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February 04, 2003 at 9:40 PM

      M. I. McCreight will be the topic for the first DuBois Area Historical Society meeting for 2003. Bill Hand of DuBois will be the guest speaker at the meeting scheduled Wednesday, February 26, at 7:30 p.m., in the E.D. Reitz Museum, Long Ave., DuBois. The program is free and open to the public.

       Hand, who worked for McCreight when he was a boy, will provide some personal recollections to go along with research he has completed about one of DuBois’ most colorful characters.

       Major McCreight was born near Reynoldsville in 1865. He was out of the same mold as President Theodore Roosevelt. He received his early education in country skills and went to Eastman Business School in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., at age 16, graduating four years later. After a brief time as a storekeeper and banker in Reynoldsville he went to the Dakota territory working as a cattle dealer.

       There McCreight had many encounters with Native Americans and plains legends such as Buffalo Bill Cody, who came to visit him at his home, the still standing Wigwam in DuBois, after he returned in 1886. Becoming associated with the First National Bank he became manager of DuBois Deposit Bank after it was purchased. He lived until age 93 and maintained his continuing interest in the DuBois community including authoring a book of DuBois history.

        Prior to the presentation the first reading of a proposed amendment to the DuBois Area Historical Society Constitution will be read. The proposed amendment would change the Society’s year from a fiscal to a calendar year. The amendment will be read a second time and voted upon at the March 13 meeting.

        The DuBois Area Historical Society is currently displaying a number of NASA related items in the windows of the Reitz Museum. The items are astronaut and space shuttle related items, including heat resistant tiles, are on loan from Betty Bigney of DuBois. The space posters are on loan from Peaceable Kingdom.

         Upcoming programs include: March 13 – Gary Gilmore, “Presettlement Forests:  What John DuBois Saw”; April 3 – Jeanne Curtis, “Making Pysanky” (Ukrainian Easter eggs); May 29 – Galen Kilmer, “DuBois Area High School Local History Projects.” All are free at 7:30 p.m. in the E.D. Reitz Museum, 30 W. Long Ave., DuBois.