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| History
of Freeland, Pa. Nearby towns - Jeddo, Pink Ash, Swamptown |
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| What's on this page:
This is an early 20th century
view of Jeddo, from a postcard with what
I think is a 1908 postmark. There is so much to see in this photo!
Further below on this page there's a map of Jeddo, and here at right
I've turned it 90 degrees so that it matches the perspective you're
looking at this photo from. You can see the breaker at back left, and
homes in front of it and to its
left; see the mine company buildings at right and the boarding house
(on the spot marked "hotel" on the map?) beyond them. Try opening the
map in a separate browser window so you can look at both of them side
by side. Another view of Jeddo, from a postcard with a 1915 postmark. The postcard's caption calls this a bird's-eye view. You can see why some of the land in the foreground hasn't been developed for building. These are the offices of the G. B. Markle Co. and the Jeddo Supply Company Store. The card is postmarked 1915. I don't know who was running the store in 1915, but on the 1873 map below, P. H. Thompson is listed as merchant and postmaster, while George Henkelman was the local butcher. This view of a boarding house in Jeddo comes from a postcard with a 1908 postmark. At right is the back of the postcard, apparently written by one of the owners or managers, who writes, "we are keeping boarders and find lots of work." Here's another photo
postcard with a front view of the same boarding
house. The card is postmarked 1909. This boarding house is visible in 4
of the 5 photos shown on this page, a visible landmark seen from
various directions. Does it qualify as a hotel? This is later than the
map shown below, but might be the same building shown there; the
business listing in 1873 names G. B. Husson as proprietor of the Jeddo
Hotel, "Fine accommodations for summer boarders." I would be grateful
for information on this or any aspect of Jeddo's history. ![]() This photographic postcard of
Jeddo Pink Ash is dated 1908 and came
from John Zubach.
I've added two cropped close-up views. Swamptown - I had to ask Charlie
Gallagher to tell me where Swamptown was. He supplied this aerial view,
outlined Swamptown at lower left and noted that the Jeddo school was
just north of it. Charlie Gallagher tells me that this
photo from
Thomas Sissock, Jr. shows houses being moved from Swamptown after WWII;
they were relocated to South Middletown. They were moved on railroad
tracks temporarily constructed by the coal company or their contractor,
not the Lehigh Valley Railroad. He thinks that most of the houses on
South Street in South Middletown are the relocated ones. There's no way
to know which house is the one in the photo, but he believes that there
were 12 moved and they were pretty much identical. All of them have
been renovated over the years, along with some having additions. Thank
you to Thomas Sissock, Jr. for this and the next two photos. This photo also comes from Thomas Sissock, Jr. and was taken in approximately the same period as the relocation of the Swamptown homes. What a great photo of local kids in the steamshovel bucket! From
Larry Maso: "I saw the article
on Swamptown. This may or may not be of interest but my father worked
at putting Cement Block foundations under one of the houses that I know
of because I was one of his helpers one summer. I'm sending a picture
as proof. I got the clothes from my brother Fred who was in the Coast
Guard." Another photo from
Thomas Sissock, Jr., this one of the Jeddo Skiddoo Band, possibly taken
in the late 1940s or early 1950s, along with identifications. The
final name is cut off on the
original, sorry to say. Since we received this photo, we also received another copy from Tom Bezick, former Jeddo Skidoo Band member, along with additional photos and information. Thomas Sissock, Jr. also provided a photo of the Jeddo Stars team, probably from around the same time as this Skiddoo Band photo, posted on the Baseball page. Here's the map of Jeddo that appears in D. G. Beers' Atlas of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania (1873). Interestingly, the business listings include a small section on the Woodside Colliery. |