HOMETOWN HISTORY

September 24, 2020

150 Years Ago

Court Proceedings: At the Circuit Court last week at Cooperstown, Hon. Wm. Murray presiding, the following was tried: Charles E. Winn vs. James M. Winn. Action: To Recover Horse. The parties both reside in Oneonta. The horse was taken up and detained by defendant under the highway act of 1867. The plaintiff claimed the law to be unconstitutional. The court held otherwise and directed a verdict for the defendant. S.S. Burnside and E. Countryman for plaintiff. J.H. Keyes and L.L. Bundy for defendant.
Simeon Uhlmann vs. Jacob Quackenbush. Action for the non-delivery of hops on a contract made in 1869. Verdict for plaintiff $79.45. L.L. Bundy for plaintiff. M.J. Cook and E. Countryman for defendant.
Base Ball: The Haymaker Base Ball Club of New Lisbon has accepted the challenge of the Otsego Base Ball Club to play for the championship of the county.

September 1870

125 Years Ago

Gold to the amount of $7,200,000 was shipped from New York last week, and it came very near creating a money panic in New York before the syndicate and banks turned about $4,000,000 gold into the Treasury. This is the simple condition of affairs: There exists a foreign indebtedness which we must pay in gold that is taken to the treasury and the gold got on it. The government, meantime, does not collect its customs in gold as it should be allowed to do when the metal is needed. There are three banks in Otsego County that could let the U.S. government have $100,000 in gold and not be inconvenienced. That would be setting an example that might be followed all over the State.

September 1895

100 Years Ago

A letter has been received from Linn A.E. Gale, formerly of Norwich, Oneonta and Albany. Gale left the country to evade the draft law, taking refuge in Mexico. He states that he has not been arrested or deported and has no expectation of being arrested or deported, and further, the same is true relative to Mrs. Gale, and of all other members of the Communist Party of Mexico. He further states that the office of Gale’s magazine, which is also the office of the Communist Party of Mexico, was raided at the behest of an ex-spy of the American government who secured a position as an agent of the Mexican Attorney-General. Gale avers that proceedings were stopped by President Adolfo de la Huerta himself who announced that “in free Mexico nobody would be prosecuted for being a Bolshevist or political exile from another country.” Gale also states that his magazine has not been suspended or deprived of second-class postal rates by the Mexican government. In closing Gale adds that when he “returns to the United States, it will be when Soviets rule the country. Then, and not till then.”

September 1920

80 Years Ago

Inspired by the movies, two young Maryland, New York boys tried to wreck a Delaware & Hudson train near there last week. However, they had no success other than halting three freights and a passenger train due to a broken signal. “What happened in the movies when the train was wrecked?” investigators asked the boys. “They got put in jail.” “Didn’t you think you would go to jail?” they were asked. “We didn’t think you would catch us,” was the response. In addition to breaking out the lights of a signal and tearing out the battery jars, the boys threw down 15 railroad ties in a pile intending to put them across the tracks, but the heavy ties and a steep embankment was too much for the pair. Instead, they piled odd spikes, nuts and bolts on the rails, then hid in a culvert to watch the result of their efforts. With no signal to go by, the first train stopped and remained there while three other trains came along and also halted. The frightened boys fled home. Both boys are under age and will be brought before County Judge Donald H. Grant who presides over Children’s Court.

September 1940

40 Years Ago

At a special meeting of the Otsego County Board of Representatives the Board passed a resolution to spend $43,000 on “phase two” of a system analysis for a computerized municipal accounting system. Shaker Computer and Management Inc. of Schenectady performed phase one of the analysis earlier this year and will also conduct phase two. The board also listened to a presentation by Bob Hamlein of Motorola, Inc. on the feasibility of the county incorporating a microwave communication system at a cost of $375000 for installation and a year’s maintenance. The system would eliminate $36,800 a year in telephone calls. The microwave system would consist of seven repeater sites using radios, each capable of a 48-channel load. The tower sites would be in Cooperstown, Cornish Hall, Cherry Valley, Hooker Mountain, Oneonta, Rockdale, and Angel Hill.

September 24, 1980

20 Years Ago

On September 21, New York State Police officials reported the arrest of Alexander M. Rogers, age 19, an Oneonta resident, and Brian J. Boore, age 19, a Portlandville resident in connection with 21 burglary offenses committed throughout Otsego County dating back to June 5. The most recent offenses occurred on September 5. The arrests of Boore and Rogers and the resulting charges came following an inter-agency investigation involving the state police, the Otsego County Sheriff, the Cooperstown police department and police from several additional municipalities.

September 2000

10 Years Ago

A memorial service for Fred H. Marsh, 90, a World War II veteran and career-long newspaperman will be conducted at the First United Presbyterian Church, Oneonta, October 2. Fred was born January 27, 1920 in Chicago and spent his youth dreaming of flying. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the Army Air Corp and served as a flight instructor and liaison officer. After the end of WWII, Fred settled in Florida, where he worked for the U.S. Government before relocating to Yonkers in the 1950s and writing for the New York Herald Tribune. A life-long career in journalism followed. While living in Yonkers, Fred met his future wife, Hilde and they were married December 27, 1958. Fred is survived by Hilde and their two children, Cynthia Marsh-Kamerling of Oneonta and Peter Marsh.

September 2010