BOUND VOLUMES

By TOM HEITZ & SHARON STUART

From files of The Fenimore Art Museum Library

200 YEARS AGO

It is now almost two years since DeWitt Clinton was called to the Executive Chair, without an opposing candidate. What then have been the leading features of De Witt Clinton’s administration? We have seen attention paid to internal improvements, equally honorable to our state, and favorable to our permanent interests. The great plan to unite the Hudson and Lakes of the West, has been vigorously prosecuted. We have the fairest inducements to believe, that before the end of another season, the middle section of this canal will be open for navigation. The northern canal, connecting the Hudson with Lake Champlain, is in a great state of forwardness, and all the happy benefits expected from the projection and completion of these great undertakings, which even give luster to our nation, as well as to our state, will be realized beyond the color of doubt.

March 22, 1819

175 YEARS AGO

Mr. Merrick, the Chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads in the United States Senate has reported some amendments. He now proposes that all drop letters shall be charged at the rate of two cents each, and all advertised letters with the expense of advertising in addition to the postage. He increases the standard size of newspapers from 1,325 to 1,600 square inches and newspapers sent from their place of publication free for all distance under 30 miles, instead of within the counties only, as in the original draft. Newspapers are defined to be any printed publication issued in numbers consisting of no more than two sheets, and published at stated intervals of not more than a week. The privilege of free exchanges for Editors is restored as in the Law of 1825.

March 18, 1844

150 YEARS AGO

The New York Times reports accounts from private sources that discourage going south for a milder climate during the raw and inclement weather of our spring. There seems to be no room in the South as every place is already full! Passengers from Savannah by boat to Florida very frequently return in the same boat because they can find no accommodations whatever. Invalids from the North already occupy every available house in all the available towns of that vicinity, as of nearly every other in the Southern States. Even in Savannah, where the hotel accommodations are better than in most southern cities and where the climate is not especially inviting, guests are constantly turned away for lack of room.

March 19, 1869

100 YEARS AGO

Poetic Protest: “Sour Grapes” – Our village streets are quite a sight with uniforms of all descriptions – but the one that makes me want to fight needs no lengthy definition. It is the outfit of the service, the service in the air – and no matter where you take yourself you see them everywhere. The boys who fill these honored clothes are nearly all Lieutenants – and they look upon town boys like me – like on one doing penance. They’ve taken now my girl from me and I am in the lurch – and instead of Sunday at her house, I only go to church. Each time I ask my girlie “Will you go to the dance with me?” She answers in a haughty tone: “I’ll go with a Lieu-ey, see.” I’ve stood it plenty long enough and I told her the other day – if she didn’t drop those Lieu-ey boys, I’d go away and stay. She cried and begged me not to go and said that she’d be true – but last night she was at the movie show not with one of them, but two. So I’ll teach my girl a lesson – for some day those boys will go and then she may cry her dear eyes out ‘ere I take to a show. Now our own home boys are returning from the battlefields of France. Will our own girls let them die of grief while with flyers high they dance? All honor to our own brave boys who battered Hindenburg’s line – but I’ll teach those aviator guys and that thoughtless girl o’ mine. –Tan.

March 22, 1919

75 YEARS AGO

Susan P. Clarke, daughter of George Hyde Clarke and Mrs. S. Beach Cooke of Cooperstown was a member of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) class 44-W-2 which graduated at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas receiving her silver wings and diploma. Miss Clarke, a former student of Packard Business School, New York City, was a bank and Flying School secretary before joining the WASPs. She has logged about 96 hours of private pilot time. The insignia was pinned on Miss Cooke’s uniform by General Hapgood Arnold, commander of the Eighth Army Air Force who, when he learned her home address, told her that all of his own ancestors came from Cooperstown.

March 22, 1944

50 YEARS AGO

Republicans will outnumber Democrats by a margin of 2 to 1 in Otsego County, according to enrollment figures supplied this week by Mrs. Violet Schallert, Deputy Commissioner of the Otsego County Board of Elections. Last November 5, there were 15,817 persons enrolled as Republicans and 7,924 Democrats. The Republicans increased their enrollment by 949 over the previous year’s 14,868, while the Democrats picked up 497 over their 1967 total of 7,427. Only one of Otsego’s 54 election districts has a Democratic majority. In the Sixth Ward of the City of Oneonta, there are 396 Democrats enrolled and 313 Republicans.

March 19, 1969

25 YEARS AGO

Many things have changed on Main Street in Cooperstown but the Mohican Club has remained one constant. The club was formed in 1891 after Hose Company No. 3 from the Cooperstown Fire Department became inactive and its remaining members wished to stay together in some capacity. They started a social club so they could continue to meet. For the first several years the club met in rooms on the first floor of the First National Bank on Main Street. In 1894, the club bought a former residence at 138 Main Street as a meeting place and have remained there ever
since. The group was incorporated as
“The Mohican Club of Cooperstown”
on May 7, 1894.

March 22, 1994