Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Departed: Bradstreet Robinson

Fulton Journal
March 1, 1889

Bradstreet Robinson was born in Somerset county, Maine, January 1, 1812. He died in this city, February 26 (1889) of paralysis. He left Maine at the age of seventeen years and went to Ohio. In 1833 he came to Illinois. He built the first house in Mt. Carroll and also built the mill in that city. He came to Fulton in 1854 and was for a time in the lumber business, but afterward built and managed the hotel, the Robinson House, till in 1884. He was married at Mt. Carroll in 1846 to Miss Elizabeth Murford. He leaves a widow, one son and two daughters, grown to manhood and womanhood. The obsequies were held at the late residence of the deceased at 1:30 o'clock this afternoon. Rev. Cass Davis, pastor of the M.E. church in this city, officiated. The burial was performed by the relatives and near friends at 5 o'clock this afternoon.
Bradstreet Robinson was a plain, frank, conscientious man. He lived a temperate, moral and an honest life. He possessed a strong will and untiring energy. What he believed to be right he advocated boldly. What he advocated he practiced. He was among the first to advocate the abolition of slavery and always advocated temperance, total abstinence of the use of tobacco in any form or intoxicants as a beverage. He professed religion, but was not bound by the creed of any church. The orthodox religion, as interpreted by some, was too narrow for him. He believed that every man should work out his own salvation. He gave the subject of religion a great amount of study and thought. By honesty, economy and energy he accumulated more than a competency. He died loved most by those who knew him best, admired by many, respected by all.

TRAMPS

Fulton Journal
April 30, 1889

For several weeks tramps have had their rendezvous alongside the C.& N.W. track south of this city. The camp was about forty rods outside the city limits and the tramps knew it. They grew more bold and insolent each day. They were prowling around in Claus Bush's kitchen during the night time. They slept in John W. Munneke's barn and started a fire in his barn. They bought numerous kegs of beer and gallons of whisky and put themselves outside the same with great expedition. They became so bad that John W. Munneke came to town and swore out a warrant charging them with vagrancy. The city marshal organized a posse comitatus and,aided by Deputy Sheriff Fay and Constables J.W. Farley and Hervey Smith went to the camp of the tramps and arrested seventeen of them. Four others were arrested in the city. They were tried before George Terwilliger, justice of the peace, and eighteen of them convicted. One was sentenced to pay a fine of $20 or be imprisoned in the county jail five days; six to pay a fine of $30 or be imprisoned thirty days; eleven to pay a fine of $50 or be imprisoned fifty days. C.W. Knapp conducted the prosecution in an able manner. George E. Duis, of Dixon, who is attending the college and will graduate in June, defended one of the tramps, Frank Wilson, the one who received the lightest sentence. The tramps were taken to the county jail Tuesday. They were a bad crowd. There were half a dozen razors and more knives found concealed on their persons. Sheriff Keefer does not like such prisoners. He keeps the jail clean and free from vermin and this class of prisoners makes him and his assistants a great deal of extra work.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Show Girls

Fulton Journal
December 6,1912

SHOW GIRLS IN SALOONS
Invade Fulton and Step up to Bar and Call for War Medicine

There was a show troupe that plays "The Sweetest Girl from Paris" that included twenty or more chorus girls that got off a train in Fulton Wednesday and when they got up town they boldly entered the saloons and going up to the bar made a noise just like a man and then called for "war medicine." They did not seek entrance by any side door or ask to be directed to a wine room, but went brazenly in by the front door and drank beer, etc., just like veteran booze fighters.
It was a thing to be condemned, as there is something very demoralizing connected with women being allowed to enter saloons. There should be an ordinance prohibiting women frequenting saloons under a penalty of having the saloon's license revoked. The spectacle of a lot of silly chorus girls half drunk entering saloons and drinking with men is something rank. Boys and girls on the street watched the performance and it could not but be demoralizing. Such a thing should never be allowed to occur in this town again, as it was an outrage on decency and the proper control of the liquor traffic.