HOMETOWN HISTORY

September 10, 2020

150 Years Ago

Local: A large number of seedy tramps of both sexes pass through this county daily. They are not afraid of padlocks and manage to get into cellars and outhouses with but little difficulty. Farmers had better rub the rust from their guns.
L.H. Blend has the contracts for erecting elegant new houses for A.C. Moody and E.M. Vosburgh on Elm Street. The houses will be nearly alike and built on adjoining lots between James Cope’s and H.N. Rowe’s to cost about $3,000 each. We have seen the plans and can assure our villagers of a handsome addition to the beauty of the place. Mr. Vosburgh has sold his lot on Grand Street to Rev. H.H. Allen, a one-fourth acre at $250.
A clergyman had a milk-white horse, which, on account of his beautiful form, he called Zion. Having ordered his horse to the door, a friend asked him where he was going. “Why,” said he, “to mount Zion.”
Rockford, Illinois recently had a baseball match between married and single women in which the latter won an overwhelming victory. Male spectators were ruthlessly denied admittance.

September 1870

125 Years Ago

Fire in Oneonta – Last Saturday evening at 8:40 a fire was discovered in the rear of the Niles laundry building on Broad Street. It was only a few minutes before flames were leaping upward from windows on the main floor. The building was originally a store house for the Ford Stone Store, then the Ford & Howe cultivator factory, but which has been used as a rag-sorting room, a carpenter shop, and of late years for S.C. Niles steam laundry. For some months James Altkens has been conducting the business. The upper floor was used by A.C. Bouton, manufacturer of cigar boxes, and who had a large wheel in the building for cleaning carpets. The loss falls heavily on Mr. Niles, who had only $2,000 insurance on the building and machinery. Loss: $5,000. Mr. Altkens’ losses on work not delivered and on some machinery put in – Insured for $300. Mr. Bouton loses about $1,000. He had an insurance of $500.

September 1895

80 Years Ago

Despite widely circulated rumors that the familiar hunting, fishing, and trapping button which has been worn for years by New York State sportsmen would be eliminated next year, the Conservation Department announced this week that the license button law remained the same and that sportsmen would be required to wear the buttons during the 1941 hunting, fishing and trapping seasons as heretofore.

September 1940

60 Years Ago

Voting Information for Active Duty Military Personnel: Applications for military ballots for the forthcoming November elections must be mailed in time to reach Albany, New York on or before October 27, 1960. Application forms for military ballots are available from the voting officer at Armed Forces installations; the Division for Servicemen’s Voting, Secretary of State, Albany 1, New York; also from the Board of Elections of the home county of
a service member and his family. Also eligible for military ballot distribution are a spouse, parent or child of a serviceman who are with him at his place of military duty. They may apply for military ballots in the same way as a serviceman.

September 1960

40 Years Ago

The unofficial results of the Primary Elections on Tuesday, September 9, are as follows: In the Thirty-Second District Congressional race: Republicans: Pat Bombard, 247; Herbert Brewer, 308; George Wortley, 741; Peter DelGiorno, 776. Democrats: Gary Nicholson, 343; Jeffrey Brooks, 514. In the U.S. Senatorial race: Republicans: Alphonse D’Amato, 1,426; Senator Jacob Javits, 1,452. Democrats: John Santucci, 82; John Lindsay, 249; Elizabeth Holtzman, 504; Bess Myerson, 528. Statewide: U.S. Senatorial Choices were Republican Alphonse D’Amato and
Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman.

September 1980

20 Years Ago

You are what you eat and drink, smoke and think. So says Dr. Anthony Weil, a Harvard Medical School graduate and alternative medicine guru. Dr. Weil, who is more apt to prescribe a healthy diet than a handy pill, strongly
emphasizes the need for life-style changes in achieving wellness. The outspoken theorist became a medical doctor in 1988. His first practice was as a clinic volunteer. He then packed in the prospects of a lucrative medical career to follow Richard Evans Schulthes, an Amazon explorer to South America. “Local healers were using these marvelous plants,” Weil commented, “and established medicine had never heard of them,” On his return to the U.S. in 1975, Weil was firmly convinced of the potential of natural remedies in maintaining wellness and combating disease. Since that time, he has been occupied with teaching, writing, and spreading the doctrine of alternative medicine.

September 2000

10 Years Ago

Albert Sheer, an Oneonta resident since 1961, will be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Sunday, September 12. Sheer was born in Holmesdale, Pennsylvania, but moved to Norwich in 1945. And it was there when his wrestling career took off. As a high school senior, Albert Sheer swept the wrestling season with 13 straight victories and went on to win the Section III championship. The summer before going to SUNY Cortland, Sheer also managed to capture the 147-pound AAU championship in Schenectady. SUNYAC’s first year in existence (1961) was Sheer’s final and senior year at Cortland State. After graduating from Cortland, Sheer moved to Oneonta and was employed at Oneonta High School in the Physical Education Department where he coach junior varsity and varsity boys’ wrestling for 16 years. Sheer’s coaching career progressed and after volunteering
his services at SUNY Oneonta, he became the Assistant Head Coach at the college where he served for 22 years.

September 2010