Watch Yourself Go ByField, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith)
General
Watch Yourself Go By
Field, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith)
Circus performers -- United States -- Biography; Field, Al. G. (Alfred Griffith), 1848-1921; Wit and humor
Therefore Krepp's Bottom was selected. The proposed park was the talk of
the town. Dunlap's Creek flowed in a circle, skirting three sides of the
bottom land. Levees three feet high were thrown up along the banks of
the creek, a rope stretched along the west side. An opening in the levee
admitted the water. Two feet of water covered the bottom. The weather
turned cold, ice formed, the park was opened, and three-fourths of the
public walked in free. Alfred felt that Spaff was about right in his
estimate of the public.
The creek fell, the dry, clay land absorbed the water, the ice sunk and
cracked in places. The waters of the creek flowed six feet below and the
glory of the skating park was a memory of the past.
Later on a promoter endeavored to rent Jeffries Hall for a roller
skating rink. George Washington Frazee, who learned of the man renting
Jeffries' hall for a skating rink, said: "Huh! Another dam fool 'bout
skeetin'. Jeffries Hall won't hold water, an' if it did hit wouldn't
freeze hard enuff to bear."
For the winter the town went back to its time honored sport of sledding,
"coasting" it is termed nowadays. Sleds of all kinds were seen on the
hills and streets of the two towns. Even men engaged in the sport. The
speed attained, especially on Scrabbletown Hill, was terrific. The big
sleds, loaded with from four to eight persons, flew down the hills at
the rate of a mile a minute. The sleds bore striking names, Alfred's the
"West Wind." It was one of the speediest of the numerous fast ones.
Starting at the top of Town Hill, those on the Brownsville side would
speed to the Iron Bridge, even across it into Bridgeport. Those sliding
Scrabbletown Hill would often be sent, by the speed attained on this
steep incline, across the Iron Bridge into Brownsville. Thus the
coasters of the rival towns would at times, pass each other going in
opposite directions.
The older men would sit in the stores and watch the sliders. The
shoe-shops of McKernan and Potts were the scenes of many heated
arguments as to the fleetness of the different sleds.
An old gentleman who had recently moved to Brownsville from Uniontown,
endeavored to impress the shoe-shop crowds with the superiority of the
sleds of the Uniontown boys over those of Brownsville. He related that a
Uniontown boy slid down Laurel Hill through Uniontown and would have
slid on down the pike to Searight's only he was afraid he would 'skeer'
somebody's horses.
[Illustration: Brownsville's Winter Sport]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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