Thursday, February 02, 2006

My History in New Albany

Say hello to my Great Grandfather David Millard Tuell - born February 19, 1873. I’m not sure how many boxing matches he won. My guess is a stiff breeze could have taken him in about 3 rounds.


David was a twin (he’s pictured with his brother Dennis below).



They were born and raised in Harrison County. The pictures were taken in New Albany probably between 1885 and 1890. I imagine a trip to New Albany was a pretty big deal for a farm boy from Harrison County. As a frequent visitor to downtown myself I'm pretty sure I've walked in his footsteps more than once. I guess that's one reason I'm a little freaky about this town.


The weather has been nasty lately and I’ve been busy, but I am working on a nice photo collection of the wrought iron of New Albany. Stay tuned.

11 comments:

TedF said...

I forgot to mention that if anyone has any neat pictures from New Albany's past please feel free to email me images and I'll post.

fulmore_runner@msn.com

TedF said...

You are correct Ceece. They hang in my hallway.

I'm not sure about lessons. My theroy is that if you take a couple hundred pictures, you'll probably get lucky and get some good ones. Get yourself a 1 gig memory card and you can take about 500 pictures.

na girl said...

Great pictures.

My grandfather was born in Harrison County in 1897.

My great grandparents were both from the area on Charlestown Rd between Jacob's Chapel and County Line Rd. The farm where my great grandmother grew up is still there. The house and barns are right before you get to Providence Retirement Home. The property is still in the family.

My great grandfather's father purchased farms for all his children (the girls got smaller farms than the boys) near Elizabeth. A timber company sold the timbered over land for farms. My great grandparents got married and moved to my great grandfather's farm.

My grandfather used to tell stories about his father going into town (New Albany). It was an all day trip.

When he came back in the evening with a loaded wagon a single team of horses could not pull the wagon up the hill (it's still a very steep grade)so my grandfather and his brothers would walk the second team to the bottom of the hill and wait for their father so that he would have both teams for the trip back up the hill.

Usually my granfather would combine this tale with the story of a annual community picnic that if I remember correctly was called Celebration Day. His father would go to New Albany and come back with ice cream for the celebration. This was the one time each year that they would have ice cream. (They must have packed it in ice and saw dust or something like that. I never thought to ask my grandfather about that. I guess I was thinking they would have used dry ice but just looked it up and it wasn't invented until 1925).

When he told the story I could always imagine how excited and impatient he would have been waiting at the bottom of the hill for his father to return from that particular trip to town.

There are two pictures of my grandfather as a child. One was taken by a traveling photographer and is of the children of the family in front of the farmhouse. The other is a school picture that includes the teacher's horse! I am going to try and scan it. It's a great picture.

na girl said...

Ceece,
I think you are thinking of the Centennial celebration.

Celebration Day was in Elizabeth, IN. It was an annual community picnic. I think it was held outdoors and was a fairly informal gathering. A high point (beside the ice cream) was that local politicians would use the opportunity to campaign.

But you are in luck (or bored to tears) because I have Centennial stories too!

My grandmother and her parents played the part of a family (not a big acting stretch evidently) in a pageant that was put on as part of the Centennial. I have the program from it. There was a huge cast and by today's standards, very overdone.

I always loved stories about "olden days" when I was a child and I heard some of the stories so many times that sometimes I almost feel like I was actually there.

The recent attention to the K&I bridge reminded my mom and me of the story of her grandmother walking across the first K&I Bridge with her father at the opening of the bridge. She ruined her shoes.

We used David and Robyn's book to check the date that the bridge was built and figured that my great grandmother would have been about 11 years old.

TedF said...

na girl - thanks so much for sharing that story. New Albany must have been full of many wonders to folks from the country back then. This is exactly the kind of exchange I had in mind when starting this site.

Regarding the K&I, my Mom grew up in Portland and swears that bridge led to her fear of heights. It's the see thru grating that gets you.

Ceece - I hope to dedicate a post sometime this year to the full schedule of events for the 100 year celebration (1913). In 2013 I think it would be wonderful to repeat as many as possible.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

I have an old commutation coupon book that used to be full of tickets good for the passage of one automobile over the bridge. I can't find a date on the book, but tickets were five cents each. You could get 25 in the book for $1.00. Each passenger beyond the driver cost you an extra ticket, though.

Luckily, there's one ticket left so I'm ready for action (on a bike, of course) when the day comes.

na girl said...

My grandfather (not the one I was writing about earlier) and his sister both worked for the L&N railroad at the passenger station at 9th and Broadway in Louisville and used the K&I every day.

My grandfather always told the story (I think I mentioned before that I'm real big on stories) of having a flat tire on the bridge.

If you have never been across it the train track is in the middle and there is one very narrow lane for cars on each side of the tracks. Each lane is just barely wide enough for a car. There are a couple places where the lane is wider to allow a car to pull over out of the lane of traffic.

So when grandpa had the flat he had to drive up to the next pull over on the flat tire. He had to jack up the car and change the tire with a steady stream of rush hour traffic going by just a few feet away. All the while he had to be mindful of the lug nuts which would fall through the open grate floor into the river if he dropped them.

Anonymous said...

love your site....
Missy
thisismis72@aol.com

Anonymous said...

Ted
David Millard Tuell was my great grandfather. He lived on South 40th Street in Louisville when he died in 1956. I never have seen a picture of him, or of Dennis! Is there any way to purchase a copy? My brother once sparred (as a joke) with Ali in Pennsylvania. He would love this.
Gwynne Tuell Potts

Anonymous said...

Are you Virginia Kraft's grandson? I am her niece.  My Dad was her brother and your Great grandfather was my grandfather.  It was great to see those pictures.  Is there any place I could get copies of these pictures for my grand children?

TedF said...

Hello Lauren - yes, I am Virgina's grandson. It's great to meet you. We can handle copies a couple different ways. 1. you can pull them right of this site by right clicking on them and doing a file save. Save them on your computer and you can print as many as you like. 2. click on my profile to get my email address and send me your home address. I will make copies and mail them to you.

Ted