BOUND VOLUMES

March 4, 2021

210 YEARS AGO

The revenues of the state school fund may for the present be estimated at $36,427.64, arising from the following sources: $20,160.64 interest on bonds and mortgages; $10,665.00 dividends on bank stock; $1,600.00 collections from quarters used for dormitories; $4,000.00 net proceeds of the clerk’s offices of the Supreme Court. (Ed. Note: A portion of clerk’s fees for legal proceedings retained in excess of expenses was diverted to education)

March 2, 1811

185 YEARS AGO

(Ed. Note: Prior to the advent of the present-day Republican Party in the 1860s, the Democratic Party frequently referred to its members as “republicans.”) The town
elections in this county have all been had, and the result shows twenty republican supervisors to two of the opposition. Richfield and Decatur are the only towns
estranged from the great democratic family. In the Town of Westford, where the opposition have carried the election for years, the struggle was severe, but the entire republican ticket succeeded by an average majority of over 30. William Kirby, a capable, sound democrat, is chosen Supervisor, and we congratulate him in the good cause, upon the revolution effected in the political character of their town, so long under the dominion of federal anti-Masonic whiggery.

March 7, 1836

160 Years Ago

The Freeman’s Journal Jobbing Department – When we purchased this office less than 20 years ago, all its printing, newspaper and job work was done on a single hand press. The first year we put in a Taylor printing machine, and two smaller hand presses took the place of the large one for jobbing. The second year a steam engine was added. From year to year additions have been made of type and machinery until now we have one of the best-appointed offices in the State with three printing machines, two hand presses, a proof press, patent paper cutter, card cutter, etc. The printing machine added last week is the largest size “Globe” jobber made by the Jones manufacturing company at Palmyra, N.Y., esteemed as the best press of its kind now in use. Although a very compact machine it weighs 2,300 pounds. The “raising” which took place at the Journal office on Thursday to the upper story required considerable engineering and many stout arms. Our thanks to all who gave a pull, and especially to Mr. Ellery Cory, who “bossed” the job for us with the kindness and pleasure he always evinces where there is any hard work to be done.

February 23, 1871

135 Years Ago

A Disgusting Fashion – The adornment of ladies’ hats with dead birds has gained but small foothold in country communities. How any person of culture and refinement could be brought to adopt such a fashion is one of the things not easily understood. Nothing is more sickening than a dead bird on a hat. It contributes nothing to the good taste of the wearer. I have seen a woman in the horse cars recently with a whole front of a prairie chicken on her hat; with shriveled beak and glass beads for eyes, projecting in the same direction as the woman’s nose. The expression on her face seemed to say, “What a nice ornament I wear on my hat.” In Massachusetts, many thousands of sea swallows are killed every season, and their skins sent to France to be dyed for millinery purposes. It is in the direction of fashion that the destruction of our many birds is most to be feared.

March 6, 1886

110 Years Ago

James A. Davidson has been engaged to have charge of the Y.M.C.A. building. Mr. Davidson will be here about the 15th of March. The building will be closed for a short interval and will reopen
the first of April as a club for men and boys. While the plans are yet immature, it may be stated that the change of policy will divorce the institution entirely from the Young Men’s Christian Association. The wholesome amusement and instruction of boys will go on, however. But there will be provided reading rooms and game rooms for men, where cigars will not be prohibited. In discussing the matter with the Journal, Mr. Johnston, the agent of the Clark Estates, expressed the idea that were a sufficient number of churches in the village to look after the religious welfare of the community, and that a club for men and boys could do considerable good.

March 1, 1911

85 Years Ago

James Fenimore Cooper, an attorney in Albany and a grandson of the novelist, is president of the Otsego County Historical Society, one of several groups planning the centennial commemoration of the invention of baseball in 1839 by Gen. Abner Doubleday when he was a schoolboy at Cooperstown. Others active in the project are Lester J. Clark, mayor of the village of Cooperstown; O.L. Van Horne, president of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce; Stephen C. Clark, vice-president of the Otsego County Historical Society; Dr. Marguerite S. Cockett, artist and historian, and Alexander Cleland, secretary of the Cooperstown Baseball Centennial. Mr. Cleland, an old country Scot out of Glasgow, who lives in Jersey City and does social settlement work in New York City, says that more than 10 percent of Cooperstown’s 3,000 residents pay membership dues in the Doubleday Field Association, organized last year to promote baseball and cooperate in the
arrangements for the centennial.

March 4, 1936

60 YEARS AGO

Cross the country in seconds? This magical feat and other wonders of dial telephone service which began last week in Cooperstown will be explained Friday, March 3, when the New York Telephone Co. holds an open house at its new building at 60 Pioneer Street. Special invitations have been sent to all Cooperstown telephone customers. Visitors will see telephone switching equipment that connects Cooperstown to a nationwide dialing system. Known as direct distance dialing,
this system enables telephone customers here to dial station-to-station calls to any of 62 million telephones from coast to coast in seconds. The switching equipment also provides toll-free calling from Cooperstown to Cherry Valley, Hartwick and Milford.

March 1, 1961

35 YEARS AGO

Harold Hollis, Democratic candidate for mayor told a candidates’ night gathering sponsored by the local League of Women Voters that he had recently learned the village might run its first deficit in about 40 years, a sum estimated at $4,200. “I don’t know what happened,” Hollis said, alluding to the fact that financial matters were “pushed off” by the current administration on first-year trustee Pam Washburn. “It was sort of a crummy thing to do to such a nice person,” Hollis added. Village trustee Bill Burnett, a member of the finance committee, said the budget tracking system is still in place, and that Washburn has always alerted the committee if a monetary figure seemed out of line. “And, we act on it,” Burnett said.

March 5, 1986