in March and we have a mason who is committed to re-laying the limestone foundation. Currently, we are waiting for the general contractor to talk to the various subcontractors to get bids for the different stages of reconstruction, beginning with creating a driveway for construction vehicles. Spring is a busy month for building, as you all know; so, patience is the word of the day.
May/June Exhibit
“Antique Needleworking Tools and Accessories” is the featured exhibit for the months of May and June. The items on exhibit are from the collection of Elizabeth Graff of Hagerstown, Maryland.
Sewing goes back to the beginning of time when the desire to cover the body precipitated the need to devise a way to put fig leaves together and then animal skins. Sewing has not always been associated with something only women do; early professions of men included those of tailor and weaver. Barthelemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, invented the first functional sewing machine in 1830. Thimonnier was almost killed, though, when his garment factory was set afire by other French tailors, because they thought his invention would cause them to be unemployed. Look in your closets and dresser drawers. Can you imagine that, for countless centuries, every stitch in every garment that one wore was made by hand? The making of clothes seemed to naturally fall into the hands and laps of women, who as very little girls began to practice and perfect their skills with needle and thread in the stitching of samplers.
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The Chinese work box on the left and the needleworking tools below the box date to c. 1830 and are the oldest items in the exhibit. Another work box, c. 1844, is from the early Victorian period, prior to Queen Victoria’s husband dying, after which everything became very dark in color. |
Some of the first needles were made of thorns, fishbone, animal bone, and slivers of stone. The first metal “needle” was likely bronze and then steel. Finger guards, that we call thimbles, were probably first made of stone or wood pieces wrapped to the finger. Again, nature supplied the materials for the first pins. Thorns and fine fish bones were able to puncture the garments’ material and were used as closures before buttons were invented. Because pins were very scarce and expensive, the term pin-money, which goes back to the 14th century, means a lot of money, not a small amount of money. Early metal pins were handmade in two parts, the pointed shaft and the head. As valuable as pins were, a safe place was needed in which to put them when not in use. Pincushions and cases, of as many designs and shapes as there were imaginations, were created to hold pins. Needle cases of elaborate and simple design were then made in which to keep the sharps and blunts. Bobbins held the thread and were of innumerable shapes and sizes. The traditionally shaped spool held sewing thread. Lace bobbins held the thread used in making bobbin lace. Silk or thread winders of mother of pearl, ivory, bone, and other materials held smaller amounts of thread for projects. The everyday bobbins weren’t fancy enough for the Victorians, so they made finely carved bobbin covers of mother of pearl. Punches, awls, and stilettos were used for fancy needlework like eyelets and in leather work, basket making and bookbinding. We can’t forget scissors, which were used by the Aryans several centuries before Christ. The first implements of this kind were likely made from shells or stone sharpened to a thin edge. Scissors, needles and needle cases, pins and pincushions, bobbins, winders, punches, hosiery darners, emeries, and many other sewing accoutrements were stored in work boxes made of faux-grained exteriors, which imitated expensive woods, to fine hardwood boxes with inlays of mother of pearl, ivory, and wood.
A wide array of the above mentioned needleworking tools, accessories, boxes, and more are among the collection of Elizabeth Graff. Graff received an AB degree from Smith College, with a major in studio art. She worked as an artist and copy editor for Harper and Row Publishers and was the curator of the historic Miller House in Hagerstown, Maryland for 19 years. Graff has exhibited at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. She is a charter member of the Hagerstown Chapter of the Embroiders’ Guild of America and has taught embroidery classes, including a crewel embroidery class at the Renfrew Institute in Waynesboro, of an 18th century-styled lady’s pocket, which she designed.
During the Sunday open house on June 12, the museum is hosting a cross stitch bookmark project for youth (young ladies and gentlemen are both welcome) sponsored by the Hagerstown Chapter of the Embroiders’ Guild of America. The class size is limited, and registrations will be handled through the Besore Library. The museum is coordinating the bookmark project with the library’s summer reading program. See the Calendar of Events for dates and times.
July/August Exhibit
The ubiquitous box will be the subject matter of the July and August exhibit. The lowly box is everywhere in our daily lives, from the cradle to the casket, hat boxes and shoe boxes, lunch boxes, pencil boxes, cigar boxes, sewing boxes, candle boxes and spice boxes, tool boxes, band boxes, jewel boxes and on and on. Do you have an interesting or unusual box that you would be willing to share in the exhibit? If so, please contact me at 597.9325. I may be opening the proverbial Pandora’s Box with this request, but on a first-call basis, the number of examples, and as space allows, boxes will be accepted. It will be a unique and fun exhibit.
Quilt Tickets
Beginning in September 2005 and ending in April 2006, the Chambersburg Quilt Guild will be documenting the family quilts of Franklin County by analyzing the quilts, taking photographs, and recording their stories from questions asked of the owners. What kinds of quilts will be included in this project? Only pieces made before 1950, which includes traditional quilts, baby and crib quilts, crazy quilts, knotted coverlets, summer spreads (quilt tops with their edges turned under and hemmed), and quilt blocks that were made but never put together. All the information that is collected, including photographs, will be put together in a book. There are six clinics scheduled at various places in Franklin County between September and April. Anyone can take their quilts for documentation to any of the clinics. One of the clinics is scheduled in Greencastle on Saturday, April 1, 2006 at the Church of the Brethren at 36 South Carlisle Street, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
To help underwrite this project, the guild is selling raffle tickets for a quilt, which was made by the guild members. The tickets sell for $1 each or six for $5. The raffle tickets will be available for purchase during open house in May and June at Allison-Antrim Museum.
May Monthly Meeting
Bill Diehl, AAMI member and resident of Antrim Township, returns as the guest speaker for the May 12 meeting to share part two of his story about his capture during the Battle of the Bulge and his experiences as a WWII P.O.W. He has written a book about his P.O.W. experiences entitled, Kreigegefangener (Prisoner of War 312598).
Diehl was born in Shady Grove in 1924 and, along with his five sisters, went to school and grew up there. He graduated with the 1942 Greencastle High School Class and then went to work at Landis Tool Company. Diehl was inducted into the Army in March 1943 and left for Ft. Meade on April 15, 1943. In spite of having had polio when he was very young, and the Army doctors in Harrisburg supposedly stamping his papers “not for infantry,” Diehl ended up at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas at the Infantry Training Center.
In October 1944, Diehl shipped out of the New York harbor on the Queen Elizabeth headed for Glasgow, Scotland. From South Hampton, England they were shipped to La Havre, France. On December 12, 1944, Bill Diehl arrived in Belgium as part of the 106th Division. At this time, a fierce week of fighting began for Diehl and continued until December 19, when he was captured by the Germans with his company, during the Battle of the Bulge.
Diehl is a very engaging storyteller and even if you missed part one of his story in November 2004, you will not regret coming to hear part two. See the Calendar of Events for time and place.
June Monthly Meeting
Will Pananes of Chambersburg will be the guest speaker for the June meeting. His topic will be the “History of the Cumberland Valley Railroad.” Pennsylvania Governor George Wolf approved, on April 2, 1831, the incorporation of the Cumberland Valley Railroad Company (CVRC). This allowed the company to build a railroad system from Harrisburg to Carlisle. An extension of the railroad from Carlisle to Chambersburg was approved by the state in 1835. This section of tracks was completed in 1837.
The Franklin Railroad Company was chartered sometime about 1837 to build the rail line from Chambersburg to Hagerstown. The rail line reached Greencastle in 1839 and was completed all the way to Hagerstown by February 1840. In 1865 the Franklin Railroad merged with the CVRC to become the Cumberland Valley Railroad (CVRR). T.C. McCullough, native of Greencastle, served as its first president. The Cumberland Valley Railroad then became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1918.
The railroad tracks ran through Greencastle on Carlisle Street from 1839 until 1936, when they were removed through a federal works project during the depression. Although the “new” highline was built on Jefferson Street and opened in 1908 to service passengers, the tracks on Carlisle Street remained to service businesses in both the northern and southern parts of town.
The railroad company, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, ran seven passenger trains every day in both directions. The advent of the automobile and its popularity caused the eventual demise of passenger service in this area. Freight hauling by train was also severely affected by the trucking industry. See the Calendar of Events for time and place.
What’s Been Happening
On April 12th, in honor and celebration of Carl’s Drug Store’s 180th anniversary, Allison-Antrim Museum hosted a Greencastle-Antrim Chamber of Commerce mixer, which was sponsored by Frank Ervin and Carl’s Drug Store. One hundred and sixty visitors were able to tour the special Carl’s Drug Store exhibit and enjoy a very nice reception. Including open house visitors, well over 200 people were able to learn from the exhibit, which in addition to the museum’s collection was enhanced by part of Frank Ervin’s collection and Carl day books, which were loaned by the Besore Library.
Ted Alexander, and Ken and Bonnie Shockey participated in a book signing event, which was sponsored by the Washington County Library, for local authors.
Recent Acquisitions
Two Charles Stoner prints – one of the log church at Moss Spring, c. 1782, and one depicting George Washington at McCullough’s Tavern, c. 1794. – gifts from Kathleen Forney
Website Inquiries
From Belgium, via email attachment, a research assistant sent the November 1901 Heilburn & Pinner patent for honeycomb tissue paper (in German - wabenpapier). Martin Luther Beistle, Shippensburg, developed and produced his now internationally known honeycomb paper products in 1905. The Beistle Company is still in business today, and continues to produce many products which use the collapsible honeycomb paper. The research assistant found AAMI’s Website, and specifically the February 2004 exhibit of Valentines from the Carl collection, via the internet.
One of the men in a photograph showing the laying of the trolley line has been identified as Jacob Sherman Carr, who was the track foreman.
From an ancestor of the Peter Kuhn family, an inquiry as to whether AAMI has a copy of the “Peter Kuhn Family History and Records.” Peter Kuhn was one of the early Antrim Township settlers. A copy of this particular Kuhn family genealogy would make a very nice addition to the museum’s beginning collection of local genealogy.
From someone, somewhere in Pennsylvania, who was searching for information on Henry S. Walck grain cradles, “I never thought in a million years I would actually find out where this thing (a Walck grain cradle) was made. This grain cradle has been hanging in the foyer of my home ever since I purchased it (five years ago).”