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In our last letter we left off with the people on the Hill and now I will take up the Northern Liberties, consisting of a group of one and one-half story neat frame white washed dwellings reaching from the foot of Mt. Pisgah to the Lehigh, and which presented a most picturesque view, with the stately pines and verdant woods in the background. Between every other dwelling stood an old fashioned oven, made of stone and clay, around which we boys often lingered and watched the good old Irish lady, "fire up", and then fill up the oven with huge pans of dough, and how we enjoyed the odor of the baking bread, and when it was done and came from the oven in loaves about the size of a half bushel measure, a rich golden brown, say it just made your mouth water and we often asked the old lady for the crust - a slice off the end, and she never refused it. Each family had a cow, a hog, a flock of geese, and cultivated the mountain side back of their dwellings and raised nearly all their own garden produce; a colony of people, all Irish, many of whose gallant sons went forth at the call of the immortal Lincoln for troops in the dark days of the Rebellion of '61-'65 and well do I remember them when they enlisted and came home in uniform to tell their parents they were going off to the war.

There was Doug and Ike McLean, Jim, John and Tom Connerty, Jim and John Burns, Oliver and Frank Crilley, Frank and Archie Tree, all of whom served the whole length of the war. At the spring at the plane lived old Robert Dunlap, the father of a large family. Next came old Dan Burns, the old stationary engineer; next Michael Crilley, then the Connerty's, Shields, McGinleys, Gallaghers, Trees, Garritys, Doughertys, Conroys, Scotts, Farmers, Dodsons and lastly old Daddy Glace, all of whom are now dead, and now we will go up the shops on the Hill.

(article continues on to describe various shops on the Hill)

Lafayette Wildoner