The Boyne City Gazette » Boyne History

A History of Boyne Businesses – Part 3

Chris Faulknor, Editor — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:56:13 +0000

By: Edward May III, Historian

THE IRON AND CHEMICAL COMPANY
Boyne City Furnace of the Lake Superior Iron and Chemical Company made their first run in January 1904 since which time it has operated constantly until September of this year. It was then decided to give the plant an entire overhauling and add several improvements. They started again on December fifth. They employ 60 men with a payroll of about $3000 per month and have a daily output of 80 tons of pig iron. They are equipped with the modern devices for unloading ore from their boats, have their own lighting plant, modern office building and laboratory, are beautifully situated on lake shore and in fact the entire plant, outside and in, has an appearance that General Manager, J.D. Dunn can be proud of.

MICHIGAN TANNING & EXTRACT COMPANY
The Boyne City Tannery was built by W. S. Shaw [William Sutherland] in 1901 and has been added to from year to year until it is now one of the largest, if not the largest, sole leather tannery in the world. Their annual output is twelve million pounds of sole leather, and they employ over two hundred men. The plant is composed of ten buildings and covers five acres of land. They use many thousand cords of hemlock bark each year besides thousands of gallons of an extract made of hemlock bark by a plant at Escanaba, Michigan. Mr. Shaw has spared no expense in perfecting the Boyne City Tannery as well as several other tanneries he is interested in. A system of tracks makes a network through the yards and their own locomotives do their switching and handling of cars to the B. C. G. & A rail yard. Their own electric light plant lights their buildings as well as one block of modern dwelling houses owned by the company. While time and money has not been sparred to perfect the tanning industry, the Boyne City Tannery has not lost sight of the outward appearance of their plant. They are beautifully situated on the lake front and their yards, lake frontage and modern office buildings always look neat and attractive. While Mr. Shaw’s interests are numerous and scattered over several states he maintains his home in Boyne City and is always to be depended on to help any undertaking that is for Boyne City’s good. C. Turner is superintendant in charge and much of the success of the tannery is due to his energy and cleverness.

THE E. J. OLSON ASHERY
The Ashery of E. John Olson has been established about two years and now has a capacity of four barrels of potash per week. Mr. Olson is planning to enlarge on an improved scale. He is at present working four men and two teams and has a payroll of about $300 per month.

THE RAILROAD MACHINE SHOP
One of the most interesting industries of our city is the car shops. On November 11, 1910 the old wooden shops which had been built on and remodeled many times, burned to the ground and the railroad company immediately began the present shop which is fireproof- constructed of brick and steel. This shop not only does all the work of the railroad, but does all kinds of machine and boiler work for mills, factories and steam boats. They build and repair all their own cars except the building of the coaches.

Eleven locomotives are inspected daily and five hundred flat cars must constantly be kept in repair besides the coaches and motor car. Sixty men are employed with a payroll of about $3000 per month. In the south end of the shops is a separate, steam heated, well lighted, designing room. Pattern makers shop, conductor’s room and master mechanic’s office occupy the north end of the building. The lathes, boiler shops, foundry and car rooms are most conveniently arranged. A traveling crane of ten ton capacity is used. The largest lathe will handle castings up to eighty four inches in diameter and a new planer 48 x 48 x 12 is just being installed. All supplies are kept in a storeroom in charge of a keeper.
Lathes and machines of all kinds are run by electric motor. The only steam used is for heating purposes and fans are now being installed for the purpose of equal heat distribution. C.D. Hilton who has been connected with the shops for eight years is master mechanic and general foreman.

VON PLATEN LUMBER PLANT
The G. VonPlaten Lumber plant is a strictly modern mill cutting hardwood and hemlock lumber. Mr. VonPlatten has fifty men employed in his mill and about fifty in the camps, with a monthly payroll of about $6,000. Practically their entire output is sold at wholesale. The main mill building, office, yards, lake frontage and all parts of the plant presents a neat, attractive view that speaks much of Mr. VonPlatten’s ideas of order and superintendent I. VanLeuven’s ability. Several men are working for Mr. VonPlaten now who have been with him for twenty years. Vacancies occur in his force only by death. His men never quit. Thanksgiving every man with a family is presented with a turkey and at Christmas every child is remembered with an attractive present. If you want hospital experience go down to his plant and abuse Mr. VonPlaten to any one of his employees.

W. H. WHITE COMPANY, MILL NO. 1
Mill One of the W. H. White Company is commonly known as the “Big Mill.” It was completed about two years ago and is perhaps the most up-to-date hardwood mill in the country. It is a double band mill with a band re-saw and has a daily capacity of 75,000 feet of hardwood or 100,000 feet of hemlock, besides about twenty five cords of eighteen inch stove wood, four foot wood and pulp wood. Lumber is produced with the least possible expense and the work done by the machinery is a delight to see the experienced lumbermen and a wonder to the novice.
The mill was built and machinery was installed under the supervision of E. J. Fulghum. Sixty men are employed with the pay roll of about $35,000 per month.

W. H. WHITE COMPANY’S MILL NUMBER 2
Mill Number Two of W. H. White Company is known as the shingle mill manufacturing cedar shingles and cedar ties only. Owing to the fact that cedar is cut from the swamps only during the winter months this mill runs about four months each year. It has a capacity of 160 thousand shingles per day and turns out about 120 ties daily. Fifty three men are employed. John Griffin is the foreman in charge.

W. H. WHITE COMPANY MILL NUMBER 3
Mill 3 of W. H. White Company is a double band mill employing 53 men and with a payroll of $3300 per month. Besides the rail shipments during the winter this mill has in its yards about eight million feet of lumber when navigation opens. Besides fuel for the boilers to drive a 550 horse power engine. Mill 3 produces 38 cords of stove wood daily. G. L. Poquette is superintendent.

W. H. WHITE COMPANY, MILL NO. 4
Mill four of the W. H. White Company is their flooring plant and planning mill under the supervision of E. J. Fulghum, who is a capable man of many years experience in the manufacture of hardwood lumber. Their average output is 21,000 feet of flooring per day and they do all kinds of planning work, supplying the wholesale and retail trade. Fifty-five men are employed with a monthly payroll of about $3500.

THE WOLVERINE DILWORTH HOTEL
The creation of the Wolverine-Dilworth Inn began in 1911, when Boyne City was a booming lumber town located on Pine Lake (renamed Lake Charlevoix in 1926). Boyne’s population neared the 6,000 mark and numerous business visitors came to the area. The city was a working man’s town with a number of hotels and saloons to quench the thirst of the mill hands, dock-wallopers and lumberjacks.

As a result of the town’s growth, the leading citizens of Boyne City decided a grand hotel possessing unique style and elegance was in order. The Boyne City Hotel Company was formed and stock was sold. On October 7th, the 46 stockholders chose the name “Wolverine” for the building. The grand opening was held February 1, 1912. Two hundred and forty patrons entered the Wolverine and dined in its elegance.

Decades later in 1935, Wesley and Kathryn Dilworth purchased the hotel and renamed it the Dilworth Hotel. The hotel developed a reputation for the area’s best food and it quickly became a favorite dining spot. The Dilworth Hotel was a popular spot for thousands of regular visitors to “Boyne Country” ski hills and resorts, as it is today.
In 1946 the Dilworth’s sold the hotel as a result of the nationwide effects of World War II. However, the name and the legacy have remained.

The Wolverine Dilworth In is the only remaining hotel of the six original hotels from Boyne City’s lumbering era. The Inn serves as a reminder of an era gone by. As a result of the Wolverine Dilworth Inn’s historical significance, the Inn was registered as a National Historic Landmark on February 13, 1986. To receive this honor, the Inn’s exterior was reconstructed as it was originally constructed in 1912- complete with the surrounding veranda. The Inn will now remain a historic site for all to enjoy for years to come.

WOODENWARE COMPANY
The Badger Woodenware Company’s plant was built in 1907 but has been under its present management two years. Twenty-eight different kinds of wooden house-hold necessities are manufactured. Practically the entire output is shipped to Butler Bros. Of St. Louis, MO. Sixty men are employed and $3200 is the monthly payroll. In addition to the manufactured products, fifteen cords of wood are in the yards daily for sale as stove wood. C. E. McCutcheon is superintendent and general manager.

Note: The above information and material was gleamed from many area news publications and articles available from internet searches.
It is presented for your enlightenment and edification.

Edward May III
Curmudgeonly Historian

A History of Boyne Business – Part 2

Chris Faulknor, Editor — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:24:42 +0000

Compiled by: Edward May III, Historian

BOYNE CITY WATER SYSTEM
Boyne City owns its own water system and has much of which to be proud. No better drinking water can be found and in time of fire our supply is not only sufficient but a pressure of 130 pounds. Three reservoirs are used. One 50 x 130 and twelve feet deep with a capacity of 600,000 gallons is supplied by seven flowing wells flowing 600 gallons per minute. One situated 207 feet above the pumping station and 3000 feet from the pump with an elevation of 267 feet above the city, has a capacity of 600,000 gallons. This reservoir is filled from the supply tank by an 8 ½ by 10 triplex pump at the rate of 750 gallons per minute. A 75 horse power electric motor drives the pump which is automatically stopped when the reservoir is filled. A twelve inch valve connects this upper reservoir with our water supply and in case of fire is opened by an electric device either at the fire hall or at the pumping station.

The third reservoir is located at North Boyne, has a capacity of 450,000 gallons and gives the city a gravity pressure of 37 pounds. This reservoir is supplied by artesian springs.

Our illustrations show [not included in this compilation.] the pumping station and superintendent, Mr. Tinker, who drove a well last summer with water power which cost the city $22.00, and less that 100 feet from this well is one of the same capacity which cost the city under the old method of well digging, $570.00. The cost of operation the pumps by electric power for November this year was $117.00 as compared with $334.00 for the same month the year previous.

STEAMER- CITY OF BOYNE
The modern passenger steamer, City of Boyne, makes two round trips daily during the navigation season between our city dock and Charlevoix, stopping at numerous landings on both sides of the lake. This boat was formerly the Lou A. Cummings but during the winter of 1910 and 191 was rebuilt and enlarged. Captain George Weaver is owner and master and by his courteous treatment of his patronage has made himself and boat very popular with the traveling public and the people of Boyne City. Accompanied by our Marine Band, Captain Weaver has made it possible for us to spend many pleasant evenings on beautiful Pine Lake (now called Lake Charlevoix).

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A History of Boyne Business – Part 1

Chris Faulknor, Editor — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:46:08 +0000

Compiled By: Edward May III, Historian

Early Businesses in the Boyne City Area

ALPENA SAMPLE ROOMS
John Dane, proprietor of the Alpena Sample Rooms, is a gentleman who caters to the best class of trade and supplies it with the highest grade of goods that can be procured. Long experience has fitted him to successfully carry on a business of this kind, and his many patrons fully realize that “John’s goods” and “John’s place” is “just right.”

Mr. Dane came here in August, 1906, and Boyne City looked so good to him that he purchased an old established stand at 114 Water Street, re-christening it the Alpena, where he is now enjoying a good patronage.

The interior finishing’s and fittings of the Alpena give evidence of good taste, and an air of quiet hospitality is apparent to every visitor. Mr. Dane keeps only the best wines and liquors, including the celebrated Maryland rye whisky. In beers he handles the following well-known brews: August Goebel Brewing Co., Detroit; Eckhardt & Becker Brewing Co., Detroit; Grand Rapids Brewing Co., Grand Rapids; Banner Brewing Co., Saginaw; Petoskey Brewing Co., Petoskey.

In cigars Mr. Dane sells only the best known brands, and is able to please a critical patronage. His assistants are gentlemanly and courteous at all times, which has added in no small degree to the popularity of the Alpena.

Personally Mr. Dane is a modest, unassuming gentleman, who has made hosts of friends during his short residence here. For a number of years he resided in Alpena, where he successfully carried on a similar business and still has a warm spot in his heart for the old town, hence the name Alpena.

THE BOLTED BASKET COMPANY

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From Boyne City to Boyne Valley Ireland

Press Release — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:13:15 +0000

You might know the history of Boyne City and how John and Harriet Miller moved from New York to the area and named the Boyne River after a river in John’s home country, Ireland.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and Boyne City’s Irish heritage, we present a look at The Boyne Valley, which is located in the northeast part of the Emerald Isle.

The Prehistoric inhabitants of the area built huge burial tombs on the banks of the river Boyne and on hilltop sites such as Loughcrew. Today, the Neolithic passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth which are older than the pyramids in Egypt and pre-date Stonhenge by 1000 years continue to attract huge numbers of visitors from all around the world. The area is believed to contain around 40 passage tombs in total.

The area was also hugely important in pre-Christian times when the Hill of Tara seated the High Kings of Ireland and the Feast of Samhain was celebrated by the druids on the Hill of Ward near the town of Athboy.

You might know the history of Boyne City and how John and Harriet Miller moved from New York to the area and named the Boyne River after a river in John’s home country, Ireland.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and Boyne City’s Irish heritage, we present a look at The Boyne Valley, which is located in the northeast part of the Emerald Isle.

The Prehistoric inhabitants of the area built huge burial tombs on the banks of the river Boyne and on hilltop sites such as Loughcrew. Today, the Neolithic passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth which are older than the pyramids in Egypt and pre-date Stonhenge by 1000 years continue to attract huge numbers of visitors from all around the world. The area is believed to contain around 40 passage tombs in total.

The area was also hugely important in pre-Christian times when the Hill of Tara seated the High Kings of Ireland and the Feast of Samhain was celebrated by the druids on the Hill of Ward near the town of Athboy.

The Controversial History of Christmas

Chris Faulknor, Editor — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:10:14 +0000

For many centuries, Christian writers accepted that Christmas was the actual date on which Jesus was born. However, in the early eighteenth century, scholars began proposing alternative explanations. Isaac Newton argued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, which in ancient times was marked on December 25. In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a “paganization” that debased the true church. In 1889, Louis Duchesne suggested that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after the Annunciation (March 25), the traditional date of the Incarnation.

Pre-Christian background

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti

Main article: Sol Invictus

Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means “the birthday of the unconquered Sun.” The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the god of Emperor Aurelian; and Mithras, a soldiers’ god of Persian origin. Emperor Elagabalus (218–222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday. This day had held no significance in the Roman festive calendar until it was introduced in the third century.

The festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be “unconquered.” Several early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus. “O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born…Christ should be born”, Cyprian wrote. John Chrysostom also commented on the connection: “They call it the ‘Birthday of the Unconquered’. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord?”

Winter festivals

Main article: List of winter festivals

A winter festival was the most popular festival of the year in many cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needs to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached. Modern Christmas customs include: gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; and Yule logs and various foods from Germanic feasts. Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period. As Northern Europe was the last part to Christianize, its pagan traditions had a major influence on Christmas. Scandinavians still call Christmas Jul. In English, the word Yule is synonymous with Christmas, a usage first recorded in 900.

Christian establishment

The New Testament does not give a date for the birth of Jesus. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria wrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on Pachon 25. This corresponds to May 20. Tertullian (d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast day in the Church of Roman Africa. However, in Chronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, popularizing the idea that Christ was born on December 25. The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December. De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity. In 245, the theologian Origen of Alexandria stated that, “only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)” celebrated their birthdays. In 303, Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, which suggests that Christmas was not yet a feast at this time.

Feast established

An early reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscript compiled in Rome in 354. In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus.

Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced to Constantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared after Gregory of Nazianzus resigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.

Middle Ages

In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in the west focused on the visit of the magi. But the Medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the “forty days of St. Martin” (which began on November 11, the A feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent. In Italy, former Saturnalian traditions were attached to Advent. Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to the Twelve Days of Christmas (December 25 – January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide or Twelve Holy Days.

The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and King William I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.

By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where various magnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten. The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form. “Misrule” drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year’s Day, and there was special Christmas ale.

Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens. Christmas gift-giving during the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord. The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games.

Reformation into the 19th century

Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the “trappings of popery” or the “rags of the Beast.” The Catholic Church responded by promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old style Christmas generosity. Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England’s Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans. The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with “plow-boys” and “maidservants”, and carol singing. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, but many clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration. In Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland also discouraged observance of Christmas. James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, however attendance at church was scant.

In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it wasn’t until the mid 1800’s that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently the Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom. George Washington attacked Hessian mercenaries on Christmas during the Battle of Trenton in 1777. (Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time.)

By the 1820s, sectarian tension had eased in Britain and writers, including William Winstanly, began to worry that Christmas was dying out. These writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. Charles Dickens‘ novel A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, helped revive the ’spirit’ of Christmas and seasonal merriment. Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion. Prominent phrases in Dickens’ Yultide tale, ‘Bah! Humbug!’, and ‘Merry Christmas’, grew in usage in the English language. Also in 1843, the first Christmas card was produced by Sir Henry Cole. The revival of the Christmas Carol began with William B. Sandys Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), with the first appearance in print of ‘The First Noel’, ‘I Saw Three Ships’, ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ and ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’, popularized in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Other English carols such as ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’ also grew in popularity. Singing carols in church was later instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 (Nine Lessons and Carols) in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world.^[70]

In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the early 1800’s at the time of the personal union with Hanover, by Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen to King George III, but the custom did not immediately spread far beyond the royal family. After Queen Victoria’s marriage to her German cousin, Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout Britain. A powerful image of the British Royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in the Illustrated London News December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in Godey’s Lady’s Book (illustration, left). Godey’s copied it exactly, except removed the Queens crown, and Prince Alberts moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene. The republished Godey’s image in 1850, the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America, the Art historian Karal Ann Marling called “the first influential American Christmas tree”. Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states; “In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850-60 than Godey’s Lady’s Book“. The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.

In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon and “Old Christmas”, for which he used the tract Vindication of Christmas (1652) of old English Christmas traditions, he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories. In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas). Irving’s stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted holiday traditions he claimed to have observed in England. Although some argue that Irving invented the traditions he describes, they were widely imitated by his American readers. The poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance. This also started the cultural conflict of the holiday’s spiritualism and its commercialism that some see as corrupting the holiday. In her 1850 book “The First Christmas in New England”, Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the true meaning of Christmas was lost in a shopping spree. While the celebration of Christmas wasn’t yet customary in some regions in the U.S, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected “a transition state about Christmas here in New England” in 1856. “The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so”. In Reading, Pennsylvania, a newspaper remarked in 1861 “Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior’s birth”. The First Congregational Church of Rockford, Illinois, ‘although of genuine Puritan stock’, was ‘preparing for a grand Christmas jubilee’, a news correspondent reported in 1864. By 1860, fourteen states including several from New England had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday. In 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United States Federal holiday, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. Subsequently, in 1875, Louis Prang introduced the Christmas card to Americans. He has been called the “father of the American Christmas card”.