Well, look at that: another J.P. Sleight slab, this one on the east side of Bingham Street between Kalamazoo and Prospect. Like the previous one I wrote about, it’s in bad shape, though not as bad. It looks like its primary issue is that, like many of the slabs in this tree-rich area, it’s been heaved up, leaving the edge susceptible to breaking.
The stamp is clear as day, much more so than many of the more recent stamps I have seen. It appears that between 1907 and 1908 Sleight gave up on stamping the month along with the year, more’s the pity.
The 300 block of Bingham Street.
Oddly enough, I have walked on this block many times since starting the sidewalk blog but this is the first time I noticed this one. Having seen at least two and possibly three 1900s stamps now (one of which has not yet been featured here), I continue to hold out hope that I’ll find one earlier than my current record of 1907.
I almost passed this one by. I wasn’t looking too closely because I had already taken my photo for tonight’s walk. But as I passed it something made me stop and take a second look. And there on the south side of Jerome between Holmes and Ferguson…
I hadn’t imagined I would find one from the first decade of the 20th century. So who is J.P. “Sleicht?” Well, first of all, it seems that the C is really a G. I can find that J.P. Sleight was a coal business, “wholesale and retail,” according to a quaint advertising letter from 1921. Quite possibly they supplied the coal that once came in through the coal chute of my own house. They were located at 614 E. Saginaw St., an address which does not exist today. That would have put them just east of Larch Street; there are condos in that vicinity now. According to a 1918 Annual Report of the Michigan Department of Labor, they employed ten men and one woman. And oddly, J.P. Sleight seems also to have been a dairy cattle breeder; I find him referenced in dairy farmer publications and the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book of 1911.
Unfortunately, unlike yesterday’s 1918 slab, this one is in bad shape. I’m happy to see it and still hold out hope of going earlier yet. It does help that I can shave off months, since in the oldest days they seem to be more likely to specify a month as well as a year.
Update 8/18/20: I perused the Holstein-Friesian Herd Book a little more and noticed a couple of delightful things. One is that Sleight seemed to like to call his high-bred cows “Lady So-and-So,” such as “Lady Ophelia of Carnelian.” Another is that he owned a cow called Olive Sprig Colantha Daughter, listed as the offspring of (naturally) Olive Sprig Colantha. This stands out to me because Traverse Colantha Walker, often referred to simply as Colantha, is a very famous champion dairy cow, famous enough that I have heard of her. She resided at the farm that was part of the Northern Michigan Asylum, a Kirkbride plan mental hospital in Traverse City. I assume that Olive Sprig Colantha was a relative, possibly even a progenitor (as Traverse Colantha Walker was born in 1916).
Some years back I was part of an “art ambush” (rapid drawing challenge) and the theme given was fairs. I attempted to draw a carousel figure representing Traverse Colantha Walker, in the style of a Bayol carousel cow. It’s rough and unfinished but here it is.
