The SNYDER COUNTY POST History Page

VISIT OUR FRIENDS AT

The Snyder County Post

To Post Your News Item, Email editor@snydercountypost.com

136 Years Ago - 1879
    Two severe snow storms visited Snyder County on Saturday afternoon.
    The long trestle on the Sunbury and Lewistown Railroads, east of Beavertown, will soon be among the things of the past. The new road bed is now used. The rails will be taken from the trestle and the woodwork demolished.
    Coal has advanced twenty-five cents per ton in Snyder County during the past week.
    There is more business done at the Middleburg railroad station than at any other point along the S&L Line. Many teams pass through the town daily conveying lumber.

100 Years Ago - 1910
    Snow, snow everywhere makes for good sleighing at present. Last Wednesday, the thermometer registered ten degrees below zero, while on Friday it was eight below.
    Mrs. Walter Graybill and five children of Swineford are sick with diptheria. Some are very sick while others only slightly. We hope for their speedy recovery.
    The schools of Swineford were closed this past Monday in order to thoroughly disinfect the rooms on account of the dread disease diptheria being in the neighborhood.
    The Sunbury Daily of Dec. 2nd says Jay H. Heim, who was foreman of "The Post" at Middleburg for seven years has accepted a position as linotype operator.

75 Years Ago - 1935
    There is a mild epidemic of abdominal disturbance around Snyder County which closely resembles appendicitis. Persons suffering should consult their physician because of the danger of appendicitis.
    Frances Specht of Middleburg RD, lays claim to raising the heaviest hog this season. When butchered, it weighed 797 lbs. and rendered 325 pounds of lard.
    A card party was held in the Freeburg high school room by the PTA for the benefit of the piano fund.

35 Years Ago - 1975
    Trustees of the bankrupt Penn Central Railroad have given official notice that they intend to end approximately one hundred and five years of railroad service in Snyder County west of Selinsgrove on February 27, 1976.
    Rescue Hose Company will hold a Christmas party for children of Beavertown, Beaver Township, and Adams Township on Saturday at the fire hall. Santa will be showing up, but the reindeer will be staying at home to rest for Christmas.

From the Archives of
The
Middleburg Post

The Telegraph Comes To
Snyder County -- 1852

    The Susquehanna and North Branch and West Branch Telegraph Company was created by an act of the Penna. Legislature on April 9th, 1840, five years after the first tele-graphic message had been sent.
    The message, "What hath God wrought?" sent by "Morse Code" from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to Morse's partner in Baltimore, officially opened the completed telegraph line on May 24, 1844. Morse allowed Annie Ellsworth, the young daughter of a friend, to choose the words of the message, and she selected a verse from Numbers 23:23: "What hath God wrought?", which was recorded onto paper tape. Morse's early system produced a paper copy with raised dots and dashes, which were translated later by an operator.
    The magnetic telegraph was nearing the forks of the Susque-hanna and on March 30, 1850, The Sunbury American and Shamokin Journal reported that "the telegraph line is now extended from Berwick through Bloomsburg to Danville."
    Then, on June 7th, 1851, the same paper proclaimed that "the telegraph has been extended to this place. The line went into operation on June 7, 1851 with the office at the Post Office on Market Square." The rates were said to be compar-able to a letter mailed only six years prior and was considered a huge success.
    Finally, on December 15, 1852, Selinsgrove got a pre-Christmas present when the wire reached the town and the office opened in the Shindel and Wagenseller Drug Store at 9 S. Market Street. The first operator was Sylvanus Wenck nad G.G.L. Shindel, who later became the associate judge. The office continued in this office until it was burned out in the big fire of February 21, 1872 After that the office was located at the Railroad Station on High Street.
    The wires were first strung along Market Street and were part of the line running along the west shore of the Susquehanna River between Northumberland and Clarks Ferry with offices intervening at Liverpool, McKees Half Falls, Port Trev-orton, and Selinsgrove.

    William Gaugler sent the first message to Sunbury. The office was crowded with people to witness the important event. There were a great many amusing incidents that took place in connection with the line and office here. On one occasion, a lady nicknamed "Old Aunty Selin" was in the store, purchasing groceries, when a thunderstorm was raging. A telegraph pole below town was splintered by a bolt as a report like a pistol was heard in the office.
    Aunty Selin said, "Oh! My! Mr. Shindel, was that a message coming?" Shindel informed her that if it was, it was a dispatch from a source he did not like and she left feeling satisfied that the telegraph was a wonderful invention.
    On another occasion, old Samuel Gaugler, a blacksmith who resided at Middleburg, called on the office to see how it worked. The judge got him near a machine and asked him if he knew old Henry Backus, the operator at McKee Half Falls. He said he did and Judge Shindel called up Backus, telling him an old friend wanted to speak to him and told him who he was.

A YouTube video which shows how a telegraph works.

Instantly, Backus replied "Tell old Sam that I have some good whiskey and if he comes down I will give him a good swig.
Sam replied, "Hot er sell schund versucht?"
Being told in the affirmative, he replied, "Dunnerwetter" and asked what the cost was. He was told there would be no cost, but Sam threw down a quarter and departed, well pleased with what he had learned.

Phelps' Electro-motor Printing Telegraph from circa 1880, the last and most advanced telegraphy mechanism designed by George May Phelps. Note the keyboard for entering the message.

    Later, over the years, and with the removal of heavy traffic over the Sunbury & Lewistown Rail-road, the telegraph offices dwindled down to the one at Selinsgrove. Here ran a direct wire into Harrisburg. The late Harry Aurand was the last operator of the local station.
    With the start of PP&L development in Monroe Township, there again started a rush of telegrams into Selinsgrove. However, even this office was later shut down, giving way to modern conven-iences such as telephone and a much improved Postal System.
    On Monday, 12 July 1999, a final telegram was sent from the National Liberty Ship Memorial, the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, in San Francisco Bay to President Bill Clinton in the White House. Officials of Globe Wireless reported that "The message was 95 words, and it took six or eight minutes to copy it." They then transmitted the message to the White House via e-mail.
    That event was also used to mark the final commercial U.S. ship-to-shore telegraph mess-age transmitted from North America by Globe Wireless, a company founded in 1911. Sent from its wireless station at Half Moon Bay, California, the sign-off message was a repeat of Samuel F. B. Morse's message 155 years earlier, "What hath God wrought?"