Hometown History

February 16, 2023

135 Years Ago
The Local News – The tower of the Episcopal Church is to cost $1,895, and will be carried up 31 feet in stone and nine feet of galvanized iron – a total of 40 feet. The top finish square will consist of a battlement and pinnacles with crockets at the corners, and on one of the pinnacles a cross.
We noted some time since that W.L. Scott of Norwich, a brother of Captain Walter Scott of Oneonta was interested in a patent for the manufacture of gas for heating and lighting from crude petroleum. The right for the State of Kansas has recently been sold, and experiments made at Abilene with the new light and fuel are pronounced entirely successful. The gas is wonderfully cheap.
The state has appropriated $2,500 for the Gettysburg monument of the 121st regiment. Its site will be the slope of Little Round Top on the ne’er-to-be-forgotten field, and the design is of an infantry soldier, in bronze, outfitted as our men were at the time. An added $4,500 is asked for — $2,500 from Otsego and the rest from Herkimer.

February 1888

110 Years Ago
Engineer Frederick G. McAdam of Oneonta was caught between his own moving engine and the caboose of a train he was pushing up Richmondville Hill Tuesday afternoon about 1:30 o’clock and was so severely injured that he died less than an hour later in St. Peter’s Hospital at Albany. McAdam was returning with a string of empties and as is often customary assisted the train in front of him up the hill at Richmondville using his locomotive as a pusher attached to the rear of the caboose. From some unknown reason, probably the bursting of the air hose, there was a sudden stop to the train in front of him. McAdam, who for some unaccountable reason, was riding on the pilot of his engine at the time, was caught between the locomotive and the caboose, which the locomotive lifted high on its draw head. The head brakeman of McAdam’s train, who was riding in the engineer’s cab, closed the throttle and rushed to the aid of McAdam.

February 1913

90 Years Ago
“Are we going to fight to prevent repeal of the 18th amendment, or are we going to let the wets have what they want and then try to regulate it?” Mrs. D. Leigh Colvin, New York State W.C.T.U. president and veteran prohibition campaigner, demanded in an address at the First Methodist Episcopal church in Oneonta last Friday. “The 18th amendment is worth fighting for,” she insisted. However, Mrs. Colvin maintained that if repeal did come it was the responsibility of those opposed to the 18th amendment to find a suitable means of regulating the liquor traffic. The only suggestion Mrs. Colvin was willing to make regarding a possible course of procedure if liquor should be legalized, was that it be consumed on the premises where bought, and the consumer not be permitted to go home in an intoxicated condition. A physician, she said, could determine the condition of the user. This, she believed, would be preferable to having the drinking done in a home before the children. A “Home Protectors’ Dinner” was served at 6:30 p.m. by a group of women of the church and was attended by about 75 persons.

February 1933

70 Years Ago
Jim Catella, Oneonta’s Director of Civil Defense, is concerned with the real lack of interest in the city on the part of its citizens to volunteer for civil defense activities. It is about time that we face the fact that bombing attacks on our cities are a distinct possibility. Our government is making every honorable effort for peace and there is reason to hope those efforts will succeed. But if war should come it is unlikely that America will be as fortunate in avoiding damage as it has been in the past. Oneonta is not classed as a target city. It is designated to assist and render aid to larger cities, but unless we snap out of our lethargy, it will be impossible for us to cope with any emergency.

February 1953

50 Years Ago
Vice-President Spiro Agnew has informed the City of Oneonta through an assistant that he will not be able to attend the city’s Memorial Day Observance. Mayor James Lettis had extended an invitation to the vice-president, but according to his staffer, Agnew receives so many invitations like Oneonta’s “that he is forced to turn down many that he might ordinarily like to accept.” “Although he will not be able to be with you, he hopes that your observance will be a success,” the letter stated. City officials said they really didn’t expect Agnew to accept, but figured it was worth trying anyway.

February 1973

40 Years Ago
The Oneonta Common Council will vote today on changes to the city’s housing ordinance designed to improve the safety of apartments. Last May, the Common Council approved a law requiring landlords to install smoke alarms in apartments after Oneonta State coed Karen Ann Spiegal, 22, Westbury, Massachusetts, died in a fire in her apartment building in January 1982. The city has since stepped up its inspection of rental properties. The major change to be voted on tonight would require landlords of multiple dwelling apartments to install a central smoke alert system instead of special fire-rated doors. The system would consist of inter-connected alarms that could be heard throughout the building.

February 1983

20 Years Ago
Many U.S. allies as well as skeptical Americans are struggling to understand why the Bush administration is pressing so urgently for military action against Iraq. Why war? Why now? One reason given is President Bush’s conviction that failing to deal with Saddam Hussein now will lead to far greater dangers in the future, such as the danger that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction might be used, or fall into the hands of terrorists. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld describes a 21st century world marked by increasing numbers of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the technology for delivering them.

February 2003