Dear Group, This evening I had an interesting telephone conversation with another person around these parts who is as intensely interested in our Town of Porter history as I am. Well, she had been reading over the old school records of School District No. 2 at Tower's Corners that date from 1852 to 1894(?), and we were both excited about all of the old town families that were mentioned in it. But we eventually strayed a bit from the records themselves. We had been talking about John Haskell (1834-1902) who was mentioned in the records, and we both agreed that he had married Agnes Lloyd. We also came to agree that John and Agnes were living on the old Lloyd homestead that her grandfather John Lloyd had established prior to the War of 1812. John Lloyd is considered to be the first settler of Town of Porter. Well that's when "my friend" told me that she had also been reading over the old records that our museum has regarding the accounts of the store that Peter Tower ran at Tower's Corners not all that far from John Haskell. And there was one thing that she noticed that was consistent. It seems that John Haskell purchased a large quantity of rum from Peter on almost a daily basis. And of course, the only conclusion that she could come to was that he was operating a bar or tavern in his farm house. Certainly John couldn't have consumed that much rum all by himself! WELL, that brought up another subject! I told my friend that I seem to recall that I had heard that there had been a bit of illegal gambling going on at the old school house at Tower's Corners. Oh, yes, there had! And then I asked her if it had something to do with old Luke Tower (born ca 1871). Oh, yes, it did! Ahhaaaaa! I KNEW it!! It seems that old Luke had secret poker games going on in the old school house and many men of the town and Youngstown sneaked off in the evening to gamble away money that their wives knew they couldn't afford. And here's the thing of it. I've recently heard from another undisclosed source that those poker games continued well after Luke died and that they had been raided on numerous occasions WELL into the 1900s. Now, mind you, I have no proof of any of the above. But when you hear similar stories from different people, you know that there must be some truth in it. Now don't you???? One additional note. One of our list members descends from John and Agnes Haskell and I have an idea that she's giggling up a storm right now because it's the first time that she has heard the story! But, Beth, I promise that I won't tell the story about another ancestor of yours who has the distinction of being the first bootlegger to smuggle booze across the river from Canada into Youngstown during Prohibition!! (tee hee!) vee