Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.pdf/202

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COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES

that of the Berwick Store Company, which, founded in a small partnersliip, though targe for the period, has kept pace with every stage of the town’s growth. Its business has developed into a store o f some thirty depart­ ments, with a floor space equalling if not ex­ ceeding any modem establishment in the oth­ e r towns and cities within a radius o f fifty miles. T he extent o f this store's merchandise distribution m ay be understood when it is stated that it w ill sell a customer any and everything needed for personal and house­ hold requirements. Some time prior to the building of the Lackawanna & Bloomsburg railroad, when the merchant o f that day traveled by packet to the city to "la y in his stock o f goc^s,” and before the Civil war, the predecessor of the Berwick Store Company, the "old grocery at (he canal,” had its beginning. Located along­ side of the canal, in those days (he "main a r­ tery o f travel,” the old building and its w harf occupied an ideal situation. T he old store was built prim arily to cater to the canal trade, but the disposition of the owners to enlarge their activities soon made it a center fo r a wider trade. The foundryman o f that day found it necessary in "the course o f trade” to finance bis business by the exchange of groceries and dry goods fo r lalx>r and the products of the foundry; fo r not until the C ivil w ar (>criod of the sixties did the bank­ ing system of the country assume any kind o f connected existence. 'iTie old State bank­ ing system with its uncertain currency and scarcity o f ready money made it necessary for ever}' man doing business to resort to the old method o f barter and trade, and such were the conditions that made it necessary for .VI. W. Jackson and W. H . Woodin. who composed the firm o f Jackson & Woodin. to establish a store which in the process o f time w as dcsline<l to a development characteristic o f many of the great business places of the countiy at laracThe recollection of the little old two-story building, across the Lackawanna & Blooms­ burg railroad tracks, near the foot of the “ old dug road," with its associations, lives In the memory o f many of the present genera­ tion. O f (he employees of the old store, there remains in the employ of the present store M r. John H. Taylor. With George B. Thomp­ son, o f Pittston, P a., Joshua F. Opdykc, of Easton, Pa.. G arrick Slallcry, o f Philadelphia, Pa., the late S. P. Hanl^ and R. G. Crispin, he was early associated with the original Ja c k ­ son & Woodin store.

Among the hardships and inconveniences which attended the business o f keeping store in that period, aside from the scarcity o f ready money, it is recalled that many a time, and particularly during the "high w ater o f 1865,” the cellar of the old building was flooded; that (he mackerel and mess pork floated freely and unopposed in the depths until the "pum ps were manned” and the place drained; abo, that the hams and shoulders stored in the dark room on the second floor were periodi­ cally removed, inspected, and freed from the onslaught of the germ s o f that day. a fte r­ wards carefully replaced, and sold—no pure food ins lector under high government com ­ mission being in reach to decree otherw ise; that the clerks with congenial associates roomed and slept peacefully on the second floor next to the old meat room, disturbed p e r­ chance only by the ripple of the “ F a lb of the Susquehanna" near by. • Sometime in 1872 or 1873 caqal store was abandoned and its stock o f merchandise transferred to more commodious quarters in (he new building of the Jackson & W'oodin M anufacturing Company on M arket street, next to the homestead of the b te Hon. M. W. Jackson. The store occupied the first fioor of the new building, while the Jackson & Woodin M anufacturing Company's general o f ­ fices occupied the second floor, together with the banking firm o f Jackson, VN'oodin & Ja c k ­ son. I^ tc r the Young M en's Christian A s ­ sociation opened rooms on the second and third floors o f this building and here first conducted its work fo r young men and boys in especially equipped reading rooms and li­ brar)', the latter fo r that time comprising a very well selected collection o f l)ooks in charge o f Mr. .Albert G. Kim berley, whose early train­ ing in the libraries o f Birmingham, England, well equipped him for the position o f librarian. Here iWgan the annual courses o f lectures and entertainments which from the beginning to the present have been continued over a period embracing some tbirty-five years. In this new environment (he store busi­ ness rapidly grew and became the leading trading place fo r Berwick and the surround­ ing country, under the superintendence o f J . F . Opdykc and R . G . Crispin, and, fo r some iw enly odd years, M r. C. C. I.on g; under Mr. Ixing's supervision two additions were made to the building, enlarging the facilities fo r handling feed, grain and surplus stocks of merchandise. On .Aug. I, 18 9 1, the old store’s interest W.1S sold, together with the store building, to a new partnersliip formed under an act