Bound Volumes, Hometown History

July 3, 2025

70 YEARS AGO

Hundreds of persons flocked to the Gas Avenue crossing of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad yesterday to see the results of a wreck that blocked both mainline tracks for six hours and 17 minutes. Three empty freight cars in the middle of an 11-car train went off the track at 8:50 a.m. One demolished the watchman’s cabin, ramming it into the millrace. Another tipped over onto the southbound main tracks and the third stopped upright against the signal cabin. The crossing watchman, Joseph Mesite of 33 Grand Street had just arrived for work, and was putting his lunch pail inside the cabin when the accident happened. The northbound train was leaving Track No. 4 and was going through a spring switch onto Track #2, the north main track, about 150 feet north of the crossing. The train stopped – then began backing up. At this point Mr. Mesite heard strange noises. The three cars were off the rails and were being pushed. “I ran out and saw the cars coming at me,” Mesite said. “So, I ran fast over the bridge. I was just in time.” A moment later, a Northern Pacific boxcar shattered the cabin, shattering it against the concrete abutment of the bridge and breaking an abandoned eight-inch gas line leading to the old gas plant. Mr. Mesite would have been killed had he not been alert. He never saw his lunch pail again. His wife later brought him a new lunch.

July 1955

40 YEARS AGO

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to give mentally retarded people the same legal protection blacks and women enjoy against discriminatory treatment by state and local governments. The court, by a 6-3 vote, reversed a ruling that would have required the nation’s courts to review more stringently any law or government policy that singles out mentally retarded people for different treatment. Justice Thurgood Marshall, the Court’s only black, led the three dissenters in decrying “segregation and degradation of the mentally retarded…that in its virulence and bigotry rivaled and indeed paralleled the worst excesses of Jim Crow.” Marshall accused the court of playing down “the lengthy history of purposeful unequal treatment of the retarded.” The court was unanimous, however, in striking down a Cleburne, Texas zoning ordinance that required group homes for the mentally retarded to get special permits before locating in the same residential neighborhoods where apartment buildings, houses, public schools and nursing homes need no permits.

July 1985

30 YEARS AGO

Microsoft Corporation mogul Bill Gates is the world’s richest private individual with a $12.9 billion fortune. Gates’ wealth rose from $8.1 billion during the past year as Microsoft’s stock price soared. Gates was the richest American a year ago, but ranked second worldwide. Investor Warren Buffett was second with $10.7 billion, up from $7.9 billion a year ago. Stock in Buffet’s investing company Berkshire Hathaway, rose 38 percent in the past year. It was the first time in the nine years that Forbes magazine has been compiling the list that two Americans came out on top. Heirs of the late retailer Sam Walton remained the world’s richest family with $23.4 billion, slightly less than a year ago.

July 1995

20 YEARS AGO

Sandra Day O’Connor’s unexpected resignation from the U.S. Supreme Court closes out a career as the first female justice and the majority-making anchor for a stream of 5-4 decision cases covering abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty and more over the past quarter century. President Bush pledged to name a successor quickly. O’Connor’s decision to retire creates the first vacancy on the high court in 11 years.

July 2005