BOUND VOLUMES, May 17, 2012
200 YEARS AGO
Charleston, South Carolina – The Polly, Capt. Daniel, came in on Saturday from the fishing ground, off the bar. Whilst lying there, she was spoken with by the schooner Nancy, Capt. Holland, 14 days from La Guayra. Capt. H. informed, that the Earthquake, which happened at Carraccas, on the 25th of March, was one of the most destructive that has been known since that of Lisbon; he said that more than three thousand houses were destroyed and twelve thousand persons perished.
May 16, 1812
175 YEARS AGO
Dr. Channing on Temperance – There is another prey upon which intemperance seizes, still more to be deplored, and that is woman. I know of no sight on earth more sad than woman’s countenance, which once knew no suffusion but the glow of exquisite feeling or the blush of hallowed modesty, crimsoned and deformed by intemperance. Frail woman is not safe. The delicacy of her physical organization exposes her to inequalities of feeling, which tempt to the seductive relief given by cordials. Man with his iron nerves little knows what the sensitive frame of woman suffers, how many desponding imaginations throng on her in her solitude, how often she is exhausted by unremitting cares, and how much the power of self-control is impaired by repeated derangements of her frail system. The truth should be told. In all our families, no matter what their condition, there are endangered individuals, and fear and watchfulness in regard to intemperance belong to all.
May 22, 1837
150 YEARS AGO
Refreshment Rooms – Chas. B. Cooley has opened rooms of this character in the upper part of the stone building owned by the Cooley estate, south of the post office, where he will keep on hand refreshments of various kinds, fresh and preserved fruits, and in the season, ice cream, &c. The rooms have been fitted up in neat style, and the ladies and gentlemen are invited to visit them. The proprietor is a young man whose deportment and walk in life has been such during his ten years employment in the Office (the Freeman’s Journal), as warrants us in commending him to the patronage and favor of a public whose confidence and respect he has won, and we trust will ever retain.
May 9, 1862
125 YEARS AGO
The Village Building Project was submitted to the freeholders and taxpayers of Cooperstown on Monday last, the polls being open from 12 noon to 3 p.m., and unusual pains were taken to inform all interested of the fact. Those who pay only a poll tax were not deemed to be voters under the special act providing for this election. There are 355 residents on the corporation (85 of whom are women) who are voters, and of these 176, about 50 percent, availed themselves of the privilege on Monday – 109 voting for and 67 against the project. A special effort was made by the opponents of the project to rally the women voters against it and with so much success that of the 23 votes cast by them, 18 were against. So, 104 men voted for, and 49 voted against the project.
May 20, 1887
100 YEARS AGO
Baseball Originated Here – More evidence bearing upon the claim of Cooperstown as the birthplace of baseball is presented by J. Arthur Eddy of Chattanooga, Tennessee who sends a clipping from the Denver Post of May 9. Mr. Eddy suggests that a monument to the National Game be erected in Cooperstown. The article recounts an interview with Abner Graves, a participant in the first game of baseball ever played in the United States. “I was a student at Green College in Cooperstown, New York. Abner Doubleday, the man who invented the game, if you call it an invention, came to our school and interested us boys in his idea. We went out on the college campus, and Doubleday drew the diagram of his game in the sand. It was much like the diamond of today, but the distance between bases was longer, and the distance from pitcher to batter was shorter. We played 11 men in those days; two shortstops and four outfielders.”
May 22, 1912
50 YEARS AGO
Members of the Cooperstown Rotary Club were luncheon guests Tuesday of Louis Busch Hager, president and developer of the Woodland Museum north of Cooperstown at the Copper Top Restaurant on the grounds of the village’s newest of five museums. The Woodland Museum will open for its inaugural season on Memorial Day. Rotarians were taken on a guided tour by Mr. Hager of the 12 and a half acre museum complex devoted to nature exhibits, Cooper lore, and history. Starting at the gate house at the entrance to the museum grounds, the guests went along the quarter-mile Nature Trail, first to the Cooper building where dioramas and a topographical map of the Otsego Lake countryside depict scenes from James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Deerslayer.” Along the trail there are 100 varieties of wild flowers, unusual root and vine formations, magnificent evergreen and hardwood trees, brooks and waterfalls.
May 16, 1962
25 YEARS AGO
Genevieve Smith and Ellen Beebe have each completed swimming 1,000 miles at the A.C.C. Gym. It takes 36 laps or 72 lengths of the pool to make a mile. Over a number of years at two different facilities, the two ladies have each completed 36,000 laps – no small feat.
May 20, 1987
10 YEARS AGO
An exhibition on Martin Luther King that is touring the country has strong ties to Cooperstown. Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, the director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program, was the principal curator of the exhibit titled “In The Spirit of Martin: The Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” The exhibition featured works of art inspired by the words and the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Recently, Sorin was honored for her work with the exhibition when she received the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for excellence in scholarship and creative activities.
May 17, 2002
