could scarcely have made up for mosquitoes and malaria, for Needham's Mill, as the first settlement was called, was surrounded by marsh.
However, the Clearfield of to-day is no longer Needham's Mill. The marshes have disappeared—although it is still no uncommon thing to strike a peat-bed when excavating for a cellar—and there is a small-sized city of some seventeen thousand inhabitants, with broad, well-shaded streets, some fine buildings and many manufactories. Clearfield is famous for its knitting mills, but has divers other industries as well. The railroad crosses Mill River from the north, and the trains stop at a new and commodious station, post-card pictures of which you can purchase at Wadsworth's Book Store and at Castle's Pharmacy. It is no longer quite correct to say that the river flows around the town, for within the past ten or fifteen years the town has crossed the river and the larger mills and the boat-yards are built along the stream in what is known as the North Side and which is reached by two well-built bridges. Clearfield is served by a trolley system, and, if one wants to reach the shore he may step into a big yellow-sided car at Town Square and be whisked to Rutter's Point, where the summer hotel and the cottages face
