Bound Volumes

January 11, 2024

135 YEARS AGO

Local—Mr. E.F. Beadle has been in town for a few days looking after the finishing of his new cottage. He has also purchased of J. H. Kelley the Coburn house and lot, and will have possession the first of April, when he will put mechanics at work enlarging and modernizing the building, to be on a par with his other cottages on Pine Street—a street that through the enterprise of Mr. Beadle has become one of the finest and most desirable in Cooperstown. In addition to the above, Mr. Beadle has purchased of Owen McCabe, the grounds in the rear of the Coburn property and Tucker place.

January 11, 1889

110 YEARS AGO

The last will and testament of the late J.A. Melrose Johnston was filed in the Surrogate’s office late last Tuesday afternoon. By its provisions the Misses Elizabeth and Claudine Johnston, nieces, and Morgan Johnston, nephew, of Morris are to receive $2,000 each; William E. Johnston, a brother, of Utica, is to receive $5,000; and the remainder of the estate is to be divided equally between the wife, Genevieve Cory Johnston and sons, Waldo C. Johnston and Douglas T. Johnston. Mrs. Johnston is made executrix of the will which was drawn December 9, 1910. The transfer tax affidavit estimates the value of the estate at upwards of $10,000 ($316,692.40 in 2024 dollars) real and $10,000 personal property.

January 7, 1914

60 YEARS AGO

The $600,000 ($6,129,530.35 in 2024 dollars) libel suit instituted a year ago against Mrs. Isabel Moore, authoress of “The Sex Cure,” and her publisher, Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp. of New York, “is still very much alive.” A spokesman for the plaintiff Mrs. Walter Dieterle said the case might be scheduled as early as March. Mrs. Dieterle is represented by Van Horne and Feury, a Cooperstown law firm. Mrs. Moore, who wrote the controversial book under the pen name Elaine Dorian, is represented by the Binghamton law firm Cherrin and Gold. The publisher is represented by a New York firm. The plaintiff claimed that she suffered “mental distress and damage to her reputation” because of the book, which is alleged to be based on private life in Cooperstown. On Halloween night in 1962 Mrs. Moore’s house was painted with foot-high slanderous words, an incident that brought national attention and “unfavorable publicity.” Sales of the book, which already sold out 250,000 copies, zoomed after the uproar and made state and national headlines.

January 8, 1964

35 YEARS AGO

The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital opened a breast-screening clinic January 6. The clinic will be offered every Friday afternoon. The screening program includes a breast examination conducted by a physician’s assistant and an instructional session on self-breast examination. A mammogram will be administered following the examination if it is deemed necessary. A mammogram is an X-ray which can reveal tumors and slow changes in the structure of breasts.

January 11, 1989

20 YEARS AGO

January 9, 2004