Entries Tagged 'Miscellany' ↓

Most recently the home of Arcadian Too Antiques, soon to be home of Ann Arbor coworking.

Being on Main street (a half block south of Huron) means the lot where the building stands has been platted from the beginning, and has been pretty much in continual use.

From the mid-1800’s to about 1900 the address was 18 South Main. This caused me some confusion because there also was a 118 S. Main which was a residence.

The earliest picture I found of the area is from ca. 1860. Our building is not entirely in the picture, as it is a picture of the “American Block” which (as you will see) later became the “Bank Block”.

Here, I’ve noted what I believe is the location of 18 S Main:

Notice that there’s a row of leather goods shops. I think that the theme continues along the street, and the noted building is also a boot and shoe shop.

Sometime between 1860 and about 1867 the American Block was torn down and the handsome building you see today was erected. When they replaced the American Block they stopped at what is now the north side of the building lobby.

Here’s a ca. 1867 picture of the site:

Let’s zoom in on the little building to the right:

Aha! A name with which to search. Jacob Vandawarker was a shoemaker, who arrived in Ann Arbor in 1834 and did very well for himself and his family. I believe the sign says “E Vandawarker” which would likely be his son Edwin, continuing on with the family business. There is also a Frank Vandawarker, but Frank went to medical school and didn’t get involved in the family business until his father’s death in 1881.

Also, the Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1867 says “Vandewalker, Ed., boot and shoe maker, Main.”

At some point between 1867 and 1872, E. Vandawarker’s shop moved to 6½ Huron.

From about 1870 to about 1892, there were a series of small businesses housed in the space, which also had living space in it. About 1872, it was the home of “Ann Arbor Trading Association” doing business as “The Farmers’ Store”. In the late 1870s “Jonathan Sprague, tailor” was listed at 18 S. Main. The 1892 Glen V. Mills Directory of the City of Ann Arbor says that “Allmendinger Band, Henry Otto, leader” occupied the location. I haven’t been able to find anything out about the band yet.

At some point between 1892 and 1910 EF Mills, which provided “ladies’ furnishings” moved from 20 S Main to 118 S Main.

Past and Present of Washtenaw County, Michigan (1906) says that Goodyear was at 118 S Main in 1888, and bought out Mills in 1902 (and then moved to 120 S Main). But the 1910 directory gives Mills at 118. I don’t really trust the information in this book, because I have yet to see Goodyear’s location in 1888 (unless Goodyear gave over some space to Otto’s “Allmendinger Band” in 1892).

And that’s as far as I got. More research is likely to benefit only me; it’s pretty clear that the space has long housed retail establishments — starting with boots and shoes, moving to tailoring, general merchandise, ladies’ merchandise, antiques… and also briefly hosted a band office. It is not officially part of the Goodyear building (Bank Block), but over the century and a quarter(?) of its existence has become intertwined with it.

• There is a man in Missouri whose feet are so large that he has to put his trousers on over his head.¹

• A Kentucky Shoemaker, for the sake of economy, has his sign painted thus:

           E
  BROWN’SHO—
           P
  

• A West Virginia man is so peculiarly affected by riding on a train that he has to chain himself to a seat to prevent his jumping out of the car window.²

• People in Madison county, Ky., who have paid their taxes are entitled to be married free by the sheriff.

• An Illinois farmer owns a hen which lays twin eggs every day.

• Geigersville, Ky., is the birthplace of a boy who was an inveterate tobacco chewer before he was a year old.

• An Alabama father has taught all his children to read with their books upside down.

• A Mississippi woman, who chews tobacco and drinks whisky, thinks that women have all the “rights” they need.

• A Minnesota girl of 15 can distinguish no color, everything being white to her, and she is compelled to wear dark glasses to protect her eyes from the glare.

• Young Darling killed a man in Washington county, Ky., the other day, and Love Divine stole a wagon load of tools in Fayette county.

• The servants in a school for girls in Connecticut, while cleaning up the rooms after school closed, discovered 3,678 wads of chewing gum stuck about in various places.³

• A Florida negro is growing fat on snake steaks.

• One county in Pennsylvania has contributed two members to congress, two to the state senate and two convicts to the penitentiary.⁴

• A Mississippi river steamboat roustabout drinks a half gallon of whisky every day.

• A South Carolina widow became her own mother-in-law recently. That is to say, she is now the wife of her husband’s father.⁵

• A New Hampshire girl of 23 never tasted hot bread until three weeks ago, when she stopped with friends at a Boston hotel.⁶

• A dude in Philadelphia was turned out of the club to which he belonged because he paid his tailor’s bill two days after he got his clothes.⁷

• An Idaho school teacher enforces obedience with a revolver.

• A Baptist preacher in Georgia refuses to baptize except in running water.

• An Arkansas hunter has a hound that will catch his tail in his teeth and roll down a hill faster than any other hound in the pack can run.⁸

• A Maine mother has an old slipper, still in use, which has spanked six generations of her family.⁹

• Michigan has a man who is so fat that he can’t fall down hard enough to hurt himself. He is known as the human spheroid.

• A Delaware peach grower has found an apple with fuzz on it growing on a peach tree.

• An Indiana calf, now two months old, has hoofs like a horse.

• A Chicago man paid his first visit to St. Louis in July, and he liked it so well that he has gone there to live.¹⁰

• A Texas preacher threw a Bible at a deacon who started to run away with the collection, and knocked him down the front steps of the church, breaking his leg in two places.¹¹

1. Oh really![back]
2. Wonder what he’d think about airplanes?[back]
3. They counted them all?![back]
4. These days, they’d be the same two people.[back]
5. At least she’s not her own grammaw.[back]
6. Didn’t they have ovens in New Hampshire?[back]
7. Can’t have any responsible parties here![back]
8. I’d like to see that.[back]
9. I wonder if it’s still in use?[back]
10. This is news?[back]
11. That was some throw![back]

Not my normal posting, but since this was inspired by the Ann Arbor Art Fairs (currently under way), I thought it might fit pretty well.

(CC) Rights

(Sources: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? and Bill Liao’s Flickr. Editing by Bill Tozier.)

Bill tagged me with a four things meme, though he already knows most of the answers! But I will play along — now I must try to figure out a way to answer in Odd Ends style (if there is such a thing).

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Game room attendant
2. MIS wrangler (in the early ’80s I was the Management Information System, being the only one in the 30 person office who could run Lotus 1-2-3)
3. Factory service engineer
4. Heat treatment process researcher

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. The Philadelphia Story
2. 1776
3. Some Like it Hot
4. There is no fourth one. I don’t watch movies much.

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Cincinnati, Ohio
2. Altoona, Pennsylvania
3. Glasgow, Kentucky
4. King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

Four TV shows I love:

I don’t like to watch TV, but if I’m in the same room with it, I usually won’t turn off

1. Cash in the Attic
2. Changing Rooms
3. Law and Order
4. Whatever someone else is watching

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Duck, North Carolina
2. Juneau, Alaska
3. St. Pete Beach, Florida
4. Maryhill, Washington

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Unagi sushi
2. Pumpkin pie (but only my mother’s recipe)
3. Anything that starts with bacon, onions, and curry powder (cf. Bill’s #2 for this section)
4. Spinach

Four sites I visit daily:

1. DP
2. ucomics.com
3. comics.com
4. Google news

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. The desert
2. The desert
3. The desert
4. The desert

Four bloggers I am tagging:

None, sorry. Most Odd Ends visitors come via search engines, so if you’re reading this, consider yourself tagged!

Four books (or series) I love:

1. W. A. Clouston, Flowers from a Persian Garden
2. R. A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
3. L. M. Bujold, Vorkosigan Saga
4. T. Pratchett, Discworld Series

Four games I can play over and over again:

1. Scrabble
2. Settlers of Cataan
3. RoboRally
4. Sudoku

The revival at Venice of the mosaic art, chiefly for internal and external artistic decorations of private and public buildings, goes on uninterruptedly and working in mosaic is now (our consul says) carried on in that city on a large scale and with great success, says the London Daily News. A mosaic is a work framed by the use of “tesserae” or small cubes of enamel, marble or other material and of a gold-and-silver leaf between two films of the purest glass of various colors, which are skillfully mixed on cement so as to produce the effect of a picture. The composition of human figures in different attitudes, animals, draperies or other objects requiring a careful delineation are intrusted to the best workmen and the execution of the background to the less trained workmen. The splendid mosaics which are made at Venice continue to be in great demand in the artistic markets of the world for the skillful manner in which the tesserae are arranged, for their extreme beauty and delicacy of color, the rich harmony of effect and from their being nearly indestructible. The manner in which mosaics are now made for decorative purposes is quite different from the elaborate system used by the ancients, which consisted in fixing the tesserae one by one on the cement previously applied on the wall. The modern method of the Venetian school consists in executing the mosaic in the workshop by having the tesserae fixed with common paste on the section of the cartoon assigned to each workman. When all the parts of the mosaic are complete they are put together on the floor or on a special wooden frame. The mosaic, which is then a perfect representation of the original cartoon, is again divided into section on the reverse side, marked with a progressive number and carefully packed to be sent off to the place for which it is intended. The surface of the wall where the mosaic is to be fixed is then covered with cement, into which the sections of the mosaic are uniformly pressed according to their numbers and the key-plan supplied to the fixers. When the cement has hardened the paper on which the tesserae have been pasted is gently taken off and the faithful copy of the original cartoon is again exhibited on the right side.

Mr. Palmer, in his “Anecdotes of Elephants,” relates the following: “A troop of elephants were accustomed to pass a green-stall on their way to water. The woman who kept the stall took a fancy to one of the elephants, and frequently regaled her favorite with greens and fruits, which produced a corresponding attachment on the part of the elephant toward the woman. One day, the group of elephants unfortunately overturned the poor woman’s stall, and in her haste to preserve her goods she forgot her little son, who was in danger of being trampled to death. The favorite elephant perceived the child’s danger, and taking him up gently with his trunk, carefully placing him on the roof of a shed close at hand.”

An amusing anecdote is given by Captain Williamson of an elephant, named ‘Pangal,’ which showed remarkable sagacity. This animal, when on a march, refused to carry on his back a larger load than he thought was right and proper. He would pull down as much of the burden as reduced it to the weight which he conceived it was fair for him to bear. One day the quarter-master of the brigade became enraged at the apparent obstinacy of the animal, and very cruelly threw a tent pin at his head. A few days afterwards, as the elephant was on his way from camp to water he overtook the quarter-master, and, seizing him in his trunk, lifted him into a large tamarind tree, which overhung the road, and left him to cling to the branches, and get down in the best way that he could.

Porus, a king of India, in a battle with Alexander the Great, being severely wounded, fell from the back of his elephant. The Macedonian soldiers, supposing him to be dead, pushed forward in order to despoil of his rich clothes an accoutrements. The noble and faithful elephant, however, standing over the body of its master, boldly repelled every one who dared to approach. And, while the enemy was at bay, took the bleeding monarch up with his trunk, and gently placed him again on his back. The troops of Porus came by this time to his relief, and the king was saved; but the faithful elephant died of the wounds which he received in the heroic defence of his master.

Ludolph says that an elephant was one day ordered to launch a ship. The animal attempted to pull the vessel into the water, but it was beyond its strength. “Take away that lazy beast, and put another in his stead,” cried the angry keeper. The noble animal on hearing this redoubled his efforts, fractured his skull, and fell dead on the spot!

Clement Spelman of Narburgh, recorder of Nottingham, who died in 1679, is immured upright, inclosed in a pillar in Narburgh church, so that the inscription is directly against his face. This must surely be the one solitary instance of burial in a pillar, although there are many other instances of burial in an upright position. Thomas Cook, who was governor of the Bank of England from 1737 to 1739, and who had formerly been a merchant residing in Constantinople, died at Stoke Newington, Aug. 12, 1752, and by his directions his body was carried to Morden College, Blackheath, of which he was a trustee; it was taken out of the coffin and buried in a winding sheet upright in the ground, according to the eastern custom. Ben Jonson was buried at Westminster in an upright position. Possibly this may have been on account of the large fee demanded for a full sized grave. It was for a long time supposed that the story was invented to account for the smallness of the gravestone; but on the grave being opened up some years since the dramatist’s remains were discovered in the attitude indicated by tradition.–Pearson’s Weekly.

The most curious specimens of vegetable or plant life in existence are the so-called “living stones” of the Falkland Islands. Those islands are among the most cheerless spots in the world, being consistently subjected to a strong polar wind. In such a climate it is impossible for trees to grow erect, as they do in other countries, but nature has made amends by furnishing a supply of wood in the most curious shape imaginable. The visitor to the Falklands sees, scattered here and there, singular shaped blocks of what appear to be weather-beaten and moss-covered boulders of various sizes. Attempt to turn one of these “bowlders” over and and you will meet with a surprise, because the supposed stone is anchored by roots of great strength; in fact, you will find you are fooling with one of the native trees. No other country in the world has such a peculiar “forest” growth, and it is said to be next to impossible to work the odd-shaped blocks into fuel, because it is perfectly devoid of “grain” and appears to be nothing but a twisted mass of woody fibres.

M. E. Church, proprietor of the Beddington tannery, relates a rather remarkable story, showing the wonderful instinct of his dog Don, says the Augusta News Age. Having occasion not long since to visit Bangor, he left Don at the tannery. But the dog soon became dissatisfied and returned to his home in Cherryfield, twenty miles distant. When Mr. Church returned to Beddington he called up his wife on the telephone, and in course of conversation inquired for Don. On being told that Don was home, he asked to be allowed to talk with him. Don was accordingly held up to the telephone and the receiver place to his ear. As “Hello, Don,” came from his master, the dog began to show signs of excitement, which increased as the conversation progressed. In a few minutes after being released he disappeared, and in about two hours Mr. Church called again on the telephone and announced that Don had arrived at the tannery.

Northern Indiana has become a great freak-producing section. Albert Martin, who resides near the Fulton county line, has a Plymouth Rock hen, which has not been laying for some time. Yesterday she went on the nest and the family was greatly astonished to discover, when she left it shortly afterward, that she had laid a live chick. Only a few bits of broken shell were about the head of the chick, which was still wet. The supposition is that the egg, in some manner, retarded in its progress, was held in the sack until the germ developed and proceeded to the stage of incubation. So far as known, this is the first case of the kind on record. Another remarkable lusus naturae is that of a pig, owned by Frederick Shipman of Pulaski county, which was born recently with its tail directly in the middle of its forehead and its nostrils in the side of its snout like a duck. Unfortunately, its mother lay upon it and smothered it the second night after its arrival, or it might have proved a valuable acquisition for some museum. John Wilds, a well known farmer, who lives just north of Logansport, had a lamb, born by one of his ewes recently, which weighed at birth almost twenty pounds. The extraordinary size of the animal may be appreciated from the fact that the ordinary lamb weighs at birth about five or six pounds, while nine or ten pounds is considered quite remarkable. Mr. Wild’s flock are all of a highly productive and vigorous breed, sixteen of his ewes having this year borne thirty lambs.

Iowa State Register: In Massachusetts they are talking of a Bird Day to supplement Arbor day. The father of the idea, a Mr. Babcock, has suggested the first Friday in May as the date. The suggestion comes none too soon. If we are to retain the birds with their beautiful plummage [sic] and their sweet songs, they must be protected from their many enemies. What would spring or summer be without the birds? What would sunrise be without the songs of the robins and the bluebirds and the larks in the meadows? What would evening in the country be without the twilight song of the brown thrush? And yet all these friends and companions and consolers of mankind are beset with enemies. Boys, improperly brought up, destroy their nests or rob them of their eggs, and sportsmen shoot the birds to make adornments for the hats and bonnets of foolish or unthinking women. A Bird Day would be a pretty innovation, especially in the schools. It would be one day given to the study and the admiration of bird life. Bird life is full of mysteries. It is in some respects as interesting as human life. We are going to have more trees and we ought to have more birds to sing in the leafy choir lofts of spring. Arbor day suggests a Bird Day.

Needles have never been supposed to be hereditary, but a recent case reported by a physician of eminence offers undoubted evidence to the contrary. A lady accidentally ran a needle into her foot thirty years ago, and it lay apparently dormant in her system for so many years that its existence was almost forgotten. In 1878 she was married, and a year after the birth of her infant daughter the needle made its appearance in the infant’s shoulder. There could be no doubt that it was the original needle by which the mother had been attacked in 1860, for it was of a peculiar and now obsolete pattern, and the mother distinctly remembered that needles of that pattern were in use at the time of her attack. There can be no doubt that the infant inherited the needle from her mother, and that henceforth physicians will expect to find a natural tendency to needles in the tissues. As it is asserted that people who have died from needles, although there are very few such cases on record, the insurance companies will doubtless add to the questions which they put to candidates for insurance: “Did your father or mother ever swallow needles, and, if so how many, and of what kind– sewing, [?]ing or carpet?–Pearson’s Weekly

In the course of a chat over things in general, and execution by electricity in particular, a new view of that lethal was presented by a bright, intelligent young woman who seemed to know her sex thoroughly.

She said: “I object to it because it offers too ready a way to get rid of objectionable husbands. Before very long, of course, gas will be quite superseded by electricity as a domestic illuminant, and wires will be laid on at our houses as thick as strings on a harp.

“Now, what is to prevent a woman who is tired of her spouse soothing him to sleep by clapping a damp sponge to his head and a couple to his feet, tapping a couple of wires, and giving him his quietus sweetly and peacefully? No man’s life would be safe; the neatness of the process would irresistibly commend itself to feminine taste. There would be no dirt, no noise, no disturbance of the furniture, no mess, all neat and clean, like fancy work. No, no; it really will not do.”

Dr. Pavy, perhaps the most eminent authority upon diet, says that the average man in a state of absolute rest can live on sixteen ounces of food a day; a man doing ordinary light work can live on twenty-three ounces, and a man doing laborious work needs from twenty-six and three-quarter ounces to thirty ounces.

This is food absolutely free from water, and it must be remembered that everything we eat contains more or less water, so that from forty-eight to sixty ounces of ordinary food are necessary to the work in which a man is engaged.

Sir Lyon Playfair, another great authority, gives the following as all that is necessary for a healthy man to eat in a week: Three pounds of meat with one pound of fat; two ordinary loaves of bread, one ounce of salt and five pints of milk; or for the meat, five or six pounds of oatmeal may be substituted. This sounds like starvation diet, but Sir Lyon Playfair generally knows what he’s talking about.–The Lancet.

A woman, supposed to be Mrs. Martha Williams, died suddenly at 9 o’clock last night while in Merz’s drug store in the Lakota hotel, says the Chicago Tribune. She was seen walking along Thirteenth street and appeared to be in a very exhausted condition. When she went into the drug store, she asked to be allowed to sit down as she was feeling ill. She was seated but a short time when she fell from the chair to the floor in a faint. Dr. Reyonlds, who has apartments in the Lakota hotel, was called, and after and examination he stated that she was suffering from trouble. He ordered her sent to the Mercy hospital. The ambulance from the Cottage Grove station was called, but the women died before it arrived.

Peoria, Ill., Special: Last Thursday afternoon A. R. Cline of the Chicago Board of Trade arrived in the city and registered at one of the leading hotels. Three hours later Mrs. Edna R. Cline, accompanied by her brother-in-law, A. Tallett of Edelstein, arrived and registered at the same hotel. She stated she was to meet her husband there. A few hours later they were united in marriage in the parlors of the hotel, and left the same evening for a trip of a few weeks, when they will return to their home in Chicago. They were married a few months ago in Wisconsin, but there being some doubt of the legality of the first marriage they were reunited here.

The Ann Arbor papers complain of the employment of counterfiet [sic] dog tags. We suppose whenever they find a counterfiet dog they put a tag on him, and some folks don’t like it.

The Times is authority for the remarkable fact that it is more than half of the time impossible to get a prescription filled at any drug store in Ann Arbor during night hours. We should suppose that the people should do something to wake up the sleepy druggists of that quite [sic] town.