Notes from
Monument Square

Newsletter of the
Mifflin County
Historical Society

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Volume XXVI Number 5 NOVEMBER 2000
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(Text version of Society News & Notes)
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Office & Research Library,
1 W. Market St., Suite 1
Lewistown, PA 17044-2128
Phone (717) 242-1022
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McCoy House Museum
17 N. Main St., Lewistown
Sunday afternoon
1:30 - 4:00 p.m.
(May thru December)
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Newsletter Editor : Forest K. Fisher
MCHS e-mail: mchistory@acsworld.net
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Society News
& Notes

TOM JOHNSON DESK
NOW PART
OF SOCIETY’S COLLECTION

This old rolltop desk is a classic example of its type with a significant Mifflin County connection. It has that mellow, golden patina only the passage of time can bestow to aged oak. Two stacks of drawers flank the opening for the desk chair, while above the solid oak writing surface the graceful lines of the roll top conceal the sliding dust proof cover.
Pigeonholes and small drawers line the interior, while a large center drawer hangs just below the writing surface. The pen rest and the card racks beside the pigeonholes lie empty, but once held the papers and account books of a thriving Lewistown business.
The desk was part of the Main Street shoe store of William Johnson and it occupied an honored place in his store for decades, passing to his son, Tom Johnson in 1898 and continued to serve as the office desk through the 1970s.
It’s a piece of furniture about which you’re likely to wonder, “If that desk could only talk.” Not able to ask the desk, the next best thing was to talk to one of the desk’s previous owners, eighty-nine year old Melvin Bortell. A former Lewistown resident, Bortell now resides at Brookline Manor in Juniata County.
The desk was a gift to the Mifflin County Historical Society from Melvin Bortell’s son, Arizona resident Tom Bortell. Recently, several members of the society delved into the history of this piece of heirloom furniture, when they discussed the desk with a past owner.
Melvin Bortell, affable and eager to share his recollections, delighted in recounting events from his long career in the shoe business. It all began when he was just a teenager, working for Tom Johnson and eventually assuming ownership when Johnson died in 1939.
Bortell operated the business until the mid-1970s. Bortell recalled that he worked for awhile helping to deliver milk from a horse drawn wagon and recalled how his career in the shoe business began:
I heard that Tom Johnson was looking for someone, no harm in going to see. I went in and he asked if he could help me. I was scared to death. I said that I heard he was looking for somebody for a job. He replied that he was. I told him that I’d be glad to work and I’d quit school if he wanted me to work full time. He looked at me and said that if I’d work for him I’d have to go to school and graduate. That’s the kind of person he was. I went in every morning and got the store ready and then he’d come in and I’d go to school. Then I’d come in the evening. That was the beginning of my first job in the shoe store. I was fifteen or sixteen and worked there until I graduated from high school.
(He remembered earning $5 per week for summer work and $15 each week when he went full-time. “Big money in those days,” recalled Bortell.)
The old oak desk sat at the back of the shoe store, with its back facing front, Bortell remembered. He noted that Tom Johnson, being a short man, when sitting at the desk couldn’t be seen. If a customer came into the store, Johnson would rise enough to peer over the top of the desk to see who entered. One day in the late 1920s, a famous Pennsylvanian dropped by the shoe store for a visit which Bortell keenly remembered:
Into the store came this big man. He had on black clothes and a big black hat with a broad brim. He asked if Tom Johnson was here and I said yes. About that time his bald head came up from behind the desk and said, “Hello, Governor.” It was Governor Gifford Pinchot. They were great friends. Not too many weeks after the governor was here, Mr. Johnson took me to the courthouse and I registered.
(From 1928 until now, Melvin Bortell missed only one primary election and voted in all the general elections. Tom Johnson served as the Mifflin County Republican Committee treasurer, according to an article in the Lewistown Sentinel at the time of his death in 1938.)
Tom Johnson initiated many innovative store promotions as he sat working at the old oak desk. Melvin Bortell recounted many, including the extremely popular $2 a Foot Sale. Customers arrived hours before opening to be first into the store, plus these:
We did all kinds of promotions. At Easter time we gave away colored peeps to all the children. We also had birds in cages, then have a drawing to give them away. At Thanksgiving we would put a live turkey in a cage out front and people would guess its weight. The one coming closest would win it for Thanksgiving dinner.
One time we had a radio announcer on Altoona radio. He came to our store to do a program. You never saw so many people, lined clear up from our store to Danks and way around the corner of the street waiting to get in.
Another time we had a 100 pound block of ice with a shoe frozen in the middle. We put it on the sidewalk and people would put their guess as to when it would melt into a box. The person who came the closest won the shoes.
Shoes weren’t the only items Tom Johnson sold at the store. Recalled Bortell:
We used to sell automobile tires. In the morning I would take a pile of these out onto the sidewalk. By evening they would all be gone. Tires were so poor in those days, and the roads were so bad, that everyone was having flat tires.
Over the years, styles changed and Bortell remembered the time Tom Johnson had him do something he hated to do:
After the war (WWI) the styles changed just like they do now, right overnight. Up until that time the women had worn high top shoes. There was a room on the second floor of the store and he took me up. There was a whole room full of boxes of these shoes. He told me to get rid of them and take them to the dump. Of course I did, but that beautiful leather, some of the best.
Then there’s the age-old credo of the retail trade, “The customer is always right. “ Bortell had a comment and recollection on that, too:
The worst thing in the world that you could do was to tell a lady that her shoes were too small. They all wanted to wear five and a half or a six. You never saw so many bunions in your life. They would have big bunions and joints, but would crowd their feet into tight shoes.
Melvin Bortell reflected on the history of the shoe store. Its founder, William Johnson, was born in Ireland in 1819. He came to America at age 21, eventually settling in Lewistown. He was a cobbler by trade, opening a shoe and boot business in 1851. His son, Thomas S. Johnson, joined the business at age 21. Bortell recalled hearing that the elder Johnson walked through the mountains to Licking Creek where there was a tannery, the preferred source of his shoe leather.
After the business was sold by Bortell in 1979 to Jim Tunall, who operated the shoe store until 1997 before discontinuing the shoe business, the old oak desk went to Melvin’s son Thomas Johnson Bortell, eventually finding it’s way to Tom’s Arizona home. From that western state it was returned to Lewistown in the spring of 2000, where it will be exhibited at the McCoy House, 17 N. Main Street, museum of the Mifflin County Historical Society.

Home Town Christmas at McCoy House

The Mifflin County Garden Club will once again decorate the rooms of McCoy House for Home Town Christmas. Dates for this holiday display are Nov. 30, 12-8 p.m.; Dec. 1, 4-8 p.m.; Dec. 2, 4-8; Dec. 3, 1:30-4.
Two musical groups will provide live seasonal entertainment Thursday and Friday evening with Gale Baker performing the two Sundays of Home Town Christmas.
Heidi Long, Allison Solt, Rachel Long, and Alicia McCalister who played their flutes at McCoy House during last year’s seasonal exhibit, will entertain again this year. In addition, the Smolcic Family will offer musical selections during this year’s annual Christmas event.
McCoy House will be decorated until Dec. 10, 2000 from 1:30-4. The museum will close for the season December 10.

BRATTON COLLECTION
ON DISPLAY

The items from the Edith Bratton collection are on display this Fall and throughout the holiday season. The museum will provide a little informative booklet describing the items for museum visitors. The Edith Bratton items can be seen throughout the museum.
The Tom Johnson desk and related shoe store items can be seen on the second floor, including the photo of William Johnson recently given to the society. A copy of the oral history by Melvin Bortell, a former owned of the Johnson shoe business, is on display with the desk.

THANKS TO MUSEUM VOLUNTEERS

The historical society’s Museum Committee would like to express its profound thanks to the McCoy House volunteers.
Through their efforts every Sunday and at special events, like Home Town Christmas, the society’s museum has been kept open to the public. Thanks you volunteers, one and all. 

FALL BANQUET FEATURED COMMONWEALTH SPEAKER

The fall gathering of the Mifflin County Historical Society, held at the McVeytown fire hall Thursday, September 14, 2000, heard Stories of the Underground Railroad following the family-style roast beef dinner.
The society hosted Pennsylvania Humanities Council Commonwealth Speaker, Dr. Nilgun Anadolu-Okur, Associate Professor of African American History and Literature at Temple University. She retold the tales of the heroes and heroines who dared to escape from bondage. From the story of Henry “Box” Brown, who shipped himself to freedom in a wooden box, to the messages coded in music for safe fugitive passages, the stories of escaping slaves are often impressive and creative.
Her slide-illustrated lecture, free to the general public, used music, illustrations, and lyrics to reveal the stories and dramatic acts of escape en route to freedom .
Dr. Anadolu-Okur spoke about Charles Ball and Richard Barnes who escaped from neighboring states to freedom in Mifflin County in the 1830s.
Dr. Anadolu-Okur discussed the many significant sites throughout the state that had a connection to the Underground Railroad.
She recounted the stories of local runaway slaves and Mifflin County’s role in aiding escaping slaves.
Following her presentation, Dr. Anadolu-Okur fielded questions from the audience and offered her 20 page booklet titled, Underground Railroad and Abolitionists in Pennsylvania for sale to the gathering. 

Membership

Let’s make it
500 in 2001
Our 80th Anniversary

Here’s a trivia question for you: Has our historical society ever had 500 members? Yes, it was during the patriotic year of Mifflin County’s Bicentennial in 1989. We were close this year, though, at 459 members.
We already have 50 members for next year, 24 of those are new members, and 26 renewals. Won’t you help us hit 500 members in 2001? This holiday season, please consider a gift membership for a relative, friends or loved one. The annual individual membership is still $10 for 2001. It is an inexpensive way to show your continued support for the historical society.
We wish to acknowledge and welcome these new members of the Mifflin County Historical Society.
Memberships are a vital source of income, allowing the historical society to open the research library to the public every Tuesday and Wednesday and the first and third Saturdays each month.
Memberships also allow us to operate the office and open the museum every Sunday from May to December, as well as other special programs throughout the year. Thanks for joining!

New Individual Life Member
Edna M. Gable, Hiram, Ga.

New Annual Members

Marianne Hornyak, Burnham
Amy M. Freed, Lewistown
Laurie Goss & Family, Lewistown
Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Hidley, Lewistown
Carol Lewis, Lewistown
Floris Lewis, Lewistown
Jim Zubler, Lewistown
Richard L. & Geraldine M. Wagner, Milroy
Jeanne Kenepp, Reedsville
Lee & Sandy Bossert, Lititz, Pa.
Brian D. Check, Whitehall, Pa.
Richard Reed, Covington, La.
C. J. Wood, Spring Lake, N.C.
Wayne R. Otto, Fairfax, Va.
Barry, Joan & Lara North, Burnham
Pauline Wilson, Lewistown
Bill Brumbaugh, Lewistown
Galen K. Stees, Lewistown
Carol Lewis, Lewistown
Bill & Virginia Edwards, Lewistown
Ethel Covitch, Lewistown
Sarah Jane Haughwout, Lewistown
Charles Boetsch, Warren, Ohio Linda Hax, Sacramento, Calf.
Lynn McKinley, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Cynthia Rosenberry, Ashland, Va.
Betsy R. Geertson, Lemont, Pa.
Richard H. Gibboney, Lewistown
Bill & Joyce McClure, Carlisle, Pa.
Lolita Mitchell Joyce, Elizabethtown, Pa.
Gretchen Hartman, Lewistown
Donna J. Crawford, Moore, Okla.
William Dickinson, Alexandria, Va.
Joseph D. Hall, McClure, Pa.
Jody Ward Jackson, Lewistown
Ronald & Elaine Kelsey, Flint, Mich. David Kline, Lewistown
Michael & Patsy McCaffrey, Lewistown Tammy McMullen, Lewistown
Sophie L. Shaffer, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Jack G. Tice, Oklahoma City, Okla.
Mary Esh McMahan, Decatur, Ga.
Judith Ann Soult, McVeytown
Trudy E. Brown, Lewistown Janet Eldred, Hollidaysburg, Pa.
Harold, Brian & Dyral Valentine,
McVeytown

2001 MEMBERSHIP
JANUARY IS RENEWAL TIME

Just a little note that annual memberships run from January to December. We’ll remind annual members in the Jan., 2001 newsletter that memberships are due.
If you’ve already renewed for 2001, thanks you so much!

MCHS Dues Structure
-Individual membership $10
-Family membership $15
-Supporting membership $35
-Civic club membership $50
-Individual Life membership $150


ACQUISITIONS

Each year we receive a variety of county-related materials, such as books, clothing, paper items, and artwork.
The Mifflin County Historical Society always welcomes artifacts that have a direct relationship to our county’s heritage or local genealogy.
We wish to acknowledge and thank the following donors for their generosity:

Mabel Eater, Lewistown, Pa. - BOOK: My Yoder Roots Run Deep (Given in memory of Charles Eater, Jr., M.D.)

Mrs. Carrol “Sis” Norton, McVeytown Pa. - BINDER: Information, photos, and news clippings about Rothrock High School Time Capsule which was buried by the Class if 1970 on January 21, 1966 and was opened June 3, 2000. (Donor was present the day the capsule was buried and raised and opened.)

Eloise Aurand, Columbia, Pa. PHOTO: Fame Fire Co. 8”x10” matted to a size of 113/4”x 13 3/4”, black and white, photo is of 16 firemen with truck and mascot, no date and unidentified.

E. Jordan, Coudersport, Pa. - BOOK: 1860s membership book of the Methodist Episcopal Congregation at Aultz School House, Beaver Dam, Bratton School House, Dry Valley, Ebenezer Church, Freedom Forge Church, Ferguson Valley, Gruber Chapel/Church, McVeytown, Newton Hamilton, Wesley Chapel, Yoder School House.

Bridget Schmidt, Reedsville, Pa. BINDER - Information (alphabetized) compiled from the Mifflin County Alms House Record Book which is part of the MCHS permanent collection. BOOK: Marriage Licenses of Mifflin County, PA, Volume X, 1907 - 1910.

Mrs. Stoy (Janet) Spigelmyer, Reedsville, Pa. - BADGE: TeTon Tribe, No. 311, Improved Order of Red Men, Yeagertown, Pa.

First United Methodist Church, Lewistown, Pa. - PHOTOS: .Two, 8”x10” color photos of the basement well (Holy Hole) discovered in May, 2000 during church renovations.

Willard C. Shank, Milroy, Pa. - BOOK: Index of Obituaries for 1990 - 1991 - 1992 Taken from the Lewistown Sentinel, Lewistown, Mifflin County, PA. 

Editor's Desk

It was during the campaign of 1964 between Johnson and Goldwater that I became aware of presidential politics. That’s when candidates for president actually whistle-stopped through Mifflin County, pausing at the Junction long enough for a quick speech. Coming from a Republican family, my mother allowed me to go with friends to see Barry Goldwater when he stopped at the Lewistown station. I was in the excited crowd as the Lewistown High School Band struck up a patriotic tune and eventually got to shake the Arizona senator’s hand as he worked the crowd.
Later that same fall I had the opportunity to go to Pittsburgh with the Junior Historians, a high school club for students interested in history. We stayed in a downtown hotel and Lyndon Johnson happened to be there on a campaign swing of his own. I didn’t get to shake his hand, but did stand in the crowd and see him pass through the lobby .
I was a student at Kish High School then and I recall going to the office with my note to be excused from school for the Goldwater whistle-stop. Fred Carstetter was Kish’s principal and a staunch Democrat. Park Middleswarth was the guidance counselor there and a Republican. I remember handing the note to Mr. Carstetter and he said it would be marked an illegal absence. Park was standing in the office, too, and spoke up. “You know, Fred, if he was going to see Lyndon Johnson, you’d mark it legal.” Momentarily an uneasy quiet settling over the office, followed by laughter and I returned to class. That was politics, too.