219

A. Varesano interviewing Joe Sulkusky and Mrs. Sulkusky

1

Tape 30-2

JS: Down here to Number Seven--it ain't too far back here--they had a hole, like a tunnel, goin' in there. That's where all these here Molly Maguires were livin', most of them, down here. There were lots of them on this street. They used to call this The Irish Street.

AV: Main Street, here, right?

JS: The Main Street. You couldn't get a house here on this street, any other nationality. All were Irish, mostly. Well, then there was a few Dutch down below there, Blasses, or something. But the Mollies there, up in these houses along here, and that other street down there, on the Back Street, that's toward Almont, well, that street there, there were all kinds of people livin' there. Mixed up, you know, different nationalities. But here, you couldn't get on this street for a house. They had it. So them Mollies down there, where the first spring started, they had no hydrants in the, er ah, you know, faucet or anything in the house. There were springs runnin' down. And then the creek run down right around the houses and...

MS: Nobody had water in the home.

JS: Down there. They had the springs only.

MS: We used to go out to the hydrant.

JS: And we had here, there used to be hydrants, oh one up above there, and then there were one right across from Helen's, across the road there, there were a hydrant there, and then there were one down below and so on you know through the town,

MS: And you (wound up) carryin' the water.

JS: And them people, that's how they lived down there. They used to just have the spring waters runnin' right--of course, they didn't have far to go, just, we'd say their home was here, and the water was runnin' out where the street is, like them ditches down that way, comin' out of the ground and runnin' right down, nice cold water, too. So all them springs down there--first spring, second spring, third spring, fourth spring, fifth spring, all the way down, and that's what they used to --of course, it was nice down there. Then there was another creek back further, like in a hollow a little more and there used to be nice trout fishin' there. There were nice fish. Well, they lived down in through that, all the way down, along out at the old Southern? railroad. That's where the trains used to come up from New York. All the Greenhorns used to come in. They used to get off right up here at Number Ten, what they used to call, right up above. And there was a station there, and they used to get off there, and they'd come in from Europe. And if they didn't have where to go to, no party to go to, there was a big boarding house up where that breaker is. Not this breaker here, but the one that for [call?] was [through?]

AV: The Buckley Coal Company breaker?

JS: They had a big breaker there. That's tore down, the old one, though. And they used to all get their coal from here. Number Seven, they call that Number Seven, because there were seven hoistin' engines down there. And seven slopes. A lot of men used to work down in through there. They used to come from the farms, some of the farmers used to come over the hill, and work and all the way down, out at the rail, there were homes, right out at the rail. Well, you could see them, right off the rail, you could see them. It was like a street, you know, goin' down. There was homes below, and there were homes above the railroad, and they used to call it Binsy-Bunsys, right over where the hay tree used to start. They had a picnic ground up on this end there. They had their own picnics there and all, Because you couldn't, our people wouldn't go, because, they'd right away fight, you know. They'd start to lick them, then Mcklies, because they were too strong then.