Bound Volumes
February 20, 2025
210 YEARS AGO
20 Dollars Reward, will be given to any person who will return a HORSE, which was stolen from the stable of the subscriber, on the 19th inst. and marked as follows: two white hind feet—mare headed—has been nicked, but carries a bad tail—a little lame in one of his fore feet—good trotter—lively good eye—about fifteen hands high—bright bay color—has been hogged, but his mane now half grown. There was taken at the same time a common saddle and bridle, the latter having a piece of untanned skin, with the hair out, upon the head-stall. James Cooper.
February 16, 1815
160 YEARS AGO
Excerpts from an editorial in the Mobile (Alabama) Advertiser & Register: “We do not attempt to disguise the fact that the Confederate cause is at this moment passing through its most dangerous crisis. Large numbers of the people are heartsick of the war, and willing to end it upon terms which would have been deemed treasonable two years, or even one year, ago. We have not a doubt that the slave proprietors large and small, would compromise today for peace and independence on the basis of a gradual and universal emancipation of the blacks. We may say that large numbers would be willing to give up all their cherished thoughts of independence in exchange for naked peace upon terms of reconstruction.”
February 24, 1865
110 YEARS AGO
William Coleman, an aged man of more than 70 years, was arrested in New York City on February 6, and charged with the robbery of a Wells-Fargo Express wagon. Coleman is the same man who robbed Mrs. F. Ambrose Clark of $30,000 worth of jewelry in 1903, and who was later apprehended while digging up the jewels where he had hidden them in Van Cortlandt Park. Coleman’s record shows thirteen arrests and 28 years spent in various prisons dating back to 1869.
February 17, 1915
85 YEARS AGO
The Old School Court, Cooperstown’s largest housing project in years, was announced on Monday by W.T. Samson Smith, the owner, as ninety percent complete. Designed to provide the community with a group of modern dwellings suitable for small families at moderate expense, Mr. Smith states that all of the eight units are ready for occupancy and have been rented on yearly contracts.
February 21, 1940
60 YEARS AGO
The New York State Historical Association this week announced plans for a new library building to be erected on the Fenimore House campus north of Cooperstown. The new building will be designed by the New York City architectural firm of Moore & Hutchins with Dr. Keyes D. Metcalf, retired director of the Harvard University library as consultant. The new structure will provide space for the association’s growing library which now numbers some 40,000. No exact site has been selected, but Dr. Louis C. Jones, NYSHA director, said it would be somewhere in the vicinity of Fenimore House.
February 17, 1965
20 YEARS AGO
Three months ago, residents and staff left the Meadows, which had been Otsego County’s nursing home for half a century, and moved to the county’s new nursing home, Otsego Manor. This week, the county began to reoccupy the Meadows. About 50 Department of Social Services employees will move into their new quarters, which have been renovated by the county’s Building Services Department. The DSS sections that will move were formerly housed in leased space in the Greystone Building on State Route 28, south of Cooperstown.
February 16, 2005