Black History In Potter County

 

Where do we hear local stories of local black history?

Are the teachers telling  of  Asylum Peters - or Peter Asylum from some sources - buried on Ayers Hill. In 1810 census, the population of Potter County was 29. Among those was listed Mr. Peters, colored, a slave. The Potter County Historical Society has purchased a cemetery marker that will name Mr. Peters, not as a former enslaved person, but rather in his rightful place as a Potter County pioneer.

Are we sharing the stories about local stops on the Underground Railroad? The Mann Houses - in Coudersport and in Millport and other stops along the way to freedom in Canada. W.W. Thompson, local historian and founder of The Potter Enterprise, told a story, some years after the Civil War, about the discovery of a hidden room, complete with a straw tick and blankets in a commercial building at the corner of West and Third Streets, a building once owned by J.S. Mann

Rev. E.S. Toensmeier preaching from the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church in 1906: "The attempt to paint slavery as an ideal institution as is being done in so many quarters should meet with the condemnation it deserves. There were doubtless homes in the South where the relations between Master and Slave was one of affection, of loyalty, of kindliness yet when you have said all you can in praise, the fact remains it was slavery. The Negro was a human being who was bought and sold."

Are they hearing stories from the CCC Camp at  Bark Shanty? The newspaper piece from 1941 relates "Mr. W.C. Handy will play his music 'conceived in torment' as the featured attraction of a program of entertainment sponsored by the camp."The Bark Shanty Camp was a negro camp. 

And who remembers the time The Globe Trotters, described as the "negro wizards of the hardwood," played a game against top local basketball stars in the spring of 1948. 

And what about teaching about the migrants who played a big role in the county's rich agricultural history. To help develop the county's agricultural economy, farmers of the late 1940s and 1950s, began to put more acreage into crop production - peas, beans and potatoes in particular. And so, crop workers from the south - mostly black folks - were brought to the county for harvest. 

Newspapers of the day chronicled the influx of more than 3,000 individuals, while at the same time touting the economic impact for the county.

"A talented writer could almost produce another "Grapes of Wrath" book with the setting in Potter County."

"The Enterprise has pointed up squalid living conditions in migratory labor camps. The paper only finds fault with those old buildings with leaky roofs and no sanitary facilities where scores of men and children are crowded in, and in many cases each man and woman is charged one dollar a week room rent."

"If the workers fight and cut each other or commit other crimes, the cases are reported truthfully. If slot machines are seized or men arrested for the sale of intoxicants, the reports are made. Isn't it just possible that showing of condition will have a tendency to improve them." (1950) 

"Potter County is not only paying gigantic bills of costs to enforce the law but it is being given most damaging publicity because of the bringing of hundreds of Negroes here as farm crop workers."

And this ... 

"Law and order took a holiday Monday at a migrant worker camp in Bingham Township, four miles north of Ulysses. Crimes ranged from assault and battery through sale of illegal intoxicants to selling venison to Negro crop workers. Right in the middle is the white boss at the camp."

And in the background, the work of  local communities of faith.

"The pastor stressed the importance of the assistance-type service rendered. 'Right here in Potter County during farming season there are far more people who need help than society likes to admit. But caring for the deficiencies of mankind in a modern and expedient way is something new, something not wholly accepted."

From 1952, Father Moore from Christ Episcopal Church commented:

"Let us look at some of the remarks migrant workers in Potter County have made. 'I needed that help, Reverend, that cold night. My children were hungry and shivering. Every bit of clothes and grub were tops. God is good, Reverend. He is good!' "

Rev. Mr. Moore concluded: "In the two years that migrant workers have been practically aided by the churches in Potter County, we have gained much ground in helping these people to see a better day among us - to say nothing of the perils that stem from the sullenness of stark poverty.  The church believes that the future dangers of crime, disease and delinquency can be 'bought off' by continuous assistance."

How Golly Became Golly

 

December 5, 1940

By golly, we put it over on that bunch of dictators in the back shop last week. Wrote this column early – and a lot of it. Don Danforth, who has recently joined our force as a linotype key-tickler, has not become throughly familiar with the tactics of the gang and so the type was set without a murmur.

When "half pint" Thomas was making up the first forms for the issue, he needed type to fill the pages, and being a day short ot time on account of Thanksgiving, by golly, it got by him.

"Big Boy" Truxal didn't have a change to growl until the column was all printed, and then it was too late! Bill Fish II, made a comment or two but we silenced him with "Quiet son, quiet!"

By golly, we got away with it, and on Monday evening we were tickled pink to see those sheets all neatly printed with 42 column inches of bright and sparkling "Take It or Leave It!"

But along came a fella who just does not know the rules of a newspaper office. He appeared in the back shop and soon had his nose stuck in the printed sheets. We hated like the dickens to choke him off but we had to do it. Of course, we were careful not to offend him, so we commented as follows as nearly as we can remember:

"Hey, you big stiff, don't you know it is against all the rules of a newspaper shop to butt in and read adv. copy or proofs or any printed section until the paper is completed and put in circulation?"

Of course, you will understand dear readers (if any), that we made our comments very gently and quietly so they couldn't have been heard more than three or four blocks.

And then, by golly, that fella heaped coals on our head. Here's how he came back, meek as Moses, "Well I saw "Take It or Leave It" and I just couldn't wait until the paper was out to read it."

What are you going to do with such a comeback? That was a pretty compliment, but even so we had to stand by our guns.

And now a word to any person who may happen in our back shop:

Don't get nosey and start reading news copy, adv. copy or proofs. it is against all the rules and regulations, constitutions and by laws, proclamations and promulgations, to do so. If you insert your proboscis in what's not intended for dissemination until publication day there will probably be a vocal explosion that will rock the countryside for miles around. The exploder – if it happens to be the writer of these candid paragraphs – will be embarrassed beyond words – and so will you!

Don't do it, by Golly!

By golly, two words that keep coming to mind as we sit here pouring this stuff on paper, are "by golly." Maybe this column this week should be called "The By Golly" column.

North Main Street

 

I came across this photograph during one of those frigid days last week. It was taken on an equally frigid day sometime in the late 1930s I surmise.  It's my uncle Bill Fish Jr. on the left and the identities of the other fellows are lost in time. And look closely and you'll see another pedestrian walking behind.

Yesterday I walked up from the Coudersport post office, navigating my way around dirty snow piles, puddles, and the uneven, frost-heaved slate sidewalks that used to be prime roller skating territory. The corner of Fifth Street and North Main, my old neighborhood.

The People's Paper

Recollections of my newspapering life are far in the background of all the years of living since. But sometimes, like yesterday after listening to a radio program about the "future of the free press", I allow myself to go back to that familiar place.

1978 in the back room of The Potter Enterprise

I still feel a pull toward that life - the satisfying work of making sense of a lengthy school board meeting, following borough council's actions, editing the words of various small community correspondents reporting comings and goings from places like Card Creek, Germania, Hebron. And sharing the birth announcements, telling the wedding stories and writing obituaries, making sure that there are no misspellings - after all it is a public record as I was told in the early days of that work.

The back room functions, setting type (though I never actually set type but rather used phototypesetting equipment, then a computer), designing ads, choosing typefaces, and pasteup. And the work of putting the pages together. Then it was Wednesday – unloading the van just back from the printers and getting those thousands of weeklies where they needed to be. The satisfying feeling of the gray mailbags, properly labeled on their way to the post office.

It was, of course, a group effort with many hard-working people doing their jobs - often two or three jobs. Dedicated people and good friends.

And when it was Thursday, we'd begin again.

I had already pushed publish on my post about propaganda and distrust of the media yesterday when I came across this written when my grandfather took the reins of The Potter Enterprise in 1920.

"In the consolidation of the Enterprise and Independent, the owners have the means and hand to give the people of Potter County one of the greatest newspapers ever published. And that it will be, indeed, and truthful of the duty we owe the people of this county. It shall be our persistent effort and loyal and earnest endeavor to so conduct this publication that it will be, in deed and truth, "The People's Paper."

"From its columns we shall divorce all personal animosities and ideas of favor and will present fearlessly and consistently the news in all its phases.

"This paper will stand opposed at all times to corruption and graft and the control, politically of a few, to the detriment of the many. We are in the fight to be of service to ALL the people and we shall not hesitate to expose and make public through its columns any acts or practices on the part of the public officials, whom we believe are violating the trust and failing in the performance of duties that have been reposed in them.

"As the editor of the Enterprise, the writer is not unmindful of the duty he owes the people of Potter County and fully cognizant of that duty. It shall be his constant aim to serve fairly all people and promote all things that may result in the public good. The editor of the Enterprise wants to merit the confidence and support in his efforts and pledges them at all times championship of Right, Justice and Equality and asks for hearty support and cooperation."

Although I've been dissociated from newspapering in Potter County for many years, there's more than a little regret in acknowledging that. As we say these days, it's in my DNA.

I'm Naming It

What year did we have Civics* in high school? That's the year I sat in one of those uncomfortable chairs with the attached desk and listened to Mr. Berger talk about the propaganda techniques that allowed the Nazis to murder millions of Jews and then he told us of the propaganda techniques being employed in the Soviet Union, with its state-run media and silencing of dissenting voices.

I had just read The Diary of Anne Frank. Anne Frank a teenage girl like me, hidden away in an attic for years, writing in her diary - she even named it - before being snatched away to unspeakable horror after someone reported their hideaway. She died, never to have a chance to make real the dreams she shared with "Dear Kitty."

People - folks like us baby boomers sitting in Mr. Berger's classroom in the 1960s - shook their heads and thought it can't happen here. We had Walter Cronkite on the news every night. We had The Buffalo Evening News and The Bradford Era and The Olean Times Herald delivered to our doors every day by the paperboys and papergirls, some of whom were likely in that classroom. We had The Potter Enterprise for our local news and I knew that was dependable because my mother and my aunt and uncle and grandfather worked there.

In fact, my journalist grandfather wrote this in  1948:

"True facts." There is one that gets Golly down. If the fact is a truth, as our dictionary states, what other facts are there except true? Golly would like to know.

Remember when the news media were hesitant to brand any politician as a liar? A radio piece** I distinctly remember, featured various NPR correspondents and editors discussing the terminology, finally giving Trump and his minions a pass on what appeared from my vantage point to be blatant lies. And I wondered at the time why the media was so hesitant to call lying people liars. It was the time of Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts."

Now it's commonplace for Trump's lies to be called out. Lies about the economy, lies about 'domestic terrorists,' lies about liaisons with Jeffrey Epstein, lies about Greenland and lies about tariffs, lies about the 2020 election, lies about the East Wing, lies about the Kennedy Center. But is it too late?

Have you put your attention on a federal government website lately? The White House site welcomes us to the Golden Age. Then we're directed to January 6: The Real Story.

And if  you want to be truly chilled, take a look at the Media Offenders tab on that White House site: "A Record of the Media's False and Misleading Stories Flagged by The White House. Scroll for the Truth." There's even a link to "submit a tip."

We've been told and continue to be told by our government that the media - journalists charged with keeping an eye on the workings of the people's (yours and mine) elected representatives  – is 'fake', 'dishonest', 'biased', 'liberal.' And not only are we instructed to disbelieve that which we've seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, we're asked to report the truth-tellers.

I ask, as a former public relations person, and more importantly as a thinking, observant human being, how can this be? Are we really going to allow this to continue - this artifice, these distortions, these lies?

*1960s American public high-school students were typically required to take three courses in civics—Civics, Problems of Democracy, and U.S. Government.

**I had to look up that piece to check my memory and I link it here. I believe it wasn't until shortly before the 2020 election that liar was regularly used to describe Donald Trump.

An Anniversary

From 1955:

The Golly guy celebrated an anniversary Tuesday, Feb. 1.

It was on Feb. 1, 1920, that the late Arch Bernard and the Golly guy took ownership and possession of the Potter Enterprise from the late M.T. Stokes.

According to our figures that totals more than 1800 Thursdays during the 35 years.

A lot of work–
Tons of ink–
More tons of paper–
A lot of headaches–

And when it's all summed up those 35 years have been happy and satisfying years. Golly is glad to have had a part in editing and publishing YOUR weekly newspaper.

clipped from Potter Enterprise, 1920

From 1968 

Away back about 1920, Arch Bernard came to Coudersport and edited the Potter Democrat. He offered to Golly more pay as a printer than he received at the Potter Journal. So Golly changed jobs.

After a short time, he proposed we buy the Democrat. Neither of us had more than a dollar but made the deal all on credit.

In a few more months, we bought the Enterprise. That piled more debt. We were in away over our heads.

Within a year or so Bernard sold his interest to the late George W. Daniels and departed. Mr. Daniels had no newspaper experience.

Golly had a long uphill battle to pay off. He worked seven days a week and a lot of nights but he made it. During the time a son and three daughters arrived at Golly's home. We could not do so much for the youngsters as we would have liked but they reached maturity and we are proud of them.

From the day Golly took a hand in the operation to the present (1968), there has not been a year without an increase in circulation. Today it stands at 7,500. Mr. Stokes printed about 1500. The subscription was $1.50 per year. Not over half of the readers even paid the $1.50. Such a business!

It is a most remarkable growth and we are very proud of it, but in his old age – if 94 is old – Golly only manages to write this column. Maybe this is "small potatoes and few in a hill."

From the 21st Century perspective of this granddaughter, offspring of one of his four children, a woman whose love for newspapering and printing was shared with me, this accomplishment is so much more than small potatoes!

This appeared in the upper lefthand corner of the nameplate.

Freewrite For An Urgent Time

A Sunbeam, A Sunbeam

Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam

A sunbeam, a sunbeam

I'll be a sunbeam for Him

I interrupt my regularly scheduled program to bring you this piece below, started this week in an online writing practice group "Freewrites For Urgent Times - a space to write through the anger and grief of these times." 

That day I chose to let 'er rip,  no good, no bad, no comment, no filter. It came from a place of deep grief and fear and anger after watching the President of the United States speeching the most hateful, spiteful untruths on the world stage. I turned it off, walked out on the back porch in my fuzzy bathrobe and stood in the cold stillness, watching the birds at the feeder and breathed in the cold, cold air. Air so cold it hurt, a physical pain to muffle the crashing waves of fear.

I've experienced that particular kind of gut-punch fear before, a fear borne of realizing you, a sole human being, have no control over what's happening. Of course, I've lived long enough to know there is little control in most of life but my first awareness was what history calls the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember lying in my bed that night with the thought that there was a very real possibility that the dread mushroom cloud would appear over Consistory Hill. I was physically ill, the aforementioned gut-punch that sent me down the hall to the bathroom in secret.

And now, this woman, removed by many years from that little girl on North East Street, greeted the faces in the Zoom boxes, earnest and stalwart. There was a poem to get us started as often happens. And though I didn't write down the name of the poet nor did I copy the poem in its entirety, here are the words of another upon which I composed this essay.

"I pick flowers for my dead father when I'm sad..."

The Father, The Son, The Holy Ghost - but these days I prefer to think Source, Word, Spirit. But it was the Father who was the God I was instructed to worship in many years of Sunday School at the Presbyterian Church. God Of Our Fathers, Holy, Holy, Holy, A Mighty Fortress.

Sunday School, every year the gift of a little bar to hang from the second year wreath that circled the pin presented that first year of Sunday School. The little girl with her toothpick legs sticking out from underneath the full skirt plumped with some kind of stiff crinoline fabric. Wearing a Sunday dress created by my mother on her old treadle Singer sewing machine, sometimes trimmed with lace carefully salvaged from clothing that had been someone else's.

White Jesus with the flowing brown hair, the Sunday School Jesus who loves me, who wants me for a sunbeam. Listen to the echoes of our feet tromping to the basement, down those winding stairs to the concrete floor in the space that always smelled a little musty except when it was steamy from the cooking for congregational dinners, those elaborate meals served on the plates that still rest in the cupboards down there - at least one hundred of them.

The father - that God enlisted as a battering ram these days. Much like the battering rams employed against the outraged in Minneapolis. The battering rams and guns used against the humans, the Christians and Jews and Muslins and Agnostics and Atheists standing against the masked thugs sent by our government - a government supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people.

Much like the battering rams carried by the thugs who waved the Appeal To Heaven flag on January 6. That same flag that hangs outside Mike Johnson's office and flaps in the breeze at Samuel Alito's beach house.  This God , they tell me, has chosen this man, this Donald J. Trump. And Donald J. Trump - the golden idol  from the top of his golden hair to his gold burnished skin, sitting in a gilded office, shitting in a golden toilet, building a golden temple onto the people's house. That god is a dead father.

The dead father commanding that the males are in charge. With the women waiting for them, and on them, following their bidding, offering up their little girls to pleasure them, plumping their breasts and their lips to command attention. Their lips like machine guns, he says.  All in the name of their dead father.

I am so sad, so very sad but there are no flowers for the dead father in this cold, lonely, desolate, hopeless winter.