The News from Seneca - 1888 - 1918 - as Reported in the Keowee Courier , livre ebook

Xlibris US - John Ashton Hester

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261 pages

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In the late 1800s and early 1900s the Keowee Courier was Oconee County's dominant newspaper. An important aspect of the Courier was weekly reports by community correspondents from throughout the county, who would tell about the day-to-day goings-on in their communities.
One of those communities, of course, was Seneca, and this book consists of a compilation of news reports from the Seneca correspondents, spanning the period 1888-1918, specifically from the years 1888, 1889, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910 1911, 1914 and 1918.
Although several excellent Seneca history books have been published, the author feels that this book will add an extra dimension by focusing on the day-to-day, week-to-week, year-to-year goings on as Senecaites (as they were called back then) adapted to the coming of cotton mills, automobiles, electric lights, etc.

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Social History

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History

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Publié par	Xlibris US
Date de parution	20 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781669862673
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE NEWS FROM SENECA - 1888 - 1918 - AS REPORTED IN THE KEOWEE COURIER

JOHN ASHTON HESTER

Copyright © 2023 by John Ashton Hester.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2023900979
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-6269-7
Softcover
978-1-6698-6268-0
eBook
978-1-6698-6267-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The cover photo was taken at the outset of Seneca’s Centennial Celebration in August of 1973. It was taken by Courier photographer Morris Seigler and appeared in the August 15, 1973 issue of the Courier.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/13/2023

Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com

849200

CONTENTS
Preface By Author

1888
1889
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1914
1918

PREFACE BY AUTHOR
In the late 1800s and early 1900s the Keowee Courier, published in Walhalla, was Oconee County’s dominant newspaper. An important aspect of the Courier was weekly reports by community correspondents from throughout the county. I counted 114 communities from which the Courier received news reports at one time or another during that era. That included the incorporated municipalities of Seneca, Walhalla, Westminster and West Union, and 110 rural communities.
This book consists of a compilation of reports from the Seneca correspondents from the years 1888, 1889, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1914 and 1918. (I had to be selective due to page limitations for the book.)
During that time, the Courier had several different Seneca correspondents. One of them, Mattye Verner Stribling, wrote her first column in 1888 and her last one in 1918, spanning 30 years. There were gaps when the Courier had another correspondent, but Mrs. Stribling always returned. The fact that she gave birth to--and raised--three children during those years was undoubtedly a factor.
Mrs. Stribling was born in 1861 and died in 1945. She married Thomas E. (T.E.) Stribling on June 28, 1889. Her husband was born in 1860 and died in 1915. Mrs. Stribling’s first name was sometimes spelled “Mattie” rather than “Mattye.”
When Mrs. Stribling (then Mattye Verner) first began reporting the Seneca news in 1888, she signed her column “OBSERVER.” (It was the custom at that time for correspondents to use pseudonyms rather than their real names.) She began signing her columns “M.V.S.” on March 12, 1902 and continued doing so until her final one on January 16, 1918.
During the gaps when Mrs. Stribling was not the Seneca correspondent, four of the others were Mary E. Swann, who sometimes signed her columns with her full name and other times only with her initials; one who always signed her columns “L.H.C.”; one who always signed her columns “M.D.”; and one who always signed her columns “T.”
Although I am not certain of L.H.C.’s identity, I strongly suspect that it was Mrs. M.W. Coleman, whose first name was Ludie. I do not have any idea who either “M.D.” or “T.” were, but I am reasonably sure that, by their writing style, they were both women.
It’s interesting to note that, although Seneca’s correspondents were all--or at least, nearly all--women during the entire period, 1888-1918, Westminster’s correspondents were all men during that same period!
Possible Points of Confusion
Here are a few outdated terms and language usages from back then that might confuse or seem peculiar to today’s readers:
1. Prior to 1900, Seneca was often called Seneca City.
2. Whereas today, Seneca residents are called “Senecans,” back then they were called “Senecaites.”
3. When it was said that someone had “the grip” or “la grippe,” that was the same illness that we today call “the flu” or “the virus.”
4. When it was said that some event occurred on “the 15 th instant” or “the 15 th ultimo” (for instance), that meant “the 15 th day of the month.”
5. A town’s “intendant” and “aldermen” are what we today call the “mayor” and “city council members.”
6. Whereas today we speak of someone who is deceased as being “the late John Doe,” back then they would say, “the lamented John Doe.”
7. Mattye Verner Stribling sometimes humorously called her husband “Der Captain” and her two young sons “the Katzenjammers.” She was referring to a popular comic strip of that era called “The Katzenjammer Kids,” which featured a German-American family in which the father was called “Der Captain,” and “the Katzenjammers” were his two mischievous young sons. The mother was called “Mama.”
8. Here are some differences in language usage between back then and today:
– Back then, the word “state” was always spelled with a capital “S”. For instance, “The effects of the winter weather are being felt throughout the State.”
– When the name of a church was written back then, the “c” in church would always be lower-case instead of capital. For instance, whereas we today would write, “Services were held at the Baptist Church,” back then they would write, “Services were held at the Baptist church.”
– The same was true for street names. For instance, whereas we today would write, “The Smith family resides on Fair Play Street,” back then they would write, “The Smith family resides on Fair Play street.”
– Whereas we now use the spellings “today, tonight and tomorrow,” back then they hyphenated those words as “to-day, to-night and to-morrow.”
– Whereas we now spell the sports “baseball, football and basketball,” back then they spelled them “base ball, foot ball and basket ball.” (This began changing around 1910, when they began merging the two words into one.)
– Back then there were schools known as “graded schools,” which contained all of the grades, from 1 through 10 (and later 1 through 11). Actually, however, there were two schools within that one building--the lower grades, 1-5, and the upper grades, 6-10. This created some confusion in that the facility was sometimes called “the Seneca Graded School” (when referring to the building) and other times called “the Seneca Graded Schools” (when referring to the two schools within the same building).
– The creek and community that we today spell “Coneross” was spelled “Conneross” back then. Sometime in the early 1900s, the second “n” was dropped.
– The community that we today spell “Tamassee” was spelled “Tomassee” back then.
– Whereas today we write that something happened at 8:30 p.m. (with a colon after the 8), back then they wrote 8.30 p.m. (with a period after the 8).
View “Chronicling America” Online
My two sources of viewing the old Keowee Couriers in compiling this book were a limited number of volumes of Couriers from that era that still exist locally, and the Chronicling America website, which is operated by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Courier is one of numerous historic newspapers from throughout the nation that were selected for this project.
The Couriers, from the years 1849-1922, were copied for the Chronicling America website at the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
The Seneca news reports in this book are only a small fraction (perhaps 10 percent) of the actual length of the reports that were in the Courier. I only chose what I considered to be the highlights from among a vast myriad of information, which typically included a considerable amount of routine visiting and lengthy descriptions of weddings, deaths, club meetings, etc.
* * * * *
Anyone who would like to view the old Keowee Couriers from 1849-1922 online can do so by Googling “Keowee Courier Chronicling America Browse Issues.” Scroll down from 1849 to the year you want to access, and a calendar for each month of that year will come on the screen. The dates on which the Courier was published will be highlighted in boldface. Click on the date you want to access, and all of the pages of that issue (usually either four--prior to 1900--or eight--after 1900) will come onto the screen.
Click twice on the page you want to read, and it will be enlarged to readable size and will fill the screen. You can make the type larger or smaller by scrolling over the page, and move around the page by using the little red box in the upper-right corner.

1888
All of the items that are not designated as having been written by the Keowee Courier’s Seneca correspondent were in the Courier’s general news.
The Seneca correspondent using the pen name “OBSERVER” was Mattye Verner, then 26 or 27 years old, who would marry Thomas E. Stribling on June 28, 1889.
Many 1888 issues are missing from both the Keowee Courier files and the Chronicling America website.
FEBRUARY 2, 1888
Farm machinery is now so perfected that two men can raise enough food to feed three families.
(Items from “Seneca City and Other Items” by OBSERVER):
We observe quite a number of strangers about town and suppose them to be commercial travelers. They