|
Centre Daily Times July 18 2005
Historians praise Bush House proprietor
By Rich Kerstetter; rkerstet@centredaily.com
"Harold Thomen, writing in the Spring 1977 issue of Centre County Heritage, spared no praise.
"Daniel Griffen Bush was a man (who) any place would be honored to have as a resident," Thomen gushed. "And Bellefonte is a better place to live in for his having spent half of his life here."
Bush's beginnings were, however, rather humble.
Born in Bradford County and orphaned at age 16, Bush became a teacher, working in schools near his home, in New York state and, in 1849, back in Pennsylvania in Lycoming County.
"Here becoming acquainted with the method of teaching geography from Pelton's outline maps," historian John Blair Linn wrote, "it occurred to him to go to Philadelphia to see the author with a view to become an agent for the sale of the maps."
And it was as a map salesman that Bush arrived in Bellefonte in 1856, but he soon prepared for the bar, became a lawyer and formed a partnership with George Yocum.
"But as time went on he found that his interest in real estate became so strong that he relinquished his law business to his partner," Thomen wrote.
By 1873, as noted in the bicentennial history "Bellefonte: Fountain of Governors," Bush had "27 structures to his credit, including the Markland, his house on Spring Street (now the VFW), the Bush House and Bush Arcade."
Had his only building been the Bush House, his legacy in Centre County would have been secure.
Linn, in his monumental "History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania," published in 1883, described the hotel.
"The building has a front of one hundred and forty-five feet on High Street, with wings of one hundred and twenty feet each. It is built of brick, four stories high, and contains one hundred and twenty-five sleeping apartments, with ample accommodations for three hundred guests. The house is supplied with all modern conveniences and is thoroughly ventilated. Halls twenty feet wide extend the entire length of the building. Every floor (is) supplied with cold spring water and hot and cold baths."
The first floor, according to Thomen's account, housed a drugstore, a grocery store, a newspaper office, a bookstore, a plumbing establishment, a tobacconist, a barber shop and a restaurant.
The Bush House was one of what Linn called "three prominent hotels of Bellefonte," the others being the Brockerhoff House and the Garman House.
The Bush House cost, by Linn's estimate, $60,000 to build and was "one of the most perfectly appointed, as well as one of the most commodious, hotels in Central Pennsylvania."
Linn characterized Bush as "a man of great administrative ability, quick to think and to decide, pushing with energy to completion whatever he undertakes."
Like Thomen, Linn had high praise for Bush.
"To him," Linn proclaimed, "Bellefonte is indebted for its most valuable improvements."
|
|
