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| Notes for John Steed Rees | ||||||||||||||
| Deed info for 747 Pleasant Ave, Peckville: 1 May 1907 plot bought for $375 by Archer Loraine Chivers from Arthur H Christ. 13 Aug 1911 plot bought for $575 by John S. Reese (sic) from Chivers. 1 Nov 1948 747 Pleasant Ave (first reference to address) bought for $1 by John S. Rees from John S. Reese. This deed to correct name spelling? 30 Oct 1956 737 Pleasant Ave (error?) bought for $1 and other valuable considerations worth $12000 by John M. Durkin. 29 Dec 1999, according to son Bill: Rees Coal Co. was owned by John Steed Rees, located in Blakley about a mile or two towards Scranton -- about a 15 minute ride by bike from 747 Pleasant Ave. Dadused to employ 60 to 70 men. My uncle Bob Neesham used to run the hoist that pulled the cars up a narrow tract and dumped the coal into a large hopper. The hoist was a large drum with what I think was about 1/2 mile of 5/8" or 3/4" cabel. He would pull that car up into the hopper (I think they called it a pocket). The drum was driven by a large electric motor. When he had that car up and into the right position he would stop it and get off his chair, walk down about 25 ft. with a hammer and knock a hook that would release the door on the back of the car. The coal would fall out into the pocket. Later a truck, (chain drive) would come, open a shute from the pocket and fill his truck. He would then drive to the breaker which was close to our home on 747 Pleasant Ave. and have the truck weighted and that weight slip was how my Dad got paid for his coal. As a young kid, I was fascinated by that hole in the ground and those cars that my uncle Bob pulled out of that hole. I can still remember some of thosemen going into that hole, a case of dynamite on someone's sholder; carbide lamps on their heads. Those wer depression days, life was hard but I didn't realize it. The stock market crash of 1929; I was just 5 years old. I was lucky, even in those "worst of times" we had wonderful Christmas's. Our home was always full of people coming and going. Those hard time persisted for most of the 30's. Banks were failing all over the country. FDIC did not exist, I know Dad lost money in the local bank. Your grandfather (my brother, John W.) was learning the plumbing trade, and he worked for our father for a short time; before moving to N. Tonawanda. The large boulder at Union Cemetery was placed by the Bloes Estate; they owned the drug store, board director at the local bank. They had money. | ||||||||||||||
| Last Modified 7 Oct 2000 | Created 5 Nov 2002 by EasyTree for Windows95 |