6615 South Bell Ave., Chicago, 36 III.
Dear Uncle Jake:
I thought of writing to you about my hobby of printing (aside from being interested in old gas engines, etc.)
I enjoy your little write ups especially when they are concerned with printing-like the one in the May-June 1968 issue.
I have an old Gorden type press 7×11 and in spite of its age – some 60 years old – it runs o.k. Most of my type is the old and obsolete kind which I especially enjoy using. This brings me to the point that I want to make. Do you have any old type fonts to sell? I prefer old faces shown in various type foundry specimen books such as; Barn-hart Bros & Spindler, American Type Foundry, Keystone Type Foundry, Mac Kellar, Smith & Jorden, Cleveland Type Foundry, Bruce Type Foundry, Illinois Type Foundry, Great Western, James Conners & Son, etc, etc. Of course there were many type foundries as you perhaps know. I have old copies of ‘Inland Printer’ magazine from 1893 and I can see many different foundries advertised. Those good old days.
I collect dingbats, old borders, ornaments and wood type as well as metal type.
I enclose a proof sheet of an old A.T.F. face called ‘Satanick’ (from 1906 issue of specimen book).
Any help that you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Yours truly C Kowal
Dear Sir: I read your article – ‘The Printer’s Pie’ on page 19 of Gas Engine Magazine for the Nov-Dec ’67 issue.
In the second paragraph about the gas engine pumping water – has it occured to you that the windmill was used on most farms long before the gas engine was invented? Pumping by hand was not generally done unless the wind was off the job, maybe for a day once in a while.
In the 90’s the steel wheel mills were made but before that wood wheels predominated. I knew of one that was mounted atop a large corn house. It had a 16 ft. wheel of the folding type & when not operating the two parts of the wheel were like one smaller circle inside a larger one. This mill had gears & turned a vertical shaft which extended down in the upper floor of the building & here was bevel gears that operated a horizontal shaft with pulleys for belt work. This man (when I was a kid) shelled corn, ground feed, buzzed up fire-wood & many other farm type tools that required power. Some even run corn huskers.-long before the gas engine got to the farm. The southern Mich. territory had many of the power wheels mounted on barns. Ill, Wisconsin & Iowa had many also.
When I was only 16 years old I saved up enough to buy the one on the enclosed picture which was taken about 1907 the year after I erected it. It is operating a 28′ cord wood saw & would clip them off in fast order. There was a feed grinder at the gear casting. This mill had a 13 ft. wheel & was made in Lansing, Mich. by the Maud ‘S’ windmill & Pump Co.
I still have the mill intact but was dismantled & kept under shelter since 1913 when I went to work in the shop.
I have had a Case 12-36 steamer for the last 11 years which I enjoy. Yours truly C. H. Dunham
Yours truly
C. H. Dunham.
