This page was written in July 1926.    

July    1926

            Old records copied from Diary.... the Mill work done at W.W. O'Neil Co. docks was in a small mill fit up in the old Mule Stable... before that it was a machinery shop run by John Gregg of Brownsville in 1887 and James Byers had his blacksmith shop north of the O'Neil coal tipple and done the Co. blacksmithing.

Wm. C. McCune was Supt for the Oneils.

The Oneils used the sawed lumber from the Wm. Fergus Farm sawed by a portable mill owned by German named Hellburn... this lumber was hauled in by A.G. Rothey and measured by the writer, this was in 1895.  Most of this lumber was used on the ONeil line of tow boats, the : W.W. ONeil - Dick Fulton - Fred Wilson - Little Dick and Little Fred, all long since wrecked. The Belle McGowan was their best pool boat and later they owned the Delta and Enterprise.

New wheel and repairs on Steamer Delta Sep 30, 1895

The machinery ( 1888 ) in the ONeil mill was brought from the Horner & Roberts Mill after they broke up and later moved to Elizabeth Marine Ways... this machinery was put down and in running order at all three places by Henry Lambert.

The first work I done was on the John Brown Farm about four miles from Fayette City, then Cookstown, that was in 1876... then for a year on the old Crozier Farm ( for Bill Finney ) below Elizabeth.  Father died in 1877 Sep the following year on the John W. Edmundson farm near Buena Vista. In 1880 I went to work in Walton's siding yard for Robert Campbell, the contractor.  I also did some work on the farms of Mr. Peterson and James McClure back of Butlers, now Bunola.  At that time brother Frank lived at Bunola and worked at Peterson's Dock.

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