NEWS: Items from the Morning Tribune, December 1, 1879, Blair County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by JRB Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/ _______________________________________________ Items from the Morning Tribune, Altoona, Monday, December 1, 1879 On Christmas eve the "Wizard of Menlo Park, New Jersey," Thomas A. Edison, will illuminate all the buildings in the modest little hamlet in which he works and lives. To that end wires have been run from house to house, and connected thence with his laboratory. The illumination will be by means of what might be called electric jets, but which, more properly speaking, are small spirals of platinum and iridium in a state of incandescence in a vacuum. He will send invitations far and wide in order that all may see what has been considered visionary and impossible has been accomplished. He says the thing is done, and that he has protected his invention in this country and every considerably country in Europe. Gas companies may as well begin to reduce the price of gas, and then reduce it again, for he can undersell them and make a large profit. STATE NOTES. One of the Indians at Carlisle barracks died last Monday, and was buried in the cemetery on Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoon Peter Mulvey, of Cascade township, Lycoming county, fell dead in Williamsport from heart disease. George Shrom, of the Newport Ledger, threatens to sue the News men if they print any more libelous matter concerning him. Mrs. Elizabeth Laubach, of Rauch's gap, Clinton county, will be 90 years old on the 3d day of December. She is able to ride around through the neighborhood, being quite active in her old age. John Johnston, the Westmoreland county farmer, whose shooting by Jerry Telford was mentioned in a previous edition, is still living and will likely recover. Telford is still at large, and the county has offered $200 reward for his arrest. A man named Pope, who had his back broken over two weeks ago, in Weyman's coal mine, near Wilkinsburg, has been removed to the West Penn hospital by the county authorities. The fact of his living so long in this condition is remarkable. The immense fly-wheel driven by a powerful engine used in the rail mill of the Pennsylvania steel works in Harrisburg, weighing between 60 and 70 tons, on Thursday burst with a loud report, creating terror and consternation for several minutes. Fortunately no one was hurt save a man named Charles Powers, who received slight injuries by being scalded on the arms. CITY AND COUNTRY. The Senatorial Nomination We have it from those in a position to know that Senator Lemon will not be a candidate for re-election, and this fact has enlivened the hopes of Democratic aspirants in this county, who think that if Mr. Lemon is once out of the way there is no probability of any other than a Democrat being chosen in the Senatorial district. Among the aspirants, beside Messrs. S. M. Woodcock and W. Fiske Conrad, is A. V. Dively, Esq., who is disposed to contest for the Blair county nomination on learning the gratifying intelligence that Senator Lemon was out of the way as the prospective Republican candidate. Ex-Sheriff Herman Baumer will doubtless be the nominee of Cambria county, and in that event it will be questionable whether the Democracy up on the mountain will waive their right to a nomination, seeing that Blair has had the candidate in the last two contests. FROM TYRONE. Murray and O'Neil, the two boys who received such a severe sentence in Judge Orvis' court at Bellefonte a short time ago for the robbery of the railroad ticket office at Philipsburg - one of whom received an additional three years for contempt of court - came near making their escape from the jail the following night by digging out of their cell. They had reached the corridor when discovered. FROM ELDORADO. Mr. Jacob Buck killed the "boss" hog. Weight, four twenty five. Misses Annie and Jennie Curry, of Hollidaysburg, formerly of Eldorado, have been visiting friends here recently. FROM HOLLIDAYSBURG. Count Dassi is stopping at the Dannals House. The venerable David Blair, D.D., attended worship at the Baptist Church on Sunday. He is 95 years of age. On Saturday a Looper named Burtnell drove his wagon against a wagon standing in front of the Kellerman House, owned by George Buchanan, and smashed one of the front wheels into small pieces. On Saturday night Garber C. Lowry invested twenty-five cents in a chance on a watch and chain. When the drawing came off Garber held the lucky number, 24, and went home rejoicing. This was not the first Saturday night Garber was watched. A NARROW ESCAPE. One day last week William Cramer, aged about 15 years, had a narrow escape. He was working in Johnston's rolling mill. His coat caught in the rolls and he was being drawn to them when another employe named Jones grabbed him and with a powerful jerk tore the coat from his back and thus saved his life. New Advertisements. TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCER. - Know ye that I have this day (December 1) opened a new Grocery & Provision Store, And am now prepared to serve my friends and the public generally to a full line of GROCERIES, PROVISIONS, &c., Consisting of Flour, Cornmeal, Sugar, Coffees, Teas, Spices, Canned Goods, Pickles, Bacon, Fish, Soap, &c. WILLIAM CHAMPENO, TWELFTH STREET, Between Thirteenth and Fourteenth avenues, Nearly opposite Mayor's Office. CITY AND COUNTRY. Things Briefly Told. Frank Goughenour, son of Daniel Goughenour, of East Conemaugh, was killed on the railroad at Sunbury, Friday night, where he was employed. The artesian well in the company's yard has now reached a depth of sixteen hundred and seventy-five feet. The drills are still boring away at the hard limestone rock. Cambria county will have its first prosecution tried this week for violation of the law against selling liquor on election day. It is directed against Andrew H. Haug, of Carrolltown. All the saloon keepers, four in number, of Loretto, Cambria county, have been returned to the December court by F. P. Ward, President of St. Francis College, for selling liquor to minors, some of them students. Peter Mulvehill, of Upper Yoder township, Cambria county, Saturday afternoon lit his pipe with what he supposed to be a piece of paper. It turned out to be a $10 bill. There may be enough of the note left to induce the Treasury Department to replace it with another one. The Supreme Court adjourned on Friday, after rendering a number of decisions, among them that in the case of the Directors of the Poor of Blair county vs. the Overseers of the Poor of Clarion borough, certiorari to the Quarter Sessions of Clarion county. Judge Mercur rendered the opinion reversing the decree of the lower court. Mr. S. M. Brophy, the Chairman of the Democratic City Committee, has called a meeting of the committee, to be held at his office this evening. Although the Democrats were "snowed under" to a considerable extent in the recent elections they still manage to exhibit considerable sporadic vitality. Patrick Burns, who could "leck any wan or both" of the policemen, was drunk and disorderly at the Twelfth street bridge on Saturday at midnight and was surrounded by the force. After considerable tugging, during which Patrick kept a desperate hold of the railing, he was successfully escorted to the lock-up, where he remains in a dark dungeon. A New Railroad Project. The State Department on Friday granted a charter to the Lock Haven and Clearfield Railroad Company, in Clinton, Centre and Clearfield counties. Its length will be about fifty miles, and it will extend from a front on the line of the Bald Eagle Valley railroad, near the mouth of Beech creek, to a point on the line of the Tyrone and Clearfield railway at Philipsburg, Centre county. The capital stock is $1,000,000, divided into 2,000 shares of $50 each. The president is George B. Roberts, of Philadelphia, and the Directors Wistar Morris, N. Parker Shortridge, Edmund Smith, J. N. Dubarry, Strickland Kneass and John P. Green Middle Penitentiary Commission. The Middle Penitentiary Commission held a meeting at Huntingdon, last Tuesday, when various estimates were approved and considerable other routine business was transacted. The appropriation of $100,000 is now about exhausted, merely enough money being left to pay for some unfinished work on old contracts. The foundation walls have been covered for the winter and nearly all work suspended about the new institution, except that of quarrying stone for use next summer. As there will be no session of the Legislature this winter, the Middle Penitentiary is likely to be at a stand still for a year or more yet. A Kicking Horse and a Broken Buggy. A horse belonging to a man named Whitehead, residing at Elizabeth furnace, was being driven around the corner of Eleventh avenue and Twelfth street, yesterday afternoon, by two men. As the animal was turning he began to kick and rear and plunge. The spindle of the axle of the light wagon in which the men were seated was bent and had once before been broken, and when the horse plunged forward it snapped off and let the front of the vehicle down on the ground. The occupants were fortunately not injured, but their journey had to be delayed, and the wagon was hauled off to one side of the avenue and the horse taken to a stable. Rumors About Joseph K. Ely and His Family. For some time past there have been rumors about the city that Joseph K. Ely and his wife, formerly of this city, but who for some years past have been living in Kansas, about twenty-eight miles from Salina, were both dead, and that his son Joseph had been killed in a difficulty a few days ago. It was at first stated that a man named Miller, residing on Sixteenth avenue, had received a letter from Kansas setting forth that which is noted above, but a visit to Mr. Miller and to other parties in the same neighborhood, was barren of result. A reporter yesterday was put on the track of a couple of gentlemen who were likely to have the information in any one in the city had. The person first visited had heard a report that the people mentioned were dead, but had received no letter from Kansas. Another, related by marriage to Mrs. Ely, stated that he had no intelligence of the kind sought, but that he would not be surprised if the young man had come, to would come, to such an end as was reported. He had understood that the younger Ely had been to the town of Salina, and had got into trouble with and threatened to shoot a man sooner or later; as far as he knew at present, however, the family were all alive. The gentleman told the reporter if he obtained any information on the subject he would communicate it at once. Hyland, the Would-be Suicide, Wandering Around. Readers of the Tribune will probably remember an item of news from the Hollidaysburg correspondent, published on Tuesday morning, November 11, which stated that a man about 30 years of age named Hyland, who had been for years subject to temporary insanity, had cut this throat with a razor at Frankstown, inflicting severe gashes. The wounds were sewed up and the man was sent back to the almshouse, of which institution he had been an inmate at one time previously. Hyland must have escaped subsequently, for a man with his neck covered with cuts, one of them a running sore, appeared in the company's yard at the lower shops on Saturday and made inquiry there for an employe that he seemed to be acquainted with, and stated that "they" had had him in the almshouse but that he had made his escape. The deranged man in the condition he then was presented anything but an inviting spectacle. He lingered about the yard for a few minutes and then, not finding the object of his search, took his departure. Chief Holtzman heard of the circumstance and, not having seen him anywhere about the city, requested the night officers to detain him if they found him. As Hyland has not been seen since, it is presumed he returned to the almshouse or to Frankstown.