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A LITTLE NEWS FROM JULY 1891
35 YEARS AGO
By
OLIVER UNDERWOOD
On Dominion Day, 1891, thirty-five years ago, there floated over the building of the old Welland Tribune a new banner of red, white and blue bunting, with the word “Tribune” affixed in satin gold letters on the middle strip. A few days previously the banner had been presented to J.J. Sidey, editor and proprietor of the newspaper by its staff which numbered all of twelve people whose names were attached to the presentation.
Four of these old-timers are still attached to the present paper: the perennial George Wells, whose hair may not have been of quite so silvery a hue then but who is unchanged otherwise; Chas. Peach, who is still slinging type in the composing room; Harry C. Casper who wasn’t so hard-boiled then as he is today and who likely was then manipulating a composing stick instead of the linotype over which his fingers-all of them even unto the thumb-now swiftly play. For Harry does not use the one-finger system in vogue in the news room; not for him the hunt-and-pick stuff; i.e. hunt the keyboard for the wanted letter and then peck it with one finger. The fourth is George E. Scace who is still slinging “pikey.”
There is yet another name, but its bearer deserted the printer’s trade for another vocation. Harvey Dawdy was then The Tribune’s printer’s devil. A year later he went into the hardware and plumbing business with John H. Crow.
The remaining names are Ed McCann, Tom Phillips, Miss Ross, Allie Eddy, Miss Jennie Ross and S.J. and H.C. Sidey.
(The article on the presentation of the flag was written by Frank C. Pitkin on Friday. Little did he that before another noon had come the Harvey Dawdy he wrote of would have passed from earth.)
The Welland Tribune and Telegraph
13 July 1926
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