While writing the Quaker Meeting piece for the book, I wrote this on the clocks It was too long for the book. I will post it here and in the Millville History Blog at: https://www.millvillepahistory.com/ where it will live longer and be found easier.

        The Quaker Meetinghouse Clocks

                For eighty years, two clocks have resided in the Quaker Meetinghouse in Millville, PA. One sets silently as the other takes up counting the passing of time.

                The silent one joined the old Regulator Style clock made by the Waterbury Clock Co. in the fall of 1944. It has ended a journey that started in England. Its clockworks were imported for John Eves, the settler, in the late 1790’s or early 1800’s. The mechanism was one of two that were purchased for the Eves family. The second was for John Eves’s oldest son Thomas. Both were installed in cases in this country.

                The last known location for the Thomas Eves clock was in Christiana, PA in the home of Eleanora Chandler. She and her husband are both deceased and their whereabouts are unknown. How it got there is unknown today.

The John Eves clockwork was built into a graceful wooden, upright, floor case. It has four hands. The usual second hand on its stem above the center, the minute and hour hands in the central position, and a stem with a hand below the center marking off the months.

                John’s clock had been handed down to his son Joseph, who lived then on the farm in Madison township today known as 41 Taylor Road. Joseph’s son Milton then inherited it and it remained there. Milton’s son Watson retained the clock till he left the farm. Watson sold the clock to Parvin Eves, Jr. ( reportedly for $0.75). Parvin’s ceiling was too low, so his brother Francis Eves took it home at sale for $ 2.00.

                The clock then traveled to Frances’s daughter, Matilda Parker, then to her son Wilson, and then to his daughter Margaret Bartlow. She sold it to Myra Eves in 1930. Myra’s niece Margaret Henderson then arranged the final move.

                On July 23, 1944, Margaret Henrie Henderson of Montgomery, West Virginia signed an agreement placing the John Eves clock in the Millville Quaker Meetinghouse. This document with the Trustees for the Monthly  Meeting of Friends held at Millville involved a “certain grandfather’s clock purported to be the clock at one time owned by John Eves, the original settler of the Village of Millville”. It was her desire “that the same shall be kept in the Borough of Millville”. She was to retain title to the clock and entrusted care and custody to the Meeting.

                The Meeting is not to “in any matter, change or repair said clock and permit no one to remove it from said premises for any purpose whatsoever, except upon written consent and agreement” of her. It is to remain on the premises so long as said Meeting remains active and regular meetings of worship are held there.

                She signed it as did Charles Eves, Jack Ruckle, C.H. Henrie, and Perry Eves as Trustees.  Taken from the original signed July 23, 1944.

                This clock stands 7 feet, 4 inches tall. It is made with three sections, the case housing, the weight shaft, and the base. It sits on four claw feet attached to the 11-inch deep by 18-inch wide base. Atop the base is the 8-inch deep by 12-inch wide shaft. Crown is the case housing at 9 inches deep by 16 inches wide. It is decorated with three small acorn cup adornments. It has a natural wood finish.

                The case housing holds the imported clockworks. Its face is a 12-inch square showing the four hands on a tan paper background. The hours are Roman numerals, with minutes marked off without numbers between the twelve hours. There is no pendulum. It is wound with ropes in the shaft. Because of its age and concern for the wear on the gears, it has not been operated for at least 70 years.

                The John Eves clock sits on the raised platform against the east wall. It is a reminder of the community's Quaker heritage and the source of the Quaker founding in England by George Fox.

                The Waterbury Clock Company clock hangs on the north wall, east of the second window. It is high enough that a grown individual must stand on the bench below for access. No record exists to determine how old it is. The company started production of clocks in 1927 and ceased in 1944. Sometimes in between the Meeting acquired its clock. In 1922 they purchased the R. H. Ingersoll & Brother company and changed the name to Ingersoll Waterbury Watch Company, thus this must have been manufactured before 1922. In 1942 they sold to a company that today is the Timex Watch.  https://theoldtimey.com/the-waterbury-clock-company/

                This clock is 37 inches long in a wooden case. About a third is face. The glass face itself is 12 inches in diameter and has a wooden halo around it that makes the width of the face 18 inches. The remainder of the case is the 12-inch wide, 25-inch long pendulum tower. This enclosure is class fronted as is the 12-inch face. The pendulum is weighted with a 4-inch brass disc. Two string hung, stone weights, one by three by six inches, drive the motion and are raised by two key wound, springs behind the face.

                This Waterbury clock is wound each First Day morning for a few inches of rise that will keep the time for several hours. It could be powered for several days if the weights were fully raised but they are not to reduce the wear on the gears. There are three hands, hour, minute, and second. The physical hand is missing. The numbers are Roman for the hours and minutes have marks in the circle around the exterior.

                The quiet tick-tock aids all in their medication.

The First John Eves Marker

 

The First (lost) Monument

                This typewritten page came to me. I sent it to Ethel Henrie for comment. Frank Bartlow Jr. gave me some verbal history on it also. Not all of this is in the book.  Because of the condition of the original, I have OCD it to share here. What was very interesting is that the Bi-centennial Commission had placed a new monument on the rumored site of this original.

 

STONE MARKER

 

Through the efforts of Charles and Ellen Russel Eves, a stone marker was placed at Larry Spring, so-called for Larry Flynn, whose passage across the Atlantic was paid by John Eves, for which he was to serve him for a certain number of years. However, he stayed with him as long as he lived.

 

This stone marked the site of the first cabin built by John Eves and his son, Thomas in 1771. It was built of logs, and for a roof had shingles, split, and three feet long, laid 18 inches to the weather and fastened on by poles and hickory witches. The floor was made of logs split in two pieces and laid split side up with one end in the ground and the other on posts to level up.

 

A short ceremony, marking the laying of the stone was held; witnessed by a handful of interested folks. After Charles Eves gave a short history of the site, John W. Eves turned over the first shovel full of ground followed by three-year-old Charles Herbert Henrie III .turning the next, as he was told by Ellen Eves that he was an eighth-generation descendant..

 

Sadly, no pictures were taken of the ceremony. Mae Dennen, now 90 years old, took a picture later the same day.

Note by Ethel Henrie

Maybe the Charles Eves history in the Bloom library has something on the subject. I think 1931 is the date.

 

Edith Russell Letter to Dean from 1972

Millville - The First 200 Years 

Supporting Documents

Edith Russell's Letter to Dean

    In late 1971 Edith Russell, who lived on Main Street with her husband George, agreed to give me a list of some of the businesses in her memory. She hand-wrote this in early 1972. I ask about doctors. You can see that she provided a nice list. I never used any of the doctors in the book. (I claim lack of space always). Most of the business references were fact-checked and several are sources in the book. The reference to locations that were current in 1972, will be difficult to locate fifty years hence.

    Some of the extra notes are my edit-helps for the book. Time is also causing a loss of contrast for the document.   Side note: Edith also made a very strong dandelion wine every spring.

 

 

Girton Manufacturing Co. fire 1987

 

Girton Manufacturing Co. fire 1987

 

During the early morning, just after midnight, Tuesday, September 29th,1987, a fire was discovered in the middle of the center section of the Girton Manufacturing Co.  manufacturing building on Third Street in Millville, PA. It had progressed a short way along the roof and had broken through showing flames that caused a call to the local fire company. They reported and called for help from sister companies. Before the event was over, more than 25 pieces of equipment from seven fire companies were on the scene.

At first, the fire moved slowly into the high roof of that section of the building but soon the lower roof line of the two adjacent sections was involved. As it broke through those roofs it spread rapidly. The heat became so intense that the pieces of material afire were carried high into the air and as the low breeze moved east toward the residential end of the town it fell on the homes and grounds there. Fire equipment was dispatched uptown to prevent a spread there.

Many pressurized containers of oxygen and acetylene were heated to the point that the valves on them were blown off. Many exploded with loud reports, and some became projectiles that wormed or shot their way through the inferno. The flames consumed the eastern, older sections faster. The wooden trusses and deck had been covered with forty-plus years of tar as regular maintenance. Inches deep, it burns with heat more intense than the supporting wood.

Because of the newer construction and the direction of the wind that was drifting easterly toward town, the west end section was attacked by the fire last. But it received a lot of attention from the assembled fire personnel. Pictures taken during and after the fire show that the western corner of the structure remained standing minus the roof. Block walls stood at random around the perimeter.

By early light, the fire company volunteers and much of the town could see that little had been spared. The brick structure at the mill pond side in the middle was standing. It had been built at the time the first building was erected by Jordan and Lavine as a silk-throwing operation. The original building was an “L” shape for the main building with a boiler room attached on the mill side. It included a boiler and a steam engine that drove a drive shaft extending through the wall into the main area to power the overhead shafts. The shafts and pullys were used to provide motion to the variety of equipment used in the throwing of silk.

 It also powered a generator for electricity. This was not only used in the plant but was extended by wires into the community. This was the first electric power in town. Interestingly, this industry was the first in the community with electricity. A large steam boiler provided power to an engine, which ran a drive shaft, located down the center of the main building. A belt from the shaft returned to the engine room and ran the first electric generator in town. This unit provided lights for the building and electricity was also distributed to some sections of the community by the Millville Electric Light Company from here.

This boiler room also survived. It housed two newer  large coal-fired, low-pressure steam boilers for heating throughout the plant. A 100 HP high-pressure boiler for testing equipment and two electric driven, open-drive, medium pressure, air compressors. The roof had been badly damaged, and the equipment was in a variety of conditions. None were eventually salvaged.

At the northwest end, the two-story front of the bay stood. The roof was gone. The flooring of the second floor was gone but a few of the files and office equipment from that floor had fallen into the ashes below. Most of the contents of these were in cinders or lumps of metal. Here were stored nearly all of the records of the company. The engineering department had been housed on this floor as were the sales and accounting departments. A small wooden shed at the pond side, where the company watchman resided, was destroyed also.

When the insurance adjusters were finished and the state fire marshal had left, the remains were scavenged for at least some small bits to resurrect the company. The petty cash box survived with some small change, (the bills were incinerated), a complete list of all the creditors, gut no list of those that owed funds, and little else.

 

                The Manufacturing Company had recently consolidated all its business offices in the main manufacturing building. The former offices that had been shared with sister company Girton Sales Co across the mill race had housed both companies’ phone systems. The phone lines that had been run across the race to the plant were now routed into the small conference room in the former office building. By Wednesday morning the management had crammed into this room and was working the phones that were now active there.

                Several tasks were critical. The most pressing was to find a temporary manufacturing facility that was available, close enough for employees to travel from their homes, and with at least some sheet metal working equipment. A board of directors previously had served the company. One of the members of that board was the president of a manufacturing business, Metso, in Danville. They were in the process of changing a product line that had manufactured storage bins for industrial waste. The press brake, shears, welders, and other requirements for a similar process were there. This connection allow the Girton to work in that facility. A few of the employees settled in the next week.

                Orders that had been promised and the materials to produce them had all been lost. The engineering that was critical for the fabrication of each item had burnt. But, from memory, one small ice builder was completed as soon as the material needed was rerouted to Danville. This raised the spirits.  Former customers were ask to send any and all information.  Construction drawings began arriving from customers around the world.

                Eli Lilly, the Indiana drug company, was planning to introduce a new drug. The production line was nearly completed but needed a large washer to do the sanitation of the items used in the manufacture. The washer was a week away from delivery in the old plant. Eli  Lilly sent two engineers to live in the area for weeks to help Danville add to the equipment needed to do stainless production and to source raw materials. Other customers sprang to the task and assisted.

                A second priority became obvious almost immediately. Office space. A relationship with the local Millville Mutual Insurance company provided a space on the second floor of their building. It had been built for the expansion of their workforce and was still mostly available. Phone lines were rerouted there, and the full office staff was back at work there in days. This housed the engineering department and management. Many of these Millville sited employees  spent hours on the road between Danville and Millville.

                Now for a permanent home. The insurance company hired a contractor to clear the site. Salvage of equipment was minimal. This has finished before the snow that December of 1987. Bloom Penn in Bloomsburg, a design-build firm was hired to construct a 50,00 square foot factory on the original location. The area was raised by three feet for the base to move it above the 100-year flood plane of the adjacent Little Fishing Creek. The new plant has a manufacturing floor of 45,000 square feet and a two-story office. It was equipped with several new pieces, a few that were older pieces from a storage building that did not burn and most of the equipment that they were using at Danville. The Danville firm was disposing of the equipment that Girton was using, in a public sale six months after they had moved into the Danville construction. Girton purchased the essential pieces they were using at the sale and then moved them to Millville to the new plant when it was available.

                The floor layout was broken into four bays, every 25 feet in width. In the easternmost bay were hung two twenty-ton traveling bridges with two five-ton hoists. The second bay also had the same bridge arrangement but with 10-ton hoists. The third was for lighter production and had two five-ton cranes. The fourth was filled, in part, with the restrooms on the first floor, and over these were plant offices. A stockroom fitted in at the south end. The south end wall had a large drive-in door at the second bay to allow shipping of the products and receiving large raw materials. The fourth had a dock level overhead and a walk-in door.

                To the southwest corner of the manufacturing building, an office was located. It is a two-story mostly open office configuration. A management office and conference room are at the south end of the first floor. Two offices, a training room for 25, and a customer lounge are at the south end of the second floor with the remainder for future office expansion and record storage. In the center of the first floor, a fireproof room was constructed to house all the important company records as a result of lessons learned.

                Construction was completed in the early winter of 1988. Over the Christmas and New Year’s weekends, the equipment that had accumulated in Danville was moved to the new plant. An effort had been made to ship all the production at the Danville location before the move, but a few items needed completion and were shipped from Danville in January.  The offices moved with a lot less stress. Details like transferring the phone connections and changing the mail address were easy. Moving the new press brake took more muscle and other major pieces caused the same challenges.

                The fire destroyed all the design information and historical records of the installed equipment base. Thus, a decision was made to build the remaining business on the original founder’s product: cleaning equipment. The employees had an amazing recall for most of the components used in the current items. Customers had a variety of helpful drawings, repair part lists, specs, etc. They shared these to build back a knowledge base. It was decided to continue the production of the ice builders as a few employees could reconstruct most of the design. A contract with an English firm that had a license to make this line in England had the prints that had been provided under the license and shared copies of most of those necessary.

                The old plant floor housed old lathes, small press brakes, jump presses and tons of tools and dies. This had all been hauled off to the scrap dealer for salvage. They had been retained over the years because they would produce an item or two for the manufacturer of a replacement part for an old tank filler or washer. With the loss of the information and the equipment to make it, the spare parts business for the previous base was gone. When they moved in the employees found a new shear, new press brake and a variety of smaller pieces of equipment that would be needed to increase the production to fill existing orders and a renewed interest by customers in cleaning equipment.