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Free Hollow to Forest Home




Chapter 2

Industry and Commerce in Forest Home


1   2   3   4   5   6

The mitten mill was also run by a water wheel. The belt holes can stil be seen in the sub-flooring of the present kitchen. When Glenn Palmer moved into the house he found many of the little crooked needles from the knitting machines stuck in the floor cracks.

Many years ago a road ran along the north edge of the creek east of the second bridge. The village slaughterhouse, as well as some other buildings, was located on this road.

"Beyond the second bridge in the little white house to the left, Mr. Criddle ran his necessary if lugubrious business. Mrs. Wilcox, a rare and lovable character who occuped the house some thirty years ago, trasured a hand-full of coffin nails and some trimmings she found in the attic." (12, p. 12)

Mr. Criddle was an undertaker and made coffins, the old kind - wide at the shoulder line and narrow at the head-end and foot-end. He also produced furniture in his wood shop. Many years later Walter Stone suggested that Mr. Criddle's sign should have read: "From the Criddle to the Grave."

A number of business establishments have at one time or another been located on the property now owned by Carl Sundell on the far end of Forest Home Drive. At the back of the property are the remains of an old mill race and dam. There may have been a tannery at this site, or one of the grist or saw mills shown on the 1833 map (43). The two small buildings on the property have been used for various commercial purposes. In the late 1920's there was a gas station in one of these buildings. It was first owned by Kenneth C. Daghita and then by W. T. Stevens. Later, Ernest Sundell, a former Bool's Furniture Mill employee, purchased the property and opened the Blue Dolphin Antique Shop. His son, Carl Sundell, some years later operated a television repair shop in one of the buildings. Recently, until 1973, this building was used by the Ithaca House Gallery and Print Shop, operated by Baxter and Sherry Hathaway.

One of the last commercial establishments in Forest Home was Albert Force's Antique Shop, in his home at the corner of The Byway and Forest Home Drive. It was appropriately situated along the old Mill Lane in one of the oldest houses in the village.


Chap. 2:    1   2   3   4   5   6   next

~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~    ~

Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Early History of Free Hollow

Chapter 2 - Industry and Commerce in Forest Home

Chapter 3 - Free Hollow to Forest Home

References

Appendix



© 1974 Liese Price Bronfenbrenner, reprinted with permission