Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Most of us have experienced some sort of neighbor problem at some point. Property lines and proximity can lead to all sorts of disagreements. It happens all the time. I think it’s safe to say that most of these don’t end in anything exploding, but maybe that’s just me.

About 1916, however, there was an incident in Pine Creek where exactly that happened. Of course, the Clinton County Times was there to report on it. The story ran on March 10, 1916.

It began with some stone. There was an old stone canal aqueduct that was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company—Not the property, understand, but just the stone itself. Somehow. The newspaper isn’t real clear on how that happened.

They sold the stone to George R. Thompson, which seemed straightforward enough. “Mr. Thompson paid the purchase price but was in no great hurry to remove them,” the article explained.

When he got around to actually getting the stone, the work was interrupted by C.R. Rich, who owned the land. Rich claimed that he, in fact, owned the stone, because it was on his land, therefore was his property. He stopped the removal of the stone.

Thompson went back to the railroad company, and explained that if they didn’t actually own the stone, they should refund his purchase price. The company explained that Rich didn’t have ownership of the stones, was exceeding his authority, and the company would make sure Thompson got the stones.

The railroad company sent three railroad policemen to supervise. Jacob Lehman, W.D. McClintick, and C.C. Mack were dispatched to make sure everything went smoothly, an assignment that they failed spectacularly.

Thompson had some workers set up a derrick, and they got to work removing the stones. Rich rounded up some men—Local farmers, mainly, who also felt that they owned the land, and therefore the stones. Again, this whole thing seemed to be developing into a legal mess, pretty much everyone claiming to own these same stones. But they snuck in from behind and physically attacked the cops and the workers. There was a bit of a scuffle, and Officer Lehman got a bit banged up. The article noted that nobody needed to go for medical help, however, and work resumed under the supervision of the railroad police.

Then Rich and his group returned with dynamite. The newspaper does not specify where, exactly, they got the dynamite so quickly. Apparently it was easily available throughout much of Clinton County’s history; I can count at least two other times when dynamite was used to solve a relatively minor problem.

They put the dynamite underneath the derrick and set it off, blowing the whole thing to pieces.
“This settled the question of removal with that derrick,” the article noted,”For it was thrown sky high and came down fit for kindling wood.”

The railroad cops took immediate action by hiding at a very safe distance and writing down the names of the people involved, so they could be dealt with at a later time.

So it was a pretty exciting Saturday night in Pine Creek Township at that time. After that, the whole thing went to court, which made it considerably more official and boring. The newspaper pointed out that the outcome could affect landowners throughout the state, but didn’t follow up much after that. I mean, once you’ve cracked out the dynamite, it’s not likely to get more exciting after that.