JOHNNY SHAFER RECEIVES BIKE, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

Copyright(c) 2002 by Margaret Logan-Behrns

http://www.usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm
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SOURCE: BUFFALO EVENING NEWS -VOL.XXXIV-NO.145 - September 27, 1897 

JOHNNY SHAFER 
BORN A CRIPPLE, HE RIDES A NEWS WHEEL, AND SELLS THE EVENING NEWS 

Johnny Shafer is 15 years old. He doesn't look it.  All that time he has been a cripple, and
never very strong physically.  His face tells its own story of suffering. His mother has none
too much of this world's wealth and so Johnny sells THE NEWS. You may see him any day at the
corner of Swan and Main, the the shadow of Ellicott Square. If you watch you will see him go
into the Western Union building, and taking his handkerchief wipe the dust from a tiny bicycle.
It is his wheel, a NEWS bicycle, made for him by the Niagara Bicycle Company. If he never sees
another ray of sunshine in this world's battle for food and clothes, Johnny Shafer will have
happiness to spare from the joy he felt when he knew that wheel was his and when after
chokingly telling his thanks, he took it away. He learned to ride rapidly and now he gets
around on this wheel and he says it has helped him amazingly in his business. No, he didn't
exactly win it in the contest, but Johnny Shafer sold nearly 5000 copies of the NEWS within six
weeks and deserved a wheel if anybody did. That doesn't make any difference. He has the wheel.
He's happy and he sells the NEWS every day at the corner of Main and Swan and keeps his wheel
shining.

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