THE TOPPER'S CHRISTMAS DREAM - PLEASURE ISLAND or the BOOTLEGGERS PARADISE

 

A humorous map on the theme of alcoholic beverages.

   Mere Man's idea of Paradise is at best a shadowy, ethereal thing. The Indian had his Happy Hunting Ground and the Viking his Valhalla, where he might spend his days eternally annihilating his enemies and his nights celebrating said events. Arthur Crisp, the artist, and Ernest Clegg, the cartographer, suffering no doubt from the Volstead drought, have their definite ideas of the Elysian Fields. Unfortunately, they fail to state just where this alluring isle is situated, although it is safe to say that it is at least twelve miles from these United States. As for the manner of reaching those blessed shores, we leave our readers to draw (from the wood) their own conclusions.

AI Overview

"To draw (from the wood) their own conclusions" means to allow people to analyze information and form their own opinions based on the evidence presented, without being explicitly told what to think, similar to how one might examine the grain of a piece of wood to understand its characteristics.

Breakdown:

"Draw": To come to a conclusion or make a judgment based on evidence. 

"From the wood": This is a metaphor, implying that the information being analyzed is raw and uninterpreted, like the natural grain of a piece of wood. 

"Their own conclusions": This emphasizes that individuals are expected to form their own opinions based on the information presented, rather than being given a pre-determined interpretation.

CHRISTMAS COMES TO THE NEW YORKER'S FAT LADY AND HER BUTLER

 By Helen E. Hokinson and made famous by their periodic appearance on the covers of Manhattan’s sophisticated weekly, the dowager and her manservant have traveled the world, effectively satirized one phase of America’s hopeless servant problem.

CHRISTMAS COMES TO THE NEW YORKER'S FAT LADY AND HER BUTLER

 One of the 20th century's most influential cartoonists, Helen Hokinson (1893-1949) chronicled the social comings and goings of the middle-aged American matron in the pages of the New Yorker for nearly a quarter century. She traded her early aspirations to become either a painter or a fashion illustrator for life as a cartoonist after one of her early cartooning efforts was accepted for publication by the newly founded magazine in 1925. Hokinson's cartoons were peopled with what came to be known as "those Hokinson ladies." The ladies of Hokinson's cartoons, all of them "slightly overweight, behatted, and ranging in mental state from outright addled to merely puzzled, populated garden clubs, library societies, civic meetings, and luncheons, and they entertained numberless notions and aspirations that were at once ridiculous and engagingly innocent," according to a profile of Hokinson in Her Heritage: A Biographical Encyclopedia of Famous American Women.

Archives at Yale.

CHRISTMAS EVE IN COLONIAL TIMES

"CHRISTMAS EVE IN COLONIAL TIMES"
 from a painting by Everett Shinn

THE ROUSE SIMMONS: THE "CHRISTMAS TREE SHIP"

    I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day; I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas Day in the morning.OLD CAROL

Like the great multitudes of Galilee They crowd the slopes about the clustered Seas, Hearing his word through shining gladness And through the rain; Daily they grow in grace and strength, For God himself hath fashioned them. When the white stillness hushes all the Land, & Every sail is winter-folded from the tempest seas, Three ships embarking for a further shore Bear a great multitude, to where Towering, tumultuous, a City stands - Struggling with darkness, bondage, fears and pain - Open as Israel in Egypt. And as to Moses in the burning Bush. The voice of God decreed men's Liberty. So doth his message burn again; And like the Pentecostal flame his Sprig glows upon them. The Christmas Eve is come; Behold the Trees! Whose tongues of Living Fire Tell men and little children "The Christ of God IS Here."

   On November 25, the Rouse Simmons departed Thompson Harbor between Point Aux Barques and Manistique in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Captain "Santa"
by Sandra Murzyn

   The barometer was falling as Captain Schuenemann entered the open water. The crew and ten lumberjacks brought on board to fell Christmas trees watched from inside the cabin as snow danced through the rigging. Those on duty pulled their collars up against a wind that blew with increasing strength. The spray of the rising seas lashed the Christmas trees on deck. There was nothing the crew could do as their cargo froze beneath a layer of ice. There was concern because any shifting of the frozen cargo could spell disaster.

The Rouse Simmons
by Charles Vickery

   Struggling along the eastern shore of the Door Peninsula, the Rouse Simmons was spotted by a tug and the brig Dutch Hoy. Sometime between November 25 and 26, Captain Schuenemann raised the distress flags. The following day, the Sturgeon Bay Coast Guard Station observed the Rouse Simmons. The Simmons was spotted once again, this final time by the United States Lifesaving Station at Two Rivers.

"Sailing Into Eternity" by Eric Forsberg

   Fighting the lake and a driving blizzard, the Simmons continued on. The distress flags still visible and tattered sails whipping in the wind, the Rouse Simmons refused to surrender without a battle of epic proportions.

   The snow closed in a final time and the Rouse Simmons vanished from view. Lost from sight of land, the Rouse Simmons slipped beneath the waves.

   None of her crew was ever found, but through the years, she kept calling for help. 

   Two weeks and six days after she went down, a fisherman came across a corked bottle. In it was a torn sheet from the captains log, with his farewell message. It read, “Friday…everybody goodbye. I guess we are all through. Sea washed over our deck load Thursday. During the night the small boat washed overboard. Leaking bad. Ingvald and Steve fell overboard Thursday. God help us.” It was signed Herman Schuenemann. 

   The next spring, trees weighted down nets hauled in by commercial fisherman. Twelve years after she sank a fishing trawler hauled up a wallet belonging to Captain Schuenemann. The wallet, well preserved because it was wrapped in oilskin, contained business cards, a newspaper clipping and an expense memorandum. 

Rouse Simmons

    The Rouse Simmons was what lake mariners called a "lumber hooker," a ship that engaged in repeated short-haul voyages, taking lumber from mill to market. The craft was named for a prominent Kenoshan whose family would give the world the Simmons Beautyrest mattress.

"Yuletide Cargo" by Eric Forsberg
Rouse Simmons arrives in Chicago at the Clark Street Bridge.

    The vessel made an annual Christmastime voyage to Chicago loaded with evergreen trees from the woods around the tiny Upper Peninsula town of Thompson, on Lake Michigan near Manistique.

"Christmas Tree Schooner"
 by Charles Vickery

    From the late 1800's it became a yearly tradition for a crowd—including many excited kids—to gather at Chicago’s Clark Street docks to welcome “Captain Santa” and crew, and buy Christmas trees right off the ship.

Captain Schuenemann continued this holiday trade until the fatal foundering, during a winter gale, of his schooner, the Ross Simmons, in which the doughty captain and his crew lost their lives.

   For over eighteen years Captain Scheunemann made annual trips across the lake. Each year he returned with enough Christmas trees to supply the entire city.

Historic marker located in Thompson, Michigan.

  
   The Christmas Tree Ship remained lost until 1971, when the Rouse Simmons was discovered by a diver. The Rouse Simmons rests in 180 feet of water off Rawley Point, Two Rivers, Wisconsin. 

The largest artifact from the Rouse Simmons, its anchor, was raised in the 1970's and sits on permanent display in front of the Milwaukee Yacht Club.

   Various pieces of the wreck have be reclaimed and are on display at the Rogers Street Fishing Village Museum in Two Rivers and the Milwaukee Yacht Club.  

A key chain and cuff links, both carved from one of the initial Christmas trees raised from the sunken ship.

Capt. Schuenemann’s twin daughters, Hazel and Pearl Schuenemann, standing among Christmas trees for sale wearing garlands of greens around their necks.

   The tree business was continued by Schueneman's wife and daughters, but the practice of hauling by schooner was replaced by train and road by the 1920's.

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw

  Today the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw continues the Christmas Ship tradition each December by carrying about 1,200 trees from northern Michigan to Navy Pier in Chicago, where they are distributed to needy families.  http://christmasship.org/

Follow the links listed below for more - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouse_Simmons

The Christmas Tree Ship: Captain Herman E. Schuenemann and the Schooner Rouse Simmons By Glenn V. Longacre - https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/winter/christmas-tree.html

Great Lakes  Chanteys - http://schoolbag.info/literature/sea/170.html

DESIGN FOR A CHRISTMAS CARD

Greville Rickard, 1925

      Pulitzer Fountain, with Cornelius Vanderbilt's mansion and Heckscher Building in the background.

 Architect Greville Rickard climbed to considerable fame, receiving the Architectural Gold Medal Award of the Fifth Avenue Association and a similar award from the Greenwich Real Estate Board for the finest residence.

   The Fifth Avenue Association awarded annual medals for the best new and altered buildings in the Fifth Avenue District. 

World's Largest Indoor Christmas Tree - Sterling & Welch Company Building - Cleveland, Ohio

   Sterling & Welch began in 1845 when Thos. S. and Wm. Beckwith opened a dry goods store on Superior St. In 1857 the store replaced its dry goods line with floor coverings and curtains. Both Frederick A. Sterling and Geo. P. Welch joined the company in its early years and by 1889 they had control of the partnership which was incorporated in 1902 as the Sterling & Welch Co. In 1909 the firm moved from its location on lower Euclid Avenue to 1215-1225 Euclid Ave., where it built one of the largest and finest home furnishing stores in the area. In 1927 Sterling & Welch began the tradition of installing the nation's largest indoor Christmas tree in its atrium.

STERLING & WELCH BUILDING 1215 EUCLID AVENUE CLEVELAND, OHIO
J. Milton Dyer, Architect 

"it is undoubtedly the finest, most commodious and handsomest store building in the world, it being unsurpassed by any in Chicago, New York or the metropolitan centers of Europe. It is strictly modern in every sense, with magnificent interior furnishings and every facility to promote the beauty and substantiality of the structure." A History of Cleveland, Ohio: Biographical By Samuel Peter Orth

MARQUISE, STORE FRONT AND BRONZE ENTRANCE, THE STERLING WELCH CO.
W. S. TYLER COMPANY 

In front of the Sterling and Welch Store, circa 1940's.

INNER COURT OF THE NEW STORE OF THE STERLING & WELCH CO.
CLEVELAND, OHIO

INNER COURT OF THE STORE OF THE STERLING & WELCH CO.
CLEVELAND, OHIO

A live, 50-60 ft. tree, festooned with 60 lbs. of 'icicles', 1000 yds. of tinsel, 1500 ornaments, and because fire regulations prohibited the practice of placing lights in the trees, was illuminated by 6 banks of 750 candle-watt spotlights. It required 650 man-power hours to trim by swinging stages suspended from the skylight.

1933 CHRISTMAS TREE

   
   Legend has it the tree grew a foot while inside the store.

1936 CHRISTMAS TREE

1940 CHRISTMAS TREE

1952 CHRISTMAS TREE

1954 CHRISTMAS TREE

1955 CHRISTMAS TREE

1958 CHRISTMAS TREE

1959 CHRISTMAS TREE

1959 CHRISTMAS TREE

1960 CHRISTMAS TREE

1962 CHRISTMAS TREE

1966 CHRISTMAS TREE

1966 CHRISTMAS TREE

Their "Santaland" included a device where you could insert a coin and receive a gift that came down a slide, a train, and an enchanted forest display.

1967 CHRISTMAS TREE -THE LAST ONE

    
    The STERLING-LINDNER CO. was a combination of 3 smaller stores--the Sterling & Welch Co., the W.B. Davis Co., and the Lindner Co.--each of which was a leader retailer in its own specialty. 

   The W.B. Davis Co., a pioneer menswear store in Cleveland, began in Jan. 1879 as a custom-shirt factory operated by Wm. B. Davis and Edwin Parsons at Superior and Bank (W. 6th) streets. By 1880 Davis had changed the business to a retail men's furnishing store, which was incorporated in May 1888. In 1917 Davis moved from an earlier location on Euclid Ave. to its newly acquired Davis Bldg. at 325 Euclid.

   The Lindner Co., once the largest women's specialty store in Cleveland, was begun by Max Lindner, Max Hellman, and Morris Black in 1908 on E. 9th St., and by 1915 Lindner had built and occupied a larger store at 1331 Euclid Ave. The following year, the 2 companies were merged into the Sterling-Lindner-Davis Co. 

LINDNER BUILDING
Built 1915, Robert D. Kohn, architect. 

Looking West at the corner of E. 12th Street and Euclid Avenue, late 1950,s -  Hotel Statler(now the Statler Arms Apartments), Union Club and  Sterling-Linder-Davis department store on right.

  

1255 EUCLID AVENUE
Modernization underway for the opening of Lindner-Davis store in the former Higbee building, circa 1949. 

   In 1947 one of the nation's largest operators of department stores, the Allied Stores Corp. of New York, acquired Lindner & Davis. Two years later, it purchased Sterling & Welch. In 1949 the Lindner-Davis general department store opened in the remodeled Higbee building at Euclid Ave. and E. 13th St., adjacent to the Sterling & Welch store. Davis was dropped from the name in 1958. In the early 1960s, the firm felt that it was in a prime location downtown and decided not to establish suburban branch stores. Allied Stores then realized that without outlying stores, Sterling-Lindner was not profitable. The store closed in 1968 and the building was demolished.

Euclid Ave and E 13th view of Sterling Welch building in Cleveland, Ohio, shortly before it was razed. The two store gray building on the NE corner of 13th/Euclid was the Cowell and Hubbard Jewelrs building. This intersection was the epicenter for Cleveland's carriage trade stores.

Note the SWC frieze.

The beautiful atrium was demolished to make way for an office building that never materialized. The steel pilings for the atrium were cut off and remain in the ground.

   
    At their peak, Cleveland's downtown department stores anchored a lower Euclid Avenue that ranked among the largest retail districts in the United States and was compared to New York's stylish Fifth Avenue.

   After World War II, the growth of suburbs and shopping malls started to draw business away from downtown and Euclid Avenue. The department stores tried to compete, opening up suburban branches, but by the turn of the 21st century most of these local companies had been bought out by national chains, with their flagship downtown locations converted to other uses. 

HIGBEE BUILDING 1255 EUCLID AVENUE
Later a fifth floor was added and the matching top trim eliminated. 
Now known as the Sterling Building. 

   
   Founded in 1860 by Edwin Higbee and John Hower, Higbees was a simple two-man dry goods store originally known as Hower and Higbees. Following Howers death in 1897, the store incorporated as the Higbee Company.

    Originally located downtown, in 1931 the Higbee Company was in the midst of constructing a new store on Public Square. The move would return the Higbee Company back to downtown after nearly a quarter-century stint next to Sterling Welch on Playhouse Square. When completed, the new store stood as an anchor to the new Cleveland Union Terminal Complex, which became the hub of the city's rapid transit system.  

Higbee's became enshrined as a scene in the holiday film "A Christmas Story".

   The Van Sweringen brothers’ massive Cleveland Union Terminal project was the ultimate impetus for Higbee’s returning to Public Square in 1931. As a hub for both train travel and their Shaker Rapid Transit system, the brothers wanted to capitalize on the captive traffic by incorporating a department store into the project. When the pair failed to lure any department stores, they solved their dilemma by simply buying Higbee’s and moving it there themselves.

   

   Higbee's was purchased in 1992 by Arkansas-based Dillard's and closed its Terminal Tower store in 2002. In 2012 the Higbee building became home to the Horseshoe Casino.

The home of Amasa and Julia Stone, 1255 Euclid Avenue, was completed in 1857.

   
   In 1857, Amasa Stone, a successful railroad entrepreneur and bridge designer, erected a 6,500-square-foot Italianate villa mansion. Eighteen years later, Stone planned and constructed a bridge spanning the Ashtabula Gorge, ignoring advice from his own engineers, who considered the design unsafe. The bridge ultimately collapsed in a windstorm, killing 151 train passengers unfortunate enough to be crossing at the time of its collapse.

   The despondent Stone, attempting to cope with the bridge disaster, failing health, the accidental drowning of his only son and a financial panic that ruined three companies he controlled, fired a bullet through his heart while sitting in a bathtub in his Euclid Avenue mansion. Samuel Mather and his wife, Flora Stone Mather (one of Amasa's daughters), lived in the home until Flora died in 1909. At the time of her death, Flora had nearly completed her participation in the design of what would have been her next residence, the plush Mather mansion still standing on the Cleveland State University campus. After the Stone residences demolition in 1910, the  Sterling Welch building was built joined by the new Higbee Company building.