A letter from Thomas J. Hoffman, of Enders, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and printed in the Elizabethville Echo of January 14, 1943, reflected on an old issue of The Independent Monthly, published on September 20, 1879, at Washington Square, by John A. Ettinger. Mr. Hoffman found the edition of The Independent at the bottom of an old chest.
Ettinger was the owner of the Victor Printing Company located in Washington Square along the railroad tracks in what was Elizabethville’s first railroad depot building. The stop on the Lykens Valley Railroad was then known as the Cross Roads Station. In 1893, the various entities, Elizabethville, Cross Roads, and Washington Square, were all incorporated into a single borough, thereafter known as Elizabethville.
Ettinger published his newspaper under several different names between 1878 and 1882. In 1878, it was known as the Weekly Democrat. After 1878, the paper was known as The Independent. Most of what we know about what was published in the Ettinger newspapers is from other sources which re-printed excerpts. Very few of the original copies have survived. The Library of Congress has no copies and the paper is not listed in its U. S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-present.
ECHOES OF THE PAST
The Independent Monthly, Washington Square, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, September 20, 1879.
How well I remembered it, it being the first newspaper ever published in Elizabethville, for the Washington Square of 1879 is the present main business section of the borough; the site of its banks, hotels, post office and manufacturing plants. The paper was in quarto form and contained twenty columns of reading and advertising matter, and its size was eighteen by thirteen inches.
Tenderly and reverently I took it in my hands and began to read the home news. As I read on, time and surroundings were forgotten. The rain still fell, but I heard it not — the wind still howled, but I knew it not, for I was back again in my lost world of childhood days, building air castles, only to see them crumble and vanish amid the stern realities of life.
The paper bridge a span of over sixty years of life, and again I was a ten year old school boy making friendships with schoolmates that only death can sever. Again a member of the the Old Stone and U. B. Church Sunday Schools. Again I gathered chestnuts in nearby forests, and slaked my thirst with pure mountain water. Again, I enjoyed diving into the old swimming hole or sitting on the banks of the Wiconisco watching the corkfloat, bobbing up and down, and the tail springs the fish would make on being landed. Again, amidst the shouts of laughter and glee from congenial companions, coast down the mo9untain side while the silvery moon was lighting the landscape round about us. And the vision became so real that I involuntarily reached out to grasp the spirit forms or vanishing hands of boyhood friends, many of whom have crossed the silent sea, or gone, I know not where
Last came the vision of my boyhood home and
Mei guder vater lebt dann noch,
Mei mommi wor ola noch die koch!
Mer kinder drei — now zerschtreit.
Bei nonner warra an der owetzeit.
Then father sat in his accustomed nook,
Mother dear, was household cook!
We children three, sat side by side
During study hours at eventide.
The editor of that paper was John A. Ettinger, one of my able and conscientious public and Sabbath School teachers. He was also a fine musician — in fact, the Ettinger family were all musicians, both vocal and instrumental. He lies buried in the Old Matter Cemetery, one mile east of town.
At some future date i intend to give to the readers of the Echo some of the items contained in that issue of the Independent Monthly, printed over sixty-three years ago in the little village of Washington Square.
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