Monday, August 26, 2019



The 1955 Flood in Easton, PA

The Free Bridge from Easton, PA to Phillipsburg, NJ


Clean up starts at South Third St. All the buildings on the left were torn down in the 1970's
This is South Third St.
South Third St. All these buildings were torn down.

 
Clean up starts. The Terminal Hotel was at 122 Northampton St. It is now a parking lot.   














Aerial view of the Free Bridge      






Saturday, August 24, 2019

THE RIGHT MAN - THE RIGHT PLACE - THE RIGHT TIME - GENERAL PEYTON C. MARCH



By Rory Morgan - 2019

May 30, 1918 - Centre Square in Easton On the left is the text of Mayor David Nevin's speech.

The United States was actively involved in World War I for less than two years, from April 1917, until the Armistice in November, 1918. In that short time, the nation created, by recruiting and drafting, an Army of approximately 4 million men. It trained (more or less), equipped, clothed, and fed them. It transported 2 million of them to France; there they joined the exhausted British and French forces, which had been fighting against Germany since 1914.

The man primarily responsible for this success was Easton native Peyton Conway “Bob” March, the Army Chief of Staff for most of 1918. Born in 1864, he was one of the nine children of world-renowned Lafayette College professor Francis A. March and his wife, Mildred. Peyton was raised in the family’s house on the College campus and attended the Easton schools. He enrolled at Lafayette at age 15, and graduated with honors in 1884. While there, he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon social fraternity and enthusiastically participated in athletic activities, especially baseball. He also reportedly played on Lafayette’s first football team.

After graduation, he made a surprising choice - to pursue a second undergraduate experience, this time as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. He secured the necessary appointment from local Congressman William Mutchler, graduated from the Academy in 1888 and received a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the artillery, stationed in Washington, D.C.

Advancement opportunities were very limited in the small Army of that era. It was not until 1894 - six years after his initial commission - that he received a promotion and a new assignment. Before he and his wife, Josephine headed west to his new post, San Francisco, they enjoyed a three-month visit to Easton. For the next several years, he was occupied with the routine duties of an Army officer in peacetime. 

In 1898, the sad affair known as the Spanish-American War began. Fighting in the Spanish colonies of Cuba and the Philippines, the United States easily defeated Spain. (Although not without a price - Easton native General Charles Wikoff was killed in Cuba. He was the highest-ranking American officer to be killed in the war.) 

War meant opportunity for a professional soldier, no less for March than for any other officer. His chance came when John Jacob Astor, one of the wealthiest men in America, announced that he would personally pay all of the expenses of a new artillery battery for the Army. Organizing and commanding the Astor Battery, as it inevitably came to be known, was a prestigious assignment. It was given to Lieutenant March, signaling his status as an up-and-coming officer. The battery was sent to the Philippines, where March demonstrated leadership abilities and physical bravery. He personally led a charge (unusual for an artillery officer) that resulted in his nomination for the Medal of Honor - although he did not, in the end, actually receive it. 

When the war ended in late 1898, March returned to the United States. He, Josephine and their children took the opportunity to enjoy several weeks in Easton. 

Unfortunately, the end of the Spanish war did not bring peace to the Philippines. The Filipinos believed that the Americans would treat them as an independent nation. Instead, the United States imposed a government that effectively treated the Islands as an American colony. The Filipinos revolted in 1899; the Philippine Insurrection proved to be a longer, bloodier and uglier fight than the earlier war with Spain. 

March eagerly accepted an invitation to return to the Philippines to serve on the staff of Major General Arthur McArthur (whose son, Douglas, would eventually achieve his own military fame). He was later assigned to command an infantry regiment, gaining additional combat experience and valuable exposure to the Army’s leaders.

The Insurrection ended in 1901 and March returned to duty in the United States. In 1903, he was selected to join the Army’s new General Staff, made up of some of the service’s most-highly-regarded officers. Another noteworthy assignment came in 1904, when he was sent to Asia to observe the now-forgotten Russo-Japanese War. However, the death of his wife in November triggered his return home. Peyton and Josephine had five children by then - three daughters and two sons. The youngest - son Lewis - was still an infant when his mother died. Family members cared for the children during March’s lengthy trip home, and continued to assist him until the children were grown. 

The following years were relatively quiet for the Army and for March. He commanded a Field Artillery unit for several years. He then was moved into the Adjutant General’s department for several more years, doing work that was primarily administrative - keeping paper moving along instead of keeping the Field Artillery’s caissons rolling along. As he had experienced at the beginning of his career, desirable command spots were scarce and there was fierce competition to get them. March had to learn to fight bureaucratic battles instead of wartime battles.

In August,1914, everything changed. Europe exploded into war: Germany invaded France. Britain quickly joined the fight alongside the French. The United States stayed out of the war for over two years, but in 1917 declared war on Germany. Although the British and French armies were desperate for the additional manpower from America, that manpower was more theoretical than actual; the Army and National Guard combined totaled just 200,000 men. As March himself put it, such a small force was “of no practical military value” in a war involving millions.

Nevertheless, American soldiers began to slowly arrive in France. They were formally named the American Expeditionary Force or AEF; informally, they were known as the “doughboys”. March initially commanded all of the AEF’s artillery - an interesting challenge, given that the doughboys arrived in Europe without any cannons and had to borrow them from the French. 

By the spring of 1918, Washington realized that the Army’s administration was completely inadequate to handle the enormous demands placed upon it. A strong officer was needed at the top and the spotlight turned to March, by now a Major General. He stood 6’2”, with a military bearing, a cold, blue-eyed stare, and a cutting tongue when necessary. He had a reputation for making fast and firm decisions. All in all, he was ideally suited to shake the Army’s attitude from placidity to urgency. He was ordered to return to Washington as the Army Chief of Staff, to serve as the link between the civilian Secretary of War and the Army’s command structure. He soon realized that the Army’s various bureaus and departments were undermanned, disorganized and lackadaisical; his work to resolve the problems was relentless.

Meanwhile, Easton was fully aware of his career progress to the highest ranks of his profession. In his honor, City Council changed the name of New Street to March Street. In May, he returned to Easton to accept a ceremonial sword, purchased via citywide fundraising campaign and presented by Mayor David Nevin. Lafayette College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. The College’s alumni gifted him a horse (whose eventual fate is unknown).

In the midst of his ceaseless labors, he suffered the loss of his oldest son. Army Lieutenant Peyton C. March, Jr. was killed while in pilot training. (California’s March Field, later March Air Force Base, was named for the young soldier.) This tragedy was perhaps somewhat eased by the marriages, within six months of each other, of his three daughters - Mildred, Josephine and Vivian. They all married Army officers. Because Mildred’s husband was stationed in France, she lived with her father and handled housekeeping for him. (The youngest March – son Lewis – broke with the family’s Army tradition by joining the Marine Corps in 1921. Unfortunately, he died of tuberculosis in 1928.) 

Those who achieve high positions in large organizations generally have large egos and strong opinions. March was no exception. His obsessive drive to achieve efficiency made him enemies, at least in the bureaucratic sense. His relationship with the Army’s field commander, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, was often strained, as Pershing continually demanded more of everything: more men, more vehicles, more supplies. March struggled to meet these demands. His dealings with Congressmen often resulted in bruised feelings on the part of the politicians. But, despite all the obstacles, he bent an incredibly complex system of acquisition and transport to his will and ensured that the AEF was a well-supplied and equipped force.

The fighting ended, rather suddenly, in November, 1918. March then turned his attention to the complicated task of bringing most of the 2 million doughboys home and returning them to civilian life. He was also swept into discussions about the future structure and size of the Army. 

These were frustrating times for him. His past friction with Congressmen and other politicians now rebounded against him, diminishing his influence. General Pershing was receiving the majority of the credit for winning the war and was clearly becoming the dominant force in the Army, at March’s expense.

March read the writing on the wall and arranged to retire in 1921. On June 30, his career as a professional soldier ended. He spent the next several years travelling the world, decompressing from the strain of his work. He visited old friends, and met with the leaders of a number of countries. He remarried in 1923, to Cora McEntee, who was over thirty years younger than him. The couple returned to the United States in 1926.

He wrote a couple of articles over the next several years, but otherwise just enjoyed life. Then, in 1931, the memoirs of General Pershing were published. To no one’s surprise, March was unhappy with his portrayal and undertook the writing of his own book. The Nation At War was published in 1932. (A copy is available in the Marx Room.) In 1934, he joined other 1884 Lafayette alumni in Easton to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their graduation. He continued to live a relaxed and leisurely life, living in Washington, D.C. and in Florida. He closely followed sports, politics and world affairs, as well as the events of World War II and the Korean Conflict.

In 1953, he was honored by receiving the “Thanks of Congress”. Soon after, his health deteriorated. He was in and out of Walter Reed Army Hospital and died there in 1955, when he was 90 years old. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, with a full military ceremony and with Vice-President Richard Nixon in attendance. His service to the Army was summed up in 1960, by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur: “He was a tremendous officer - a tremendous chief of Staff.”

There’s an old saying in military circles: “Amateurs talk about tactics. Professionals talk about logistics.” Easton’s son proved to be the consummate professional. He was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Peyton C. March at West Point

Peyton C. March retired

Peyton C. March Funeral - Arlington National Cemetery





Friday, August 16, 2019

THE CITY OF EASTON HAD A MISS AMERICA CONTESTANT!


The city of Easton had a Miss America contestant!


The year was 1922 and it was called the National Beauty Tournament, being held during the Atlantic City Fall Pageant. (Miss America originated in 1921 as a “bathing beauty revue”.  Atlantic City started this pageant to keep people coming to the boardwalk after Labor Day) This year’s pageant was to be the "greatest that has ever been held."


The local paper, Easton Daily Free Press on July 20, 1922, was asked to find Easton’s most beautiful girl.

“The Free Press has been been requested to find Easton’s most beautiful daughter, and we have been instructed that the selection is to be made only on merit of beauty. This search for the most beautiful girl of our country is to be real and unlimited. There are to be no conditions that a girl must fill except that of beauty, intelligence and respectability. She may be rich or poor, professional or amateur, She may be married or single. She may be one of the season’s debutantes, or some farmer’s daughter who is not known and has never been beyond the nearest village.”


Twenty five girls were being picked, with the lucky one being chosen by local judges. The Free Press was asking for photos to be submitted to the paper. If they did not have an adequate photo, they could come into the Free Press and the arts department would take the photo.


On August 22, 1922, the Free Press started to print the photos of the twenty five that were chosen. For six days four photos each were put prominently on the front page.

It appears that the Free Press chose the twenty five. 

Those that entered were;

Miss Helen Tigar, Miss Martha Strahly, Mrs. Clayton Sutton, Miss Isabel Violet Conger,

Miss Fannie Miller, Miss Ruth Lerch, Miss Jennie Rice, Miss Helen Hanna, Miss Irma Hagman,

Miss Marion Opitz, Miss Gladys Pritchard, Miss Helen Zehner, Mrs. Bertha Foulk, Miss Imelda Sprague, Miss Julia Case, Miss Emily Johnson, Miss Eleanore Semple, Miss Dorothy Haupt, Mrs. Hanna Scherf, Miss Katherine Lithman,  Mrs. Margaret S. Dougherty, Miss Gladys Kessler, Mrs. Jennie Breyfogle,

Miss Katherine Unger, and Miss Margaret McCluskey.



On Wednesday evening, August 30, 1922, many people filled the auditorium* at the Easton Library hoping to get a glimpse of the beauties. To be fair to each contestant, it was decided that only the judges and employees of the Free Press be allowed to see the girls. Each girl was given a number and walked out onto the platform alone, “so the judges could see her to best advantage.”



The judges were Henry F. Marx, Head Librarian of the library, Wesley M. Heilberger, a shoe merchant,

J. Madison Porter, Eugene Barnako, The Ladies Tailor, and J. H. Heberling, Supt. Of the Carter Jr. Republic.



The judges had arrived at a unanimous decision, the winner, number 8, was Miss Dorothy Haupt, daughter to Claude T. and Ada Haupt of Easton. She would be known as Miss Easton at the Atlantic City Beauty Pageant.


 Miss Dorothy was accompanied by an escort to Atlantic City to participate in all the pageantries.

                                                                                                                                                                      Bettmann/Corbis

1922 Bathing Suit Beauty Contestants with Dorothy the second from the left and last years winner Margaret Gorman on the far right.                                                                                                                                            
 


The judges for the bathing beauty contest were all artists,

Norman Rockwell, Chandler Christy, and James Montgomery Flagg. All in all there were eight judges along with the presenter King Neptune. (Hudson Maxim)

Miss America Contestants                                                                       Chudnow Museum




On the evening of September 7 & 8, 1922, Dorothy was competing against the 1921 Miss America winner, Margaret Gorman, age 16 of Washington DC and 57 inter-city beauties.

In the end, Miss Columbus, Mary Katherine Campbell of Ohio won the overall Miss America of 1922. (spoiler alert…she also won the next year) The Easton Daily Free has all the descriptions and events of Dorothy and can be found on The Easton Daily Free Press micro-film at the Main Easton Public Library. 

Miss Columbus from Ohio, Mary Katherine Campbell winner of the 1922 & 1923 Miss America




Dorothy came back to Easton as a celebrity.

The next year the Free Press had no girls that entered the Miss Easton contest, so Dorothy was asked to be the contestant for Miss America by the Director General of the pageant. As you already read, she did not win.



Dorothy was born January 4, 1905 in Easton, PA and attended Easton High School.

She married George Benore who died young in 1929. Dorothy had a daughter with George. Her daughter married and died a year before her mother in Wisconsin. Later Dorothy married Rocco Bunino and at some point they moved to Wisconsin where they both passed away in 1988.

* The original Easton Carnegie Library was built with an auditorium on the lower floor. Many presentations and shows were held there. In 1927 the auditorium was abandoned and made into the Children's Room.

Auditorium in the Easton Public Library, now the Children's Room

Thursday, August 1, 2019

LIPSTICK


By Rory Morgan - 2019

During the decade known as the Roaring 20s, no place roared louder than New York City. Prohibition may have been the law of the land, but bootleg liquor flowed throughout the city as crowds of flappers and their dates danced through the nights.

An upstart magazine, The New Yorker, began chronicling the fun in 1925, in a lively and popular column entitled “Tables for Two”. It was written with style and humor; the author, identified only as “Lipstick”, clearly knew her way around the world of jazz bands and whispered passwords at the doors of the speakeasies. The column generally covered Manhattan, from Midtown through Harlem. It described the people in the clubs and cabarets, the fashions that they wore and the music that they enjoyed.

In real life, “Lipstick” was a twenty-something writer named Lois Long, a Connecticut-born minister’s daughter and Vassar College graduate with experience at Vogue and Vanity Fair already on her resume. She was smart, independent, attractive – and willing to stay out all night in search of her material. A skilled observer and writer, she became one of the city’s media stars and added the magazine’s fashion column “On and Off the Avenue” to her portfolio. In 1927, she married a New Yorker colleague and fellow media star, the legendary cartoonist Peter Arno. They had a daughter, Patricia, but the tempestuous marriage did not endure; four years later, a quickie Nevada divorce ended it.

New York’s riotous good times faded away in the 1930s as the flapper generation aged, the Great Depression dragged on, and the repeal of Prohibition brought an end to the thrill of secretive drinking. Long, no longer hidden behind the Lipstick identity, gave up her Tables for Two column and became the Fashion Editor for the magazine, a title that she then held for decades. Rather than focusing only on the latest styles, her columns also discussed the price, quality and availability of the clothing, a departure from other fashion writing. As a single mother, she was always in need of money and expanded her work to writing radio scripts and making radio appearances. She even had a stint as a screenwriter for Hollywood.

A second marriage, in 1938, also ended in divorce. (This marriage, to Donaldson Thoburn, was overlooked in her New York Times obituary; the paper reportedly also erred by publishing a photo of a different Lois Long.) In 1953, she married for the third time; her new husband was Easton stockbroker Harold A. “Huck” Fox, a Lafayette College graduate, and a former officer of the Army’s World War II Psychological Warfare Division. It was the third marriage for him also; like Lois, he had one grown daughter from a previous marriage.

The couple lived on Morgan Hill in Williams Township, at Fox’s “Chelveston Farm”. In a 1960 note to the Vassar Alumnae Association, Lois described her home as “an 1807 Pennsylvania-Dutch farmhouse surrounded by woods and other people’s farm land” and noted, “I like things this way”. She managed to keep in touch with New York’s fashion world well enough to continue writing her column.

The couple eventually gave up the rural life and moved to an apartment in Palmer Township. Harold died in 1971. Lois moved from Easton to Saratoga, NY, where her daughter lived. After almost fifty years with The New Yorker, she gave up her position there. She died in Saratoga on July 29, 1974.

Her cremated remains were brought to Easton and are buried beside Harold's remains in Easton Cemetery’s Section N. Curiously, the inscription on her marker is incomplete; no year of death has ever been carved in the spot clearly intended for it.


Lois "Lipstick" Long
Easton Cemetery





Harold A. "Huck" Fox
Easton Cemetery