NEWS: Items from the Cambria Freeman, February 13, 1903, Cambria County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Patty Millich Copyright July 2008. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ _________________________________________ Cambria Freeman Ebensburg, Pa. Friday, February 13, 1903 LOCAL AND PERSONAL Saturday is Valentine day. Mr. Thomas Seymore, of Allegheny township, is confined to his home with smallpox. Mr. William G. Wilson, of Blacklick township, was a visitor to Ebensburg on Tuesday. Mrs. John Bowman, of Carroll township, who had been quite ill, is able to be about again. Dr. Olin G. A. Barker, of Pittsburg, spent Sunday with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Barker, in this place. Messrs. John Barnett and Vincent Malloy, of Allegheny township, were visitors to Ebensburg on Tuesday. Lent begins on Ask Wednesday which occurs this year on February 25th and lasts for a period of forty days. Philip N. Shettig, Esq., of this place, attended a session of the Clearfield county court at Clearfield, Pa. this week. Fire on Wednesday afternoon of last week damaged a coal crusher of the Cambria Steel company, near Johnstown, to the amount of $25,000. Mr. Thomas A. Bradley, of Lilly, deputy factory inspector for this district, made his tour of inspections through Ebensburg on Monday. There will be a convention of coal miners of central Pennsylvania in Altoona on the second Tuesday of March. A new scale of wages is to be considered. A new machine for planing engine frames was placed in the Altoona shops last week. It will plane two engine frames at one time, and is said to be the biggest planer in the world. Ex-County treasurer, Samuel J. McClune, has purchased the real estate and insurance agency of Edgar O. Eisher of Johnstown and will continue the same business in that city. Solomon Suter, a wealthy farmer of Mt. Pleasant township in Westmoreland county, was held up by an unknown negro near Mt. Pleasant on Monday morning and relieved of his pocket book containing $25 in money and a check calling for $600. Mr. T. Stanton Davis purchased for himself, John L. Elder and B. F. James, the farm one mile west of Ebensburg belonging to J. L. and T. W. Jones, heirs of the late David Jones. The farm contains 141 acres and the consideration was $4,030 cash. Thursday morning of last week the Cherrytree accommodation encountered a landslide above Carrolltown. The engine and two cars were sideswiped and ruined and the passengers violently shaken up. The engineer and fireman jumped, probably saving their lives. Thomas T. Domley, of Cresson, a brakeman on the Cresson and Clearfield division was jolted from a car at Cresson on Friday and sustained an abrasion of the right shoulder and elbow and lacerations of the right hand. He was taken to the Altoona hospital were the injuries were dressed. An engine slipped from a crane in No. 2 erecting shop in Altoona on Saturday morning and went crashing to the floor, sustaining considerable damage. Several of the men who were working about the locomotive narrowly escaped being killed, fortunately receiving but slight injuries. Barney McClement, employed by the Vintondale Lumber Company at Vintondale, narrowly escaped death on Monday morning. He was riding a car of logs, when they started to roll. He was caught under one of them and sustained internal injuries. He was taken to the hospital at Altoona. Wednesday evening of last week the high winds blew a telephone pole across the tracks at Glen Campbell. The Glen Campbell accommodation coming along shortly afterward was thrown from the track and slightly injured. The passengers received a serve shaking up and the engine is ruined. Attachments for the arrest of the president, treasurer and officers of the Pittsburg, Johnstown, Ebensburg & Eastern Railroad company were issued out of the Blair county court Monday in contempt proceedings for failure to obey a decree of the State Supreme court. The officers of the corporations reside in Philadelphia. A cutting affray occurred at the east end of the Gallitzin tunnel on Sunday afternoon, in the same shanty in which Charles Irvin shot another colored man and for which he was sentenced to the penitentiary. One negro was cut in the side in the affray. Four negroes were arrested for the affair and were taken to jail on Tuesday. A call has been issued for a convention of sub-district No. 3, of district No. 2, United Mine Workers of America to be held in Benscreek on March 6th. The officers to be elected for the sub-district are a president, vice-president, secretary-treasurer, one member of the district board, six members of the executive board and two auditors. Mr. T. Stanton Davis, of the real estate firm of Larimer & Davis sold the timber off a tract of land in Jackson township, belonging to Captain Thomas Davis Lester. Larimer and T. Stanton Davis to Kuhn & Kough, of Winder to take possession immediately. The tract contains over 2,000,000 feet, three-fourths of which is hemlock, consideration $6,000. Three or four white men disguised as negroes broke into the home of Mrs. Sweitzer, living near Dumas, Somerset county, the other night. They bound the woman in a chair on the porch and threw a bed quilt over her head, after which they ransacked the house securing $2. Mrs. Switzer, who had been an invalid for years, was nearly frozen when discovered by her children upon their return from church. A bear's fur is worth from $20 to $50. To bring this price the animal must be killed between September and March. The deer skin has small value as a fur. If tanned it will bring from $1 to $5 for a rug. An otter's hid is worth from $10 to $15. A pelt of the unsavory skunk is worth 50 cents to $2 and the rat skins will bring from 5 to 20 cents each. The passing of the beaver hats left the rabbit's fur without value. To facilitate the handling of the ore cars, the Cambria Steel company at Johnstown, will install an automatic car dumper, which, it is said, will perform three times the amount of work which can be accomplished under the present plan. The machinery will be placed in such position along the tracks that as the cars arrive they will be lifted up, turned upside down and the contents deposited in special self unloading cars, which travel to the furnaces. The cars, when empty, will be classified at once and returned to the Pennsylvania tracks, thus preventing congestion. Suits in which damages in the sum of $800,000 are claimed against the Pennsylvania Railroad company were entered in the Huntingdon county court last week by J. R. and W. H. Simpson, administrator of the estate of Robert E. Brown, a Broad Top coal operator and the Delta Coal Mining company, of Cambria county. The plaintiff's claim that they were the victims of unjust freight discrimination in the transportation of coal from 1893 to 1900, inasmuch as a few favorite shippers were allowed a rebate of 60 cents per ton of coal, as against 30 cents the rebate which obtains generally. It is further claimed that because of this discrimination Robert E. Brown was forced to make an assignment, while the Delta company went into bankruptcy. An entertainment for the benefit of the Catholic Church at Vintondale will be given in the church at that place on Thursday evening, March 19th, 1903, under the direction of Rev. Father Hurton, by the New York Entertainment company. The entertainment will be accompanied by a lecture explaining Catholic doctrines, by Prof. Starkweather of Boston. Also by five vocal solos by Prof. George Trewella Martin, of Boston and New York. Also by the history of Joan of Arc in moving pictures, and a series of beautiful moving pictures illustrating the songs. The entertainment will close with a magnificent spectacle, the eruption of Mt. Pelee and the destruction of St. Pierre. Admission 50 cents. Do not fail to attend as the entertainment is of a high class and the opportunity of witnessing it may not again occur. AN EQUITY HEARING An equity case was heard in the court house on Tuesday afternoon before Judge O'Connor. The case is that of Porter Kinports vs. Charles Farabaugh, of Blacklick township, and involves the title to a tract of coal land belonging to Mr. Farabaugh. It seems from the testimony that E. E. Brillhart took an option from Mr. Farabaugh for his land on the 27th day of June, 1899, for the consideration of $4,000, and agreed that if the purchase money was not paid within thirty days from the date of the option, the option would be null and void. Brillhart then disposed of his option to Mr. Kinports. The purchase money was not paid or tendered to Mr. Farabaugh within the thirty days agreed upon but at a later date, and Mr. Farabaugh declined to receive the money. When the option turned up in the hands of Mr. Kinports, the date appearing herein for its expiration was August 4th, 1899--a period of two weeks later than the parties agreed upon. According to Farabaugh's witnesses, Brillhart read the agreement to him, and that as read, it was to expire on the 27th day of July, 1899. He thereupon signed the option. Brillhart testified that the option was to expire on the 10 August, 1899, and that he read it so to Farabaugh. Mr. Farabaugh declined to receive the money and execute a deed, a bill in equity was filed to compel him to specifically perform his contract.