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CITY OF DUBOIS Page 147
lot. At noon the posts were in the ground and the sills laid for the
superstructure. By evening a part of the building was up. The next
day the frame work had been completed and the rafters for the roof
had been placed on the building. The third day the roof was put on
and some time during the fourth day the family moved in. Of course,
the building was not completed, but the owner of this structure, who
was an architect of the time, needed a place to live, and he was
willing to occupy the house while the carpenters were finishing the
balance of it. This house is still standing, although considerably
enlarged since that time and made a modern up-to-date building.
There was no water system. Mr. Rumbarger refers to
springs and he was right, so far as the low ground was concerned. On
the south side of East Long Avenue, from Conwell Alley down, was a
series of springs that furnished water, and likewise on South Brady
Street in the flat portion of the ground, a well sunk 8 or to feet
had an abundance of water, but when it came to the higher ground it
was necessary to dig deep wells or secure water by boring. Some of
these bored wells were as much as 15o feet deep. Two, three or four
people would go together and dig one well, which would probably
furnish the water for a half a dozen or a dozen people. This
condition existed until 1891.
Stores carried nothing but the necessities required in
the community. Merchandise was hard to get. In 1871, there were no
railroads nearer than Clearfield or Ridgway, and all of the
merchandise had to be hauled on wagons from either of those places,
until the railroad was completed in about 1873 or 1874.
The writer recalls that at an early date Jared Evans
opened a store on the public road leading past the Nelson House to
the Beech-woods. This building was from five feet to six feet above
the ground, and Mr. Evans obtained his merchandise at Philipsburg
prior to the extension of the railroad to Clearfield, which was
opened in 1869, and when a little boy he accompanied his brother,
who had hauled a load of goods from Philipsburg for Mr. Evans in his
store. However, at the time of the starting of DuBois, this store
had been abandoned, and was subsequently turned into a dwelling
house and occupied about 1872, probably constituting one of the
sixteen families mentioned by Dr. Smathers, but the Pomeroy Map of
1867 gives no evidence of a building at that point, and this
structure may have been erected after that map was made.
Lumber at this period was very cheap. So far as hemlock
was concerned there were two grades, viz: Number One and Culls. The
Culls were conveyed to slab piles in the mill yard and burned and
the Number I was usually inch boards, 2 inch planks and other
building timber for building houses, which would be delivered on the
ground at as low as $7.50 per thousand. White pine could be bought
as low as $16.00 per thousand delivered on the ground. These were
not Mr. DuBois' prices, however, but the prices of the local mills.
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