(By Harrison H. Smith)
THE PREDECESSOR ORGANIZATION
Perhaps one of the most distinctive organizations in the early 1870’s in this community was the “Malt Club,” forerunner of the present Westmoreland Club. This was a group of representative men of Wilkes-Barre, desirous of meeting together under convivial circumstances, to discuss community projects and problems, and interchanging matters of interest at home and abroad — a novel idea in those times, when social clubs of this nature existed only in large cities.
The name, “Malt Club,” was chosen with special fitness inasmuch as the only beverage indulged in by its members was lager beer on draft.
The first meeting of the Club was November 13, 1873, in rooms rented in a small brick building on East Northampton Street. This stood in the rear of a public market place adjacent to the restaurant of Peter Schneider, who acted as steward. The membership was at first limited to twenty — later, nearly seventy
were to subscribe resolutions.
In January, 1879, a little more than five years after its founding, the Malt Club moved into more commodious quarters on the second floor of Peter Schappert’s Hotel, 33 South Main Street. Here, for a decade, the Club was maintained in flourishing condition. The clubrooms were frequented all days of the week, except Sunday, and games, mostly cards, were indulged in. Saturday night was observed as “Club Night” when nearly all the members would be in attendance. Throughout the formative years of the Westmoreland’s predecessor organization, the moving spirit in the activities of the Club was Harrison Wright, who had just returned from Germany, where he had been a student at Heidelberg University. It was Mr. Wright who incorporated the theory of the “Dutch Treat” in the rules of the Club.
Little change occurred in the Malt Club or its personnel until March of 1888, when thirty new members, most of them representative of the younger generation, were elected. This proved to be a most important move, well nigh revolutionary on the part of the Club as bearing on its future. Within a few months, there began an agitation on the part of the new group, joined by a few older members, in favor of a change of name and location, with a view to enlarging the club’s activities, the securing of more spacious quarters, the employment of a steward, the serving of meals, and thus take on the feature of a real club.
