A half century to him who has it before him seems a long time. To him who has lived it through it seems but a very little while. And so, although it may bring great changes to a country or a town, yet to him who has been a citizen thereof it seems but a very short time. So, to the writer, although the changes have been great from 1847 to 1897, in the condition of Sterling, yet it seems but a little while.
The writer having arrived at the age of eleven years without the chance to go to school, in 1847 it was thought best to move into town so as to get such small school privileges as the new place ofless than fifty buildings all told, including barns, afforded. So his father moved into a small office building left vacant by the death of Dr. Bates, then standing on the corner opposite the southwest corner of the First Ward Park, which was then a dense hazel brush patch, where the writer set spring poles to catch rabbits. There we lived about a year, I believe, when we moved into part of a house father had put up on the lots forming the southeast corner of the Second Ward School block. The post-office was then in the house of Mrs. E.B. Worthington, and the whole mail of several towns was assorted in a little case of pigeon holes not more than three feet square, and the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents, payable by the received.
The first school the writer attended was in a school house standing on a lot next south of the house of Mrs. Worthington, now surrounded by a hedge. The teacher was Norton J. Nichols, then a young man, who a year or so later married one of his pupils, Miss Amelia Judd. The teacheer "boarded 'round" with the patrons of the schook, though just how he was provided with room to sleep in some of the small houses of that day, the writer cannot now say. Among those who attended that early school of half a century ago, the writer can recall the following: Alfred, Martha and Martin Bush; Amelia, Sarah, Henry and Fred Judd; Jane, Emma, Wesley and Joseph McCabe; Samuel adn Mary Myers; Phoebe Harvey; Caroline Claypole; John and Mary Newman; and possibly a few others we do not now recall. On Christmas the teacher was locked out of the house in the morning, and compelled to go down town and get candy enough to go round before he was let in.
Of the old buildings that remain in anything like their original shape there are still visible: The old house near the southeast corner of Seventh avenue adn Fifth street, which was one of the original houses built near the corner of Firs street and Fourth avenue; the Bush house, west of Lincoln park; the Worthington house, on broadway; the Stebbins house, south of the Rover home on Fourth avenue; the R.L. Wilson home, on Sixth avenue; the Mason residence, late home of Elias D. LeFevre; the McCabe store residence, west of Central park; the Cushman house, corner of Eighth avenue and Fourth street; the McLemore home, corner of Fourth street and Sixth avenue; the rear wooden part of the Boynton house; the brick Calt & Crawford store building, on Third street near the corner of Seventh avenue, together with the wooden warehouse on Seventh avenue, a little north of Third street; part of the old Presbyterian church, and parts of several other houses that have been so much built over as to leave nothing of the outlines of the old.
Of the people of those days very few remain. A few can be named from memory, such as: Mrs. Worthington and two daughters, Mrs. Norwood, Mrs. C.C. Johnson, George Brewer, Henry and Andrew J Bush, Asa Emmons and daughter, Mrs. T.H. Mack, Mrs. Joe Miller and son Joseph T., John LeFevre, Mrs. R.L. Wilson, MRs. S.M. Coe, L.S. Pennington, Theo. H. Mack. A few of these were not residents of the town in the early days, but were so in the country near by.
There seems to be no reason why the close of the second half century of Sterling should not witness as great a growth and advancement as have the first fifty years of its life. So may it be!
P.S. - I came near forgetting to mention what was probably the first picnic ever held in Sterling, which was held during the summer of 1847, I believe. We went to Sugar Grove, carrying the children and older people as well in the lumber wagons, which were the most stylish conveyances of that day. There was a thunder shower during the day, of course, but we found time to eat our dinners under the big trees, had a good time, and got home in very good shape towards night.
Biography of Theodore H. Mack
