Bound Volumes

December 28, 2023

135 YEARS AGO

The new Village Hall is to be formally opened with a Grand Ball given by the Fire Department on Friday evening, January 18. Gartland’s Tenth Regiment orchestra has been engaged to furnish the music. Previous to the Ball a concert will be given. A first-class lady singer, Mr. Gartland, cornet, and Mr. Prussian, piccolo, will be soloists, and will be supported by the orchestra, which all Cooperstown people know to be first class. As the proceeds will be used to aid in fitting up proper quarters for the different fire companies, our citizens will take pleasure in attending these opening entertainments.

December 28, 1888

110 YEARS AGO

The body of a new-born baby girl weighing about ten pounds was found in the Susquehanna River just below the Main Street Bridge on Sunday around noon by some youths who were throwing stones into the water. Jesse St. John, Harry LaDuke, William Betterly and Herman Smith were throwing stones into the river from the bridge when their attention was called to an object in the water below near the Middlefield bank. A bath towel was wrapped around it and this with a woman’s skirt, which was found on the river bank furnish the only clues in the case. An autopsy was held on Sunday afternoon by Coroner Parish, assisted by Doctors Burton and Atwell, but the findings have not been made public. The condition of the child showed that it must have lived several hours after it was born, and then died of neglect. The body was buried in Lakewood cemetery Monday afternoon.

December 24, 1913

85 YEARS AGO

Al Stoughton, Secretary of the National Baseball Centennial Commission, will be the principal speaker at the annual dinner of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce, at the Cooper Inn on Thursday evening, January 5, 1939. The tickets will be limited to 135, the capacity of the dining room. The speaker, whose office is at 247 Park Avenue, New York City, is in close touch with the plans of organized baseball for the 1939 Centennial Celebration. Mr. Stoughton graduated from Bucknell University, the alma mater of his uncle, the immortal Christy Mathewson, in 1924. He is a principal in the Steve Hannagan Promotion organization, which among other projects, has been engaged by organized baseball to publicize the Baseball Centennial throughout the United States.

December 28, 1938

35 YEARS AGO

Excerpts from a Poem titled “Hark the Hordes of Tourists Come”—“Three hundred thousand tourists came just to see the Hall of Fame. But they found no place to park and nothing to do after dark. As they walked about the street, litter fell beneath their feet. Trash may come, but trash won’t go, ‘cause there’s no landfill as you know. Recycle, recycle is all that’s heard, spoken as a magic word. But will tourists recycle their junk, or toss it out with quite a clunk? Living here for peace and quiet, finds the summer more like a riot. Fighting crowds throughout the town, turns that smile into a frown. Take advice from a friendly seer—Get out of town before next year.”

December 28, 1988

20 YEARS AGO

Tyler Harris, a 2003 graduate of CCS, is competing, for the Winged Beavers basketball team at Avon Old Farms in Connecticut. Avon Old Farms is a small private college preparatory school with 369 students. Its athletic teams compete against other prep schools such as Hotchkiss, Berkshire, Taft, Choate, Westminster, Kent and Worcester Academy. Harris was an All-Star member of the Cooperstown Redskins basketball team that won 25 straight games before a loss to Buffalo Honors in the Class C State Final at Glens Falls in March of 2003. Harris is the son of Steve and M.J. Harris of Hartwick.

January 2, 2004