We come around again to some of the homes of Bramwell as we continue our look at its history.
Before doing that, though, we turn to the earliest utility companies in the town. The Bramwell Water Company, which served the town into at least the 1980s, was chartered in August, 1895. John B. Perry, Sr., recorded in his diary that the 1900 stockholders meeting saw capital stock increased to $25,000.
The Bluestone Electric Light Company was incorporated in 1894, making Bramwell one of the first towns in the state to have electrically lighted streets.
The first telephone line in Mercer County, according to Kyle McCormick’s “Story of Mercer County,” was built in 1886 from Bramwell to Ingelside on the N & W Railroad and through Princeton. Perry noted on February 1, 1900 that the telephone office at the bank would be open until 10 p.m.
That period also saw money spent on building and expanding homes. Phillip Goodwill, who built his home in 1895, expanded it in 1905 with a round entry hall, a third-floor ballroom with a game room, additional guest rooms and a turret playroom for the boys.
In October, 1909, the board sidewalks and dirt streets were replaced by brick streets by contractor Wingate & McGhee of Roanoke, Va. with an office in Pocahontas at a cost of $4,526.08. As of 1984, the streets have been covered with asphalt, with the exception of one section of Main Street.
The same company had earlier installed a storm water drainage system in preparation for the street work, basically completing the utilities to turn a virtual wilderness into a modern civilization in 25 years.
In 1909, Col. William H. Thomas and his wife, Annie Cooper Thomas, started building a home on a knoll overlooking the town which remained a showplace for the county. The English Tudor home took four years to build. The home has plastered ceilings, carved wood, a central vacuum-cleaner system, a dumbwaiter to the third-floor ballroom and a garage-guest house with a carriage wash. It was completed in 1912.
The house also has extensive stone retaining walls, with the stone being cut from the mountain behind the house. The Thomas Quarry had previously provided the stone for the bank and the Presbyterian Church as well as the school foundations, town cemetery and reservoir.
The blue sandstone was carried by mule-drawn wagons. Stonemasons from Italy worked on most of the buildings. Mauro Peraldo Guigliellmin and his brother-in-law Albino Gross, both from Piedicavallo, Italy, opened the G. and P. Contracting Company, employing at times 20 townsmen. Peraldo, Gross and a third man, Yon, remained in town to rear families and live out their lives. Their work was all over Mercer County.
Next time, we’ll look at the train station and a fire in the town.
Information for this article comes from Louise Stoker’s article in the 1984 edition of the Mercer County Historical Society’s History of Mercer County.
— Contact Jeff Harvey at delimartman@yahoo.com.
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