Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (July 1873)
The Newburgh Telegraph reported: “A party of young men, eight strong, started yesterday morning in a small boat to have a clam bake. They loaded their boat with two kegs of lager beer and 2,000 clams and rowed across the river” to Fishkill Landing.
J.H. Woolhiser, the new editor of the Matteawan Enterprise, took a leave of absence to Delaware County for his health.
Twenty-five shares of capital stock in the First National Bank of Fishkill Landing were sold in lots of five each, for $136, $131, $133, $133 and $127. At the same time, the bank declared a semiannual dividend of 4 percent.
The Reformed Church debuted its new organ with a Tuesday night concert.
A 16-year-old Canadian boy employed at Aldrich’s brickyard at Dutchess Junction drowned in the Hudson River.
Dairymen in Dutchess County were complaining about their treatment by New York City buyers. Some of their cans came back full because there was too much milk on the market and others never came back. The farmers were pushing to have the cans included in freight bills so the railroad would be responsible for them.
John Kniffin was awarded a contract to carry the mail between Fishkill and Fishkill Landing.
George Cummings, a cooper from Newburgh, was found by a boy on the tracks at Fishkill Landing with a severe head injury, apparently after being struck by a train.
Henry Smith, who was employed by Josiah Fuller of Matteawan, was driving his team through one of Fuller’s meadows when he was startled by a rattlesnake in the road. He attempted to kill it with a stick but the snake struck and narrowly missed him. It slithered into a stone wall but left 6 inches of its tail protruding. Fuller grabbed it, drew the snake out and killed it. He said it was 3½ feet long and had 10 rattles.
A man who said he was pushing a wheelbarrow from New York City to Poughkeepsie to win a bet stopped at the Irving House in Fishkill for a drink. The Fishkill Standard reported that the subject was “a little old man, with long gray hair hanging down upon his shoulders and a general rusty appearance.” After this drink, he headed north into the dark. He gave his name as John Paulding. “Quite a number swallowed the whole thing as genuine, but those ‘in the know’ knew it was Mose Green up to another of his tricks,” the Standard wrote.
William Yeatman, who grew up in Fishkill Landing but moved to Nashville, donated a letter to the Tennessee State Library that he had received as a teenager from Davy Crockett. It was dated June 15, 1834, and sent from Washington, D.C., where Crockett was a member of the U.S. House. “I now look forward to our adjournment with as much interest as ever did a poor convict in the penitentiary to see his last day come,” Crockett wrote. “If it were not for the Senate, God only knows what won’t become of the country.”
The wife of Caleb Knapp, a boot and shoe merchant in Fishkill Landing who had gone to New York City to purchase stock, became concerned when she had not heard from him for three days. An employee she dispatched could find no trace.
A reporter for The Fishkill Standard noted that an elm about halfway between the taverns of Fishkill Landing and Matteawan had become a popular spot for drunken young men to gather, creating a late-night “tide of blasphemy and obscenity” that disturbed neighbors.
125 Years Ago (July 1898)
Etta Tillman, a choir member at the Presbyterian Church in Matteawan, made national headlines for her patriotism when she refused to sing “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” because she saw in the hymnal it was set to the tune of the “Old Spanish Hymn.” The U.S. was fighting Spain at the time in Cuba. “I will sing no Spanish songs, last of all in church,” Tillman said.
Sidney Scofield, 23, of Matteawan, was killed in combat during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba.
The New York Herald argued that the U.S. had become “an asylum for the cast-off paupers and criminals of the world.” It cited Dr. H.E. Allison, superintendent of the Matteawan Asylum for the Criminally Insane, who praised the state commission on lunacy for its efforts to deport the “dependent alien insane” back to Italy, Germany, England and other nations that he alleged had cleared their prisons.
A jury awarded Ella Kay, a teacher at the Glenham public school, $40 [about $1,500 today] after she sued the Board of Education because it claimed she had taught only 40 of the 42 weeks in the academic year. She had refused an offer of $20 to settle.
The Kain family of Fishkill Landing slept through lightning that tore off part of the roof and overturned furniture. Lightning also struck a can of dynamite on a gravel bank, and the explosion shook the village.
100 Years Ago (July 1923)
For the first time, the Mase Hook and Ladder Co. expelled a member for refusing to obey orders. The assistant foreman said that, during a fire on Spy Hill, the unnamed member would not help with a ladder. The firefighter was a no-show at his disciplinary hearing.
To attract more spectators, the Crotona Motorcycle Club added a band concert and aeroplane stunts to its annual hill climb.
A fire started by a cigarette thrown from a Mount Beacon incline railway trolley destroyed 200 feet of wooden trestle and stranded 600 people at the summit. They were rescued by firefighters who led them down a rough trail. The fire department had to use dirt, chemicals and a bucket brigade to extinguish the flames because the nearest hydrant was a mile away.
A group of Boy Scouts from Beacon were camping at Walton Lake near Hopewell on July 4 when their scoutmaster discovered a man sleeping in a nearby shack. He admitted to being an escaped inmate from Westchester and was turned over to the sheriff.
After an argument, the barber John Caruso chased a customer, Peter Lamonica, down Main Street with a shaving razor. The pursuit ended at the Holland Hotel when Lamonica threw a bottle of hair tonic that struck Caruso, who fell and broke his razor. Police arrested Lamonica but said they also would likely pursue assault charges against Caruso.
A state judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Beacon Bus Line following a complaint by the Wappingers Falls Railway, which accused the bus line of picking up passengers along its trolley route.
After a car crash on Beekman Street, several bottles of illegal booze labeled “Gordon Gin” rolled from one vehicle and shattered on the pavement. The driver gathered the remaining bottles and hurried away.
Mildred Boss, 18, of Brooklyn, was said to have regained the use of her paralyzed legs and vocal cords during the annual camp meeting of the Nazarenes. She was brought to the pulpit in a cart and, after the 500 people in attendance prayed, was able to walk and talk. This according to the Nazarenes’ district superintendent, who said he was willing to sign an affidavit.
Walter Hagen, the former British Open golf champ, and Joe Kirkwood, the Australian champion, played with a Beacon pro, Eric Golden, in an exhibition at the Powelton County Club in Newburgh. Kirkwood also gave a trick-shot demonstration.
A fire in the dining car of the southbound Buffalo Express was thought to be extinguished but the roof was ablaze by the time the train reached Beacon. The Tompkins Hose Co. put it out.
A block of the business district went without water for a week until the street was dug up to open the pipe, which was blocked by eels.
75 Years Ago (July 1948)
The bodies of four Beacon men killed in combat during World War II were among the 5,374 remains returned to the U.S. aboard the USAT Lawrence Victory after being buried in makeshift cemeteries in the U.K., France and Luxembourg. The men — Tech. Sgt. Frederick Brewer, Staff Sgt. Raymond Detweiler, First Lt. Paul Facteau and Staff Sgt. Patrick O’Brien — all served in the Air Force.
Harry Thaw, who was sent to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane after he shot architect Stanford White in 1906 in the roof garden of the old Madison Square Garden in New York City, left an estate worth $1.2 million [$15 million]. His bequests included $10,000 [$127,000] to Evelyn Nesbit, his former wife. Thaw said he shot White because of the latter’s relations with Nesbit before she and Thaw were married. Thaw escaped Matteawan about a year after being incarcerated and was later declared sane.
Funeral services were held at St. Luke’s Church for Pvt. 1st Class Guy Pendleton, 19, who was killed in action in Normandy on June 30, 1944, about three weeks after the allied invasion. His father was the sexton at the church.
Melio Bettina, the Beacon boxer, scored the fourth and fifth straight victories in his comeback after his war service, knocking out Austin Johnson in the second round in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and defeating Shamus O’Brien in the fourth round of a Brooklyn bout. Bettina was hoping for a chance at the heavyweight title held by Joe Louis.
A state judge overturned $9,000 in damages awarded by a jury to a Newburgh man who said he was beaten by three Beacon police officers, calling the judgment “grossly excessive.” The judge noted that the foreman had not revealed that he been arrested by Beacon police several years earlier.
Morris Shimken, 74, who had lived at Camp Beacon for 20 years, was killed by a truck while walking along Route 9D.
50 Years Ago (July 1973)
Although northern Dutchess County was hit hard by a storm and flooding, southern Dutchess fared better, with only a few roads closed. “It wasn’t that they were impassable so much as every time a car came through basements would be flooded by the water splashed up,” said Lt. George Garrison of the Beacon police. The second annual Beacon Day Parade proceeded as scheduled.
A resident urged the City Council to address chronic flooding in the area of Verplanck Avenue, Ralph Street and Mackin Avenue. He said the problem was caused by runoff from an 18-inch water main at the Southern Dutchess County Club that spilled into a vacant lot on Orchard Place.
A state appeals court upheld the contempt convictions of five officers of the Beacon Teachers Association after they led an illegal strike but reduced their sentences to time served, which had been a few hours each.
Nearly 100 patients at the Beacon Correctional Center for Medical Services, formerly the Matteawan State Hospital, launched a hunger strike to protest the separation of those with emotional handicaps from those with physical handicaps.
The Beacon Environmental Recovery Group led a cleanup of the riverfront where it hoped to construct a public park near the abandoned ferry dock.
By a vote of 868-340, school district residents again rejected a $4.35 million building plan. The proposal, which would have added classrooms to Forrestal and Glenham elementary schools, converted Rombout Middle School to a high school and converted the high school to a middle school, had been rejected in an earlier vote, 1,204-597. The school board said it was left with two options because of space problems: Schedule double sessions or spend $1.9 million in savings on piecemeal construction.
A corrections officer and an inmate suffered minor injuries during a 30-minute disturbance at the Correctional Center for Medical Services that involved 230 patients. The director said all the participants were ages 16 to 21 and had IQs of 70 to 85, or “borderline mentality.”
A complaint filed with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development alleged that 100 families in the city’s urban renewal area were owed $400,000 in unpaid relocation benefits, such as rental assistance.
Cos Collandrea, of Alan Pontiac, noted that “everybody’s buying the small cars and turning in the big cars” because of a gas shortage.
Wappinger won the Dutchess County Little League title with a 4-1 victory over Beacon.
25 Years Ago (July 1998)
Teenagers from the Capuchin Franciscan Youth and Family Ministry Outreach in Garrison teamed up with the Dutchess County Community Action Agency to plant flowers in a vacant lot at Main and Cross streets owned by the city.
Thirty IBM employees spent a day sprucing up the Beacon Community Center, installing new swings, spreading mulch and gravel and washing windows.
The third annual Latin American Festival, organized by Eddie Ramirez of R&M Productions, was held at Riverfront Park.
The Tallix foundry on Route 52 said it planned to build a $500,000 visitors’ center and sculpture garden to boost tourism.
The Dyson Foundation donated $15,300 to the Martin Luther King Cultural Center on South Avenue to purchase eight computers for its Prepare a Teen program.
The school district launched a camp for fourth and fifth graders called Summer Opportunity for Achieving Results with Physical Education, Science and Technology. On the first day, two relief pitchers for the Hudson Valley Renegades talked about the importance of math in baseball.
The Beacon Arts Coalition was looking for a spot to hang a mural being painted by local teenagers that showed people of various ethnic backgrounds aboard the Newburgh-Beacon ferry that ran from 1743 to 1945.
Gwen Dozier, the owner of Gwen’s Signs of the Times II Unisex Salon at 190 Main St., complained that she was tired of asking people on the sidewalk to move along. “I’ve seen Main Street come a long way,” she told the Poughkeepsie Journal. “I used to have to sweep marijuana bags from the front of the store in the morning. I just don’t think they should be able to loiter in front of businesses.” Police Chief Richard Sassi said there wasn’t much he could do to stop people from hanging out unless they were breaking the law.
