Hometown History
April 20, 2023
135 Years Ago
When the whistle blew on Tuesday noon, in recognition of the signing of the school bill, Detective Bissell’s St. Bernard dog Ben thought there was a fire, as did plenty of others. Ben sprung from the stoop on Dietz Street and started on a wild run for the Lewis hose rooms, the company he travels with. He stopped on Main Street, and seeing that the boys were not running for their cart, sadly shook his head and returned to the house. Ben loves a fire as well as he does a piece of meat.
Ned Cox, of Gilbertsville, who has played repeatedly in the Oneonta ball nine, is coming to the front as a ball player. On April 2, he caught for the Williams College team in a game played with the Athletics of Philadelphia. In a report of the game, the New York Herald says: “A solid three-bagger by Cox when the bases were full was about the only feature of the visitors’ playing.” Last week the college boys played against the New Yorks, Ned occupying his usual position behind the bat in the college team.
April 1888
110 Years Ago
After a season of experimentation at the wisdom of maintaining a city indoor baseball league the last game but one of the series has been played off and the high school team, the youngest aggregation of players in the entire league, has clinched the pennant with an overall record of 10 and 5. They won it by good clean playing and by working together as a machine, with as little friction as possible, and with seldom a kick against the gods who preside over the games. The league’s All-Star team members are: first base – Finley, Co. G; second base, Gunther, Co. G; third base, Vickers, Co. G; Shortstop, Dibble, O.H.S; left field, Brown, D&H Shop; center field, Warburton, Liberty Club; right field, House, Liberty Club; catcher, Graves, Liberty Club; pitcher, Hoye, Liberty Club.
April 1913
90 Years Ago
Gilbertsville is listed on the “Tramp Route.” The maps of the “Wandering Willies” show that the Village of Gilbertsville has become a “tramps paradise.” Ninety-four husky pilgrims applied for food and lodging overnight and were sumptuously entertained while eight others were asked to be shown the beauty spots of the village and given their dinner during the month of March. With Gilbertsville from 15 to 25 miles away from the main lines of travel, this is a record for a village of this size under like conditions.
Low bids totaling $117,867 were received Thursday of last week at Albany by the state department of health for the construction of three additional buildings for the state tuberculosis hospital site on Upper West Street, Oneonta. The three structures are the superintendent’s home, a four-family residence for the members of the hospital staff, and a garage for cars of the superintendent and staff. The low bidder was Joseph A. Lee of Brooklyn.
April 1933
70 Years Ago
Words from Upton Sinclair – Eight years ago we thought we had won a war. But now we have discovered that we have raised-up a new enemy more deadly than the old, a fanaticism implacable and firmly convinced that it is destined to take possession of the whole world. Soviet Communism, even with Stalin gone, is far more dangerous than German Nazism or Italian Fascism, for these movements were frankly nationalistic. But the Russians wear a camouflage of internationalism. They take all the words which civilized people hold sacred – democratic, liberal, progressive – they twist these words to their own purposes and thus poison our thinking at its source. We are in a “cold war” which may go on for the next ten or twenty years, or which may turn hot tomorrow – we have no way of knowing which is going to happen.
April 1953
50 Years Ago
Planned Parenthood Clinics will soon be in operation in Otsego and Delaware counties. A Planned Parenthood office now occupies office quarters on the third floor of Fox Hospital in Oneonta and is operating under a grant from the Bureau on Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning of the State of New York. Within three years Planned Parenthood expects to be self-sufficient – relying mainly on local fund drives, the first of which is scheduled to begin around the end of April. The office is staffed by Karoline Tull, executive director, Teddy Story, bookkeeper-secretary, and two outreach workers – Shirley Valk of Delaware County and Kathy Robinson of Otsego County. The clinic aims to provide educational and medical services necessary to plan when they have their families. The clinics will offer a number of services to the public including group sessions on approved methods of birth control, screening tests for those for those wishing use birth control and referral services for genetic counseling, pre-natal care, abortions, infertility cases and sterilization. No treatments will be performed at the clinic.
April 1973
40 Years Ago
The open house and grand opening celebration of the Paradise Mountain Nudist Club, Ironkettle Road, Town of Maryland, is approximately one month away. Owners Charles and Gloria Marryatt of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, say plans for the first year are “still pretty much up in the air, but we’re trying a push for interest at least.” The club property is spread over 150 acres of wooded land with a mountain stream running across the back of the property. Marryatt says the club’s primary role is “creating a wholesome atmosphere in the practice of social nudism.
April 1983
30 Years Ago
State college public safety personnel are investigating the BB-gun shooting of an Oneonta bus early Saturday morning. As the bus was proceeding down West Dorm Drive near Ford Hall about 2 a.m., a noise was heard when BB-gun rounds impacted one or two windows on the bus. There were passengers on the bus but no one was injured. Public Safety Officers and Oneonta Police responded to the call and spoke with residents of Ford Hall but found no one who saw or heard anything. There were no injuries. The shooter may have been outside Ford Hall.
April 1993