In addition to the usual suspects consisting of now-extinct Lorain businesses, the listing of ad sponsors include some Amherst companies: Arnold's Cookie Jar, Amherst Food Fair, Essig's "Carry-Out" Beverages, Cherry Knoll Spring Water, Garland Funeral Home, Gerbick Pontiac, Dewey Road Inn and C. J. Springer - Real Estate Broker.
This ad for Central Bank ran in the same edition of the Journal.
(These days, the 1814 date shown in the ad is no longer used for when the city was founded. Instead, 1818 is now the generally accepted date, based on when Josiah Harris settled in the present-day Downtown area.)
The Journal covered the first day of the 1964 celebration with the front page article below on August 3, 1964.
It’s an interesting story of “dates." Jacob Shupe and family came (from PA.) to what would become Amherst “as a whole” in 1811, settling near Beaver Creek. Then, in 1814, Josiah Harris came from MA. to visit and basically check out the spot where he might want to settle (finding a large spring, he chose what is today, Amherst’s “downtown district"). In 1818, Harris officially settled there, founding what is today, Downtown Amherst. In 1914, “Old Home Week” was celebrated, and many historians later believed this was a centennial anniversary for the 1814 date. However, in researching this event, there is no mention of a centennial or the 1814 date at that time. It was simply the “Old Home Week,” sort of a community pride event. Unfortunately in 1964, the misconstrued meaning of the 1914 event was used to celebrate “150 years.”
ReplyDeleteIt's odd that the official City of Amherst website's history page completely ignores Judge Josiah Harris' role in founding the city.
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