HOMETOWN HISTORY, June 28, 2013

125 Years Ago
Over the hill to the poor house – Mrs. Adelia Tobey, widow of the late Zacheus Tobey, formerly of Morris, aged 65 years, was on Saturday taken to the poor house by overseer Beach. She was formerly in good circumstances having, to use her own words, “everything that heart could wish.” Mr. Tobey owned a splendid farm of 160 acres ten miles from the village of Morris. There are five children of Mr. Tobey living, of whom Mrs. Tobey is stepmother, she having married Mr. Tobey 23 years before his death, which occurred four years ago. She is a daughter of the late Rice Cook who lived all his life in West Oneonta. She had a sister living in Unadilla and a brother and sister living in Pennsylvania, the former in Thompson Centre, Susquehanna County; the sister about a mile from him. For some time Mrs. Tobey has been living in Oneonta and has been assisted by the Ladies Benevolent Society. She became wholly destitute, however, and unable even to pay her rent, and the poor house was therefore the only recourse. There is a great deal of sympathy felt for Mrs. Tobey by those familiar with her history.
June 1888

80 Years Ago
Henry W. Shaver, 48 years old, of 69 Hudson Street, was killed yesterday morning about 6:30 o’clock at the Rose Avenue crossing when the wagon he was driving over his milk route was struck by a southbound D. & H. freight train which hurled Shaver 80 feet, causing a fractured skull and compound fractures of both arms. Shaver’s death came about 15 minutes after he had delivered milk to his own home, about one quarter mile from the crossing. It is believed he was checking his milk deliveries in a notebook and failed to notice the approach of the train which was pulling into Oneonta at a moderate rate of speed. In the opinion of Dr. Norman W. Getman, coroner, death was instantaneous. There were no eyewitnesses to the fatality. The horse was off the tracks and escaped injury. The left side of the wagon was demolished.
June 1933

60 Years Ago
Police, Oneonta firemen and Boy Scouts yesterday searched for nearly four hours for a possibly trapped woodsman, or a plane pilot, following a report to police at 7:16 a.m. that calls for help had been heard on West Street. Mrs. Thomas Chouffi, 175 West Street, notified police that she had heard what appeared to be calls from the woods near her home. It was at first surmised that a military plane might have been a casualty in the Sunday night storm and its pilot bailed out and caught in a tree with the plane crashing to start the forest fire which swept the mountain top across from Cathedral Farm. However, this speculation turned out to be groundless when searchers found a boy calling his lost dog. The dog was later found to have been killed on the road and the fire to have been sparked when a lightning bolt struck a barbed wire fence. The search party was recalled at 11 a.m.
June 1953

40 Years Ago
The volunteer army is about to become a reality. The president’s authority to induct men into the armed services expires on June 30, and for the first time in a quarter-century the nation will be without a military draft. The Nixon administration announced that it would not seek renewal of the draft authority when the current law expired, thereby fulfilling one of the President’s campaign pledges of 1968. The Selective Service machinery will remain in force, however. Men will still have to register for the draft when they turn 18, and be assigned lottery numbers based on their birthdays. In case of national emergency, the Selective Service will have a pool of young men already processed and classified who can be called up in a hurry. Military pay rates and other benefits have increased dramatically in the past few years to lure volunteers for the peacetime military. Special bonuses are being offered to attract skilled specialists, particularly doctors, and to recruit volunteers for the National Guard and Reserves.
June 1973

30 Years Ago
As expected, the Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday defeated 55-45 a Democratic proposal to limit this year’s round of income tax cuts to $720 per couple. The Senate action means that less will be withheld from paychecks starting Friday. The new withholding schedules are based on tax rates averaging about 10 percent below 1982 rates. Democrats, who prevailed in the House of Representatives, claimed the tax cut benefitted upper income groups more than was fair. When the reduction is fully in effect next January 1, the total cut in rates will average about 23.5 percent. Meanwhile, the Armed Services Committee approved 199.9 billion for military programs such as the MX missile, the B1B bomber and the Trident submarine.
June 1983

20 Years Ago
Five foreign countries – England, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan – will be represented at the ninth James Fenimore Cooper Conference to be held July 11-16 on the campus of the State University of New York at Oneonta, and in Cooperstown. This is the first time the Cooper Conference has had five visitors from abroad at one conference although previous conferences have enrolled participants from various foreign countries. Conference participants share their enthusiasm and understanding of the writings of James Fenimore Cooper as well as tour Cooperstown and the Otsego Lake area during the five day event.
June 1993

10 Years Ago
It’s only a matter of time before Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are captured or accounted for, President Bush said Tuesday as he announced $3 billion in military and economic aid to reward Pakistan for its help in the war on terror. At a joint news conference at the president’s Maryland retreat, Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf claimed a united front against terrorism. Musharraf said his government was making extraordinary efforts to track down bin Laden and his lieutenants, by searching treacherous tribal border areas he said had not been entered by the Pakistani army in over a century.
June 2003