160 YEARS AGO: Lectures—By request of the Lecture Committee Rev. Mr. Balch consented to deliver two lectures, both on Syria. What he saw in that interesting country—so attractive to all travelers, and especially to the Bible student – Mr. B. has the ability to describe in a manner well calculated to please and instruct a promiscuous audience. He is an easy, off-hand speaker, with superior descriptive powers, by turns eloquent and amusing, whose lectures would perhaps be improved by the…
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otsego county history - Page 12
90 YEARS AGO: Milk consumption habits of the population of upstate New York will be surveyed by 18 colleges and normal schools to broaden the base of knowledge upon which the state is striving to increase consumption of fresh milk. Oneonta Normal is among those which will assist. Harold D. Leslie, director of the Bureau of Milk Publicity, has announced that the survey will be the most extensive ever made of the consumption of milk and dairy products. A similar…
110 YEARS AGO: The hopes of the builder, J. Arthur Olsen, were realized Saturday when the bi-pane which had been under construction for several weeks at the Francis Wagon Works moved gracefully into the air, and after a flight of nearly a mile was brought to the surface of Otsego Lake again by the pilot, William B. Stewart, because of engine trouble. As soon as it can be taken down and packed it will be shipped to Boston, Massachusetts for…
135 YEARS AGO: In the United States, according to tables recently compiled, there were 50,025 persons killed and 53,427 seriously injured as a result of trespassing upon railways between the years 1901 and 1910. In Great Britain during the same period, there were 4,434 persons killed in like fashion and 1,315 injured. The difference, the startling difference even after taking into account the difference in population—seems to be that in Great Britain the laws against railway trespassing are strictly enforced,…
210 YEARS AGO: Fire—On Thursday morning last, at about 3 o’clock, the Distillery near Shankland’s Mills, owned by Mr. William Cook, which was just got into operation, was consumed by fire. His loss is estimated at about 1,000 dollars. Our villagers were again alarmed by the cry of fire, about 11 o’clock last evening, which proved to be in the shop of Jonah Foster, cooper, which was wholly consumed, but by the usual exertions of the citizens, the adjoining building…
70 YEARS AGO: There is a unique, friendly quality to Oneonta that makes it the shopping, recreational and cultural center for folks from a four-county area. Why? Because it’s not too big; and it’s not too small. Folks who shop here say that Oneonta department stores have everything you’ll find in the big cities. But, it is much easier to go to Oneonta. Oneonta, too, is the center for farm machinery, for home and business needs, for banks and loan…
160 YEARS AGO: The question of submitting to the States a proposition to amend the Federal Constitution in order to abolish slavery throughout the Union, has, as our readers are aware, passed the Senate by the requisite two-thirds vote and is now before the House of Representatives. The Republicans support the measure to a man; most of the Democrats oppose it—not because they care to perpetuate slavery, but because they doubt the policy and good effect on the country of…
40 YEARS AGO: Nearly 60 people attending a celebration for legalized abortion were urged to write letters to Oneonta Mayor James Lettis protesting his proclamation this week as the “Week of the Unborn Child.” “We find this very offensive that a religious view is put in a citywide proclamation,” Chris Lilly of Oneonta said to the group gathered at the Universalist Church, 12 Ford Avenue. The meeting was jointly sponsored by the National Organization for Women, Women Concerned about Women…
185 YEARS AGO: Federalism—This once honored and honorable term seems to have become a word of reproach, its friends as well as its enemies repudiating the name. How fallen—none so poor as to do it reverence; none so poor as to own it as their cognomen. The self-styled Whig Party seems anxious to rid themselves of this, to them, appropriate name; and they strive to hide the obnoxious features of their creed with the cloak of Equal Rights; endeavoring, by…
50 YEARS AGO: Almost one-third of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad’s New York derailments last year occurred in Otsego and Schoharie counties. According to State Department of Transportation (DOT) files, the D. & H. had 37 derailments in 1974, 10 of them in Otsego County and one in Schoharie County. Included was the derailment of a train pulling propane cars that subsequently exploded injuring 55 firemen and onlookers on February 12, 1974. In 1973, the D. & H. also had…
