HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                          141

    The people at “The Y” continued to get their mail at Martz until
the latter part of the year 1876, as the “Huntersville” office was not com-
missioned until that time. Pius M. Long served until the first of April,
1879, when he was succeeded by Ivan B. Harris, who was followed by Eli
Cooprider, July 1, 1885, Virgil Brown succeeding him in the month of
January, 1889, who served until the latter part of November, 1891, when
he was succeeded by John M. Long, followed by George Oberholtzer,
January, 1893, who served until the first of July, 1897, when John M.
Long was again commissioned, serving until the latter part of July, 1899,
when he was succeeded by C. C. Fesler, who is the present incumbent.
Clay City was a money order office, it may be said, from the time of its
founding, and was made a presidential office July 1, 1896. There were
two appointees to the position who did not come into possession—Mrs.
Mary Wilbur and James M. Travis.
    There is disagreement among those surviving who were witnesses
to the founding of the town and the postoffice as to the location of the
office when first established. During the brief period of time that Mrs.
Hunter handled the mails she had the office at the family residence in
a small frame house, which is still standing in rear of the Duncan marble
shop, on what was known for many years as the Woollen property. The
mail was delivered through a broken pane of glass in the window. But
there are those who maintain that the first postoffice was at Baker &
Row’s store, which was kept in the first house ,built upon the ground
which a little later on became the plat of the future town, a one-story
frame of two rooms, erected by E. F. Cooprider, which, at the time, he
intended to occupy as a dwelling and grocery store. This building stands
close to the railroad track, west side, the middle one of the three across
the street in front of the old “Commercial” hotel, near the stock pens.
However, he did not occupy it, having changed his notion. But Eli
Cooprider did occupy it with the first store of the town, at some time
within the year 1873, who was succeeded the latter part of the same year,
about the first of December, by Harrison J. Long, and he, at some time
within the next year (1874), by Baker & Row. During the time that
Cooprider and Long did business here, there was an arrangement by
mutual understanding with the postmaster at Martz that mail for people
at “The Y” should be delivered to Willis Pierson, on call, who delivered
the same at the store, where it was handed out as called for. Pierson was
the drayman who hauled goods from the point of unloading at “The Y”
to the Middlebury merchants, and made round trips every day. This pri-
vate delivery of mail, doubtless, was kept up after Baker & Row became
proprietors of the store at ‘The Y,” leaving the impression, after the
lapse of years, that there was a postoffice there. This was the only store
before the coming of the Burger Brothers.
    The first school at Clay City, or “The Y,” was taught in the winter
of 1874-5, by Miss Nellie Elkin. For the year 1874 the school population
of this place had been enumerated in the Middlebury district, which over-
taxed the facilities of the old town. Trustee Jett rented a small frame
house standing near the railroad track, across the road from the “Com-
mercial House,” the first hotel, and near the Baker & Row store-house,
which, as remembered, had been built for a business room by Eli Miller or
his son; Stewart Miller, which was temporarily fitted for the purpose and
Miss Elkin employed as teacher. In the year 1875 the first school-house
was built, a little distance northwest of the Jett residence, in which John