This picture of the Antwerp Furnace was in operation from 1865 to 1880.
If you look close, the trees in the background are from the Maumee River east of Antwerp where it bucks up close to the old US 24 and the Wabash Railroad.
This picture shows a narrow gauge railroad that was used to take the logs over to the Furnace from the canal. The records show that the company had four steam engines and five cars to move their logs that were to make charcoal for the smelting process.
The Antwerp Furnace own several thousand acres of virgin timber in Carryall, Crane and Harrison Townships. After the timber was all used up, the Furnace was out of business.
As I write this story, Allen Bickhard brought in a railroad spike that he figures came from the Fitzimmonsville to Antwerp Railroad, the spike had a note attached to it that his mother, Merium had written many years ago. It read, “Railroad spike that Lynn plowed up, from the old railroad that ran across our four acres. That was in the 1950s that he found it.”
Joe Barker, was in the office the other day and he said that the Barker boys have plowed up a couple of railroad spikes over the years and they figured it came from the old Fitzimmonsville Railroad.
See ya!
The Lobo Tank Busters
On our sortie this morning, we had on extra fuel tanks and we went to look for Patton’s front lines, so we could be of any assistance. The ground is good and hard and the July weather all helps for Patton to pusher farther into France headed for Paris.
We stayed close to highway 11, looking for some road blocks or German artillery. A field of wheat has been harvested and that is good because a lot of the straw will catch fire and if there is any wind at all it will burn out of control.
We spotted a road block on Hwy 11 ahead of the advancing troops. We used three rockets and took care of that problem. They had a half-track of their own and they tried to escape in it but we tore it up with our 50 caliber stuff, and it lost control and crashed and upset in a drainage ditch.
A couple of roads away we caught two tanks trying to run away from Patton’s boys. We put a couple of rounds into the engine area and started the tank afire. Three guys climbed out of the tanks and they looked like they stood and surrendered to the American troops.
We saw a German artillery outfit setting up to shell our boys. It was probably a company as there were four cannons getting set up, and we used two rockets each and it took care of that problem.
We were in the area of LeMans so we flew over and checked out that railroad yard. It had been repaired from the last time we were there, and it was a busy place already. We caught two electric engines and a number of flat cars loaded with trucks.
We shot up everything that we saw then we destroyed the train towers. We found some electric control boxes along the side of the track and we blew those up also.
We had long since switched over to our regular gas tanks, but we still had our extra tanks on so we left them on to use them again tomorrow.
We left LeMans and made a straight line to the channel and then to our air base back at Brighton.
The crew will have the planes ready for running tomorrow and we will go out again.
See ya!
Don’t mess with geezers!
An old geezer, who had been a retired farmer for a long time, became very bored and decided to open a medical clinic. He put a sign up outside that said, “Get your treatment for $500, if not cured get back $1,000.”
Doctor “Young” who was positive that this old geezer didn’t know beans about medicine, thought this would be a great opportunity to get $1,000.
So he went to Dr. Geezer’s clinic:
This is what transpired.
Dr. Young: “Dr. Geezer, I have lost all taste in my mouth. Can you please help me?”
Dr. Geezer: “Nurse, please bring medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in Dr. Young’s mouth.”
Dr. Young: “Aaagh! This is gasoline!”
Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You’ve got your taste back. That will be $500.”
Dr. Young gets annoyed and goes back after a couple of days figuring to recover his money.
Dr. Young: “I have lost my memory, I cannot remember anything.”
Dr. Geezer: “Nurse, please bring medicine from box 22 and put 3 drops in the patient’s mouth.”
Dr. Young: “Oh no you don’t! That is gasoline!”
Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You’ve got your memory back. That will be $500.”
Dr. Young (after having lost $1,000) leaves angrily and comes back after several more days.
Dr. Young: “My eyesight has become weak. I can hardly see!”
Dr. Geezer: “Well, I don’t haven any medicine for that so, here’s your $1,000 back.”
Dr. Young: “But this is only $500!”
Dr. Geezer: “Congratulations! You got your vision back! That will be $500.”
Moral of the story… just because you are young doesn’t mean that you can outsmart an old geezer!
See ya!
