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COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES
that of the Berwick Store Company, which, founded in a small partnersliip, though targe for the period, has kept pace with every stage of the town’s growth. Its business has developed into a store o f some thirty depart ments, with a floor space equalling if not ex ceeding any modem establishment in the oth e r towns and cities within a radius o f fifty miles. T he extent o f this store's merchandise distribution m ay be understood when it is stated that it w ill sell a customer any and everything needed for personal and house hold requirements. Some time prior to the building of the Lackawanna & Bloomsburg railroad, when the merchant o f that day traveled by packet to the city to "la y in his stock o f goc^s,” and before the Civil war, the predecessor of the Berwick Store Company, the "old grocery at (he canal,” had its beginning. Located along side of the canal, in those days (he "main a r tery o f travel,” the old building and its w harf occupied an ideal situation. T he old store was built prim arily to cater to the canal trade, but the disposition of the owners to enlarge their activities soon made it a center fo r a wider trade. The foundryman o f that day found it necessary in "the course o f trade” to finance bis business by the exchange of groceries and dry goods fo r lalx>r and the products of the foundry; fo r not until the C ivil w ar (>criod of the sixties did the bank ing system of the country assume any kind o f connected existence. 'iTie old State bank ing system with its uncertain currency and scarcity o f ready money made it necessary for ever}' man doing business to resort to the old method o f barter and trade, and such were the conditions that made it necessary for .VI. W. Jackson and W. H . Woodin. who composed the firm o f Jackson & Woodin. to establish a store which in the process o f time w as dcsline<l to a development characteristic o f many of the great business places of the countiy at laracThe recollection of the little old two-story building, across the Lackawanna & Blooms burg railroad tracks, near the foot of the “ old dug road," with its associations, lives In the memory o f many of the present genera tion. O f (he employees of the old store, there remains in the employ of the present store M r. John H . Taylor. With George B . Thomp son, o f Pittston, P a., Joshua F . Opdykc, of Easton, Pa.. G arrick Slallcry, o f Philadelphia, Pa., the late S. P . Hanl^ and R . G . Crispin, he was early associated with the original Ja c k son & Woodin store.
Among the hardships and inconveniences which attended the business o f keeping store in that period, aside from the scarcity o f ready money, it is recalled that many a time, and particularly during the "high w ater o f 1865,” the cellar of the old building was flooded; that (he mackerel and mess pork floated freely and unopposed in the depths until the "pum ps were manned” and the place drained; abo, that the hams and shoulders stored in the dark room on the second floor were periodi cally removed, inspected, and freed from the onslaught of the germ s o f that day. a fte r wards carefully replaced, and sold—no pure food ins lector under high government com mission being in reach to decree otherw ise; that the clerks with congenial associates roomed and slept peacefully on the second floor next to the old meat room, disturbed p e r chance only by the ripple of the “ F a lb of the Susquehanna" near by. • Sometime in 1872 or 1873 caqal store was abandoned and its stock o f merchandise transferred to more commodious quarters in (he new building of the Jackson & W'oodin M anufacturing Company on M arket street, next to the homestead of the b te Hon. M . W . Jackson. The store occupied the first fioor of the new building, while the Jackson & Woodin M anufacturing Company's general o f fices occupied the second floor, together with the banking firm o f Jackson, VN'oodin & Ja c k son. I^ tc r the Young M en's Christian A s sociation opened rooms on the second and third floors o f this building and here first conducted its work fo r young men and boys in especially equipped reading rooms and li brar)', the latter fo r that time comprising a very well selected collection o f l)ooks in charge o f Mr. .Albert G . Kim berley, whose early train ing in the libraries o f Birmingham, England, well equipped him for the position o f librarian. Here iWgan the annual courses o f lectures and entertainments which from the beginning to the present have been continued over a period embracing some tbirty-five years. In this new environment (he store busi ness rapidly grew and became the leading trading place fo r Berwick and the surround ing country, under the superintendence o f J . F . Opdykc and R . G . Crispin, and, fo r some iw enly odd years, M r. C. C. I.on g; under Mr. Ixing's supervision two additions were made to the building, enlarging the facilities fo r handling feed, grain and surplus stocks of merchandise. On .Aug. I, 18 9 1, the old store’s interest W.1S sold, together with the store building, to a new partnersliip formed under an act
