“Old Days” Recalled

Milton Weekly of 1885 was Lively Little Paper

Back in August 1885, the business of our city was very prosperous.  The woolen mill was kept running until 9 o'clock at night trying to fill orders and both Taylor and Hitz and Trow milling companies were very busy.  The shipyard was going full force, business was on the increase and the Madison folks were awaiting the opening of a new opera house.

 That information is contained in three copies of the Milton Free Press of August 1885, sent to this office by Tom Wood of Milton.  The paper, a weekly, was published by L. P. Sarlis.  Largest advertisers in the paper were the Madison merchants.  A column of correspondence from this city is signed "Dreams."  One of the papers give an account of preparations for the funeral of General Grant, half of the item tells how much the officer in charge of the preparations appreciates the magnitude of his task,, the other half giving the probable length and route of the procession.  

Candor, if nothing else, distinguishes the community correspondence.  "Dreams" tells of a trip to Milton and of stopping at a blacksmith shop for repairs and as the blacksmith said that he had not touched liquor since Christmas, the correspondent thought he should receive a large share of the people's patronage.  He objects in another paragraph about the size of a townsman's trousers and in the manner of Walter Winchell says that four of the town's widowers are to be married in the near future.  The correspondent for Cedar Point in Kentucky tells of a farmer who was bitten on the finger by a copperhead while in the tobacco patch.  The farmer, the item says, drank three pints of whiskey before feeling its effect and suffered intensely for many days.  

From a news clipping dated August 16, 1932, but no paper was mentioned…