Stories should start at the beginning, and we can't go much further back than to begin telling about John Bray, the first generation of a family who came from Cornwall. England. We're going to tell you about a former major employer in the Benton area, Paul and Ethel Laubach, and we'll tell much of it through the eyes of son Jim.
The Bray family owned a farm on a side road from Route 239 to Cambra that "headed off around the Luzerne/Columbia County line." They raised horses. John Bray was a carpenter at the Lackawanna breaker in south Plymouth for a while, then went to Berwick where he was a carpenter in the AC&F car shop. Ethel Bray was born in Berwick in 1903.
Ethel was the oldest of the three children; she married Paul Laubach and the couple lived on Third Street, near Center Street. Madeline Bray was the middle child and married Clifford Sutliff. The couple lived in the Main Street house now owned by Carolyn and Lynn Watson. Edgar Bray was the youngest and he married Viola Hess, Coles Creek. The Hess family lived along the Bloomsburg and Sullivan railroad tracks down in the hollow below the former Raski farm. Viola’s dad was a brakeman for the Bloomsburg & Sullivan, and was killed on the railroad in Bloomsburg when he fell from a signal in front of a moving engine.
After being a car-shop carpenter for a number of years, John Bray become a farmer and bought the farm on the left past the Jonestown Road on the present Route 239, close to the county line.
Ethel went to Benton school, graduating in 1922. then went to Bloomsburg Normal School, where she graduated the following year from the two-year college. She taught for one year in a one-room school around Raven Creek.
In July, 1924. Ethel married Paul, and the wedding took place on her parents' farm. She carried a bouquet of Dr. Van Fleet roses from the trellis on the front porch of the farmhouse. Plantings from that rose bush were taken from there and later from the Laubach home on Third Street. Cuttings from Back Home in Benton, PA, went with Elaine and Jim wherever they lived, and their daughter, Vicki, still has a Dr. Van Fleet bush from their Mechanicsburg plant.
Jim doesn't remember if his Grandpa Bray ever worked for Lane Construction, the company in charge of building the road from Benton to the Luzerne County Line. It was after Paul and Ethel married that "Grandpa Bray and Grandma Tillie" moved to Benton. sold the farm to Mitzdale’s (sp), and became a self-employed carpenter contractor. When Jim was a child, he and his brother, Jack, spent a lot of times at the farm, even though his grandpa didn’t own it. Jim remembers riding bareback on one of the draft horses, the only time in his life that he ever rode a horse.
The Bray family lived on lower Third Street next to Mrs. John G. McHenry at the corner of Beaver Street and Third Street. Mr. Bray and his brother in law, Oliver "Ollie" Weaver, had a cabinet shop at the back of the property. Ollie was a very good cabinetmaker, and Jim and Elaine still have a beautiful grandfather clock on the Laubach stair landing that he had made for Madeline.
Paul was the oldest son of Jonathan Pennington and Josie Callendar Laubach and was born in Fairmont Springs. It is through the Pennington family "that the Paul Laubach's are related to half the people in Renton," including Dr. Frank Laubach through his wife Effie and through a direct tie. The Wolfe family, Fairmount Springs, were cousins, including Bernard Wolf, a former president of a Towanda Bank.
Paul was the oldest of the Laubach brothers, followed by Edward and Emerson, who ended up working for Atlantic Refining Company. Emerson married Esther Pealer. Edward married Esther Chapin.
Paul graduated from Benton school in 1921 where he meet Ethel, then went to Penn State. and lived in the "Columbia County house" at least part of his time there.
On Tuesday, January 11, 1925, the Laubach Motor Company purchased the former livery stable and garage building of John F. Wright on Center Street, which he had been renting for a number of years. The Laubach Motor Company was first under the management of J.P. Laubach and later his son Paul joined him in the business. Soon after the purchase, the building was remodeled and repainted and the Benton Argus reported that it was an "up-to-date" building. The firm was an agent for Ford and Lincoln cars, selling Ford Model T's, and eventually Fordson tractors.
The Laubach Garage. Picture courtesy of Jim Laubach and was probably taken in the 1930s. The video store is now in this location. The home of the Reed family is in the background with Main Street just beyond that house.
While Paul was a student at Penn State, his father, J.P., had problems at the garage and asked Paul to come home and help, which he did. While back in Benton, Paul and Ethel married around 1924. In 1927, John Paul "Jack" Laubach was born in Benton. Jack went one year to Penn State before heading to the Naval Academy. He graduated in 1951, the same year Jim graduated from Benton High. Jack's son, Jonathan Bronson Laubach, graduated from the Academy in 1991, and is still in Navy Aviation.
Having trouble keeping the names straight? Remember this: Jim Laubach's granddad was Jonathan Pennington, his dad was Jonathan Paul and his brother was John Paul (Jack).
Taking his "bride" of three years and their son, J. Paul finally went back to Penn State and graduated in 1929. Paul, did not want to come Back Home to Benton, PA, and he look a position as timekeeper for Lane Construction, Goshen. New York. The family maintained an apartment there. Paul was very close to the job superintendent, a man by the name of "Slim" Gadell, and over the years the two kept in close contact, as the Lane Company was always after Paul to come back to work for them. J.P. needed Paul again, and "requested him to come home to take over the business, and it was probably Ethel who convinced Paul to come back. since she was a "homebody and didn’t like moving from place to place."
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In the early 3Os, Paul was back home in Benton and took over the garage where they then sold Chrysler and International trucks following a falling out that J.P. had with Henry Ford when he told Ford where to take their cars. |
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Matches courtesy of Dave Albertson |
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Advertising matches handed out by the J. P. Laubach Chrysler and Plymount Dealership, Center Street, Benton, PA |
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After the Second World War, Paul dropped the Chrysler-Plymouth line, and just sold Internationals. and even though he sold many trucks throughout the area, he became his own best customer. One of his customers was Harrington Dairy, Dushore. Jim recalls the president of that company coming to see Paul several times about trucks. Before the war started, Paul had bought a number of dump trucks, and even was certified by the Public Utilities Commission to haul stone and sand from various quarries including from General Crushed Stone, White Haven. GCS was the source of most of the red gravel on roads in the area. Paul also had a contract with the government to haul fertilizer to farmers under one of President Roosevelt’s programs. Paul really got into the construction business with a portable conveyor to unload stone from Reading hopper cars at a small tipple behind JP’s house.
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Paul bought a Bucyrus-Erie 10-B shovel, which was a 3/8 yard machine, larger than today’s backhoe loader tractors. He used it to deepen local streams. |
One of the most unusual jobs he had with the 10-B was to dig a trench for the "Little Inch" pipeline in the mountains near Cumberland, Maryland, where they had to lower the "Little Peach," Ethel’s term for the 10-B, down the side of the mountains with a cable attached to a CAT D-8 at the top.
His construction company really took off when he won a war contract to dig trenches for drainage at Williamsport airport when the runways were enlarged for the war effort.
Some things that you might have forgotten about the Laubach family and business...
• Ethel maintained the traveling library in the house on Third Street for thirty some years.
• Jim Laubach, Elverson, Pennsylvania, worked in utility rates for Western Maryland Railway. He has managed three short-line railroads, was a safety consultant for an insurance company, worked for Hershey Chocolate in Human Resources, and was self employed as a railroad-track contractor and environmental contractor.
• Bruce Crawford worked for Paul Laubach in White Haven, and for a number of years did payrolls for Paul, operating out of the second floor of the building behind the family home on Third Street. Roy Evans provided clerical services for Paul.
• Bob Sands eventually purchased the J. Paul Laubach building on Center Street from Lee Spencer. Bob removed the fuel tanks and filled in the ground. The building that was immediately adjacent to both Center Street and Warner Avenue was torn down. Bob eventually sold the building to Berwick Dental Arts for use as a parking lot. The Laubach garage sat approximately where the video store is now located.
Our thanks go out to everyone who supplied information and pictures for this article, especially to Jim and Elaine Laubach who have been extremely giving over the years.
