BIO: James A. Black, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Judy Banja Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/ _________________________________________ Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches by J. N. Tillard Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 A Long Time Citizen of The Town JAMES A. BLACK Has Spent a Long and Busy Life in The Community and, While Not Attracting Much Attention, Has Performed His Part THE pedestrian who passes over the several bridges spanning the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad in this city and stops to gaze at the innumerable shifting engines at work in the yards, even in these slack times, and notes their size and power, could scarcely imagine that immediately after the Civil War, a half dozen little "dinkies" the largest of which could be lifted up bodily by a modern wrecking crane and set into the ordinary flat car without making much of a load, constituted the whole shifting power for the Altoona yards and shops. Before the car shops were built at Fourth Street; the little shifting engines, 36, 48, 86, 110 and 143 were about the whole thing and the engineers were Tim Donahue, Al. McHugh, John Young, A. C. Rickabaugh and James A. Black, while Frank Kolley and John McHugh also pulled the throttle on locomotives of the same type, the numbers of which the writer has now forgotten. Most of these shifters were employed in and about the Twelfth Street shop yards, the big yard between Fourth and Seventeenth Streets not having so much to do as the freight train crews made up their own trains with their own engines before they started out on their trip. These tiny machines would make a poor showing these days in handling the drafts of huge steel cars that now make up the equipment of the road, but forty years ago, the average car was of ten ton capacity and they were equal to the job. Railroading was a sort of free and easy business those days and most of these old engineers had some hobby on the side to which they devoted some time, Tim Donahue being known as an auctioneer or cryer of sales and of such a witty turn that when he was conducting a sale he was sure to have a large and appreciative audience whether any one wanted any of the goods he was trying to dispose of or not. But they were all good engineers and devoted to their machines and as the rules and regulations allowed a wider latitude in the way of ornamentation than they do now, they spent considerable time in polishing up the brasswork and fancy ornaments with which their machines were decorated. Most of these men have long since passed away, Messrs. Rickabaugh and Black being about the sole survivors of the early crowd. Mr. Rickabaugh was recently placed on the retired list, but James A. Black left his engine more than a quarter of a century ago to engage in the coal business, and is still at it though he is fast approaching his three score and ten and his hair is very white. He was born in Hollidaysburg sixty-seven years ago and spent his boyhood and youth in the county capital, enlisting toward the close of the Civil War in the One Hundred and Third Pennsylvania Volunteers as a sergeant under Captain Daugherty, well known in his day in this city. When the war was over and he was mustered out, he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad as a fireman on the Middle Division and after several years was promoted to engineer, taking charge of the little 143 in the Twelfth Street yards in the motive power department. When the old freight shop that stood along Ninth Avenue below Twelfth Street was burned, the work was transferred to the Middle Division Roundhouse and the 143 was kept busy shifting freight cars in and out of the shop. When the new freight shop was built at First Street and Andy Kipple moved his forces down there, the shifter and its engineer and fireman, J. Westley Burley, went along and for thirteen years Mr. Black shifted cars in the lower yard, until one day in 1883 he stepped off and began piloting coal teams about the muddy streets of the city. His old fireman took command of the little engine and still runs it in the car shop yards. Mr. Black has not been the sort of man to often get his name into the public prints as he has always been too busy attending to his own business to do that, but none the less he has been the sort of individual that makes a solid and thriving community. A quiet, steady, tireless worker, if he and his kind were eliminated from any community there would not be much of it left, for after all the man who from day to day does the useful work of the world without attracting attention to himself is the fellow who constitutes the backbone of society. Never having contracted an itch for notoriety, their mental processes are not disturbed by ambitions that may produce only dead sea ripples, and their energies are directed toward making it a better world to live in for those who may be dependent upon them and those who know them best will most greatly appreciate their virtues. They are the sort of prophets who, contrary to tradition, are most honored in their own country, which is made up of their families and immediate neighbors. While their fame does not reach wide, their children usually walk in straight paths and in the end rise up to call them blessed. If their achievements may not have mounted high as men measure them or their deeds been heralded afar, they come down to the end without regrets and are not the victims of remorse because of wrong done to their neighbors in their efforts to climb over the heads of others. Mr. Black has seen the place which for the greater portion of his life, he has made his home, grow from a village to quite a pretentious city and has kept pace with it, treading the toilsome way with patience and dilligence, discharging every duty to family, community, church and state, a good citizen in every sense of the word, demanding nothing for himself that he has not earned by the toil of hand and brain, thereby earning the respect and esteem of every man who knows him and when he finally walks out the far path and the mists of the unseen envelop him, a sense of distinct loss will come to many who will not feel it when much more pretentious men step down and out. But he is still hale, for the pace that kills has not cut off his years and he may yet be long in the land of the living. So may it be. #