Today, January 12, 1879, 147 years ago and 16 years before its charter date, January 7, 1895, the Pennsylvania Millers Association held its 3rd Semi-Annual Meeting at the Stevens House (a landmark tavern, hotel, and dining establishment) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The meeting was packed with over 100 attendees, representing mills throughout the Commonwealth.
Below is a snapshot of the minutes from the winter meeting, which were published in the February 1879 issue of the United States Miller, a monthly journal for millers, millwrights, and manufacturers. (Check out the minutes here: https://bit.ly/TheUnitedStatesMillerFebruaryEdition)
President Charles A. Minor of Miner’s Mills in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, called the meeting to order, with Secretary A.Z. Schooch detailing meeting minutes. The meeting also had committee reports from the Committee of Patents, which included a report from Mr. H.B. Horton of the Millers National Insurance Company and Mr. Thomas Wright, the Chairman of the Committee of Mill Machinery and Processes, who gave a detailed report on the upcoming innovations in grain cleaning equipment and that middling purifiers will soon be required of all mills. The group also featured demonstrations and presentations by representatives of patented machinery.
In the meeting, the millers made and approved several motions, which included:
- The association should pay the required admission fee to join the Miller’s National Association. With that motion passing, 30 new members joined the Pennsylvania Millers Association during the sitting of the meeting.
- Member Jacob Walters made a motion that the members of the association using middling’s purifiers subscribe to and pay $10 per run to the National Association as an admission fee.
- After a long discussion, the group passed a resolution discouraging the growing of Fultz and Clawson wheat. This society of millers believed that, for milling purposes, this variety was undesirable and caused complaints about flour quality. According to the millers, these varieties produced inferior flour for baking, often yielding weaker gluten and darker bread that wouldn’t rise well.
The group recommends expanding the growing of the Lancaster, Old Mediterranean, Boughten, Shoemaker, and Canada White varieties. One member, A.C. Fereck of Millersburg, was the most outspoken in his opposition to the resolution. He said he hadn’t had any issues with Fultz wheat because he would pass it through the Gratiot heater, which heated the grain to 98 degrees before grinding. He thought the Gratiot heater, a grain dryer, would be an advantage for him and other growers, who could use this model dryer to better control the varieties’ moisture levels.
- An election of officers was held, and the incumbents were re-elected.
President: Charles A. Minor
Secretary: A.Z. Schooch
- The group voted to give the Secretary a $100 yearly salary.
The meeting was adjourned, and the association voted to set its next meeting for July 8, 1879, in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Notable Happenings in 1879 United States History
At the beginning of 1879, the U.S. was still navigating life after the Civil War and Reconstruction, which had brought rapid changes in policy, society, and innovation. The year would be the first time the U.S. government would shut down.
Republican President Rutherford Hayes began his last term in the White House and encountered resistance from the 45th Congress, which was majority-Democratic and had a Republican-controlled Senate. Democrats had attached several clauses to the year’s funding bills, including a prohibition on the use of federally appointed marshals to oversee elections and on the Army’s role in protecting voters at polling places in the South.
When the Republican Senate did not agree with those terms, Congress failed to pass its $45,000,000 in appropriations for the Federal government for the fiscal year beginning on July 1. President Hayes would soon have to call a halt to the impasse in his 46th Congress, which they would do by March of that year.
Hayes would later also be credited with restoring the U.S. economy by allowing the resumption of gold payments for Civil War greenbacks, paper money not backed by specie, silver, or gold. Gold payments for paper dollars were a continuation of the Specie Resumption Act, which began under President Grant. During Hayes’s administration, as the government’s gold supply grew and silver coinage increased, the economy began to recover. By the spring of 1879, the government had successfully retired all its Civil War bonds.
At the end of the month, on January 31, 1879, the Congress voted that February 22 be a federally recognized holiday for Washington’s Birthday. Other notable moments that year were Thomas Edison’s invention of the first practical incandescent lamp (light bulb).
That same year, Pennsylvania saw the grand opening of Frank Woolworth’s first five-and-ten-cent store in the Lancaster area, revolutionizing retail in America.
Story written by: Courtney Love, PennAg Industries Association’s Communications & Marketing Specialist.
Article Sources: The United States Miller. Volume 6.No. 4, Page 46, 1878/1879, University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries. “The 1879 ‘Government Shutdown,’ Part I, James A Garfield National Historic Site, The National Park Service. “George Washington Birthday or President’s Day?” George Washington’s Mount Vernon. https://www.history.com/a-year-in-history/1879