1
. THE HANCOCK TTKRATJ1, THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1957 PACK SEVEN M BASKET LETTERS A History of the Basket Brook By Leslie D. LaValley CHAPTER 72 GEORGE MILK Back in the 1870's and 1880's, long before the voters of the United States had been divided by the politicians into definite groups wishfully described as the white collar vote, the labor vote, or the farm vote, street corner spell-binders before election used to talk a lot and do nothing about the poor down-trodden producers and consumers. In those days of long distances and slow transportation, when the individual producer had little knowledge of and no direct contact with the big consuming centers, farmers took what they could get for their products and when the price doubled or tripled by the time it was sold over the counter in the city, the butcher and the corner groceryman always had a good alibi. The mid- dleman, they said, got all the profit. This middleman was pic- tured in the newspaper cartoons as a bloated individual, wear- ing a derby hat and handlebar mustache; he was always smoking a fat cigar, a diamond, the size of a hen's egg spar- kled on his ring finger, and across his checkered vest was loop- ed a gold watch chain as big as your finger and almost as long as your arm- It was some time in the early 1880's that the producers started to work on this middleman, who bought with one hand and sold with the other and never let his buy- ing hand know what his selling hand was getting. Enter- prising men in the rural districts began to organize into small groups, pooling their products and selling them cooperatively. George Milk of South Woods was one of the leaders in this movement. Mr. MflV was the second, son of David Milk, one of the pioneers in that section, and was four years of age when the 1855 census was the Acidalia office. This Acidalia-Long Eddy telegraph line didn't last; too long, it was a new thing along the road and boys stoned the glass insulators and hunters shot them off, and eventually much of the wire went into repairing fences and patching machinery on the farms up the "crick." In the late 1890*3, John Eutz recalled, Mart Smith ran a telephone LISTEN VETERAN! (By State Yet. Counselor Domald M. Dickson, NYS Div. of Vet. Af- fairs, and Dir. H. 6. Chamberlain, DeL Co, Vet. Service Agency) Civil Service: At present appli- cations are being accepted continu- . , ously for New York State Civil line from his Fremont Center farm to Hankms, with a phone on each S e r ^ e Examinations for positions end. At about the same time, King & Holcomb made another communi- as Stenographers and Typists in cations experiment and ran a telephone line from the Acidalia office to various school ' districts of the the Fernwood factory. They used Hue vitrol batteries for power, there ; S ^ J ^ ^ S S n e o " were no bells on the two phones, they had certain times of day when: from the Municipal Service Divi- they talked, and if they hollered "hello" in the mouthpiece and nobody sion, New York State Department answered, they just hung up and waited until the next talking time.i ^ J ™ 1 Service ' * Co 111 ™*"* St - Shortly after this contrivance had been installed, Lank Brown from, There are immediate openings Milesville Hill stopped by the Fernwood factory one day just as thei for engineers and sheet metal wor- foreman inside was trying to contact Acidalia. "Whose he yelling at?" ***• Applications are being accept- ed continuously and tests are held frequently. Details concerning these jobs are available from the New York State Department of | Civil Service, Recruitment Unit, ! Albany. Mention of Lank Brown brings to mind an old cellar hole near: Korean Veterans: Courts are the spring on the flat across the brook from Hunter's Lodge in Fernwood. permitted to prevent the foreclo- It was Wallace LaValley's original intention to build his new house on J s ^°L a I o a n .<* a P^son in a ive the flat, but shortly after Lank Brown dug the cellar with a drag scoop, j ^ 0 ^^ a ftoHhis discharge. The a Basket flood came along and covered the flat andfilledthe cellar hole i Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act of with water. Because of this flood, Mr. LaValley had Mr. Brown dig; 1940, as^ amended, which grants another cellar on the high ground where Hunter's Lodge now stands. Across the brook on the flat, the hole in the ground was always known as Lank Brown's cellar. At the time it was dug, the only telephone line on the Basket was the one between the Acidalia and Fernwood Factories. Just how long this line was in operation, we don't know, but a picture Representatives has passed and sent to the U. S. Senate two bills which are of interest. HE 6304 would permit servicemen overseas the continued privilege of sending home gifts up to $50 in value cus- toms free. HR 6191 would provide social security benefits in addition to any VA compensation for ser- vice-connected disability. Medical: Approval for medical order and not in cash. The VA is lows with definite big league po> authorized to make direct loans to j tentJaL The Cardinals have the veterans for the purchase, con- i baseball know-how and many struction or repair of a home or farm house in areas where private mortgage financing is not avail- able. Questions about the rights and]tune if he has what it takes benefits of veterans, servicemen j really works hard." of success in developing players into big leaguers. An ambitious, talented player will get every chance with us to make the and their dependents may be sub- mitted for individual attention to treatment at government expense jthe State Division of Veterans' Af- Lank wanted to know. "He's trying to talk to Bert Hookum," Lank was told. "Well!" Lank said, "If he came outside, maybe Bert could hear him." this authority does not forgive a loan. Payments only are postpon- ed through this law and must be made up after discharge from the armed services. The income of the person requesting relief under this law must be so lowered that the should be obtained from the Veter- ans Administration before the treatment is actually rendered. In the case of emergency, the VA may be contacted by telephone to ob- tain prior approval. In the event it is not possible to obtain prior ap- proval and unauthorized medical treatment is rendered, a claim for i reimbursement may be submitted | to the VA. The following four con- : ditions must exist in order for the VA to pay for unauthorized medi- eal treatment in civilian hospitals or other medical facilities or by ci- I vilian physicians. First, the claim must be for the treatment of a di- sease or injury shown to be ser- : vice-connected by the VA or for ; the adjunct relief of an associated I non-service condition determined ; by the chief medical officer of the ,VA as aggravating a service-con- nected disability. Second, the treat- : merit must have been rendered in : a medical emergency. Third, gov- ' ernment facilities must have been not feasibly available. Finally, de fairs or the Delaware County Vet- erans' Service Agency, Court House, Delhi. A player must bring his glove, , baseball shoes, and a uniform if he has one. All other equipment will ] be furnished by the St. Louis Car- dinals. "Don't under rate the value of these tryout camps," added Shan- non. "We've found some great stars that way. Why, on the Car- : dinals right now are Ken Boyer, Don Blasingame, and "Vinegar Bend" Mizell. Who knows, a few years from now the baseball world could well be talking about a play- er who got his start at the Oneon- ta camp. That's one of the things ST. LOUIS CARDINALS TRYOUT CAMP AT ONEONTA JULY 19, 20 The St. Louis Cardinals will stage a baseball tryout camp at Oneonta Ball Park in Oneonta, on July 19 and 20, it was announced today by Farm Director Walter Shannon. Veteran talent scouts will be on j ? hat maKes tius **"* *> mterest- hand each morning at 10 a. m., to' mg - HORACE W. McKOON, president of the Delaware and Sullivan Tele- phone and Telegraphy Company when it was organized in 1907, seated on the porch of his Long Eddy store with Salon LaValle when the main street there was a thriving business center. "Hod" had financied a lot of deals on the Basket, and "Soal," a lumberman, had done a lot of fish- ing and fiddling, but from the campaign picture in the store window, they were probably talking politics when the picture was snapped by Mr. LaValle's daughter, Josephine, who married Lyman Chandler, one of the early telephone service men on the Basket. Mr. McKoon's fath- er, Samuel McEoon, and Mr. LaValle's father and his grandfather, David and Roderick LeValley, were active in the organization of the Town of Fremont, Sullivan County, in 1852. Mrs. Eva Jones Oestrich remembers that the Fernwood factory had a telephone before the Long Eddy line came along. In Rock Valley around 1900, the Clark and Chandler boys strung a mile of wire between their two homes, and Charlie Clark, a retired N. Y., O. & W. employee, got his .first telegraphy experience on the Basket. Charlie was always tinkering with communication, and in later years at Hancock, he and Leonard Lakia built some of the first radio receiving sets used in Hancock—superhetrodyne was a familiar word then. In Rock Valley days, Charlie and Bill Clark, Decker and Lyman Chandler, all had a lot of fun with their telegraph line and it was the beginning of more serious things. Agatha, the sister of the Chandlers, got so she could send and take as fast as the boys and a few years later was op- erating the telephone central office at Long Eddy. This was around 1907, a year after the first Rock Valley line, known as "Alvie" Chan- GI home loan mortagages which are i held by Veterans Administration j itself under the VA direct loan program are urged to mail their ; mortgage payments in special en- I velopes provided for that purpose. I The envelopes contain the veter- an's name, address, loan number, and other accounting information which makes it easier for the VA ! to handle the account. Payment should be made by check or money ' af the Acidalia Sunday School picnic loaned by Mrs. Charles Judson required payment on the loan can- lay in treatment must be consider Smith and taken in 1904 shows wires along the road at that time, and: not be met jedtohave been hazardous. Education: A veteran is eligible) Loans: Veterans who have to complete a U. S. Armed Forces Institute correspondence course after discharge from active service if, he was enrolled in such course while on active duty. Nine months is permitted from date of dis- charge to complete the USAFI correspondence course. A veteran who did not start a course on ac- tive duty cannot begin one after separation. _ Compensation: The Survivors Benefits Act which became effec- tive January 1, 1957 established a more liberal definition of the term "widow" for Veterans Administra- tion purposes for survivors of vet- _--„ j -- - - --•—_-„-- - ,. erans whose death is attributable dler's line, had been built. Probably no modern contraption created j to ^ t a r y service. A widow may more excitement on the Basket than did the first telephone, which made; qualify for service-connected death it possible, by cranking a few shorts and longs, to engage in conversation i benefits under the present law if a with some neighbor. You could usually judge how far away the neigh- \ ? hi *t v ^L hoTn ^ the SF?fv£I , ,. , , Jr .^ , , ,, . .., . . . . i f the widow was married to the bor lived by the pitch of the voice of the person talking, for the volume j veteran before or during his mili faded with distance and was cut down in proportion to the number of people "rubbering" on the line. The general interest in these first tele- phones is shown by some of the "Fifty Years Ago" items in the Han- cock Herald, at which time Herbert W. Wagner was publisher. eye the young hopefuls. The try- outs are open to all players be- tween 17 and 23. "This is a big break for the players in the area to show their baseball ability and get a start in professional baseball," commented Shannon, a former player and scout. "Mind you," continued Shannon, "we don't expect polished players to show up at the Oneonta camp, but we're looking for young fel- F.xpenses incidental to attending the camp will be refunded to a player signed to a contract with one of the Cardinal-operated clubs. To take part in the tryouts an American Legion player must have a letter of approval from either his Legion coach or Post comman- der. —Consumers spent 25 per cent of their disposable income for food in 1955. DUNLAP and FEDERAL TIRES AH Sizes and Prices. TYDOL GAS and OIL DELCO BATTERIES We Give Triple S Blue Stamps! SHAKELTON GARAGE Phone 7-3511 Boole 97 Hancock, N. T. According to these items, the Basket correspondent reported on May 3, 1906, that Dr. T. J. Male-was putting up telephone poles to East Branch, and after that was completed, he would run a line to Little Equinunk, Pa., and connect with the Honesdale line. On June 7, 1906, the Goulds correspondent expected the telephone poles (native chestnut) and were to be put up in that place either that week or the next. The line was to extend from Long Eddy via Rock Valley and Goulds to Fishs Eddy. On July 12, 1906, this line had reached the John Gould place, On October 11, 1906, the Goulds scribe wrote that the Peoples Telephone Company had the holes dug and the poles put up for its telephone line. On November 8, connection had been made by the Rock Valley Tele- phone line with the system of the Hancock Telephone Company, and the patrons and the public could communicate with the south end of town and Long Eddy. Apparently, the destination of some of these lines was rumor only, and the activity developed into two separate lines, one a* cooperative line built by George Milk and his son, John, from their farm at Goulds down into the Trout Brook Valley through Burnwood to Peakville with an outlet at East Branch, and down the Basket Brook from the mjTk place tary service. Where these provi sions are not met, a widow may qualify if she married the service- man within 15 years after the ac- tive duty period in which the ser- vice-connected injury or disease that caused his death ocurred. If a widow married more than 15 years after the duty period when the ser- vice-connected injury or disease that caused the serviceman's death occurred, she would qualify if she was married to the serviceman five or more years before his death. It is emphasized that this definition applies to survivors of those who died from a service-connected cause. _ Legislation: The U. S. House of LEGALS LICENSE GRANTED NOTICE is hereby given that License No. 13GB6 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at retail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 45-47 Front St, CONVINCED the small-car field is your limit? taken. He spent his youth on his father's farm, where Edward Milk, a grandson, lives today. He married Amelia Biedekapp, who was the old- est daughter of John Biedekapp, a close neighbor. George and his wife made their home on his father's place and had four children, John, Lena, Le€ and Arlyn. John married CaHa Peake and according to a Milk geneology prepared by Mrs. John May, had two daughters, Marion and Dorothy. Lena married George Smith and had two sons, Milton and George. Lee, who has given us considerable information for "Basket Letters," married Martha Hendricks and had six children, Helen, Maud, Priscilla, Ruth, Robert, and Richard. Lee's brother, Arlyn, married Dora Shea and had nine children, Arlene, Kathryn, Vicky Lee, Constance, Gary, Bruce, Edward, Thresa, and Philip. All except Lee made their homes in the immediate vicinity, where Arlyn still lives. Lee graduated from Hancock High School in 1904, and members of his class were Lawrence Peake, Walter Tymeson, Florence Busfield, Laura Wheeler, Angeline Fleming, Marion Allen, Sadie McGranaghan, and Leonard Lalrin. Four years later Lee graduated from Syracuse University and became a High School Principal. After retirement, he made Walton his home, where he takes an active part in religious and educational work. George Milk might be called one of the old timers of the Basket, but he was a forward looking man and in his early thirties became one of the leaders in the crusade to improve the position of the farmers. He was active in the organization of the Grange in the early 1880's, and later in the building of the Grange Hall, the Methodist Church and the Rock Valley Creamery. He held stock in both hall and creamery, but never patronized the latter, since he was a sheep man and maintained a dairy large enough only to provide for family needs. The Grange was very active around Rock Valley and Goulds in the 1880's, and Mr. Milk was a director and for many years the treasurer of the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) Insurance Company of Delaware County. At one time he was purchasing agent for the Grange and procured goods for the members at prices as near cost as possible. He used to order car- loads of feed, which the farmers picked up at the car in Long Eddy. As a geenral rule, Mr. Milk financied these operations. He also for many years bought up sheep, lambs, calves and butter, and shipped one or more carloads a year to New York City on a commission basis, getting much higher prices for the farmers than the average dealer paid. In the early 1900's, the possibility of getting telephone service on the Basket created a lot of discussion, and George Milk naturally felt that the interests of the users would be best served by a cooperative venture, since he considered the telephone an aid to community service rather than a business to earn dividends for a few shareholders. His plans were for a line linking the Basket and Trout Brook Valleys, but Alvah Chandler, who was more interested in the Long Eddy area, didnt think the Peakville hne would pay. This difference of opinion was not resolved and divided the neighborhood service between two lines when they were finally built in 1906. It had been over sixty years before that date that communication by wire over long distance had been success- fully demonstrated by Samuel F. B. Morse. With money appropriated by a "spend-thriff Congress, Mr. Morse had constructed a telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington. Some thirty years later, Alex- ander Graham Bell made it possible to transmit the human voice over a wire. On the Basket, the Morse telegraph was the first means of wire communication used and is an almost forgotten story. When Reu- ben Todd of Walton was clerking in the King it Holcomb store at Acid- alia years ago, he made some inquiries about an old telegraph key he found on a back shelf in the store. Years before then, he learned, King A Hokomb had built a telegraph line from the Acaidalia factorytothe Erie Station at Long Eddy to keep in closer touch with car loading*. Charlie Halleck was clerking in the Acidalia store then and picked up telegraphy and did the operating, a profession he followed later on the railroad, due to the experience he gained on the Basket line. Possibly this was at the time Charlie Martin was station agent at Long Eddy, \ for Martin was a great friend of Bert Holcomb and Charlie Smith of to Whitaker's in Rock Valley, where it went over Halsey Hill and past ^ £ £ t i o n ' * " * * ° * PTea ^ S ~.—,*-•- ~ ^ . w „ - - v ..- -~~^„ -_--_--„._-„ .-_ -T .- _-.„_ - - - ^ g rand Union Company 100 Broadway East Paterson, New Jersey Ernest Oestrich's to Wallace LaValley's in Fernwood, where it continued over the east hill to Mileses. The second telephone line, the original Chandler line, ran from Long Eddy to Goulds through Rock Valley, and through Fernwood to Aciladia up fee east brook. This was the Dela- ware and Sullivan Telephone and Telegraph Company, incorporated at Long Eddy in 1907. According to a ten share certificate of this stock issued to Wallace LaValley of Basket Brook on July 17, 1907, which we are now using for reference, the Capital Stock of the Company was $10,000 at twenty dollars a share. H. W. McKoon was president, Chas. W. Gould was secretary and general manager. A service contract, num- bered 21 and dated September 14,1907, gives the rate at $12 per year in advance. A Kellogg phone was installed. The Chandlers were quite prominent in the organization, Agatha being the Long Eddy central operator and Lyman and Decker Chandler taking care of installation and maintenance. There was no central connection between the Cooperative tele- phone line and the Long Eddy line, but if a patron on one hne wanted to talk to a party on the other, they would call Whitaker's or LeValley's, who had phones on both lines where they intersected on the west and east brooks respectively. At these times an interesting and some times humorously confusing three party conversation would take place, with the amateur central trying to listen into two receivers at the same tame and to repeat messages into the right mouthpiece without^ talking back to the wrong party. Eventually, parts of the cooperative" line were a- bandoned and the Long Eddy line extended its service to include, in addi- tion to the Pea Brook an Basket Brook lines, Hankins, Mileses, an Fre- mont Center up the Hankins Brook valley. Charles Bjorklund, a one time Basket Brook resident, finally bought around 60 percent of the stock and operated the line until the middle 1940*8, when Mr. and Mrs. Michael Esolen took it over. When Mr. Bjorklund bought the stock it had little marketable value, and many of the original stockholders kept their certificates for their souvenir value. 7-llc LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li- cense No. 13-EB-217 has been is- sued to the undersigned to sell Beer at retail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at Hansel and Gretel eating place, Horton Delaware County, N. Y., to be con- sumed upon the premises. Max and Greta Jara d/b/a Hansel and Gretel 7-llc Horton, N. Y. LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li- cense No. 13GB1 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at re- tail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, for off-premises con- sumption. The Great A. & P. Store, 25 Front Street, 7-llc Hancock, N. Y. LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li- cense 13A69 h~s been issuedtothe undersigned to sell beer at retail under Chapter 478 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at Cotter's Store, 15 East Front Street, Han- cock, Delaware County, N. Y. t to be consumed off the premises. William J. Cotter, 7-llc Hancock, N. Y. rA READ THIS STARTLING FACT fc\ S out of lO Smaller Cars wear a Pontlac Price Tag —yet none gives you Any of Pontlac's Advantages ^ Mr. Bjorklund each year faith- fully paid a small dividend on these shares, and he and his wife, who took care of much of the switchboard work, spent many long hours try- ing to give their subscribers satisfactory service with the old equipment.. When the Esolens started operating the line, there were around | S e r l E ^ e T f e f X j&ohene 145 patrons, but the low rate of $1.50 a month, a fifty cent advance in> Beverage Control Law at the store, forty years, failed to provide sufficient revenue for maintenance, labor '• corner of Depot Street and Cadosia and material repairs, so the old system, the outgrow* of the efforts ! m & w& I> Cadosia, Delaware Cotnv of George Milk and Alvah Chandler so many years ago, a — to an end and the modern service, none to willingly it must be said, finally moved in. As John Rutz once observed, although the Delaware and Sullivan Telephone and Telegraph Company of Long Eddy was not a number one line, it served the purpose it was intended for and tied a lot of good neighbors together for nearly half a century. (To be continued) LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li- cense R-&M9 has been issuedtothe ty, N. Y^ to be consumed off the premises. John DaBrescia,. Adm., of Nancy DaBrescia Estate. 7-llc Cadosia, N. Y. CARD OF THANKS I WISH TO THANK the Ladies Aid of the Cadosia Presbyterian Church for flowers and friends for cards and other expressions of condolence and sympathy at the time of the death of my sis- ter. Mrs. Robert H. Hunter CHIROPRACTOR E RUSSELL HOMER 2:00 to 84)0 P. M. WED.-PRI—HANCOCK Telephone 7-2125 Telephone Galilee. Pa.—65-R-112 Toes, Thttra, Sat.—Lordville CALSO FUEL OIL — KEROSENE — GASOLINE RPM LUBRICANTS FOWLER OIL COMPANY Binghamton, N. Y. Hancock, N. Y. Phone 5-3247 LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li-l censed 13HB197 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at re- tail under Chapter 478 of the Al- coholic Beverage Control Law at Peakville Hotel, Main Street, TA> Hancock, Peakville, New York, to be consumed upon the premises. Dora Smith, Admx. of Estate of Harold Smith, d/b/a Peakville Hotel Peakville, N. Y. 7-18c LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li- cense 13EB181 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at retail under Chapter 478 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at the Riviera. Route 17, near East Branch, New York, to be consumed upon the premises. James Joseph Flno, 7-18c Ernst Branch, N. Y. NO CAR AT ANY PRICE PERFORMS LIKE A PONTIAC... SMALLER CARS AREN'T EVEN IN THE RUNNING! K it's proof you want, your Pentiac dealer it loadod with H—point-by-point engi^ neermg comparisons and on-the-record facts and figures. No smaller car is de- signed or powered to come close to Pon- tiac's eye-opening performance... alert, reflex-action response... and its smooth, effortless mastery of every driving de- mand. Try a demonstration drive—over your own route—in traffic or out on the highway. Put the facts on America's Number One Road Car to a test and you'll leave the little league for good! WITH 4 TO 7 EXTRA INCHES OF WHEELBASE, PONTIAC OUTCLASSES THE SMALLER CARS IN RIPE AND ROAPABILITYI Pontiac's length is built in—not hung on! STWII* 1 *' cars extend bumpers and lenders to look big, but Pontine doesn't need camouflage ... it is big! Its man- sized 122-inch wheelbase strides over the bumps instead of riding on them. Tbk extra tfg** 1 , plus a carload of new suspension ideas, results in Pontiac's exclusive leveWJne Ride that no car at any price can surpass! Sample a few miles—and you'll never re-enlist in the small-car army again! YOUR MONEY ACTUALLY BUYS UP TO 8.9% MORE SOLID CAR PER DOLLAR IN A PONTIAC! fall far The so-called "low-price" short of Pontiac in actual, car—and your Pontine dealer has official specification comparisons to prove HI No smaller car comes even dose to Pon- tiac's rock-solid construction...from its rugged X-mombor frame through every inch of its heavy-duty running gear Pontiac is muscle all the way! Tins extra heft means Pontiac holds the road like no smafier car you've ever driven ... gives you a ride remarkably free of bounce, shake and noise! Put all the facts and figures to your own personal road test. Call your own shots and see bow Pontiac's Precision-Touch Controls give you steering, braking and parking out of reach of the small jobs! PONTIAC HAS ALWAYS COMMANDED A HIGH TRADE-IN DOLLAR! When you put your money m a Ptmtiae you know your investment will be riding high for a long time to come! In fact, over the years, no car has a better reputation for being a top-demand used car. So before you sign on the dotted lino for a smaller job at Pontiac's price—get the dollar-stretching food news your Pontiac dealer has waiting for jrou. Here in the easiest move of your life are the car and the value that will get you out of the small-ear class for keeps! sxttf jwwMta*! SEE YOUR AUTHORIZED Pontiac TRADING'S TERRIFIC RIGHT MOW! Thomas M. Tryniski 309 South 4th Street Fulton New York 13069 www.fultonhistory.com

CONVINCED - fultonhistory.com 23/Hancock NY...Back in the 1870's and 1880's, long before the voters of the United States had been divided by the politicians into definite groups wishfully

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THE HANCOCK TTKRATJ1, THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1957 PACK SEVEN

M

BASKET LETTERS A History of the Basket Brook

By Leslie D. LaValley CHAPTER 72

GEORGE MILK Back in the 1870's and 1880's, long before the voters

of the United States had been divided by the politicians into definite groups wishfully described as the white collar vote, the labor vote, or the farm vote, street corner spell-binders before election used to talk a lot and do nothing about the poor down-trodden producers and consumers. In those days of long distances and slow transportation, when the individual producer had little knowledge of and no direct contact with the big consuming centers, farmers took what they could get for their products and when the price doubled or tripled by the time it was sold over the counter in the city, the butcher and the corner groceryman always had a good alibi. The mid­dleman, they said, got all the profit. This middleman was pic­tured in the newspaper cartoons as a bloated individual, wear­ing a derby hat and handlebar mustache; he was always smoking a fat cigar, a diamond, the size of a hen's egg spar­kled on his ring finger, and across his checkered vest was loop­ed a gold watch chain as big as your finger and almost as long as your arm- It was some time in the early 1880's that the producers started to work on this middleman, who bought with one hand and sold with the other and never let his buy­ing hand know what his selling hand was getting. Enter­prising men in the rural districts began to organize into small groups, pooling their products and selling them cooperatively. George Milk of South Woods was one of the leaders in this movement.

Mr. MflV was the second, son of David Milk, one of the pioneers in that section, and was four years of age when the 1855 census was

the Acidalia office. This Acidalia-Long Eddy telegraph line didn't last; too long, it was a new thing along the road and boys stoned the glass insulators and hunters shot them off, and eventually much of the wire went into repairing fences and patching machinery on the farms up the "crick."

In the late 1890*3, John Eutz recalled, Mart Smith ran a telephone

LISTEN VETERAN! (By State Yet. Counselor Domald M. Dickson, NYS Div. of Vet. Af­fairs, and Dir. H. 6 . Chamberlain, DeL Co, Vet. Service Agency)

Civil Service: At present appli­cations are being accepted continu-

— . • , ously for New York State Civil line from his Fremont Center farm to Hankms, with a phone on each S e r ^ e Examinations for positions end. At about the same time, King & Holcomb made another communi- as Stenographers and Typists in cations experiment and ran a telephone line from the Acidalia office to various school ' districts of the the Fernwood factory. They used Hue vitrol batteries for power, there ; %£ S ^ J ^ ^ S S n e o " were no bells on the two phones, they had certain times of day when: from the Municipal Service Divi-they talked, and if they hollered "hello" in the mouthpiece and nobody sion, New York State Department answered, they just hung up and waited until the next talking time.i ^ J ™ 1 S e r v i c e ' * Co111™*"* S t -Shortly after this contrivance had been installed, Lank Brown from, There are immediate openings Milesville Hill stopped by the Fernwood factory one day just as thei for engineers and sheet metal wor-foreman inside was trying to contact Acidalia. "Whose he yelling at?" ***• Applications are being accept­

ed continuously and tests are held frequently. Details concerning these jobs are available from the New York State Department of

| Civil Service, Recruitment Unit, ! Albany.

Mention of Lank Brown brings to mind an old cellar hole near: Korean Veterans: Courts are the spring on the flat across the brook from Hunter's Lodge in Fernwood. • permitted to prevent the f oreclo-It was Wallace LaValley's original intention to build his new house on J s ^ ° L a I o a n .<* a P^son i n a<£ i v e

the flat, but shortly after Lank Brown dug the cellar with a drag scoop, j 0^^ aftoHhis discharge. The a Basket flood came along and covered the flat and filled the cellar hole i Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief Act of with water. Because of this flood, Mr. LaValley had Mr. Brown dig; 1940, as amended, which grants another cellar on the high ground where Hunter's Lodge now stands. Across the brook on the flat, the hole in the ground was always known as Lank Brown's cellar. At the time it was dug, the only telephone line on the Basket was the one between the Acidalia and Fernwood Factories. Just how long this line was in operation, we don't know, but a picture

Representatives has passed and sent to the U. S. Senate two bills which are of interest. HE 6304 would permit servicemen overseas the continued privilege of sending home gifts up to $50 in value cus­toms free. HR 6191 would provide social security benefits in addition to any VA compensation for ser­vice-connected disability.

Medical: Approval for medical

order and not in cash. The VA is lows with definite big league po> authorized to make direct loans to j tentJaL The Cardinals have the veterans for the purchase, con- i baseball know-how and many struction or repair of a home or farm house in areas where private mortgage financing is not avail­able.

Questions about the rights and]tune if he has what it takes benefits of veterans, servicemen j really works hard."

of success in developing players into big leaguers. An ambitious, talented player will get every chance with us to make the

and their dependents may be sub­mitted for individual attention to

treatment at government expense jthe State Division of Veterans' Af-

Lank wanted to know. "He's trying to talk to Bert Hookum," Lank was told. "Well!" Lank said, "If he came outside, maybe Bert could hear

him."

this authority does not forgive a loan. Payments only are postpon­ed through this law and must be made up after discharge from the armed services. The income of the person requesting relief under this law must be so lowered that the

should be obtained from the Veter­ans Administration before the treatment is actually rendered. In the case of emergency, the VA may be contacted by telephone to ob­tain prior approval. In the event it is not possible to obtain prior ap­proval and unauthorized medical treatment is rendered, a claim for i reimbursement may be submitted | to the VA. The following four con- : ditions must exist in order for the VA to pay for unauthorized medi-eal treatment in civilian hospitals or other medical facilities or by ci- I vilian physicians. First, the claim must be for the treatment of a di­sease or injury shown to be ser-

: vice-connected by the VA or for ; the adjunct relief of an associated I non-service condition determined ; by the chief medical officer of the ,VA as aggravating a service-con­nected disability. Second, the treat-

: merit must have been rendered in : a medical emergency. Third, gov-' ernment facilities must have been not feasibly available. Finally, de

fairs or the Delaware County Vet­erans' Service Agency, Court House, Delhi.

A player must bring his glove, , baseball shoes, and a uniform if he has one. All other equipment will

] be furnished by the St. Louis Car­dinals.

"Don't under rate the value of these tryout camps," added Shan­non. "We've found some great stars that way. Why, on the Car-

: dinals right now are Ken Boyer, Don Blasingame, and "Vinegar Bend" Mizell. Who knows, a few years from now the baseball world could well be talking about a play­er who got his start at the Oneon­ta camp. That's one of the things

ST. LOUIS CARDINALS TRYOUT CAMP AT ONEONTA JULY 19, 20

The St. Louis Cardinals will stage a baseball tryout camp at Oneonta Ball Park in Oneonta, on July 19 and 20, it was announced today by Farm Director Walter Shannon.

Veteran talent scouts will be on j ? h a t „ m a K e s t i u s **"* *> mterest-hand each morning at 10 a. m., t o ' m g -

HORACE W. McKOON, president of the Delaware and Sullivan Tele­phone and Telegraphy Company when it was organized in 1907, seated on the porch of his Long Eddy store with Salon LaValle when the main street there was a thriving business center. "Hod" had financied a lot of deals on the Basket, and "Soal," a lumberman, had done a lot of fish­ing and fiddling, but from the campaign picture in the store window, they were probably talking politics when the picture was snapped by Mr. LaValle's daughter, Josephine, who married Lyman Chandler, one of the early telephone service men on the Basket. Mr. McKoon's fath­er, Samuel McEoon, and Mr. LaValle's father and his grandfather, David and Roderick LeValley, were active in the organization of the Town of Fremont, Sullivan County, in 1852.

Mrs. Eva Jones Oestrich remembers that the Fernwood factory had a telephone before the Long Eddy line came along.

In Rock Valley around 1900, the Clark and Chandler boys strung a mile of wire between their two homes, and Charlie Clark, a retired N. Y., O. & W. employee, got his .first telegraphy experience on the Basket. Charlie was always tinkering with communication, and in later years at Hancock, he and Leonard Lakia built some of the first radio receiving sets used in Hancock—superhetrodyne was a familiar word then. In Rock Valley days, Charlie and Bill Clark, Decker and Lyman Chandler, all had a lot of fun with their telegraph line and it was the beginning of more serious things. Agatha, the sister of the Chandlers, got so she could send and take as fast as the boys and a few years later was op­erating the telephone central office at Long Eddy. This was around 1907, a year after the first Rock Valley line, known as "Alvie" Chan-

GI home loan mortagages which are i held by Veterans Administration j itself under the VA direct loan program are urged to mail their ; mortgage payments in special en- I velopes provided for that purpose. I The envelopes contain the veter-an's name, address, loan number, and other accounting information which makes it easier for the VA ! to handle the account. Payment should be made by check or money '

af the Acidalia Sunday School picnic loaned by Mrs. Charles Judson required payment on the loan can- lay in treatment must be consider Smith and taken in 1904 shows wires along the road at that time, and: not be met jed to have been hazardous.

Education: A veteran is eligible) Loans: Veterans who have to complete a U. S. Armed Forces Institute correspondence course after discharge from active service if, he was enrolled in such course while on active duty. Nine months is permitted from date of dis­charge to complete the USAFI correspondence course. A veteran who did not start a course on ac­tive duty cannot begin one after separation. _

Compensation: The Survivors Benefits Act which became effec­tive January 1, 1957 established a more liberal definition of the term "widow" for Veterans Administra­tion purposes for survivors of vet-

_--„ j -- - - - - • — _ - „ - - - , . erans whose death is attributable dler's line, had been built. Probably no modern contraption created j to ^ t a r y service. A widow may more excitement on the Basket than did the first telephone, which made; qualify for service-connected death it possible, by cranking a few shorts and longs, to engage in conversation i benefits under the present law if a with some neighbor. You could usually judge how far away the neigh- \ ?hi*t v^LhoTn^ t h e S F ? f v £ I , ,. , , Jr .^ , , ,, . . . , „ . . . . i f the widow was married to the bor lived by the pitch of the voice of the person talking, for the volume j veteran before or during his mili faded with distance and was cut down in proportion to the number of people "rubbering" on the line. The general interest in these first tele­phones is shown by some of the "Fifty Years Ago" items in the Han­cock Herald, at which time Herbert W. Wagner was publisher.

eye the young hopefuls. The try-outs are open to all players be­tween 17 and 23.

"This is a big break for the players in the area to show their baseball ability and get a start in professional baseball," commented Shannon, a former player and scout.

"Mind you," continued Shannon, "we don't expect polished players to show up at the Oneonta camp, but we're looking for young fel-

F.xpenses incidental to attending the camp will be refunded to a player signed to a contract with one of the Cardinal-operated clubs.

To take part in the tryouts an American Legion player must have a letter of approval from either his Legion coach or Post comman­der.

—Consumers spent 25 per cent of their disposable income for food in 1955.

DUNLAP and FEDERAL TIRES AH Sizes and Prices.

TYDOL GAS and OIL DELCO BATTERIES

We Give Triple S Blue Stamps!

SHAKELTON GARAGE Phone 7-3511 Boole 97 Hancock, N. T.

According to these items, the Basket correspondent reported on May 3, 1906, that Dr. T. J. Male-was putting up telephone poles to East Branch, and after that was completed, he would run a line to Little Equinunk, Pa., and connect with the Honesdale line. On June 7, 1906, the Goulds correspondent expected the telephone poles (native chestnut) and were to be put up in that place either that week or the next. The line was to extend from Long Eddy via Rock Valley and Goulds to Fishs Eddy. On July 12, 1906, this line had reached the John Gould place, On October 11, 1906, the Goulds scribe wrote that the Peoples Telephone Company had the holes dug and the poles put up for its telephone line. On November 8, connection had been made by the Rock Valley Tele­phone line with the system of the Hancock Telephone Company, and the patrons and the public could communicate with the south end of town and Long Eddy.

Apparently, the destination of some of these lines was rumor only, and the activity developed into two separate lines, one a* cooperative line built by George Milk and his son, John, from their farm at Goulds down into the Trout Brook Valley through Burnwood to Peakville with an outlet at East Branch, and down the Basket Brook from the mjTk place

tary service. Where these provi sions are not met, a widow may qualify if she married the service­man within 15 years after the ac­tive duty period in which the ser­vice-connected injury or disease that caused his death ocurred. If a widow married more than 15 years after the duty period when the ser­vice-connected injury or disease that caused the serviceman's death occurred, she would qualify if she was married to the serviceman five or more years before his death. It is emphasized that this definition applies to survivors of those who died from a service-connected cause. _

Legislation: The U. S. House of

LEGALS LICENSE GRANTED

NOTICE is hereby given that License No. 13GB6 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at retail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 45-47 Front S t ,

CONVINCED the small-car field is your limit?

taken. He spent his youth on his father's farm, where Edward Milk, a grandson, lives today. He married Amelia Biedekapp, who was the old­est daughter of John Biedekapp, a close neighbor. George and his wife made their home on his father's place and had four children, John, Lena, Le€ and Arlyn. John married CaHa Peake and according to a Milk geneology prepared by Mrs. John May, had two daughters, Marion and Dorothy. Lena married George Smith and had two sons, Milton and George. Lee, who has given us considerable information for "Basket Letters," married Martha Hendricks and had six children, Helen, Maud, Priscilla, Ruth, Robert, and Richard. Lee's brother, Arlyn, married Dora Shea and had nine children, Arlene, Kathryn, Vicky Lee, Constance, Gary, Bruce, Edward, Thresa, and Philip. All except Lee made their homes in the immediate vicinity, where Arlyn still lives. Lee graduated from Hancock High School in 1904, and members of his class were Lawrence Peake, Walter Tymeson, Florence Busfield, Laura Wheeler, Angeline Fleming, Marion Allen, Sadie McGranaghan, and Leonard Lalrin. Four years later Lee graduated from Syracuse University and became a High School Principal. After retirement, he made Walton his home, where he takes an active part in religious and educational work.

George Milk might be called one of the old timers of the Basket, but he was a forward looking man and in his early thirties became one of the leaders in the crusade to improve the position of the farmers. He was active in the organization of the Grange in the early 1880's, and later in the building of the Grange Hall, the Methodist Church and the Rock Valley Creamery. He held stock in both hall and creamery, but never patronized the latter, since he was a sheep man and maintained a dairy large enough only to provide for family needs. The Grange was very active around Rock Valley and Goulds in the 1880's, and Mr. Milk was a director and for many years the treasurer of the Patrons of Husbandry (Grange) Insurance Company of Delaware County. At one time he was purchasing agent for the Grange and procured goods for the members at prices as near cost as possible. He used to order car­loads of feed, which the farmers picked up at the car in Long Eddy. As a geenral rule, Mr. Milk financied these operations. He also for many years bought up sheep, lambs, calves and butter, and shipped one or more carloads a year to New York City on a commission basis, getting much higher prices for the farmers than the average dealer paid.

In the early 1900's, the possibility of getting telephone service on the Basket created a lot of discussion, and George Milk naturally felt that the interests of the users would be best served by a cooperative venture, since he considered the telephone an aid to community service rather than a business to earn dividends for a few shareholders. His plans were for a line linking the Basket and Trout Brook Valleys, but Alvah Chandler, who was more interested in the Long Eddy area, didnt think the Peakville hne would pay. This difference of opinion was not resolved and divided the neighborhood service between two lines when they were finally built in 1906. It had been over sixty years before that date that communication by wire over long distance had been success­fully demonstrated by Samuel F. B. Morse. With money appropriated by a "spend-thriff Congress, Mr. Morse had constructed a telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington. Some thirty years later, Alex­ander Graham Bell made it possible to transmit the human voice over a wire. On the Basket, the Morse telegraph was the first means of wire communication used and is an almost forgotten story. When Reu­ben Todd of Walton was clerking in the King it Holcomb store at Acid­alia years ago, he made some inquiries about an old telegraph key he found on a back shelf in the store. Years before then, he learned, King A Hokomb had built a telegraph line from the Acaidalia factory to the Erie Station at Long Eddy to keep in closer touch with car loading*. Charlie Halleck was clerking in the Acidalia store then and picked up telegraphy and did the operating, a profession he followed later on the railroad, due to the experience he gained on the Basket line. Possibly this was at the time Charlie Martin was station agent at Long Eddy,

\ for Martin was a great friend of Bert Holcomb and Charlie Smith of

to Whitaker's in Rock Valley, where it went over Halsey Hill and past ^ £ £ t i o n ' * " * * ° * PTea^S

~.—,*-•- ~^.w„--v ..- -~~^„ -_--_--„._-„ .-_ -T .- _ - . „ _ - - - ^ g r a n d U n i o n Company 100 Broadway

East Paterson, New Jersey

Ernest Oestrich's to Wallace LaValley's in Fernwood, where it continued over the east hill to Mileses. The second telephone line, the original Chandler line, ran from Long Eddy to Goulds through Rock Valley, and through Fernwood to Aciladia up fee east brook. This was the Dela­ware and Sullivan Telephone and Telegraph Company, incorporated at Long Eddy in 1907. According to a ten share certificate of this stock issued to Wallace LaValley of Basket Brook on July 17, 1907, which we are now using for reference, the Capital Stock of the Company was $10,000 at twenty dollars a share. H. W. McKoon was president, Chas. W. Gould was secretary and general manager. A service contract, num­bered 21 and dated September 14,1907, gives the rate at $12 per year in advance. A Kellogg phone was installed. The Chandlers were quite prominent in the organization, Agatha being the Long Eddy central operator and Lyman and Decker Chandler taking care of installation and maintenance.

There was no central connection between the Cooperative tele­phone line and the Long Eddy line, but if a patron on one hne wanted to talk to a party on the other, they would call Whitaker's or LeValley's, who had phones on both lines where they intersected on the west and east brooks respectively. At these times an interesting and some times humorously confusing three party conversation would take place, with the amateur central trying to listen into two receivers at the same tame and to repeat messages into the right mouthpiece without^ talking back to the wrong party. Eventually, parts of the cooperative" line were a-bandoned and the Long Eddy line extended its service to include, in addi­tion to the Pea Brook an Basket Brook lines, Hankins, Mileses, an Fre­mont Center up the Hankins Brook valley. Charles Bjorklund, a one time Basket Brook resident, finally bought around 60 percent of the stock and operated the line until the middle 1940*8, when Mr. and Mrs. Michael Esolen took it over. When Mr. Bjorklund bought the stock it had little marketable value, and many of the original stockholders kept their certificates for their souvenir value.

7-llc

LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li­

cense No. 13-EB-217 has been is­sued to the undersigned to sell Beer at retail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at Hansel and Gretel eating place, Horton Delaware County, N. Y., to be con­sumed upon the premises.

Max and Greta Jara d/b/a Hansel and Gretel

7-llc Horton, N. Y.

LICENSE GRANTED Notice is hereby given that li­

cense No. 13GB1 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at re­tail under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, for off-premises con­sumption.

The Great A. & P. Store, 25 Front Street,

7-llc Hancock, N. Y.

LICENSE GRANTED

Notice is hereby given that li­cense 13A69 h~s been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at retail under Chapter 478 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at Cotter's Store, 15 East Front Street, Han­cock, Delaware County, N. Y.t to be consumed off the premises.

William J. Cotter, 7-llc Hancock, N. Y.

rA READ THIS STARTLING FACT fc\

S out of lO Smaller Cars wear a Pontlac Price Tag —yet none gives you Any of Pontlac's Advantages

^

Mr. Bjorklund each year faith­fully paid a small dividend on these shares, and he and his wife, who took care of much of the switchboard work, spent many long hours try­ing to give their subscribers satisfactory service with the old equipment..

When the Esolens started operating the line, there were around | S e r l E ^ e T f e f X j&ohene 145 patrons, but the low rate of $1.50 a month, a fifty cent advance in> Beverage Control Law at the store, forty years, failed to provide sufficient revenue for maintenance, labor '• corner of Depot Street and Cadosia and material repairs, so the old system, the outgrow* of the efforts ! m&w&I> Cadosia, Delaware Cotnv of George Milk and Alvah Chandler so many years ago, a — to an end and the modern service, none to willingly it must be said, finally moved in. As John Rutz once observed, although the Delaware and Sullivan Telephone and Telegraph Company of Long Eddy was not a number one line, it served the purpose it was intended for and tied a lot of good neighbors together for nearly half a century.

(To be continued)

LICENSE GRANTED

Notice is hereby given that li­cense R-&M9 has been issued to the

ty, N. Y^ to be consumed off the premises.

John DaBrescia,. Adm., of Nancy DaBrescia Estate.

7-llc Cadosia, N. Y.

CARD OF THANKS

I WISH TO THANK the Ladies Aid of the Cadosia Presbyterian Church for flowers and friends for cards and other expressions of condolence and sympathy at the time of the death of my sis­ter.

• Mrs. Robert H. Hunter

CHIROPRACTOR E RUSSELL HOMER

2:00 to 84)0 P. M. WED.-PRI—HANCOCK

Telephone 7-2125 Telephone Galilee. Pa.—65-R-112 Toes, Thttra, Sat.—Lordville

CALSO

FUEL OIL — KEROSENE — GASOLINE

RPM LUBRICANTS

FOWLER OIL COMPANY Binghamton, N. Y. Hancock, N. Y. Phone 5-3247

LICENSE GRANTED

Notice is hereby given that l i- l censed 13HB197 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at re­tail under Chapter 478 of the Al­coholic Beverage Control Law at Peakville Hotel, Main Street, TA> Hancock, Peakville, New York, to be consumed upon the premises.

Dora Smith, Admx. of Estate of Harold Smith, d/b/a Peakville Hotel Peakville, N. Y.

7-18c

LICENSE GRANTED

Notice is hereby given that li­cense 13EB181 has been issued to the undersigned to sell beer at retail under Chapter 478 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at the Riviera. Route 17, near East Branch, New York, to be consumed upon the premises.

James Joseph Flno, 7-18c Ernst Branch, N. Y.

NO CAR AT ANY PRICE PERFORMS LIKE A PONTIAC. . . SMALLER CARS AREN'T EVEN IN THE RUNNING! K it's proof you want , your Pentiac dealer it loadod with H—point-by-point engi^ neermg comparisons and on-the-record facts and figures. N o smaller car is de­signed or powered t o come close to Pon-tiac's eye-opening per formance . . . alert, reflex-action r e s p o n s e . . . and its smooth, effortless mastery of every driving de­mand. Try a demonstration drive—over your own route—in traffic or out on the highway. Put the facts on America's Number One Road Car to a test and you'll leave the little league for good!

WITH 4 TO 7 EXTRA INCHES OF WHEELBASE, PONTIAC OUTCLASSES THE SMALLER CARS IN RIPE AND ROAPABILITYI Pontiac's length is built in—not hung on! STWII*1*' cars extend bumpers and lenders to look big, but Pontine doesn't need camouflage . . . i t is big! Its man-sized 122-inch wheelbase strides over the bumps instead of riding on them. T b k extra tfg**1 , plus a carload of new suspension ideas, results in Pontiac's exclusive leveWJne Ride that no car a t any price can surpass! Sample a few miles—and you'll never re-enlist in the small-car army again!

YOUR MONEY ACTUALLY BUYS UP TO 8.9% MORE SOLID CAR PER DOLLAR IN A PONTIAC!

fall far The so-called "low-price" short of Pontiac in actual, car—and your Pontine dealer has official specification comparisons t o prove HI N o smaller car comes even dose to Pon­tiac's rock-solid construct ion. . . from i ts rugged X-mombor frame through every inch of i ts heavy-duty running gear Pontiac is muscle all the way! Tins extra heft means Pontiac holds the road like no smafier car you've ever driven . . . gives you a ride remarkably free of bounce, shake and noise! Put all the facts and figures t o your own personal road test. Call your own shots and see bow Pontiac's Precision-Touch Controls give you steering, braking and parking

out of reach of the small jobs!

PONTIAC HAS ALWAYS COMMANDED A HIGH TRADE-IN DOLLAR! When you put your money m a Ptmtiae you know your investment will be riding high for a long t ime to come! In fact, over the years, no car has a better reputation for being a top-demand used car. So before you sign on the dotted lino for a smaller job a t Pontiac's price—get the dollar-stretching food news your Pontiac dealer has waiting for jrou. Here in the easiest move of your life are the car and the value that will get you out of the small-ear class for keeps!

sxttf jwwMta*!

SEE YOUR AUTHORIZED Pontiac TRADING'S TERRIFIC RIGHT MOW!

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Thomas M. Tryniski 309 South 4th Street Fulton New York 13069

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