THE MYSTERIOUS INDIAN ROCKS OF BROWNS ISLAND

                                          THE PETROGLYPHS OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY

                                    

                                                                   

            The age-old adage regarding art says that every picture tells a story, but regarding the Indian Rock art of the Upper Ohio Valley, every picture portrays a mystery.

            The native American representations are called petroglyphs, which are crude images of wildlife, humans and symbols scratched or pecked into the surface of large flat sandstones lining the shores of the Ohio River and other sites across the country.  Some of the more renowned local petroglyph sites include Smith’s Ferry, Babb’s Island, old Dam Number Eight and the head of Brown’s Island, although evidence suggests, the two-mile mid-water flood plain could have centered four different petroglyph sites.

            “Rock Art chronicles the long histories, the hunting ceremonies, and the religions of diverse native peoples, “wrote James D. Keyser and Michael Klasser in Plains Indian Rock Art.  “They reveal their relationships with the spirit world and record their interaction with traditional enemies and the earliest Europeans.”

            Native Americans considered boulders prominent features of the landscape, and the Ohio, itself a Native American name, meaning river with whitecaps, or just simply beautiful stream, was a major route of transportation and trade centuries before the first Europeans arrived.

            Archaeologists have often calculated the time periods when the Native Americans etched their work in rock, ancient peoples ranging from Hopewell, Adenas, woodland and modern Indians, but often have been left with only educated guesses of the true artists as in the case of the late James L. Swauger of Ohio State University, who studied the local petroglyph sites in 1969.

            “Babb’s Island is the only site investigated in Ohio which holds water bird figures,” Swauger wrote in Petroglyphs of Ohio.  “It’s affinities are with Brown’s Island in W.V. and Smith’s Ferry in Pa.  The generally more sophisticated artistry of the carvings on these sites, as well as their common possession of water bird figures suggest a ‘school’ of petroglyph artists working along this 30-mile stretch of river.”

Swauger also theorized that the local rock art could be attributed to Mongahela Man, also called proto-Shawnees from 1200 a.d. to 1750 a.d.

Work by Charles Whittlesley suggests otherwise.  Or perhaps he knew of a site other than the Brown’s Island one, recorded in the archaeological ledgers as site 46HK8.  Whittlesley noted in the American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal that Newburgh founding father Michael Myers “saw from the south shore of the river, opposite the head of Brown’s Island, an Indian at work on the flat rocks.  He shot the Indian, and, getting to the island on a raft, he saw effigies of animals, among them that of a deer which the Indian had partly executed.”

Using the Deer Rock incident as conclusive evidence, Whittlesley went on to write.  “It is nearly demonstrated that they are not the work of the Mound Builders unless that race and the historical Indian are one.”

Indeed, on the last page of Dr. E. R. Giesly’s epic poem about Myers, Stalwart Auver, is a drawing of a boulder with 1797 on top, and below this date are several crude drawn images.  What they represent is indistinguishable because of the poor quality of print.

One petroglyph site overlooked by Swauger was thought by antiquarian James McBride to be situated above the old Half Moon Farm on the West Virginia side.  On July 4, 1838, McBride crossed the river from Cable’s Eddy, present day Pottery Addition.

“We found the rock lying on the Virginia side of the river.  It lies about three feet above low water mark, having a flat surface of about nine feet by seven inclining a little toward water.  It is of hard stone, and all over the surface are various figures cut and sunk into the hard rock.  Amongst these figures are rude representations of the human form, tracks of human feet representing the bare foot and print of toes as if made in soft mud, tracks of horses, turkeys and a rabbit.  Several figures of snakes, a turtle and other figures not understood.”

During that period existed another landmark bearing the title “half moon,” a wing dam opposite the head of present-day Hancock County and perhaps the petroglyph about which McBride wrote sat farther north than the farm on the big bend of the river.

“One (carving) represents a wild turkey and is about life size,” wrote Joseph B. Doyle in History of Jefferson County.  “Stretched across its neck, apparently in flight, is a wild goose with neck extended at full length.  The heart of the goose is indicated by a small circle, with a line extending to the head.”

Other figures carved into this rock included a fox, a bear and some outlines of feet.  Doyle wrote that the rock bearing these figures stood at the upper entrance of Holliday’s Cove, now downtown Weirton.

One of the prominent Indian carvings upon the Brown’s Island site that James L. Swauger had investigated were two sand hill cranes approximately four meters square.  Curiously, like one goose at the Half Moon site, the heart of one crane is represented by a small circle with three lines running to the neck.

Petroglyphs at Smith's Ferry, Pennsylvania.  These flat rocks abounded on shoreline before submerged by modern dams.

Sandhill cranes petroglyph of Brown's island.

Could this petroglyph site and the other three be one and the same or four separate sites?  Perhaps even archaeologists will never know because these sites and the others along this 30-mile stretch of history have probably been permanently submerged with the erection of the modern high-rise dams.

THE NATION'S FIRST WORLD WAR I MONUMENT

                                   TORONTO, OHIO LAYS CLAIM TO THIS DISTINCTION

GUIESSEPPI MORETTI

THE COUNTRY'S FIRST WORLD WAR I MEMORIAL

                                   

                       

            Despite its Canadian name, Toronto, Ohio has always been a city of patriotism and fierce national pride as currently displayed by its array of American flags lining its streets.  But never was Toronto’s patriotism more fervid than when it unveiled the nation’s first monument dedicated to the American soldiers and sailors who had fought in World War I.

            It was November 11, 1919, Armistice Day, one year after hostilities of the great war had ended that as many as an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people amassed in Toronto streets, which were decorated with patriotic colors from one end of the river-edged town to the other.  These spectators watched a parade of 3,000 marchers, led by 250 soldiers, sailors and marines, trailed by the Toronto band, various civic organizations, as well as 800 school children all carrying tiny American flags.

            After the paraded concluded, the soldiers marched to town square where the War Commission awarded the servicemen bronze medals and made a few speeches, and then the honored defenders and public dignitaries crossed Market Street to the First Presbyterian Church where they ate a chicken diner prepared under the direction of Mrs. Mary Hanna and assisted and sponsored by the Daughters of America.

            After diner, the servicemen stepped outside under mild mid-autumn weather across to town square as the shadow of the five-ton statue canted eastward under the two-o’clock sun.  A large white cross now loomed on a platform before the veiled monument and standing before it were eleven girls clad in white, clasping a red rose, each girl representing the ten fallen sons and one fallen daughter of the Toronto area.

            The crowd of 3,000, settled and quiet, watched with eager anticipation a Miss McClean draw the cord encasing the ten-foot high monument that many of them had personally contributed to financially.  As Miss McClean swept her arm toward the glistening bronze statue, the crowd erupted into resounding applause.

            Present at the unveiling was Guiesseppe Moretti, whom the Toronto War Board had commissioned to sculpt the monument, of which the artist stated, “It represents the glorious liberty with the American soldiers and sailors by her side.”

            Moretti, 62 years of age at the ceremonies, was an Italian émigré who had gained fame in America for his public monuments cast in bronze and marble, most notably his work “Vulcan” in Birmingham, Alabama, still the largest cast iron statue in the world.  Other important works of his included the Stephen Collins Foster memorial and the entrance to Highland Park in Pittsburgh, where he had resided much of his life.

            Moretti was known as an eclectic personality who always wore a green tie.  Undoubtedly he was wearing his trademark color as he stepped off the podium, standing before the towering five-ton memorial he had completed in just six months.

            Next United States Congressman Benjamin Frank Murphy took the platform.  Murphy, a Republican representing the district, won election for six successive terms.  He gave a brief speech of welcome to the crowd and servicemen and then introduced keynote speaker William D. Upshaw, recently elected by Georgia voters to Congress.

            A son of a Confederate soldier and a staunch Southern Baptist, Upshaw was a strong supporter of the temperance movement, so much, in fact, he was known as the “driest of drys.”  Prior to his election to Congress, Upshaw served as vice president for the Anti-Saloon League and was instrumental with making prohibition a Georgia law by 1907.

            Upshaw, suffering from a spinal injury that occurred at age 18, and now 52, leaned upon crutches as he addressed the crowd with his passionate deep Southern drawl.  “I congratulate Toronto, Ohio on being the first community in America to erect and dedicate a monument to the glory of the living and the memory of the dead who fought for the safety of America and for the living of the world.”

            After several minutes of continued praise for the town’s patriotism and for its being a role model as an American melting pot, Upshaw segued into sermonizing upon the other war that was threatening the individual’s freedom.  “…in order that America may be kept clean for them—for those who come back to us in buoyant manhood or stagger back to us maimed or blind, reaching out their hands for encouragement from the nation for which they offered their all.  We have learned that if it required a sober citizen to live well and teaching this vital lesson to the nations now new-born in their freedom from autocracy, but still shackled by the slavery of drink, is America’s new mission to the peoples who have been set free.”

            Ironically, Upshaw’s visit to the Gem City failed to influence the citizens’ attitude toward consumption of alcoholic beverages because a little more than 50 years later in 1970, a poll conducted by “Time Magazine” listed Toronto the city consuming the most alcohol per capita in the United States.

            In 1932, Upshaw ran as presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party against Franklin D. Roosevelt, who favored the repeal of prohibition, and was overwhelmingly defeated.

William D. Upshaw

Lamplight Assisted Living Coming to Toronto soon.

            In 2004, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument was restored by the Toronto Beautification Committee and accepted in the National Register of Historic Places.

KAUL FIELD REVISITED

HISTORIC SPORTS VENUE OF TORONTO, OHIO

                  Hallowed is the ground where the glinted steel spikes of summer and autumn once trod in the north end of Toronto.

This small piece of earth, Kaul Field, where the bowling alley currently sits parallel to the 1100 block of Fifth Street, served as home field for some of Toronto’s most revered sports heroes, including Pick Nalley, Gabby Kunzler, Clarke and Gordie Hinkle and Hook Comer.

         Soon after the turn of the Twentieth Century baseball became vogue in the Gem City, with a semi-pro team, the Toronto Athletic Club, dominating most local nines.  At Kaul Field, the TAC hosted other semi-pros from the area and sometimes others of higher caliber.

         “The Pittsburgh Pirates came barnstorming into town along with Honus Wagner,” John Petras said.  “I can’t remember who won, but yes they did play in Toronto.”

         Petras, now resides in Royal Oak, Michigan, is the son of John Petras Sr., who was a member of the TAC before World War I and played alongside Pick Nalley, Wenzel Straka and other founding fathers of baseball in the Gem City.

                At the end of the 1918 Pittsburgh Pirates' season, Bill Mekechnie dropped out of baseball and moved his family to little Toronto where he took up a position of sales for Kaul Clay.  He also set up a grocery in the Daniels Building.  The following year, Mekechnie became player-coach for the Toronto Athletic Club and convinced no retired Pittsburgh Pirates legend Honus Wagner to play games for Toronto on weekends.  Both would eventually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Honus Wagner

         A wooden fence enclosed Kaul Field then, but sometime around the 1920s the only wooden structure remaining was the grandstand framing the home plate area at the site approximately where the cul-de-sac is today on Fifth Street.

         It was this period that Toronto resident Tom McKelvey remembers well.  “Kaul Field was used for baseball in the summer and football in the fall,” McKelvey said.  “We had church leagues five nights a week, Monday through Friday.  Every church had a team.  The best team was always St. Francis, who we called back then the Mickeys”

         McKelvey also has fond memories of the semi-pro football club, the Toronto Tigers, when professional football was at its infancy and germinating in northeastern Ohio.

         “The Toronto Tigers played their games at home in the fall months in front of good crowds,” McKelvey said.  “The train pulled in across the field and the opposing players and fans stepped off; then walked to the field.”

         According to McKelvey, the Toronto Tigers and their opponents played with fierce competition, locals occasionally being replaced by ringers--college athletes playing for dough under aliases.

         “I heard two Ohio State players came in playing for 100 or 200 dollars.  Fats Henry came in from Washington and Jefferson.  Henry would later play for the Canton Bulldogs and become inducted in the Hall of Fame”

         Some of the Toronto standouts included the Ferris brothers and Hook Comer.  Comer had a short stint at fullback with the Canton Bulldogs alongside Henry and the great Jim Thorpe.

         Toronto High School also staged its football games at Kaul Field prior to 1930.  McKelvey’s father, Tom Sr., took young Tom to watch his first game, a match-up between Toronto and Warwood.

         “There were no lights back then,” McKelvey said.  “The games were held in the afternoon.  There were ropes stretched along the sidelines to keep us from coming onto the field.”

         Kaul Field was used for other endeavors beside sports during that era.  McKelvey said a traditional ox roast was held at the grounds around Thanksgiving Day.

         “I remember the kids from the north end ice skated in the winter there,” Vince Exterovich, a 1942 THS graduated said.  “There was a pond, actually a marshy area that froze over during the winter.  Mostly north end kids skated there.”

         Exterovich resided at Sixth Street back then, considering himself a south ender.  Today, the line separating the two ends of the Gem City runs east to west along Main Street, making the southern end larger in area than the older north.  All of Sixth Street today is located what is considered the north end.

         “The south end wasn’t developed in those days,” McKelvey said.  “It was mostly farms and Sloane’s.”

         During the Forties and the Fifties, with the emergence of Little League at newly built Memorial Park and the development of the south end with its new schools, Kaul Field was reduced to a sandlot until it ceased to exist at all with the construction of Toronto Lanes around 1960.

T-formation from the Toronto High School band on Kaul Field.

1913 Toronto Athletic Club

         “The field was very important,” McKelvey said.  “It was our arena.  Kaul Field was the center of ououtdoor sports for Toronto back then.”

1940s Aerial Photos of Toronto

The former Jeddo, Ohio and Follansbee Steel.  Note the village of Jeddo across from the north of the mill and the farmland before the construction of S. C. Dennis School.  At the lower left of photo are remnants of the dam once as the Dike.  It ran diagonally from the tip of Brown's Island to just downstream from the mouth of Jeddo Run.

South end view of Toronto Power Plant where a town once named Calumet sat.  At top of picture, barely discernible is Dam Number 9.

The former Stratton Clay works sat where the present day Lime operations of the W.H. Sammis Plant are.  Just left of center is Stratton Heights, minus the park.

Overhead few from north of old Toronto Power Plant and old Route Seven.

At lower left just showing is old St. Francis Convent across from new convent built around 1960.  Also, below old overhead bridge are houses standing along Railroad Street and a chemical plant on lot where present fire hall stands.  Prominent along lower Jefferson Street are vacant lots.  Note across the river is East Toronto, still with residencies.

Farewell to old Clarke Hinkle Field

Clarke Hinkle

Members of 1970 team, left to right: Joe Chadwick, Bob Petras, Dan Baker, Larry Hughes.

Pre-game gathering

Red Knights Forever

View From South End 

Ron Paris Jr., Ron Paris Sr., Head Coach Ralph Anastasio

Bob Chadwick, THS Class of 1974 and West Point graduate.

Chuck Walker, late 60s guard and linebacker.

Brian Zorbini, running back, early 90s.

Red Knight mascot leading the final charge.

HALL OF FAME CITY

      It's neither Cooperstown, New York nor Canton, Ohio, but few towns the size of the Gem City can claim that five professional hall of fame athletes once called the ball fields of Toronto, Ohio home.
      Receiving his first shot of professional football here at the old Kaul Field was Wilbur "Fats" Henry, an All American lineman from the College of Washington and Jefferson.  "Those were rough and tumble days," the late Tom McKelvey said about the 1920s.  "Doc Kilgus was the owner of the Toronto Tigers and was trying to build up the team with outside players.  One of those was Fats Henry, fresh out of college."
      Henry would go on to play and coach for the Canton Bulldogs, and in 1926, he brought up Toronto native John Comer for one game.  Wearing number 3, Comer carried the ball once for one yard, giving him the distinction of being Toronto's first professional football player.
       Henry is both a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the National League Hall of Fame.
       The Gem City athlete to next join the professional football ranks was Clarke Hinkle, after whom the high school stadium is named.  Carl Snavey, his coach at Bucknell University said of the Lackawanna Express, "Without a doubt, the greatest defensive back I have ever coached."  Hinkle became a three-time All American at Bucknell and then went on to play with the Green Bay Packers from 1932 to 1941, a period this fullback-linebacker became the NFL's all time leading rusher with 3,860 yards.
      In 1964, the NFL enshrined Hinkle in Canton and the NCAA in 1971.
      Two decades later, continuing the proud gridiron traditions of Toronto was Don Sutherin, a 1954 graduate of THS.
       Sutherin, of course, is best remembered for kicking the winning field goal of the 1958 Rose Bowl for Ohio State, but, locally, he and fellow classmate George Deiderich have the distinction of being the only two future professional football players to have paired at THS at the same time, from 1949 to 1953.  During their senior season, the two future Canadian Football League players performed on a squad that produced four wins, four losses and one tie.
      The New York Giants drafted Sutherin as a defensive back in 1959.  He played for the Giants part of that season and then played with the Pittsburgh Steelers the remainder of the year and the 1960 season.  Sutherin then took his talents north to the Hamilton Tiger Cats and played in the CFL for 12 years, participating in eight Grey Cups, his team winning four.
      By the time he retired, Sutherin held 18 CFL records.  He was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 1992.
      Toronto contributed to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as well.  Pittsburgh Pirate shortstop Honus Wagner often brought several teammates to barnstorm against local clubs.  He also played for the Toronto Athletic Club.
      In The Era of Elegance author Walter M. Kestner wrote, "Wagner, in the twilight of his years of his career, played in Toronto where he alternated with Lawrence Hughes on the all star team managed by Doc Kilgus."
      Kilgus also recruited for the all star squad Boston Red Sox outfielder John Bates and Chicago Cub catcher Tom Needham, both from Jefferson County.
      One hall of fame athlete who did get away from the Gem City was Rollie Fingers, whose father George played for Class D Williamstown in the Mountain State League in 1938.
      The Fingers family resided at 601 Clark Street.  Around when Rollie was ten years old, father George, fed up with working at Wheeling Steel in Steubenville, decided to move the family to California.
      Rollie went on to play 18 seasons in the major leagues, pioneering the role of closing pitcher while recording 341 career saves.
      He was inducted into Cooperstown in 1992.

RETURN TO THE CORNER MARKET

1935  Advertisement from old Victory Market

Melhorn Dairy sold not only its own products, but also that which you purchased on the typical corner market of the period. 

Barnum's Stores, Fourth Street, early 1900s

      The corner market, like penny candy inside glass counters, has long disappeared from Gem City neighborhoods, but has left sweet memories and a rich history.
      With the development of Toronto during the late 1800s came the arrival of the neighborhood market, its numbers increasing as the town expanded southward, peaking during the 1950s and 1960s when nearly 8,000 people inhabited the river town.  As many as 20 small markets were in business during that period, usually family owned and operated, the family often residing in the same building that contained the store.
      From Romey's, Karaffa's and Brem's in the north end to Calabrese's and Didd's at the south, a Toronto resident could walk within a few minutes to purchase bread, milk, lunch meat and other daily groceries.  One street, Federal, had three such stores-Frank's, Wasyk's and Smitty's--on three successive city blocks.
      "Most families had only one car back then," said Mike Swaykus, who was owner and manager of the former Mike's Market, where now sits the empty Olive Branch.  "While the father worked, the kids or mother could walk to a store to get whatever they needed."
      Karaffa's Store, catty-corner from the present Tucker's Tavern, was the small grocery with which the Swaykus family dealt when Mike was growing up.
      "My family had an account there," Swaykus said.  "I remember my mom would call Karaffa's and order a pound of bologna, a rump roast or a bag of potatoes, and Joe Karaffa would deliver them to our home on any day of the week.  My mom would always settle the bill on pay day.  That kind of thing is a thing of the past."
      Handshake accounts and home deliveries are two childhood memories for Liz Fedash, who lived on the 900 block of Loretta Avenue, where Katz's was the neighborhood grocer from the 1930s to the 1950s.
      As a teenager during the late 1940s, Fedash cleaned the Katzes' upstairs apartment and worked filling orders at Calabrese's, then located at Pierce and Wentworth.
       "Katz's was like a general store," Fedash said.  "They sold produce, meats and penny candy.  They were really nice people.  Many times my mom needed milk on Sunday, and they would open the store for us.  You don't get that kind of service today.
       "When I went to pay my family's bills, regardless of how much we paid, Mr. Katz would always give me a bag of candy," she continued.  "The Katzes would always send us gifts on Christmas, which I thought was especially nice since they didn't celebrate Christmas because they were Jewish."
      Friendliness was also a familiar trait with the Calabrese family, for whom Fedash worked filling orders.
      "They took call-in orders.  They sold meats and produce and beer by the cases and delivered all over town," she said.
      Vince Exterovich, who grew up on Sixth Street during the 1930s and early 1940s, described McClane's on the same street as "a very small store where you could buy some canned goods and bread."
      He also mentioned Russell's on Findley, north of the old Roosevelt School and and the Victory Market on downtown Fourth Street.  "They were very friendly," Exterovich said of downtown store owners.  "They would always speak to me."
      Just north of downtown was the old Ralph's Golden Crown Store, which the Swaykus family purchased in 1976 and renamed Mike's, a store with a name that reflected the first-name basis values of the traditional corner market.
      "I can honestly say at one time I knew half the people in town by their first names," Swaykus said.
      He attributed the demise of the corner market to the ownership of more than one family vehicle and the competition with franchise markets.
       "The small grocer started declining in town during the 1970's," he said. "Families could then drive to look for better prices."
      Mike's, the last corner market in town, went out of business in 1998.

THE OLD TORONTO POOL

Looking east from Little League ball field.

Add caption

Baby Pool, circa 1956

     In the mind's eye, the best way to lap around the old Toronto Memorial Pool would not be performed by swimming around its white-walled basin.
      Rather, it would be by padding barefoot along the gritty, puddled concrete deck, past the powder-blue sliding board, past the white wooden lifeguard chairs, past the buoyed rope separating the shallow and deep sides of the topaz water and then onto the high and low diving boards, the stroll enriched with the shrieks and laughter of children, the piercing whistle of a teenage lifeguard, the coconut aroma of Coppertone suntan lotion mixed with the pungent taste of chlorine while the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" blares from a transistor radio.
       The stroll back in time is nearly complete when the aluminum ladder of a diving board is ascended, the fiberglass bows and catapults, and a "kerplunk" resounds and soon follows is the well angled geyser of a can-opener, drenching the few fully clad adults leaning upon the white railing of the spectator section, the lap finished, the water receding and receding--swept away with the waves of nostalgia.
      For a little more than three decades, the Toronto Memorial Pool provided local youths with their primary source of summer recreation and social activity and, years later, still fresh memories.
      John Romey, longtime recreation supervisor and civic leader in the Gem City, grew up during the 1950s, putting in plenty of recreational time at Memorial Park.
      "The old pool was exactly the same as the one at Marland Heights in Weirton," he said.  "Identical.   There were two levels.  The bottom level was for women and men to change clothes, the same level the present pool is located.
       "It was fun, exciting for a kid," continued Romey.  "We had pretty good crowds.  People came to view as spectators."
       Being a longtime recreation supervisor, Romey pointed out that many laws regarding the operation and maintenance of a municipal pool have changed, including one from a period that did not shine so brightly in the Gem City.
       "Way back in the beginning, it was segregated," Romey said about the town's swimming pool.  "I could never understand it.  That was a part of segregation those days.  It was not unique to Toronto.  It was part of the times."
      African-Americans were granted access to Memorial Park Pool only on Tuesday.  Segregation ended at the public facility around 1966, two years after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
       A lesser change occurring to the park, Romey recollected, was the positioning of the Little League ball field, which sits approximately 30 feet in elevation above the current Olympics-style pool.  In 1951, the first year of junior baseball in town, Romey played catcher for Kaul Clay.
       "Home plate was where the concession stand now is," he said.  "Below left center was where the pool stood.  It was always a dream for me to hit a home run into the pool.  Of course, I never came close."
       A decade and a few years later was the era another longtime Toronto resident, Mark Rebres, fondly remembers.
       Rebres said that a typical summer day started out walking with friends Paul Morris and Tommy Lang from their Clark Street homes to the pool, their suits rolled up in towels, and then participating in morning swim lessons.  They would return home and walk back to Memorial Park to swim again.
       "You picked up wire baskets with numbers from behind the counter," Rebres said upon paying the ten-cent admission fee.  "You had to walk on the wet, cold, musty concrete all the way around and step into a little tub of water right before you took the steps to the pool deck."
       Rebres said that the pool and its lifeguards had their own peculiar rules.  "You were supposed to be able to swim the width of the pool before you were allowed to go off the dives.  You would get yelled at by lifeguards for hanging on the ropes separating the shallow and deep ends."
       Clinging on to happy pool memories of the period is Karen Walker, who lived a Frisbee's throw away from the pool on Jefferson Street and walked from there to work at the concession stand.
       "I remember all the kids coming up to the concession stand," Walker said.  "It was penny candy.  You could get a lot for your nickel then."
       During that time, the Trenton Street-based Melhorn's Dairy provided many of the pool's refreshments, including banana Fudge Sicles and blueberry, cherry, root beer, orange, lemon, lime and even licorice Popsicles.  "Fudge Sicles were seven cents.  Popsicles were a nickel," Walker said.  "Kids would ask you at the beginning of the day if they could pick up papers around the playground so that they could get ten cents worth of candy.   It's hard to believe what you would do for ten cents back in those days."
     Besides working at the concession stand, the 1971 Toronto High School graduate spent plenty of time at the pool level.  "That was a hangout," she said about evening swim parties. "The big thing was whether you got  thrown in with your clothes on."                                                                                                     Traditionally the old pool opened on Memorial Day and closed on Labor Day, but on closing day the park staged its biggest events of the swimming season and sponsored races, diving competitions and stunts, the crowning of Little Miss Lions and dances at the tennis court.
       "You would have to go hours before so that you could get a seat," Walker said about the pools Labor Day festivities.  "Some people would be sitting on top of the monkey bars."
       The last year for operation of the old Memorial Park pool was 1980, being replaced the following year at the same site by the current Olympics-style model.
    
  

TORONTO'S FIRST PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER

      Many men would give their souls to play just one game in the National Football League, but it was the heart of Toronto Tiger legend John "Hook" Comer that gave him that single opportunity.
      During the first quarter of the 20th Century, football players participated for the love of a game with crude equipment and often with equally crude treatment.  Those playing for semi-professional teams, such as the Toronto Tigers, supplemented their primary jobs at the local clay works with a few extra bucks against such notable teams as the Akron Silents, Bradley Eagles, Dusquesne Apprentice and various Ohio Valley clubs.
      "Those were rough and tough days the way they dressed and talked," said Tom McKelvey, who watched many semi-pro games during their heyday in the Gem City.  "I remember before one game the Toronto coach had his players diving into a mud puddle by the old home plate to practice recovering fumbles."
      Out of the most physical and punishing era of football emerged one athlete, John S. "Hook" Comer, standing 6'3" and weighing 180 pounds.
      "My father told me Hook Comer could kick the ball almost the length of the football field," John Petras Jr. said.
      "They said he could throw the football 100 yards," McKelvey said.  "Of course, that's probably exaggeration."
      What isn't hyperbole was Comer's athleticism.  Some old timers said he was equally gifted at running, kicking and passing.
      In his "Era of Elegance," author Walter M. Kestner gives this account of Comer: "As I recall the football of that era was much larger in diameter that that used today and consequently was much harder to throw.  However, John Comer or Big Hook as he was called could grasp the ball and throw it with extreme accuracy.   On one play particularly called the Formation A, Dave Ferris would lateral the ball to Hook, who would then throw a pass down field to Goose Mundy or Jim Condrim with a touchdown usually resulting from the play."

      Accounts by both Kestner and McKelvey attest that the early Toronto Tiger teams consisted of local talent, but around 1920 Doc Kilgus, club owner, wanted to increase the talent pool in the Gem City.
      "Doc Kilgus brought in guys from out of town to build up the team," McKelvey said.
      Often these athletes were collegians playing under aliases for money to maintain their amateur status  One such athlete was Pete "Fats" Henry, an All American tackle from Washington & Jefferson who played on the same side of Kaul Field with ringers and the few remaining legitimate locals, such as Hook Comer.
       Henry would go on to play with the Canton Bulldogs in 1920 and, as player-coach in 1926, he brought up fullback John "Hook" Comer, now 36 years of age and well past his prime.  Wearing number 3, Comer played but one NFL game, carrying the ball once for one yard alongside 38-year-old Jim Thorpe.
      The Bulldogs that year finished with one win, nine losses and three ties--the worst record in the fledgling National Football League.
      In 1963, Henry was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, one year before Toronto and Green Bay legend Clarke Hinkle was enshrined, arguably giving the Gem City two members in Canton.
       Comer went on to become a well respected policeman in Toronto, serving with Hinkle's brother Les.  He died in 1950 and is buried in Toronto Union Cemetery, not far from other Gem City legends, such as Clarke Hinkle and Pick Nalley.

BILL JACO REMEMBERED

        During the 60s, when I was growing up, I thought Toronto was nicknamed the Gem City because it had so many colorful characters like Nick Yanick, Singing Kate, Johnny Wasco, Chief, George Tarr, Joe Hitchcock, George Peckins, Naughty Dotty and many others.  None, however, was more memorable than the man himself who said "the town's full of nuts"--Bill Jaco.
      My first recollection of Bill came at the old A & P where the abandoned Save-a-Lot now stands.  My father was pushing a cartful of groceries to the family Ford while my mother was trying to herd her four children safely across the parking lot.  "Push cart, push cart," Bill said, knowing this courtesy usually amounted to tips of dimes and quarters.
      "That's all right," my father replied, "I can handle it."
      Bill trailed us to our car, anyhow.  As my father began stowing grocery sacks inside the trunk, Bill said, "Ford junk.  Ford junk.  Hit a bump and the seat falls down."
      I would later learn every model of car made was junk in Bill's estimation, except for funeral cars, not many of them being drove those days other than by Clarkie, of whom Bill said was goosey.
      To me, back then, Bill appeared as tall as Wilt Chamberlain, but in truth, during his prime, he stood, at tallest, six-foot, three-inches.  He was naturally big-boned and broad shouldered and had a Santa Clause-like belly.  Legends abounded about his strength, including being able to lift the rear end of a Volkswagen Beetle off the ground.
       When I was first married, my wife Debbie and I lived across the empty lot from Bill and his sister May at the top of Daniels Street.  Many people were afraid to let their children go near Bill, but he was a gentle giant who would hold the hand of our daughter Sevy and walk her up and down the block.
      Bill did not know Monday from Tuesday or a weekday from the weekend, but he did know garbage day and took out the trash faithfully the evening before garbage day, and, on cue, the following morning, regaled the truck crew with his Jaconian philosophy, usually always referring to junk Fords and that Clarkie was goosey.
      Whenever I saw Bill toting an umbrella, I knew rain was probably coming sometime soon.  The weather, however, never stopped Bill from taking his daily and evening strolls.  Wherever Johnny's Pizza Shop was located, Bill would walk in that direction, or toward whoever was passing out free goodies to Bill--nearly everybody.  I could always determine what Bill had eaten because half of it was smeared on the front of his shirt.
      Back then, Johnny's was the only pizza shop around, and it frequently moved.  For a while it stood at  the corner of Federal and Franklin, later next to the Manos Theater and still later in the heart of downtown Toronto.  No matter the location and the change of pizza cooks, Bill would always be there, one minute calling my date "skinny girl," the next minute telling me, "Man marries girl something's loose."
      Bill almost always repeated his statements as though his diaphragm had a built-in echo chamber.  He would sneak up behind you, poking his finger in your back, and in that signature flutey nasal voice, utter, "Whoops.  Goosey.  Goosey.  Clarkie's goosey."
       The Dairy Aisle was another regular stop for Bill, who held an equal affection of free ice cream, courtesy of the Henry family.  One evening, a young man coasted his car onto the Dairy Aisle parking lot, stopped by Bill and asked him directions for Kuhn's Hardware Store.
       Naturally, Bill assessed the man's car first and called it "a piece of junk."  Then Bill said, "Turn up bay.  Turn up bay.  Drive junk by Clarkie's--by Clarkie's.  Clarkie goosey.  Clarkie goosey.  Turn up bay."
        Frustrated the man crisscrossed his arms and yelled, "Just stop now; you're nuts!"
        Bill casually replied, "Ain't lost."
        Another signature quote of his was "push daddy."  I could never quite determine what that one meant, but maybe it bore some reference to his old A & P days when pushing grocery carts was in vogue.  Or just maybe he used such phrase to fill in conversation gaps.  Bill was certainly not quiet or one for a loss of words.
       The seats of my cars have never fallen down, sometimes I agree with Bill that the town was full of nuts.  About his assessment of marriage, I am going to have to plead the Fifth.
        "Push Daddy."
  

THE DIAMOND MINE OF YELLOW CREEK

      "To the paleontologist there are few places in the world more interesting than the Diamond Mine at Linton," wrote Cleveland geologist John Strong Newberry in 1856, "since here he gets such a view of the life of the Carboniferous age as is afforded nowhere else, and of the great number of species found there."
      Few people other than men of science have heard of the Linton, Ohio to which Newberry referred, but it was a small village that once sprawled along the mouth of Yellow Creek.  No more  than a roadside park now sits at this historic site, and yet paleontologists still refer to it as Linton, and have excavated the hillside for fossils as recently as 2007.
      Linton was known primarily as the mouth of Yellow Creek prior to the 1800s when settlers erected a small blockhouse as protection from hostile Indians.  It remained an unincorporated village for more than a half-century, although a post office and a railroad depot put Linton upon maps by the mid-1850s.  This began the period when Connecticut entrepreneurs started operating the Diamond Mine, which produced a nine-foot seam of Freeport coal.  Below this rich seam, miners discovered a six-inch slate-like coal called canal from which they culled one of the richest pockets of fossils produced in the United States.
      Newberry and some of the most renowned paleontologists have visited the Diamond Mine, one such being Edward D. Cope, perhaps the most prominent paleontologist of the 19th Century.  His most notable contributions to science included the discovery of dozens of dinosaurs and the development of Cope's Law, which expounds upon the gradual enlargement of mammalian species.
     During the 150 years scientists have documented fossils gleaned from the Diamond Mine, ten dozen taxa of invertebrates, including small worms, millipedes and crustaceans, and forty taxa of vertebrates, mostly fish, have been documented.  According to Dr. Mark J. Camp in his book "Roadside Geology of Ohio," some fossils found at Linton are the only such kind ever discovered.
      "The Linton location ranks as the most prolific Pennsylvanian vertebrate fossil in the world," Camp wrote.
      Camp also stated that the most common fish found at Linton, numbering in the thousands, is the coelacanth, a carnivore that attained sizes of 6.5 feet in length and weighed nearly 198 pounds.  It was thought to have gone extinct with dinosaurs, but was discovered off the south coast of Africa in 1938.  A group of scientists theorize the coelacanth represented an early stage in the evolution of fish to terrestrial four-legged animals like amphibians.
      Long before the Ohio swept past what is now Linton, once sat an ox-box lake in which these fish including sharks and the coelacanth--as well as invertebrates inhabited.  A complex chemical process under enormous tonnage of sedimentary deposits preserved and fossilized these once living creatures in the canal seam of the Diamond Mine.
      The Diamond Mine officially operated from 1855 to 1921, collapsing during 1924.  In the ensuing years, scientists continued collecting specimens at dump sites of the mine and by the 1960s were taking them from the road cut nearby the development of the four-lane highway now consisting of Ohio Route Seven.  Scientific activity at the hillside cut discontinued during 2007.
      Many of the Linton fossils can be observed at numerous museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Orton Geological Museum of Ohio State University and the Smithstonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

WILLIAM PITTENGER, HERO AND AUTHOR

      Bold, loyal, dutiful, intrepid and faithful--all are words that appropriately describe the attitude of the 22 Union soldiers who had participated in the Great Andrews Train Robbery during the Civil War, but none describe it better than Daring and Suffering, the title of a book written by Knoxville native William Pittenger.
      A son and eldest sibling of seven to Thomas Pittenger and his wife Mary Mills, William was born January 31, 1840 on the south skirt of Knoxville on a small farm his father rented from in-laws.  Young William attended one-room schools in the Knoxville area and developed into a voracious reader, becoming especially interested in history, astronomy and law.  By the age of 16, despite the handicap of being shortsighted, Pittenger obtained teaching certification from the Jefferson County School Board.
      His teaching duties took him to Ravenna,Ohio and Cleveland where he became an editor and publisher for School Day Visitor.  By 1860 he was intensely studying law under the direction of Miller and Sherrard of Steubenville when the Civil War erupted.
      The twenty-year-old Pittenger enlisted with the 2nd Ohio Regiment from Steubenville and soon found himself fighting beside friends and relatives in the first battle of Bull Run.  Afterward, the regiment served in Kentucky and Tennessee campaigns, but it was the latter in which he and 20 other volunteers became famous under the leadership of civilian James J. Andrews, of Holliday's Cove, West Virginia, present day downtown Weirton.  The band pirated a Confederate locomotive, the General, with orders to burn bridges, derail track and cut telegraph lines between Marietta, Georgia and Chattanooga.
      The mission was delayed a day, forcing the Union operatives to perform their mission during a day of heavy Southern rain.  On April 12, 1862, they stole the General without incident near Big Shanty, Georgia.
      Andrews and the soldiers did manage to cut telegraph lines and dislodge some track, but the heavy rain made bridge burning nearly impossible.  The deposed engineer, William Fuller, pursued the hijackers on foot and handcar several miles and eventually commandeered a faster, more powerful locomotive, the Texas, and caught up with the Union operatives when they ran out of fuel 76 miles from Big Shanty.
      The hijackers all fled through the surrounding countryside and were captured within several days and then imprisoned at Chattanooga, Knoxville and Atlanta.  It was the Georgia capital where Andrews and seven other members of the raid were executed as spies.  The rope by which the hangman had noosed Andrews was too long so that prison guards had to shovel beneath Andrews's feet, inflicting upon the mission leader a tortuous death.
      The Union's blockade of all major Southern ports created a deficit in food and other goods within confederate lines and severely affected supply to Southern military prisons such as the notorious Andersonville and those holding Pittenger and the participants of the Andrews Raid.  For the majority of their confinement, they struggled in squalid, crowded, dank cells and suffered malnutrition and disease.
      The survivors learned they, too, would hang for spying and began preparing for the afterlife.  "It is an interesting fact," Pittenger wrote in Daring and Suffering, "which the rationalist may explain as the will, that from the times of that long prison prayer meeting--from early afternoon to midnight--the fortunes of our party began to improve.  There were fearful trials still before us, not much inferior to any we had passed; we held our lives by the frailest thread; yet till the close of war, though many perished around us, death did not claim another victim from our midsts."
      Soon afterward, penetration of the Union Army probably saved the party's life, the Confederates sending them to different prisons, one being Knoxville, Tennessee.  Ironically, General John Hunt Morgan was stationed there at the time.  In a year, the Confederates would lead a raid passing near Pittenger's hometown, Knoxville, Ohio.  The Rebels later returned the Union raiders to Atlanta.
      At the Georgia prison, a Methodist minister befriended Pittenger, lending him books to read, furthering his religious transformation.  "I did not care, as in Knoxville, for law books, but the fact that many, though not all, of the minister's books were of the theological and religious cast only made them more welcome.  This Atlanta jail was my seminary."                                                                                            
       The Rebels eventually shipped all surviving members of the locomotive raid to Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia where they were exchanged for Confederate prisoners in March, 1863.
      At Washington D.C., Pittenger and his comrades received Congressional Medals of Honor from Secretary of War and Steubenville native Edwin Stanton and President Abraham Lincoln, making them the first soldiers on record to receive the nation's greatest distinction.
      And then Pittenger took a friendly railroad ride home, his family picking him up at Sloane's Station.
      "The journey over the old familiar hills about which I had dreamed in Southern dungeons," he wrote, "the tearful welcome of father and mother, the surprise and joy of the little brother and sisters.  For the first time in history a public supper was given  in honor of an individual in the little village of Knoxville. The next Sunday I attended the Methodist church in New Somerset and had my name enrolled as a probationer.  The vow I had made to God in hour of trouble was not forgotten."
      Honorably discharged for disability August 14, 1863, Sergeant Pittenger soon studied for the ministry and became ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church.  While his ministerial duties took him to numerous locations across the country, he published his account of the Great Locomotive Chase in a series of stories to the then Steubenville Herald, in 1887 republishing them in book form.  He authored several other books, including Toasts and Forms of Public Address and Extempore Speech.  All Pittenger books remain in print and can be borrowed through public library services or purchased via Internet catalogs.
      Daring and Suffering generated two movies, The General, starring Buster Keaton in a silent comedy, and a 1956 Disney made-for-television film, The Great Locomotive Chase, the latter erroneously portraying Pittenger as becoming the first-ever person awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
      Pittenger died in Fallbrook, San Diego County, California and is buried there.  A U.S. Army base, Sergeant William Pittenger Camp, is nearby.
    

     Pictures above:  Portrait of hero and Knox Township native son sergeant William Pittenger, and his birth site, on Ohio Route 213, just south of the old Knoxville School.