Monday, September 7, 2020

Postcard mailed from Addison, Pennsylvania, in 1912


Addison is a tiny borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, that was settled in 1798 but not incorporated until the same year this postcard was mailed from there: 1912. It sits along the historic National Road and had a tollhouse for that pike that still stands today. This postcard features the Central Hotel and it was published by The Express Printing Co. of Lititz, Pennsylvania.

The short note on the front states: "Where I ate dinner at Addison." That's it for the message, which is addressed to Miss Almeda Lewellyn at 68 Murray Avenue, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The April 4, 1928, edition of The Evening Standard of Uniontown notes that "Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Lewellyn and Miss Almeda Lewellyn motored to Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon where they were the guests of relatives." A different Uniontown newspaper, The Morning Herald, notes that Miss Almeda M. Lewellyn, "a well-known local resident," died in Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital at 2:20 o'clock on February 16, 1944, "following a lingering illness." It doesn't state how old she was when she died.

As far as the Central Hotel goes, there's not a lot. A July 1, 2019, Facebook post by the Fayette County Historical Society/Abel Colley Tavern & Museum features the same postcard image and these tidbits:
  • This postcard dates to 1908.
  • I believe the Mitchell family ran it [the hotel] for a while.
  • "Believe Beth-Center had football camp in Addison in 1960, and stayed in this place."
  • "When I visit back home - on my way back to Virginia, I always drive through Addison. Beautiful in autumn."
  • "Grandma Tishue was born there I believe."
  • "yes she was she told me stories of how she had to be quit because of the guests and how she loved to ride down the stair rail she would get into trouble for that. the room just off the main room room you enter is where her father died."

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