By: Staff
01/26/2023 12:00 pm
135 Years Ago
The Local News: Evaporated apples have superseded the old-time dried apple. A dealer of this town has long had on hand some 18 barrels of dried apples, for which there appeared to be no sale. He challenged another dealer the other day to make him an offer for them, and accepted fifty cents a barrel. On examining the apples they were found as lively with worms as the average Italian is with fleas. But the purchaser didn’t weaken. “I want them for a mincemeat packing firm,” said he, “and it will be economy to use those apples.” They were shipped. No patent mincemeat for us.
January 1888
By: Staff
01/19/2023 12:00 pm
135 Years Ago
The Local News: Michael Sullivan of Osborn Hollow died recently. The deceased had been in the employ of the D & H Company for the past 18 years and had lost in that time but two or three days. He was track walker between Osborn Hollow and Port Crane, and his daily trip covered twenty miles. During his 18 years of service he walked a trifle over 131,000 miles.
A.N. Deuel, formerly a railroad conductor and later a grocery-man of Oneonta, is reported to have left town with the wife of Geo. Vanderson, a railroad employee. Vanderson is reported to be after them with a blunderbuss. The popular impression appears to be, however, that Deuel has done him a good turn.
January 1888
By: Staff
01/13/2023 10:11 am
135 YEARS AGO
The Local News: Some sixteen of the ladies of the Universalist Sunday School in Mr. Tompkins’ Bible class met on Tuesday evening and organized a society to be known as the “Murray Club.” Miss May Whipple was elected president, Mrs. Charles Paul, vice-president, Miss Anna Haswell, secretary, and Miss Alta Price, treasurer. A committee on entertainment, consisting of Misses Carrie Campbell, Ethel Doolittle and Grace Green was appointed, and it is proposed through the means of sociable, entertainments, lectures, etc. to raise a fund to help build the new church.
The Guy Table Company has been moving their machinery to the new factory at the East End. The building has been constructed under the supervision of S.R. Barnes, and when in running order will be one of the best equipped and most complete table factories in the country. Last year there were upwards of 10,000 tables made by the company, double the number of the year previous. Next year it is estimated that fully 20,000 tables will be made.
January 1888
By: Staff
01/05/2023 5:20 pm
110 Years Ago
The dance given Miss Ella Deitz Bull by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bull at the City Club ballroom at The Oneonta Monday night proved delightful in every way. Miss Bull, one of the season’s attractive young debutantes, had as guests about 60 of the younger set, all of whom declared the event one of the happiest occasions imaginable. Mr. and Mrs. Bull were assisted in chaperoning the party by Mr. and Mrs. Perry R. Young. The music for the event was furnished by Gardner’s full orchestra and the music was enticing. The young folks found keenest pleasure in the merry dance. During the intermission a delicious collation was served in the club dining room by Mssrs. Millard of The Oneonta.
January 1913
By: Staff
12/22/2022 8:00 am
135 Years Ago
The W.C.T.U. (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) of Otsego County held its first annual convention in the First Baptist Church on Tuesday afternoon and evening of this week. Above the platform at the back were the initial letters in white, “W.C.T.U.,” and beneath, a banner bearing the motto, “For God and Home and Native Land.” There were other banners with appropriate mottos, and the altar was made beautiful with flowers. The reports from the various unions were very encouraging. At the evening session there was a full house.
December 1887
By: Staff
12/15/2022 8:00 am
135 Years Ago
The Local News – The D.F. Wilber Hook & Ladder Company are to give a grand minstrel show at the Metropolitan theatre on the evening of December 23rd. As is well known, this company contains among its membership some fine musical talent, all of which will be employed on the evening of the 23rd, and, in addition, four first-class minstrel performers from New York City have been engaged. The program will be very carefully arranged and it is expected the show will prove a great treat.
The town Sunday School Association was well attended and of great interest and benefit to all present. The program called for the discussion of practical questions and the persons to whom they were assigned advanced some good ideas. The importance of the Bible in the school, in the hand of each teacher, was very strongly endorsed. The line between safe and sinful amusements was discussed with considerable animation – public dances, games of chance and general theatre-going being regarded as unbecoming a Christian.
December 1887
By: Staff
12/08/2022 8:00 am
December 8, 2022
135 Years Ago
The Local News – The D.F. Wilber Hook & Ladder Company are to give a grand minstrel show at the Metropolitan theatre on the evening of December 23rd. As is well known, this company contains among its membership some fine musical talent, all of which will be employed on the evening of the 23rd, and, in addition, four first-class minstrel performers from New York City have been engaged. The program will be very carefully arranged and it is expected the show will prove a great treat.
The town Sunday School Association was well attended and of great interest and benefit to all present. The program called for the discussion of practical questions and the persons to whom they were assigned advanced some good ideas. The importance of the Bible in the school, in the hand of each teacher, was very strongly endorsed. The line between safe and sinful amusements was discussed with considerable animation – public dances, games of chance and general theatre-going being regarded as unbecoming a Christian.
December 1887
By: Staff
12/02/2022 2:59 pm
135 Years Ago
The Local News – The Delaware & Hudson Canal Company recently paid out upwards of $2,000 for uniforms for its employees. The suits were furnished to employees at cost price – brakemen paying $17.20 and conductors $24.
The brakemen’s coats, a double-breasted blue sack, have no pockets at all in them, and the conductors’ coats, a double-breasted frock, are also almost devoid of pockets, having only one small receptacle for cash aside from the coat tail pockets. The trainmen and station men now present a very neat appearance.
Only words of praise are heard for the electric street lights. They burn steadily without flickering, their brightness giving the streets a cheery look upon the most dismal night and making the gas lamps look sickly indeed. Yet gas was considered upon its introduction, a great step in advance of the Naptha lamps it succeeded.
December 1887
By: Staff
11/25/2022 10:35 am
135 Years Ago
Yesterday afternoon, a passerby the residence of W.D. Bissell on Main Street, would at a glance have noted that something unusual was going on. The front porch of Mr. Bissell’s residence was fairly covered with baskets and large, carefully wrapped packages, and every few moments a wagon would be driven briskly up, one or more of the packages placed in it, and away it would dash again at a lively speed. Investigation revealed that the women of Oneonta—members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and others—were engaged in the most commendable work of supplying worthy families of the town with Thanksgiving dinners. It had somehow leaked out that it was their intention to do this, and soon they were fairly deluged with contributions from many quarters. One generous person sent six dollars in cash, another sent chickens, another turkeys, another groceries, and so on, until it became apparent that there was to be enough to supply the demand, and the work of arranging and sending out was begun in earnest. Every package or basket was supplied with vegetables in profusion and either a chicken or turkey or fine roast.
November 1887
By: Staff
11/17/2022 11:17 am
November 17, 2022
135 Years Ago
When found in the laboratory of his lamp factory in Newark, from which 4,000 lamps a day are now sent out, Thomas Edison said that the commercial phonograph is now the most interesting thing in the world to him. It is perfectly finished, and tools are being made for its manufacture upon a large scale. The stories which Edison tells of what his perfected phonograph will do are so extraordinary that he scarcely expects people to believe him, and yet he says that the apparatus is so simple, so effective, and so immediately useful that he is certain of its rapid introduction into business—far more certain than he was of the universal adoption of the telephone as a business instrument. “My phonograph I expect to see in every business office. Their operation is simplicity itself and cannot fail. The merchant or clerk who wishes to send a letter has only to set the machine in motion, and to talk in his natural voice and at the usual rate of speed into the receiver. When he has finished, the sheet, or phonograph, as I call it, is ready for putting into the box made on purpose for the mails. We are making the sheets in three sizes—one for letters from 800-1,000 words; another size for 2,000 words; another size for 4,000 words. The receiver of a phonogram will put it into his apparatus, and the message will be given out more clearly, more distinctly, than the best telephone message ever sent.”
November 1887
By: Staff
11/10/2022 11:54 am
November 10, 2022
110 Years Ago
A plurality of 200,000 votes for Woodrow Wilson over Taft, and Taft’s lead of 60,000 over Roosevelt, is the result of yesterday’s election in New York State so far as confirmed by nearly complete returns. The Democratic Party presidential plurality is the largest New York State has ever given to that party and it is the first time in the history of the state that the voters outside of the metropolitan district have given a Democratic presidential candidate a plurality. So far, the totals are: Wilson – 648,066; Taft – 477,274; Roosevelt – 381,500. Nationwide Wilson has secured 387 electoral votes; Roosevelt has 89; and Taft only 12. In conceding defeat Taft said he hopes to see organized a national “Republican Club” entirely apart from the Republican National Committee. Such a club he said will “cherish the principles of the party and be a source of political activity, not only during election years, but at all times.” Mr. Taft declared that Mr. Wilson would face a Congress made up to a large extent of untried men who have come to believe that to show their faith with the people they must at times be “insurgents” and oppose the program of the leaders.
November 1912
By: Staff
10/20/2022 2:41 pm
October 20, 2022
135 Years Ago
Stephen Parish, an old and respected resident of Oneonta, died on Thursday last at his home, on River Street. Mr. Parish was a son of the late Andrew Parish, and was born on the farm owned by him at his death. The father, Squire Parish, whose widow is still living on River Street, bought this farm when that part of Oneonta was in the Town of Kortright, and here his family of boys was born. It is related that on one occasion the tax gatherer called upon Mr. Parish for his tax, but twenty-five cents. Mr. Parish had plenty of barter, but no cash, and, strange as it may seem, the money could not be found in the town, barter then being all the go. The tax gatherer, therefore, went away without the money. A few days afterward it was procured by Mr. Parish and he trudged his way on foot to Kortright and placed it in the tax gatherer’s hands. Stephen was a man of good judgment and strict integrity, and had filled with credit local offices, representing the town in the Board of Supervisors for one or more terms. For many years he had been actively identified with the Presbyterian church.
October 1887
By: Staff
10/13/2022 3:11 pm
October 13, 2022
135 Years Ago
Another of the old landmarks of Oneonta goes with the razing of the old Goodyear saw mill at this village. The mill has become practically useless because of the failure of the water power by reason of the change in the channel of the Susquehanna above the dam. It is understood that the mill yard is to be divided into building lots by Miss Lyman and sold as such.
October 1887
By: Reporter
12/16/2021 12:36 pm
135 Years Ago
The new truck of the D.F. Wilber hook-and-ladder company arrived on Saturday. It is said to be the finest truck for hand service in the world. Rumsey & Co. of Seneca Falls are the builders. It is very handsomely decorated, and it is equipped with the latest appliances, including a Bangor extension ladder. On each side is a portrait in oil of D.F. Wilber. We congratulate the company, and the Oneonta Fire Department, upon the possession of so handsome a piece of furniture.
An important real estate sale was the transfer, on Thursday last, of the Wilber Mill property at Main and Front streets, to D.F. Wilber and Reuben Reynolds. The property has a Main street frontage of 92 feet. The consideration was $6,500. Mr. Wilber will continue to use the mill until spring, at which time it is not unlikely that a business block will be put up in its place.
December 1886
By: Staff
12/09/2021 10:00 am
110 Years Ago
At about 8:30 o’clock last Thursday evening, while a double rig from the livery of Dr. Hamilton at Delhi was being driven from that village to Oneonta, the wagon was struck by a light engine at the Ulster & Delaware crossing between Sherman Lake and West Davenport. Both horses were killed and the wagon entirely demolished. All three occupants of the wagon, Emery Young of Calicoon, Henry Young of Scranton, and Carl Bartholomew of Delhi,
were injured. Emery Young sustained a fractured skull, and though the men were at once taken on the engine and hurried to Oneonta, he died at about 9 o’clock as he was being lifted from the ambulance. Bartholomew was
badly bruised, but his injuries were not serious. Henry Young, who was hurled nearly 40 feet on impact, though painfully bruised, was able to be about the city the next morning. The engine was apparently running rapidly as portions of the demolished vehicle were carried more than fifty rods from the crossing.
December 1911
