Bound Volumes, Hometown History
September 10, 2026
135 YEARS AGO
The McCammon piano factory is the scene of bustling activity this week. Already, seventeen carloads of machinery and material have arrived from Albany and the factory so long silent resounds with the sound of hammers and the step of workmen. Before the close of the week the workmen, of whom twenty are already in town, will have begun the first piano ever made in Oneonta. The McGammon Company proposes to exhibit several of its pianos at the Central New York Fair.
The Union School Library, which now contains some 1,800 volumes, will be open every Tuesday and Friday during the school year. Every resident of the district is entitled to use the library free, and it is hoped there will be a general disposition on the part of citizens to avail themselves of the privilege.
September 1891
90 YEARS AGO
Starting the second week of drills, Coach Glenn A. Johnson and his aides stepped up the pre-season training for the Hartwick College football candidates yesterday. Emphasis was placed on offensive play. Give Coach Johnson a couple of big tackles and there won’t be any shedding of tears on the Hartwick campus this fall. The Blue and White mentor has six tackles now in camp, but whether they will be able to stand up under fire remains to be seen. Mal Bard of Oneonta and Randall Holden of Pine Plains, lettermen from last year’s squad will be shifted to the tackle berths to work with Eddie Maier of St. Johnsville and Paul Heavener of Endicott. All four are over six feet and balance the scales in the neighborhood of 175 pounds. Harry LaDuke of Cooperstown is the only back returning from the 1935 squad but at 215 pounds, he will probably be shifted to the line at guard.
September 1936
50 YEARS AGO
Shadowy terrorists have picked France as a place to carry out assassinations, kidnappings and bombings, leaving French police frustrated. In the past few years two ambassadors have been assassinated in the streets of Paris, two other diplomats seriously wounded, an Air France plane hijacked, bazooka shells fired at Israeli planes, amid scores of terrorist bombings and other violent acts. Only one major terrorist organization has been broken up by the French police. The biggest fish of all, the international terrorist leader known as Carlos, skipped through a police net and out of France after killing two detectives in a bungled police operation. Interior Minister Michel Poniatowski said he is convinced the “terrorist groups would be dismantled one day.
Weary from lack of sleep, participants in the first muscular dystrophy telethon locally celebrated in Oneonta collected $8,810. The organizers’ goal was $5,000. Nationally, the Jerry Lewis telethon received $21.7 million in pledges. Lewis expressed the hope that as much as $23 million could be raised. Bill Bright, master of ceremonies for the local event, ordered several prominent residents including Mayor James Lettis and former newscaster Mike Doherty into a makeshift jail. Residents then called in pledges to get them out.
September 1976
20 YEARS AGO
Two memorial services and a forum presented by an anti-war government reform group are among local events scheduled to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack. An ecumenical prayer service in remembrance of 9/11 will be held in Veterans Park in Stamford at 8:30 a.m. St. Mary’s Parish in Oneonta, 39 Walnut Street, will hold an evening of prayer Monday. Restore The Soul of America, a newly formed Oneonta group, will be hosting a 7 p.m. forum at the First United Methodist Church, 66 Church Street, to discuss the ongoing war in Iraq and a “looming catastrophe in Iran and the Middle East.”
September 2006
