Logansport Daily Reporter, page six. 1898. (Details below article)

FULTON ELOPEMENT

Mrs. Nathaniel Williams Leaves Home with a Fruit Tree Agent.

———

A Man who Sustains the Reputation of His Class.

———

Pair Meet Here to Go to the Windy City.

———

Wabash Plain Dealer: “Mrs. Nathaniel Williams [1], the buxom wife of a farmer living just across the Fulton county line, has eloped with a fruit tree agent named William Reed. Reed made his home with the Williams’ while he was canvassing that part of the county and Mrs. Williams became infatuated with him. The fruit tree vendor carefully planned the elopement, having Mrs. Williams inform her husband she was going to Ohio to visit her relatives. She told him this and got forty dollars [2], which was within seven dollars of all he had to pay of her expenses, and meeting Reed at Logansport, they bought tickets to Chicago where all trace of them was lost. Mr. Williams is bearing up bravely from the shock, and says that if his spouse is happier with Reed than with himself, he is glad she is gone.”

——-

If You Want to See Something New

——

And strange, try the Mexican Tour. You can shoot alligators [3] and eat oranges [4]. Expenses are paid in 50c Mexican dollars.

Buy your ticket over the Mexican Central Railway. For further information and rates, address:

T.R. Ryan, General Agent

25 Carew Building, Cincinnati, Ohio

———

O.J. Stouffer, Patenter of the ‘Cyclone Can’t Give Roof Truss’

Hereby notifies all persons that the least infringement will meet with rigid prosecution.

——-

Additional Local

Ladies’ underwear, union suits. 25 cents suit [5] —- Golden Rule

The horse and buggy stolen from John Banta several weeks ago has not yet been recovered.

Dr. J. B. Schultz returned yesterday and reports Sheriff Homburg improving, although not able to feed himself.

Ex-Marshall John C. Eisert, of Camp Chase, has two pair of game chickens of which he is very proud. The chickens were expressed to him from Canton, Ohio, by a friend.

——-

NO-TO-BAC. Sold and guaranteed by all druggists to CURE tobacco habit.

——-

NEW NAVAL LIGHT

It is Extremely Bright and Cannot Be Quenched by Either Water or Earth

——-

A new and highly important invention was tested at the German naval maneuvers at Berlin. It was in the shape of a Greek Phoenician fire [6], invented by a German engineer.

it ignites on contact with the air or water, and cannot be quenched by either water or earth. It burns with a brilliant flame, exceeding big searchlights, and it can be sunk under water or underground, and when brought to the surface instantly bursts into flame at any desired point. It was tested during the night evolutions off the Island of Heligoland and off Kiel and proved most efficient in detecting the presence of the enemy.

———

Dr. Miles’ Pain Pills cure Neuralgia.

——-

Additional Local

At a recent meeting of the Cigar Makers’ Union it was decided to make an attempt to get E.V. Debs, the labor agitator, to make an address on the 19th of the month.

The police have been notified by the sheriff of DeKalb County to be on the lookout for Nevan Pomert, a boy fifteen years old, from Auburn, Indiana, charged with stealing $50 [7].

That Joyful Feeling

With the exhilarating sense of renewed health and strength and internal cleanliness, which follows the use of Syrup of Figs, is unknown to the few who have not progressed beyond the old time medicines and the cheap substitutes sometimes offered but never accepted by the well informed. Buy the genuine. Manufactured by the California Fig Syrup Co. [8]

——

NOTES!

I. See Logansport Daily Recorder, 11 Oct, 1898. Saved on Newspapers.com as The Pharos-Tribune. (Wikipedia both Pharos-Tribune and Daily Recorder for more Indiana newspaper merger information than you ever really wanted.

II. Um, Gold Dust Washing Powder, as it turns out, has easily one of the most horrifyingly racist original packaging ever. While called the “Gold Dust Twins,” well, see for yourself.

1. Despite a lot of very earnest amateur genealogists on Ancestry.com saving this newspaper article to Nathaniel Williams (b. 1787 d. 1864), well, the math doesn’t math and the 1787-1864 Nathaniel Williams was not cuckolded by a fruit tree agent in 1898. (He was quite dead then.)

2. Forty dollars (U.S.) in 1898 is equal to about $1604.92 in 2026 American dollars. So, cry “thief!”

3. Alligators are not native to Mexico.

4. Oranges are also not native to Mexico. But they thrive there. Ca. 2026, Mexico is the world’s third or fourth largest orange producer, accounting for nearly ten percent of global orange production, primarily with the Valencia variety.

5. 25 cents in 1898 is worth about ten dollars (U.S.) in 2026, which feels like a lot for a pair of underwear but maybe highly affordable for a union suit (which is not so much in fashion in 2026).

6. Greek fire, Byzantine fire. A rumor circulated in the U.S in the early fall of 1898 that Germany had developed a version of the old, storied Greek Fire (aka Byzantine Fire). The German government denied any activity in developing this formula, which may have been similar to late 20th century Napalm. See also “History of Chemical Warfare.”

7. $50 in 1898 is about $2006 ish in 2026.

8. Syntax, punctuation not edited. The fig industry and newspaper industries in 1898 were…um, not always grammatically correct according to later standards.