Vermilion, A Good Place to Live
AvrilMy Favorite Month: I don't like coaster rides, but that's the last of March and, usually, most of the month of April. What I look forward to is the end of the ride; when the ups, downs, twist, and turns are done, and you coast toward a stop. It'll come some morning this month. You'll smell it in the air, a warm breeze will touch your skin, and the season will have changed for good. (At least until Autumn.)
When I look out over the lake and the wind is bursting out of the northeast I wonder (wonder, wonder) what this place was like nearly 200 years ago. I know about where Captain William Austin's cabin was located in town. Now it's all houses or lake. If you drive from the waterworks west (through town), and get on Lake Road, it's somewhere in or on the lakefront just past Edson Creek. Take away all the flotsom and jetsom left by generations of boneheads like us, and imagine what life was like then. Not ideal, but challenging. April causes me to wonder such things.
Freedom of The Press: There was a distrubing article in the local paper this week involving constitutional rights. It's always politics~ ain't it. One councilman (#1) is angry at another councilman (#2) because he doesn't agree with the mayor. In his tirade about how (#2) may have comitted liable because he criticised the City's Chief Executive #1 went on to accuse the editor of the paper of yellow journalism for printing a letter written by #2.
Hogwash! I don't know where #1 went to school, but the Constitution of The United States of America guarantees both freedom of speech and freedom of the press. More importantly, #1 should know that because an editor of any publication allows an opinion, signed by the person expressing it, to be published it does not follow that the editor agrees or disagrees with the opinion(s) expressed. As my old friend William Shakespeare once wrote, "Methinks thou protest too much."
The Girls of Summer: My grandfather (Pearl Roscoe) took a bundle of pictures. Some puzzle me. For some reason he took many photographs of "things" (buildings and such). He didn't do a great deal of portrait work. He did passports and the like, but he apparently made few photographs of individual people. Group pictures like the Mermaids on a Knarled Log were more his style of people pictures. Nonetheless, I wonder about such photographs. Perhaps, he was a lady's man. I wouldn't know. Both he and my grandmother died when I was maybe a year old.
But, seriously, there had to be good reason for pictures like the one above. This was obviously a posed portrait. The log was in the lake. Most likely, it was along the Main Street Beach area. Trees would wash out the mouth of the river and land along the lakeshore west of the breakwalls. The general flow of Lake Erie is from east to west. The ladies are not dressed for swimming. They are wearing shoes and some jewelry. Two are wearing a brooch, one has a cross necklace, and at least one has a wedding ring. They climbed on the log using the flat piece of driftwood in the lower left side of the picture. The backdrop over the lake appears to be foggy. I know not whether it's because of the weather (no pun intended) or just a flaw in the glass plate negative. And (again) using my prowness as a deductive thinker (which is a fancy way of saying I'm guessing) I would say that this is a Sunday School class. I'm assuming that they wouldn't be wearing white dresses for everyday clothing. In any case, I surely like Pearl's pictures.
The Pelton Runner
Electronic Thoughts: On April 9th I received this communication from Don Morgan. Don lives in Wales; which I need explain is in the United Kingdom. I have never "flesh met" this gentleman. He found me on the web when he was looking for information about one Lester Pelton. Don is a retired mining engineer (ergo; his interest in Pelton). When he attended the university he minored in American History. Quite frankly, Don knows more about American History than most Americans. (And what else is new?) He also has family in CA.
"Here is the twentieth thing for your list Rich, it comes from George Bernard Shaw. (Don is referring to a emessage I forwarded to several people about 19 Things I've Learned After 50 Years.)
A barbarian is one who mistakes the customs of his tribe for the laws of nature.
It's so great to be a part of your news letters, I must be the only man who has neighbors over three thousand miles away...I think I may have left the door open there."
Don
About Lester: Lester Allen Pelton was born in Vermilion in 1829, and died in Camptonville, CA in 1908. He and his family are buried in Maple Grove Cemetery on Mason Road. Pelton is the most famous person to ever come from our town. Oddly enough, few people know about him. His invention, the Pelton Runner, revolutionized mining; not only in our nation, but throughout the world. It is because of Pelton that I came to know Don Morgan; and it is because of Don Morgan that I came to know about Pelton.
The people of Camptonville have a festival celebrating Lester's life every year. We have nothing. Here we have more than a few people interested in local history promoting our town, and we have all but ignored the most celebrated person who ever lived here. His wheel is in the Smithsonian. He is as noteworthy an inventor as Thomas Edison.
Lester lived on Risden Road. He attended the Cuddeback School on the northwest corner of Risden and Lake Roads. There are still Pelton's in the area. May (Mary) Martin-Fletcher, our family's piano teacher, was a Pelton. Peltons owned the property on the southwest corner of Main/Division and Liberty Streets where the city offices are now located. The family had an inn located in the house now owned by Jim and Cathy Weber on Huron Street. The Pelton name is embedded in local history. Furthermore; there is probably a great deal of Pelton Family history sitting in someone's attic. I would hate to see it lost because of our collective ignorence.
And The Beat Goes On: This is the third issue of my new page on the net. The page is generated by the dreaded Macintosh Computer and is written and designed by (me) Rich Tarrant. The page will change weekly ~ usually on Sunday. Bookmark the URL and comeback at your own leisure. Send the page to your friends (and enemies if you wish). If you have something to share (like my friend Don Morgan) with those who visit this page, pass it on. And if you see something that is in need of correction do the same. My sister, Nancy, is a great help in that respect. It only takes me a week to get it right.
Links to other sites on the Web
Vermilion Ohio Historic Pix
History
of Linwood Park
Vermilion Community Orchestra
Vol.1, Issue 3, April 12, 2003
© 2003 mr1cooker@centurytel.net