90 YEARS AGO: The Post Office yesterday delivered some 500 gift packages to Oneontans, who, but for a recent order of Postmaster General James A. Farley, otherwise would have had to wait until today for their presents from relatives or friends. Delivery of packages on Christmas day is a new idea with the Post Office department according to Oneonta Postmaster Chester A. Miller. Letters and parcels were also dispatched on Sunday in an effort to expedite the handling of the…
Online home of The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta
Advertisement
tom heitz history column
185 YEARS AGO: What is a Loco Foco? A democrat, a benevolent, kind-hearted, honest man – a lover of the human race – one who is happy where others are happy – who despises all aristocracy, all tyranny over the minds of men – one who respects the industrious poor man as much as he does the rich man, (and more, if he be more honest) – one in favor of having the workman paid when he has earned his…
110 YEARS AGO: Local News – Ice at the Electric Pond at East End is about eight inches thick and that at the Plains Lake six inches. If the cold weather continues, it will not be many days before the Ice Company will be marking out its fields and preparing the annual harvest. The skaters are already improving the opportunity.
While doubtless some provision should be made for the young to coast, yet the practice of allowing quite young children to…
110 YEARS AGO: We must get together. The civilization of American communities has developed to such a degree that each person becomes a cogwheel. No person who calls Cooperstown his home can truthfully say that he lives independently of its civilization. Granting the truth of this statement, then each citizen is obliged to do his or her something for Cooperstown. That something may be embodied in personal work along lines which will lead toward cleaner or better citizenship or in…
135 YEARS AGO: The Local News—The peculiar weather of the past year or so, with the great amount of moisture deposited, is said to be accounted for by Professor Tyndall upon the theory that the Gulf Stream is steadily approaching our North Atlantic coast. He bases his argument on the discovery of gulf weed further and further in-shore during a period of ten years, and it is stated that the stream is already many miles nearer the coast than formerly.…
210 YEARS AGO: Martial Hymn by Wm. Ray—Arm! Sons of freedom arm! The British legions come! Blow loud the trumpet of alarm, And roll the thund’ring drum! Fly to repel the foe! Your dearest rights to save—Crush the dire monster at a blow, Ye spirits of the brave! Shall Britons, drunk with blood, Your peaceful shores invade? Shall the fell despots of the flood, Your conquerors be made? Forbid it mighty God! My country, O forbid! No, let us nail…
90 YEARS AGO: Denouncing the liquor traffic as “Public Enemy No. 1,” Mrs. Ella A. Boole, veteran dry crusader, called for its complete destruction and declared that not a single promise by repeal advocates has been kept. Looking back over twelve months of repeal, Mrs. Boole said it not only had “not changed the nature or effects of alcohol,” but had failed to live up to its financial and sociological promises. “Prohibition,” she predicted, “will return. How and when I…
160 YEARS AGO: Is the policy of the Administration “Peace” on a fair and liberal basis? The great majority of the people, North and South, earnestly desire Peace; but can the rulers at Washington and Richmond agree on terms? Peace on the basis of the “extermination of slavery” appears to be the program of the Administration. The abandonment of slavery was insisted on by Mr. Lincoln before the election; and now that the people have sustained him at the polls,…
70 YEARS AGO: Last week in New York, three youths were arrested on charges of being narcotic wholesalers for one-third of Harlem. Police estimate that the ring of three youths and their minor peddlers were realizing from $2,000 to $3,000 in profits daily. Marijuana comes from the Indian hemp plant—an inoffensive looking weed, which can be grown unnoticed in any state in the Union. The tremendous profit motive encourages get-rich-quick opportunists to trade in illicit drugs. One of the largest…
135 YEARS AGO: More on the Rev. C. Hudson Smith (who, had been pastor, 1883-1885, of the First Presbyterian Church, Cooperstown): Some points deserve to be stated in order to set at rest rumors and conjectures that Mr. Smith may be still alive. The relatives and family friends accept fully the suicide as a fact, and this seems most plainly indicated by a simple circumstance. Mr. Smith was afflicted with astigmatic vision, requiring a peculiar form of lens. These were…