Thursday, May 11, 1899
President McKinley and Mrs. McKinley are in Bath County, where they will spend two or three weeks. They arrived at the Homestead Monday. The President has been suffering from rheumatism and expects to use the Hot Springs baths.
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While in town last week, Mr. A. W. Moore, a close observer of the weather, gave us the following statistics in regard to the snowfall for the winter of 98-99. There were 37 snows of an aggregate depth of 70 inches. 31 inches fell in February. The coldest day was February 10, when the thermometer fell to 31 below zero.
THE RAMP
At this season of the year in the open woods where the soil is very rich, there is to be found a lily which we know as the ramp, to the use of which no little odium has been undeservedly attached. It is furnished by nature as an anti-scorbutic, and many a poor man whose blood is sluggish from the inaction of winter and the sameness of a diet of cornbread and no trimmings, has eaten some messes of ramps, peeled off, and felt like a new man…
The ramp is most too heroic a diet for delicate stomachs, for after eating them raw with salt an inward fire is felt that is very disagreeable. Heartburn is a mild affliction compared to the warmth of a mess of ramps. If the ramp is parboiled and fried, it is more palatable.
When a family of eight or ten, who have occupied one room as their living, eating, cooking and sleeping apartment all winter, indulge in an unlimited quantity of ramps, the atmosphere of that family circle will float an egg. The breath of a person who has been eating ramps is not to be endured…
In spite of the fact that in some small minds ramps is a word of reproach, if the independent county of Pocahontas was called upon to choose a floral emblem, the ramp would have to be considered… The ramps of Pocahontas deserve to be classed with the lilies of France, or the shamrock of Ireland.
SUCKER FISHING
The sucker industry in being overdone on Williams River. That stream, after an unusual fall for a number of miles, widens out and for two miles or so forms the dead-water, or as it was once known, “the watering ponds” of Williams River. In this dead-water, when the wind is drawing up stream, the drift will float before it. This still water is the home of myriads of suckers of the red horse variety, which exist here undisturbed the most of the year. When the spawning season comes, they go up to the shallow waters above to lay their eggs, and as they pass out of the dead-waters, they may be taken by the hundreds. The head of the dead-water is in the Penick Meadows, which is enclosed, and the owners can control a very productive fishing interest whenever the market will justify it. The fishing has always been free, and the whole neighborhood counts on having the finest of fresh fish on the table when the suckers begin to run.
DRUNKEN MAN’S LUCK
Mitchell Peters, a Shawana Indian, is living witness of a drunk man’s luck.
Peters was one of a driving crew that broke a big jam above Sturgeon Falls, Wisconsin. He made the desperate attempt of trying to cross the river on a log and was carried over the falls. The falls are 40 feet high and consist of two pitches and a rapid. Peters was given up for dead, and the driving crew thought it useless to search the river for his body, as the logs were piling over the falls at a fast rate.
Imagine the surprise of all when Peters walked into camp the next morning for breakfast. Some thought it was his ghost until he was in their midst. He had been swept down the river by the rushing water and up against the river bank, and he managed to crawl out and went to sleep. A few scratches on his head were the only injuries sustained.
The Sturgeon Falls is one of the most treacherous places in the Menominee River region, and a few years ago three girls were swept over in a boat and drowned. – New York Sun