90 YEARS AGO: Inherited monkey characteristics are responsible for humankind’s widespread use of the telephone, radio, talking pictures, and similar inventions, Dr. Orestes Caldwell, engineer and editor, asserts. “Outstanding traits of the monkey tribe,” said Dr. Caldwell, “are love of chatter and overwhelming curiosity – traits which have carried our own evolution to its present level of civilization. Monkeys like to gather in the treetops and chatter. And today, their human descendants delight to gather in conventions, night clubs, legislatures…
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hometown history - Page 9
90 YEARS AGO: Brooding over the death of his parents a few years ago, and despondent because he was left with almost no near relatives, Ellery A. McGinnis, 28 years old, went to his mother’s grave in Glenwood cemetery yesterday afternoon and ended his life by putting a bullet from a .32 caliber revolver through his head. Dr. Norman W. Getman of Oneonta, Otsego County coroner, visited the scene and inspected the body. Dr. Getman concluded that the man “died…
135 Years Ago: The Local News—A sea gull, a rare bird for this region, was shot near the upper reservoir a few days since by Albert Richardson. Taxidermist Wm. McCrum has it mounted in fine shape. All Halloween was duly observed last Thursday evening by a company of youngsters, who played the mischief with door steps, hitching posts, signs and even the sidewalks in various parts of the village. An Italian attempted to raise some money by buying a stove…
110 YEARS AGO: Evidence of skill with the rifle was witnessed Saturday by many Oneontans when two Ford motor cars were driven into the city by Mssrs. William Whitney and William Walker of Deposit, containing three fine bucks which were shot in the Long Lake region in the Adirondacks. Willis Walker, who was also a member of the party, brought down two of the bucks with his rifle. Among all the autumn decorations in the display windows of the city,…
90 YEARS AGO: Plans for the Fourth Annual Halloween Festival under the auspices of the service clubs of Oneonta are complete. Capt. Lewis M. Baker, general chairman of the affair this year, presided at a meeting attended by representatives from the Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions clubs. The marchers will assemble in Walnut Street and proceed down Elm Street to Main, Chestnut and Academy streets beginning at 7:30 o’clock. The parade will consist of three or four divisions of school students…
50 YEARS AGO: Oneonta’s police force may be getting its first women officers soon. City personnel technician John Insetta said yesterday that six women are among 73 applicants for positions at the police department. Civil Service examinations will be administered on November 9. There are presently two vacancies on the force. This is the largest group of applicants that the city has ever had for a vacancy in the department, Insetta said. Insetta attributes the increase to pay raises the…
70 YEARS AGO: Dickie, a two-month-old blue parakeet, flew through an open door about 3 p.m. yesterday to explore the big world outside the Donald Holcomb home, 44 Church Street. Thereafter, the bird cut a trail of high adventure. In a tree at 36 Cherry Street, Dickie was espied by David Rittinger, 8, who captured him. Thinking there might be a reward for the bird, David took Dickie to the home of Police Sgt. James Fawcett, 44 Clinton Street, where…
135 YEARS AGO: The new perfecting press of the Eckerson Printing Press Company was tested last week at the manufactory at Cohoes, and worked like a charm. To see a press print on both sides of paper at one time from flat beds of type at the rate of several thousand impressions per hour, is a novelty which will doubtless attract the attention of printers, there being, no other press like it. The press is for job work, and also…
110 YEARS AGO Formal notice was given to the world today by President Wilson that the United States at this time cannot pass judgment upon or take any part in controversies between the warring European nations over alleged violations of the rules of civilian warfare and humanity. He said settlement of these questions would have to wait until the end of the war, which he prayed might be very soon. A resume of the findings of the Belgian Commission of…
110 YEARS AGO: The State Education Department has made public a list of students of the public schools of the state who have passed the examinations necessary for college entrance diplomas and who are eligible for state scholarships under the amended school law of 1913. Those eligible and their test averages from Oneonta are: Riley Crippen (90.38); Alice E. Kilkenny (83.8); Earnestine Ethlyn Morse (77.7); George Herbert Fletcher (77.57); and Stuart Grant (70.5).…
