Tuesday 17th November 2009 - There's Iron in Them There Valleys

          My exercise program is now in full swing.  I feel better already.  Having walked a couple of miles a couple of times a day, my knee no longer hurts when I wake up.  Unfortunately, it now hurts when I walk.  So instead of hurting all the time when I don't use it, it now hurts all the time when I do (actually, "hurting" isn't the right word).  Is that better, or worse, or just different?  I shall persevere, see what the outcome is in a couple of weeks.

          At least the weather is holding up, and the walking is very pleasant.   I saunter along to the diner, have breakfast and a short story or two, then on to the library.  I feel a bit like Burlington Bertie from Bow.

 

          The grown-up ladies of the library (I suspect most of them are volunteers - they probably found out I was coming to town) find me a fine selection of ancient leather-bound tomes, and a quiet corner with a socket for my computer.  When I finish this trip, I won't be able to remember which ladies were in which library, and which library was in which town.  I will have a composite perfect library in my head.

          This place is about iron.  The town is named for the pre-eminent ironmasters of the area, the Potts, although iron making started here way back at the beginning of the 18th century, if not late in the 17th, and Pottstown was only chartered (in Pennsylvania, that makes it a 'borough', just like Glasgow, Beaver County) in 1815.  To my astonishment, the geographical description of the borough limits in the charter (from the State Legislature) includes the word "Glasgow".  So Glasgow definitely predates Pottstown.  If you go back through the 18th century, the significant figures in the iron business here, whom the Potts learned from/bought from/married into sound like nothing less than a Rab C Nesbitt gang of football hooligans, being Rutters, Savages, and Nutts.

           Pottsdown celebrated its sesquecentennial (a very common word in American history, meaning a century and a half) in 1953, so it must have been 'laid out' in 1803.  There is a 1953 Sesquecentennial History published.  It has a very early 18th-century map as the flyleaf binding.  I can never resist trying to make sense of  a map, and when I locate where Pottstown would be on it, lo-and-behold, just up above it, where Glasgow is, it says "McCalls Tract".  That's got to be worth pursuing.

 

           Later that night, I have the young ladies behind the bar in thrall.  These small-town girls are clearly entranced by my European sophistication.  They are hanging on my every word.  Then one of them produces the Sesquecentennial History.  They've got a copy of it, behind the bar.  Apparently the bar is in it. 

          At least one of them could understand my accent, and my mission.  I shall bestow my favours on her.  It will save drawing lots.