Christmas in Carlisle - 1874

The editor of the Carlisle Herald newspaper devoted several columns in the December 31 edition of the paper to describe some of the Christmas festivities in Carlisle.

Thursday December 24, 1874. At 11:00 in the evening he joined a family on Pitt Street for “an ample collation…including all of the delicacies of the season.” He noted that it was the 27^th year the family had held this annual gathering.

“The shades of evening had scarcely settled on Mother Earth,” he wrote, “when the air resounded with the stirring music of tin horns, screeching whistles, and every conceivable musical instrument, tuned or not, in the hands of those who delight in Beltzsnickling. There were large numbers of persons… engaged in this business.”

Friday, December 25. At 12:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, “a party of serenaders, consisting of four ladies and a gentleman, serenaded many of our citizens with Christmas carols and greetings.” At 3:00 a.m., with the stars twinkling above, the strains of music floated on the air, and citizens were serenaded “by a party of eight colored persons under the leadership of (Jacob) Beecher Branson….The music was very fine and could be distinctly heard for several squares.”

Accompanied by several friends, the editor started out early on Christmas morning to view some of the Christmas trees in the homes of Carlisle residents. He described the lovely tree at the home of L. T. Greenfield’s family on West Main Street. The base of the tree was “strewed with numberless toys, the most ingenious of which is a charming little lady and doll’s coach, which when wound up, made a circuit of the large room.”

Then it was on to the South West Street home of Mr. Zeigler, the ticket agent and telegraph operator at the C.V.R.R. Depot. Mr. Zeigler and his wife “must have experienced considerable trouble and vexation in so artistically arranging the thousand and one attractions which surround their tree,” the editor remarked. “A miniature fountain and running pump, with a pond of lively little minnows, attract the attention of the children, while the somber-looking castle, with the miniature army in deadly conflict, with the encampment in the valley below, claim the attention of those of mature years….Their residence has been visited by hundreds of sight-seers.”

O. Thomas Harris, coachmaker on North West Street, had “a model house, barn and other outbuildings, together with a complete set of miniature furniture, gotten up by himself.” Other Christmas trees were described as well as the decorations in most of Carlisle’s churches. There were two large pine trees to the right of the pulpit in the Reformed church. They were “loaded down with Christmas gifts intended for scholars, teaches and families. The distribution of the gifts caused considerable merriment.”

The weather was so nice on Christmas day that “it induced hundreds of the fair sex to promenade the streets and make Christmas calls.” A large crowd gathered at the Thudium House Hotel for the drawing of the winning ticket for a young deer. One hundred tickets had been sold, and the winner was the incoming District Attorney, F. E. Beltzhoover.

All in all, the editor concluded, this was a Christmas “that will long be remembered by our people.”