Shingiehouse, Pennsylvania 16748.
Tioga County early days did it again. The Seventy Six
Bi-Centennial show was the most successful reunion ever. Some
thought a five day show would be too long. But this proved to be
wrong. The club voted to hold a five day Reunion in July Seventy
Seven of which will be advertized in this paper. The show was held
on the spacious Tioga Fair Grounds as usual where they have many
buildings. This year all buildings were filled to capacity. Flea
markets for most part were under cover and there were more flea
markets this year than ever and all did a good business and seemed
to have outstanding merchandise at fair prices. The parade each day
was a gigantic affair. Leading the parade was the old time Combine
Harvester and thresher namely, one man with a grain Cradle and
another with a grain rake and last the Thresher man with a grain
flail. Then came the Ox team, followed by norses. Then the steam
traction engines, next in line were the gas tractors from the old
one Cylinder right up through the years to the modern day tractors,
and a few home built tractors. Gasoline alley was almost double of
what it was a year ago from the little Maytags right up through to
the largest one Cylinder forty horse power.
These gas engine people do a wonderful job restoring and
painting these old one Cylinder engines and tractors of by gone
days.
The C.B. Rally and Coffee break Saturday and Sunday was a great
success, a show in itself. Smoke signals to modern C.B. Radio.
Hand hewing of barn beams, rope splicing, splitting of shingles
by hand drew considerable attention as well as being educational.
The saw mill was running daily sawing logs into lumber; the mill
being driven by one of the large steam engines.
There were three shingle mills running daily and three drag saws
running. It kept the drag saws busy keeping shingle bolts in
readiness for the shingle mills. There was a home built wood
splitter at work. The saw mill is a real antique Emerson
Brantingham, with a rack and pinion feed. This mill was almost
completely rewooded this last summer before show time by club
members. The mill is owned by the club.
The rug making by hand was really worth seeing as this art takes
a person away back and the lady operating that loom really knew how
to make rugs.
The Corn meal was great, the mill driven by a one Cylinder
engine. The corn ears were fed into a corn sheller then the shelled
corn was fed into the mill and ground into the finest corn meal,
nothing taken out or nothing added, Johnny cake made from this meal
is as great treat.
The blacksmith shop operated daily 1879 forge and bellows. The
smithy knows his stuff making tools and welding with coal that the
engines were using.
I am only hitting the highlights of the show. The sweep,
thresher and stone crusher were operated on a part time basis, one
large fair building was filled with tools of yesteryears a very
nice display.
There was a very nice display of washing machines from the wash
board up to more modern machines.
Mac has about a dozen machines as well as a water well and pump
jack pumping water.
There was the building with the Models, those boys spend a lot
of hours making the Model machines, engines, etc.
In closing I wish to commend the officers and members of the
club and all those who attended making this 76 Bi-Centennial show
the great success that it was.
