HOMETOWN HISTORY

May 3, 2019

150 Years Ago

Newspaper Change: L.P. Carpenter, late editor of the Oneonta Herald, has bought out the Chronicle at Morris, and commenced his labors there last Monday. As Mr. Carpenter has been foreman in our office most of the time since
it came into our hands we can speak of his thorough integrity and industry from the daily intercourse of business.
But, while we regret to lose so true a friend and counsellor our whole heart goes out in good wishes for success of our
friend in his new field. Morris is a rich, prosperous and growing town, and its intelligent people can give to a home
newspaper a prompt and generous support. Such a support Mr. Carpenter will work hard to deserve, and we believe he
will receive it. We look for the new Chronicle as one of the best papers of the county.

May 1869

125 Years Ago

Barnum & Bailey’s advertising car No. 2, arrived in town Saturday night and on Monday proceeded to fill every
available window and to cover every square foot of obtainable wall space with announcements of the great show
which exhibits in Oneonta three weeks from next Saturday. This car, which carried 18 men, will be followed at intervals
by two others before the circus comes. The Oneonta Post Office disposed of the last of its 100,000 Columbian two-cent stamps on Monday, and customers hereafter can obtain only the regular issue, containing the familiar features of Washington in red. A few of the one, five and ten cent Columbian stamps are still in Oneonta, as they are elsewhere, and some of them already command a premium.

May 1894

100 Years Ago

From Oneonta’s WWI honor roll: “Sergeant John W. Stiles (1,210,971). Killed in action in the Dickebusch sector
of the English lines, just outside the Village of LaClyte, Belgium, near Mt. Kimmel, August 18, 1918. Emergency
address: James E. Stiles (father), Middlefield, Otsego County, New York. Eye witness: First Class Private Leon
E. O’Dell, Lexington, N.Y. Buried in cemetery at Abele, Belgium, grave 3-C-3. The explosion of a shell from the
enemy’s artillery, evidently directed at a party of English sappers who were working nearby, which fell in the trench
where Sergeant Stiles was on duty, killing him instantly. A few hours later the company was relieved by English troops and left the sector for a reserve position.”

May 1919

80 Years Ago

Rotary Hears Entertaining Story of Life in Patagonia – A recital of many of his experiences during a number of years
spent in Patagonia where he was known as “The Yankee Gaucho” was given by Joe Hector at the meeting of the
Rotary Club at Hotel Oneonta yesterday. He was introduced by E.E. Scatchard, who made his acquaintance while they
were both members of an Adirondack fishing party for two weeks some years ago. Mr. Hector emphasized the value of
the products of Patagonia, and the potential market which that section and all of South America offers to American
industry. Patagonia has an area about nine times that of New York State, but a population of only 385,000 people.
Because of a lack of vegetation, nine square miles of good land is required to support 1,000 sheep or an even smaller number of beef cattle.

May 1939

60 Years Ago

Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas has listed Senate passage of a Civil Rights Bill as one of the objectives
of this session of Congress. Johnson’s decision to push ahead with what he regards as a moderate bill has dashed
the hopes of Southern Democrats that they could avoid a showdown on the issue this year. Southerners had felt that
if they could sidetrack the question now, they would be in a position to delay the legislation still further in 1960 with
threats of a party split over the issue in a presidential election year. However, the unsolved kidnapping of a Negro
rape suspect in Poplarville, Mississippi, has heightened demand for congressional action in the civil rights field.

May 1959

20 Years Ago

The U.S. Department of Defense considers the School of the Americas (SOA) located at Fort Benning, Georgia as
a “military training center for Latin America. First established in 1946 in Panama in 1946 and moved to Georgia in
1984, the School of the Americas has trained about 60,000 Central and South American officers, cadets, non-commissioned officers and civilians. Courses at the school cover military and combat skills. Representative Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., said its detractors are “misinformed or uninformed,” and do not understand that the school has played an important role if fostering democracy in Latin America. That view does not sit well with Alice Siegfried, an Oneonta potter
who countered that democracy is spreading despite the SOA. One of the school’s graduates, and perhaps the most
notorious is Panama’s General Manuel Noriega along with the nineteen Salvadorans accused of murdering six Jesuit
priests in 1989. Alice Siegfried and two other area women will board a bus in Binghamton that will take them to a protest
in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. near the White House. For Alice Siegfried, who has traveled throughout
Central America and heard tales of atrocities taking a visible stand against the SOA is vital. “It’s the least I could do
to take a bus down there and be a body,” she said. She is prepared to be arrested.

May 1999

10 Years Ago

When a patient steps into the emergency department at A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital, a nurse not only assesses injuries,
but also starts a computer record designed to streamline treatment. As Fox continues upgrading its information
technology, the latest step is a computer beside a patient’s bed, accessible to doctors, nurses and physician assistants
in the emergency department. Staff members no longer have to keep track of a bulky three-ring binder, or decipher
hand-written orders or notes. And, the information is accessible to health providers in other areas of the hospital. The
system is part of a $7 million investment in information technology and electronic medical records. The emergency
department is the first at Fox to go “live” on the system.

May 2009