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Benjamin P. Forbes
From Brooklyn Centre Wiki
The following material was found in a folder within the Ruth Ketteringham Collection:
- Item: Handwritten multi-page document signed by B.P. Forbes, which appears to be copy for a prospective newspaper article about Alonzo Hyre, former editor of The Cuyahogan. Undated. Forbes eventually bought the newspaper.
- I dropped into the Chamber of Industry the other day and found its genial Secretary in his comfortable office with a pile of work papers before him.
- Alonzo E. Hyre looks much as he did when he first came to Brooklyn Village. Then as now his polished dome and prominent glasses gave to him a sort of distinguished appearance, and enabled one always to single him out in a crowd and with his natural ability to discover a joke and put it into print where others could only see the serious side of a situation he earned the sobriquet of "Bill Nyr".
- For several years "Hyre's musings" was a leading feature of the old Cuyahogan and this was headed by a picture of Mr. Hyre in a characteristic Bill Nyr pose.
- Mr. Hyre also wrote the editorials, those I didn't get from The Kellogg Newspaper Union in boiler plate form, or that we didn't get from C. A. Snow and Co., Washington, D.C. for running a little two inch advertisement on "Patents"..
- Mr. Hyre would sometimes be at his wits ends for a bright idea, when lo the afternoon mail from Washington containing dope seet would enabe the compositors to proceed and the publication to appear as usual, and the next morning our brilliant editor would be the talk of the town while he sphinx like would listen to the comments on his latest editorials.
- In exchange for these secrets which I have held inviolate lo these many years, I hope some one will publish an unfailing remedy for falling hair, it is too late to Mr. Hyre any good but it might help some of the rest of us.
- It was a pleasant little chat that folloed and afterwards I let my mind wander back to the days when Hyre played an important part in the development of old Brooklyn Village just north of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mr Hyre has always been engaged in moulding public opinion - at least ever since I've known him, and that is longer than I would like to admit to my friends and buisness associates.
- Those were happy days although sometimes a little hard to meet the payroll; I know because I did most of the collecting I collected the advertising accounts and money and produce from delinquent subscribers, and collected copy from the advertisers, news from the doctors, and preachers and neighborhood gossips and sometimes I reported a wedding or a funeral, but the more important society events were usually handled by the editor as I had no evening dress suit.
- When I first met The Cuyahogan it was printed in an upstairs room on Pearl street near the corner of Garden on a Washington hand press. I think Chas Selzer and George Gardner were the publishers. Beachler and De Vinney then became the publishers and later Beachler and Hyre, and still later A.E. Hyre became editor and publisher. Beachler was running a printing shop on Euclid and the last I knew about three years ago. Selzer is now judge of the police court, Gardner is in the real estate and building business on the south side - old brooklyn.
- In due time the old Washington press gave place to the Campbell rotary press.
- We had a humble hand in moulding public opinion, and sometimes the public would honor us with a call to express its opionions of some of our opinions.
- For many years The Cuyahogan was published at the corner of Pearl street and Forest - now West 25th and Forestdale - in an old rickety frame structure seldom painted and repaired only when of necessity. Here Hyre's sanctum set apart from the press room by an iron lattice, was frequently visited by men who in later life have filled important positions in city and country. We were a very democratic organization but the paper was Republican.
- I was introduced into the office as the new "devil" and one of my first duties was to try to locate and the drive the lice out of the type forms. Not knowing just what a type louse looked like, and my efforts proving futile, George Gardner, Chief of the composing room volunteered to show me how to find one, so filling a generous sized sponge with water he flooded a type form, and instructed me to look sharp with my eyes peering down into the flooded cavity between two parts of a broken column of type. George applied the pressure at the bottom of the column, the type came together the water rose like a geyser covered my eyes whereupon was pronounced duly ________. [unreadable]
- I was worthy to help educate the next "devil" who should enter the office. I think perhaps Dixon Hall, was the next victim of curiosity. we learned there the delicious humor of the composing room - one of its choice bits was the printers "pi" and there was the terrible "hell box" to which the devil would gladly have consigned the "pi" had it not hae been for the ever watchful Gardner. We fed the Campbell, watered the engine, brought in the coal for the smoky old stove, folded papers, took them late on Friday nights to the post office, getting home at one or two in the morning. Took subscriptions when the circulation needed boosting, and wondered how Mr. Hyre could afford to pay us $1.00 a day for such services. I don't believe he could have done it but for the fact that some times we took our pay in merchandise orders on advertisers. After all, those were interesting days and I would not like to loose [sic] the memory of them. Would you Mr. Hyre.
- --- B P Forbes
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