Eighth in a series of nine 1904-1905 newspaper articles in which two old-timers are portrayed reminiscing about the Lykens Valley of the past. The two fictional characters, the “old railroader” and the “patriarch,” wander into the offices of the Elizabethville Echo, Elizabethville, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania at different times and tell a concise, folksy history of the valley.
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Local Reminiscences for Home Historians
“No indeedy,” said the Patriarch, as he settled down near the stove and proceeded with his narrative, “the food don’t all die young. Whoever says they do, never heard of Simon Sallade.
“The papers nowadays are full of yarns about selfmade men, and here’s one of ’em, and I recon there be dozens and dozens more all around us. Simon Sallade was of French Huguenot descent and was born up near Gratz, coming within a year of the three-score-and-ten before he surrendered to ‘the knell, the shroud, the mattock and the grave.’
“His father came from the region of the Rhine and was one of the first settlers here. His mother, in her earlier years, after the defeat of Braddock in 1775, was captured by the Indians near what is now known as Pine Grove. She was held a prisoner and compelled to see her parents, brothers and sisters scalped, and her childhood home burned, and was not released until Gen. Forbes conquered the French power west of the Ohio, when she was safely returned to her friends in Berks County.
“Simon found schools beyond his reach in his boyhood years and got his first lessons from his parents. He had but very few books, but what he had read and re-read and digested thoroughly. He engaged himself to a Mr. Berkstresser of Bellefonte and became a millwright, and most of the mills in the Upper End of our county were built by him. He learned to play a violin, cultivating a good command of language, and got to be very popular socially.
“He was the first director of the old Slabtrack railroad, as they used to call it, now the Lykens Valley Railroad. He was prominent in the organization of the Lykens Valley Mutual Fire Insurance Company, – and everybody knows that’s been one of the soundest and best institutions in the Upper End for over a half a century. He was instrumental in the building of the first church in Elizabethville, – the old stone church, – seventy years ago, in the basement of which the first school in town was opened.
“And Simon Sallade, in spite of party lines and able opposition, was elected to the House of Representatives of the State four time. Four time, mind you! His first election was when he was only 34. He was defeated once because he was honest and came out flat-footed and preferred defeat to deceiving the voter.
“He was the author of the Wiconisco Feeder Bill, secured its passage and through it instituted the first development of the Lykens Valley coal outlet. He superintended the construction of the Wiconisco Canal. In public and private life he was honest, charitable, sincere, and more than the marble shaft that mars his grave, the memory of his genius, good works and lofty manhood remains the enduring monument of his notable career.
“He had an illustrious, though eccentric contemporary that I must tell you about. S’posin’ I come in next week! All right.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, 9 February 1905.
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