Wisconsin School for the Deaf - Tattler Yearbook (Delavan, WI)

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marked graves along the trail bore mute testimony of those who would never reach the coast. They passed through the Rocky Mountains by way of South Paw an easy gateway to the West. When the Meeker porty reached the Snake River, cholera broke out again in the terrible dust. They had a hard time crossing the river in its deep canyon. On socing an enterprising young man calking his wagon box with tar, the Meekers did likewise and soon their goods were safely across. For several days Mr. Meeker helped people across the river in his wagon box. thereby earning at least a hundred and ten dollars of which only two dollars and seventy-five cents remained on his arrival at Portland. Five long, tiresome months of travel had brought them about eighteen hundr«d miles from the Missouri River. After reaching The Dalles, they found a great crowd of weary and worn travellers. Some went by boat down the Columbia to Portland. A few of them were thinking about their old homes or their dear ones who slept in graves along the trail, but most of them were hopeful of what the future held for them. Soon after the Meekers were established in their new home in the Puget Sound Valley, a letter came from his parents asking when someone could come for them. Mr. Meeker’s brother wont to work in the timber to earn enough money for the trip to Iowa that winter. Some months later hearing that his fumily was in want on the trail not far away, Mr. Meeker left his wife and child and went out horsoback through Notches Pass to holp his parents over the mountains. One day he saw many wagons being lowered over a steep clilT. The travellers had not enough rope to reach the bottom so they killed three steer and cut up their hides into strips to lengthen the rope. Twenty-nine wagons were safely lowered down the cliff, only one being broken to pieces. On reaching hi father’s camp Exra Meeker learned that his mother and brother had died and were buried along the trail. Cutting log , roots and rolling stone away to make a road for the wagons through the forests, the pnrty reached Puget Sound. In a covered wagon drawn by an ox team u he had traveled west in 1862 Mr. Meeker planned to follow the old trail to Washington to enlist President Roosevelt's aid and that of Congress in marking the Old Oregon Trail In memory of the brave women nod men who had endured the hardship of travel. He left Puyallup. Washington, on January 29. li»Ort. for Seattle to raise funds for his trip. At Olympia where the old trial was about two miles from the city, he placed a stone marked The Oregon Trail: 18-13—67.’ Collecting money where he gave addresses, he bought monuments to place on the old trail. Some towns had already put stones in place. On stopping ut South Pass Mr. Mt-efci-r planned to place a monument there later. A few miles on. the Devil's Gate and Spl'.t Rock were old landmarks. A monument was erected in the beautiful city of Kearney, which had been known as old Fort Kearney. Passing through farms and wheat fields which had been a desert In 1862, he found towns where none had been in the old day . New roads, not curved or winding but intersecting each other at right angles, marked township lines. After many hardships Omaha was left behind and his route led him to Indianapolis, New York, Trenton. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington where Mr. Meeker received warm welcome. One day, driving hi- ox team through the city of New York, a policeman sent him to the station, and tried to drive the team, but being ignorant of oxen, he had to free .Mr. Meeker who went on through New Jersey where he visited relatives. At last he reached Washington. President Roosevelt was very much Interested in .Mr. Meeker’s idea and was willing to help build the new highway to the Columbia called The Oregon Trail.” Mr. Meeker shipped hia outfit most of the way back to Portland aa he was longing for his home life after being gone for twenty-eight months, lie had succeeded in covering the old trail. The ox team trip was repealed in 1911, and in 1915 he made the trip in an automobile. Nine years later he flow across the continent in an airplane. In the summer of 1928 once again this undaunted pioneer of almost ninety-eight started East in a Ford cur but wan taken ill in Detroit where he remained in a hospital for two months. In December he passed away in Seattle where he had been taken. Had Exra Meeker lived to be one hundred year old, he would have been the central figure in the celebration of the Covered Wagon Centennial which was observed by the American people from April 10 to December 21 In 1930.

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read, with hi left hand, at the «anir time rolling up the part he hnd read. In Rome when these rolls were made, one man would dictate mid many slaves would each write one ropy. This made books a little rheaper than hofore, and there were many book shop anil public libraries in Rome. But these Jong rolls were not convenient and papyrus did not keep well, so people began to use parchment or sheepskin. This was cut in rectangular sheets and bound together at one side with thongs. So, about the 4th century after Christ, people had books which looked very much like ours. But. for a thousand years after that there were no books except those which had been copied by hand. All through the middle Ages books were made by the monks in the monasteries. Each page was lucked on a pioco of wood and it often took several years to copy one single book. The lettering was very beautiful. The beginning of each part and sometimes the first word of each page was written in bright Ink of various colors. Herr und there were initial letters with pictures in brilliant colors. These colors were ground and mixed up by little peasant boys. The cover of important works were often studded and banded with gold and •OQO- ailver and fastened with huge clasps. Most of the book were copies of Greek and Latin classics and Bibles and church works written in Latin. The monks were very painstaking in their work and through them many important books were saved for us. For more than a thousand years, a period when almost all writing was done by the monks, the quills of geese or swans were used. In the 18th century, quills were improved and hardened by dipping them into a boiling solution of alum. Book remained very scarce and expensive until after the introduction of paper made from linen and the invention of printing. When the first libraries were established in England, books were o rare and vuluablr thnt they were usually attached to the shelve. by iron chains to prevent their being stolen. Some of the books were bound in fine cloth embroidered and trimmed with gold and precious stones. W are lucky because we have more and better books to read than people used to have. The old books were hard to rend. We can be thankful that wc do not have to study our history from clay tablets or long papyrus rolls, but live In a time when everyone can read and enjoy good books and have several in his home. • o o o ALONG THE OREGON TRAIL WITH EZRA MEEKER By Elisabeth Oakland On April 10, 1830. the first wagon train started from St. Louis on its way to Oregon with thousands of men and women to make new homes. Exra Meeker, one of the later pioneers, was born that snnie year in Huntsville, Ohio. In 1852, Exra Meeker and his family left Eddyville, Iowa, to make their way by ox team over the Oregon trail to the Pacific coast. They reached Kanesville, now called Council Bluffs, where they found many wagons wuiting to cross the dangerous Missouri River. In 1852 the army of pioneers was at least five hundred mile long. Many wagons were ahead of the Meeker as they left the Missouri river for Meeker found date inscribed on Independence Rock and elsewhere along the trail. Beside the ox teams and homes there were cattle to follow behind or around the wagons. Sickness and death followed the terrible dust of the wagon train. Thl pioneer army of a great body of people and moving animals made a column about a hundred feet wide along the deep wagon ruts. Tho men on homeback scouted for Indians and game, while the women and children drove the team and stock. Sometimes the sand would be hurled by the strong wind of the prairie into their faces and hands. They suffered great loss through the wind and rain storin'', for winds and flood along the Platte River carried off many thing . Most of the river , that they had to ford, were about half a mile wide and very dangerous as they had quicksand in them. The Indians made trouble for the pioneers, for they could not understand tho white men using their lands, gross and game. One night the wagons, each chained to the one ahead, were arranged in a circle with the cattle inside. Soon after the weary pioneer had retired, they heard a great roar which proved to he a buffalo stampede of such sixe that in the morning the men shot the stragglers and saved the meat for the trail. By the time western Nebraska and Wyoming were reached, traveling was easier, for the un-

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A HISTORY OF PRINTING By Farris Kioncler Printing means the making of letter . character or figure on paper, cloth, clay or stone. It is one of the most important industries in the world. All printing was first done by hand. In the earliest times, the Egyptians used to do their printing by engraving chnrncler and symbols on soft tiles or on bricks. These were then hardened by baking. If they wished to keep a record or n picture of a person, they drew figures on blocks of clay. The Chinese are known to have printed from engraved blocks at least fifty years before Christian times but they still use this same method now. A long time ago, the Romans used engraved stones and metal for stamping signatures and money. They were a very intelligent people but they were afraid to use printing because they thought it might cause the people to rebel a-guinst their government. Several hundreds of years passed between the beginning of Chinese printing, or the use of Roman stamps, and printing with movable typo as we know it to-day. Dugold Stewart, an English writer, said that printing should be thought of as slow improvement instead of being the result of one single invention. When we see printing growing better, and when we think of how slowly it began, and how long it took printing to Improve, we think Mr. Stowurt knew what he was talking about. Engraving upon wood was the first way of printing in Europe. Blocks were engraved for printing playing cards ns cnrly as the fourteenth century. The “Poor Man's Bible was printed in n way like this. This held about forty leaven printed from many different blocks. So wc can see that it took a great amount of work. Printing with movable type was invented by Johannes Gutenberg of Germany and I auren» Coster of Holland between 1420 ami 1440. We don't know for sure which of these two inventors was tint, but the discovery l» usually given to Gutenberg. Gutenberg was the first one to cut type from metal nnd Inter he made mntrico and molds from which the types were token. Gutenberg formed n pnrtencrship with Faust, • jeweler. The first book which Gutenberg printed was a copy of the Latin translation of the Old Testament. People call thin book the Masc-arin Bible because many years afterwards a copy of it was found in the librury of Cardinal Masarin in Paris. Gutenberg was born about the yonr 1400, at Moinx, a German city on the Rhine, near Frankfort. His parents were once rich people who took a leading part in the affairs of that city. We do not know much ahout Gutenberg's hoy-hood days, but when he was a hoy. he was vory ambitious and would try anything once. The trades at that time were run by guilds which were like clubs. Gutenberg learned two trades instead of one. The first trade he learned was that of polishing stones and mirrors. This took him from five to seven years to learn and he received no wages during that time. Reside that, ho had to pay o certain amount of money for his teaching. The other trade was that of mnking wood type. It would seem rather easy to do this, but he was forced, although he didn't wish, to give up trying to make moveable type from wood. He seemed to be on the right rood to success when he came to print from lead type, hut he found that it took much more pressure than wooden blocks. This caused a great deal of trouble. The trying to find a metal to make type from took weeks and months. We have never found a better way of making metal for type. The metal is called type-metal nnd was one of the great discoveries of Gutenberg. The Linotype was invented by Ottmnr Mer-genthnlcr. of Baltimore. It is a wonderful machine. It has a keyboard with ninety keys upon which letters nnd characters arc designated like that of a typewriter. By touching a key. the mat-ricc, into which thr letter or character h indented. is caused to drop into line by a revolving cam roller. When the operator ha.- set all the letters and characters the line will hold, it in transferred to the casting part of the machine. There it is properly spaced or justified by means of spacebnnds. The mold Is then filled with metal and a solid lino of type is made. The matrices nro distributed to their proper place above the machine called the maguxinc. The type thut hu -been set is moved to a small galley where o proof of it is taken for the proof-reader. The type in then passed to the make-up man who make- it ready for the presses. The slugs cast by this machine are not distributed but are thrown into a melting jwit to be remelted. The melted lend in the melting pot used over again after it bin been cleaned nnd cast, into nmull blocks called pigs. The average speed on tho machine is around 4,500 urns an hour, but an expert operator can net 7,600 or more t?ui per hour. The cost of a machine is from $3,500 up. Tho first printing press in America was set up in the city of Mexico in 1500 and the first printing pres In the United States was placed in Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., in 1030. This mny bo considered the beginning of the fa-