MISSING CHILDREN COMMUNITY
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MISSING CHILDREN OF LONG AGO
Out
in the cold world and far away from home,
Some mother's boy is wandering all alone,
With no one to guide him or keep his footsteps right,
Some mother's boy is homeless tonight.
Oh, bring back to me my wandering boy,
For there is no other who's left to give me joy,
Tell him his mother, with faded cheeks and hair,
Is at the old home awaiting him there.
MISSING CHILD
4/1/2008
A MISSING BOY
The police can't find a trace of Willie Meek Mar. 30, 1881
Willie Meek the six-year-old son of Asa Meek , a cabinetmaker at 299 Golden Street has now been missing since last Thursday and although superintendent Campbell has caused a search to be made for the missing boy do trace of them whatever has been discovered.The boy was very intelligent for his years and able to give his name and residence.On Thursday last he was playing with some boys in front of his house but suddenly disappeared. His father has made extensive inquiries in all directions were the boy might be supposed to have gone without, however, receiving any tidings of the little fellow. When he went away Willie was dressed in a velvet jacket, dark knee pants buttoned shoes and rounded felt hat. He has dark brown eyes and brown hair
The case is considered somewhat mysterious, and will continue to receive careful attention of superintendent Campbell
Do you know what happened to Willie?
By 1900 the family vanishes from New York. Where did Willie go.?
Children missing from New York 1900 and 1901
George Henry Mann
Salvador Lao
Joseph Givlin
Joseph Pitterie
Frederick Newheim
William Nelson
Lester Smith
Willie Lawrence
Alfred Anderson
David Sigel
Mystery
George Hewlett
Alfred Springer
George Van Etten
Andrew Moorhead
Leon Porrey
Charles Gessler
Adam Volt
ORPHAN RECORDS
What happened to the thousands of children listed as missing in the 19th and first half of the 20th century? Newspapers were constantly reporting on missing children.
This era was one of turbulent change. The Civil War, Industrial Revolution with enormous changes i the way people lived. The railraod was the airplane of the time and young people mostly boys were fasinated with the world thqt the train could take them to so many left to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Others left because of abuse or because their family could not take care of them.
The romance of the railroad is gone now and the box cars that the young wanderers traveled in are now nothing but ruins on railroad side tracks.
"A -NO.
1"-
WAS A HOBO AND A
WRITER
HERE IS HIS STORY PART ONE
The Road took thirty of the best years of my life ere
I broke its bonds as if by a miracle. While I traveled
. with tramps I did missionary work among
them, but failed to induce even one of the three hun-
dred thousand chronic hoboes who ceaselessly and at will
range over this continent, to forsake his unnatural ex-
istence.
Profiting by the knowledge that publicity of its almost
incredible harm was the only weapon wherewith I could
hope to succ'essfully combat the Road, though I was handi-
Capped by a lack of funds and education, I set to the task
of saving penny upon penny, at the same time studying
(at the age of thirty-five) the "First Reader" and other
literature of primary learning. Thus, but insufficiently
equipped, I attacked the Road by writing and publishing
books which exposed its foremost curs&--the boy tramp
shame. Though four of the titles were issued while I
was a wanderer, still so well did these humble books fulfill
their mission that thousands of youths were forced from
the Army of Hobodom, while many other thousands
were deterred from entering its foul ranks.
the number of chronic tramps and the criminal elements
traveling in close association with and in the guise of hoboes,
and the enormous expenditures entailed by even a local
control of the tramp nuisance, also on account of a lack
of concerted action by adjoining states, many of the state
governments have long ago given up the segregation of
the harmful from the harmless rovers. For this reason I
advocate in this, my sixth book, that the national author-
ities, preferably the Inter-State Commerce Commission,
The Ways of the Hobo.
be vested with the strict supervision of every branch of
public vagabondage, ranging from the man roaming the
domain in search of legitimate employment, and to whom~
fullest protection should be given, to every species of the
human viper, including the thieving ambulanters and the
loathsome and ever alien gypsies.
To more forcibly impress upon the public the ap-
palling immensity of the annual burden that the hoboes
are even now upon those who have to foot the national ac-
counts, I have appended on page No. 2 a purposely low-
rated table of this indirect "Tramp Tax" which never
has nor never will return a cent's worth of tangible benefit
for its wasted millions.
Although this enumeration covers but a small portion
of the long chain of more or less criminal and expensive
items to be registered against vagabondage, yet it amply
proves to even those unacquainted with the extreme seri-
ousness of the hobo menace, that the present is high time
for the national government to attempt the solving of
the tramp problem, ere the nation's most powerful agency
will be forced to acknowledge that the stamping out of
voluntary vagabondage, or at least the elimination of the
undesirables from the ranks of our floating population, has
assumed the status of a hopeless undertaking.
THE AUTHOR.
WARNING :--It has been brought to my attention that
several fellows are seeking cheap notoriety, etc., by stating that
they have been my travel mates,'etc. "Arizona Joe," and others,
are rank frauds and should be treated as such.
The Ways of the Hobo. 5
CHAPTER I.
"The Brethren of the Road."
SET like a royal jewel amid the foothills of the Alle.
ghenies where the latter cross Northwestern Penn-
sylvania towards the waters of Lake Erie, is idylic
Cambridge Springs. Not only have its grand scenic
environs given to this town of lesser dimensions a landwide
reputation as a most charming summer resort, but the
medicinal properties of its numberless gushing springs have
so added to its fame, until annually thousands of people
in need of health and recreation make a pilgrimage to this
"Cafisbad of America," filling to capacity the spacious
hotels bordering its maple-shaded avenues.
Because of its convenient railroad location, I had made
my headquarters for many years at delightful Cambridge
Springs. Driven by the weird promptings of the Wander-
lust hither and thither about the globe, time and again
when the almost incredible hazards of the Wander Path
had brought me dangerously close to the verge of a mental
and physical collapse, I hastened back to Cambridge Springs,
there to find a brief respite from the hardships of the Road.
That I had chosen Cambridge Springs as my head-
quarters, quickly became common knowledge to the
Brethren of the Road, with the result that the otherwise
rather aristocratic health resort soon became a veritable
"Mecca" to chronic hoboes. From every train chancing
to stop at Cambridge Springs, Sons of Unrest dropped
singly, in pairs, and at times even in squadrons, and when
told that I was in town, hurried to Mrs. Cunningham's
boarding house where I always lodged when "at home,"
there either to renew old friendships, make my acquantance
or a financial touch, which latter reason was the
most frequent object of their visits, and which assistance
6
The Ways of the Hobo.
was refused to none, until impudent and intoxicated
scoundrels put a limit to my benevolences.
Twofold were the reasons why I preferred Mrs. Cun.
ningham's to the many other boarding places, for not only
was its mistress a motherly souled sort of landlady, but
my own arch-enemy, the Road, had cast its foul blight over
her life.
Forever cursed be the tramp who proved himself the
willing tool of the Road! Soon after Mrs. Cunningham
had buried her husband and embarked in the boarding
house business as a means to earn an honorable livelihood
for herself and her only child, a most promising youth, a
tramp, to whom in a spirit of charity she had furnished
shdter during a bitterly cold night, somehow contrived
to portray the Road to this son in such alluring colors,
that the guileless boy, believing the scoundrel's falsehoods,
ran away from his home with the rascal and quickly de-
generated to the miserable level attained by his tutor--
that of a confirmed vagabond.
Just as if this pitiful misfortune had not sufficiently
marred the bereaved widow's joy of life, there was to come
home to her the same gruesome reward for a mother's
boundless devotion that had to be accepted by so many
other unfortunate parents of runaway boys. Less than
two years after his disappearance in company with the
professional hobo, they brought the son home to his mother
as a gory mass, packed haphazard into a dry goods case---
the whining wheels had added a new name to the long reg-
ister of waywards they had crushed ere they destroyed
young Cunningham.
As it is the bane of every small burg, so in Cambridge
Springs, everybody knows every other body's business, and
as I had been duly advised of Mrs. Cunningham's personal
history, I made it a point to give my patronage exclusively
to her boarding house. But a man's reputation hangs to
his heels like a shadow, and soon some local busybody had
acquainted Mrs. Cunningham with her new boarder's
antecedents, with the result that she came to interrogate
me concerning the existence her son had led prior to his
death, and which to her, as to so many others who see but
never investigate the doings of the hoboes, was a sealed
book.
Throughout the many years I had been her frequent
guest, I carefully abstained from dropping even the least
hint of the revolting life all tramps lead, because I rea-
soned that to lift the veil would perchance have reopened
wounds of her soul which time had mercifully healed.
During a wintry afternoon in the fall of nineteen four-
teen, Mrs. Cunningham announced that two well-dressed
strangers desired to meet me. When she ushered the
callers into my studio no introduction was required, as I
recognized them as Brethren of the Wander Path whom I
had met dur;ng my prev;ous travels. One of them was
known to me by the name de tramp, "Hobo Mike," while
his companion's monicker was "Denver Johnny." Both
were well-proportioned fellows aged about thirty-five, and
though I knew them to be "blown-in-the-glass" Wander-
lusters, yet by a total absence of filth and rags, the ear.
marks of the common hobo, they amply proved that some-
how they had managed to save their self-respect.
When we had exchanged mutual greetings, they tn-
formed me they had come from New York City and
were hoboing to the great Southwest to escape the rigors
of the winter. They stated that the freight train aboard
which they were traveling despite the cold weather, had
slackened speed on entering the limits of Cambridge Springs,
and deciding not to further place their limbs in jeopardy
by freezing, they had jumped from the moving train.
While warming themselves in the waiting room at the
railroad station, they had ascertained that I was in town,
and had come to pay me a friendly call.
I invited them to prolong their visit and be my guests
at supper, and when they accepted my invitation, we took
The Ways of the Hobo.
9
end ~/on had an animated conversation under head-
~y, the theme of which hinged on the routes and the
of our latest hobo journeys, but quickly drifted
to the recounting of the latest bits of hobo gossip. Ex-
luu~ting this theme, we turned to relating stories of per-
~ encounters with those who upheld the majesty of
It~ law, and we soon became so absorbed in telling our
exploits, that ere we sust2ected the lateness of the hour,
Mrs. Cunningham announced supper. We entered the
dining room where amid jolly conversation, my guests did
full justice to the ample repast spread before them.
When supper had been served, we returned to my studio,
where we drew our chairs before the fire place, upon the
grate of which my landlady had placed oak logs while we
supped, and which now that they incinerated, sent forth
in a mellow red glow a sense-lulling warmth, wh'ich must
have recalled memories to .my visitors' minds, for presently
our conversation lagged and finally ceased.
Having had similar pangs of conscience, I surmised
that my callers' thoughts were centered on the fire place of
their own homes, where at this time of the night were seated
the "Old Folks," who, no doubt, with evermore aching
hearts, yet buoyed by a sublime hope, were praying and
patiently awaiting the return of him who had so heartlessly
forsaken his aged parents in the evening of their lives and
when most needed.
About the time that our voluntary silence commenced
to become oppressive, someone timidly knocked at the
door, and on going to see what was wanted, found that
Mrs. Cunningham had rapped.
"Pardon me, A No. 1," she excused herself, "for trying
to obtrude myself upon your society, but as you know how
lonely this large house is to me after I have finished my
day's work, and because at the supper table I heard how
interestingly your guests spoke about their travels, I know
you will forgive my audacity for asking for an introducti
A PERSONAL TRAGEDY OFTEN DROVE YOUNG MEN TO A LIFE ON THE ROAD
Since 1862, many have heard the tale of a wandering vagrant
who traveled in an endless 365-mile circle between the Connecticut and
Hudson rivers. The strange man only spoke with grunts or gestures and
dressed in crudely stitched leather from his hat to his shoes. The suit
was made of heavy pieces of raw leather estimated to have weighed more
than sixty pounds in total. It was a coat of armor the vagrant depended
on to protect him from the sometimes harsh New England elements.
"Leatherman," as he was dubbed by those who encountered him, would only
sleep outside year-round -- and mostly in caves around Connecticut and
New York.
Some claim old Leatherman is still making his endless journey today,
through the woods, mountains, and river valleys of Connecticut and New
York state.
A wandering vagrant is nothing surprising. American folklore has more
of them than could fill a thousand railroad boxcars. What makes the
Leatherman unique is his incredible precision in daily routine. He
would arrive in the same location every 34 days.
