Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (May 1874)
A litter of six foxes was removed from a den at Mr. Snook’s farm at Low Point [Chelsea] and killed. In the hole were the remnants of a turkey, goose, hen, woodchuck and two weasels.
A man walking along the tracks near Dutchess Junction was crossing the drawbridge when trains approached from both directions. He saved himself by jumping into the water.
The Savings Bank in Fishkill Landing installed an iron front manufactured at Stanton’s works in Newburgh.
Swift’s Hall, a former church, was sold at Matteawan to Horatio Nelson Swift, known as “the lawnmower man” because of his innovations in that industry.
After a reader threatened to punch him over an article, a reporter for the Newburgh Telegraph commented that “he’s an idiot who thinks or believes that a reporter can please everybody.”
The Sunday School teachers and students at St. Luke’s at Matteawan presented Dr. Duncan, the church’s pastor for nearly 20 years, with a gold watch.
The Matteawan Enterprise folded. The competing Fishkill Standard attributed the closure to “the fact that there is room and patronage sufficient for but one newspaper in this neighborhood.”
Made despondent by illness, Richard Omerod, 57, of Matteawan, a felt skirt printer at the seamless clothing plant, killed himself with a razor. He was survived by his wife and four children.
Passengers on the northbound express arriving in Poughkeepsie reported large fires on the Fishkill Mountains as the train emerged from the Highlands.
Charles Hoag was killed when his team became unmanageable and crossed the tracks in front of a train. The horses also died.
After a young clergyman in Brockport commented that the women in town could make rich cake but not good bread, he received loaves from 14 single women in his congregation.
125 Years Ago (May 1899)
A northbound express hit four brickyard employees near Dutchess Junction, killing one and seriously injuring the others. The men said they did not see the train until it was almost upon them.
Fishkill Landing officials borrowed a road-scraping machine from Cold Spring.
C.A. Palmer of Fishkill Landing, and formerly of Cold Spring, was credited with taking the first photograph of Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh 36 years earlier.
Michael Sliney, a model prisoner at the Matteawan asylum, where he had been sent for life after being convicted of murder, accompanied a guard to the pitch-black basement to make a repair. The men made their way with matches, and as the guard lit a new one, Sliney hit him with an iron pipe. The men grappled in the darkness until the physicians upstairs heard the guard’s cries. A few years earlier, Sliney had starred in a minstrel performance at the prison, but praise for his acting brought him notoriety and attention to his crime, so he withdrew.
The debate team from Haldane High School visited Matteawan High School to discuss the question: “Resolved, that the U.S. construct and operate the Nicaragua canal.” [The U.S. abandoned plans to build the passage after it purchased interest in the Panama Canal.]
A service at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at Fishkill Landing ended in chaos. The Rev. S.V. Gumbs had been investigated but exonerated by the trustees after he called several times on Alice Hunt, which led to “talk” in the congregation. During a baptism, Alice’s sister, Emma, apparently having taken offense at Addie Henry’s role in the episode, punched her in the face, prompting a fight that led to a steward, Thomas Lefevre, being thrown through a window.
A Cold Spring man who rode his bicycle to a Matteawan saloon came out to find someone had slashed its tire.
About 500 brickyard workers went on strike for higher wages and lower daily quotas. Most employers granted the demands and the men returned to work.
100 Years Ago (May 1924)
Sarah Greene left her $5,000 estate [about $92,000 today] to the Highland Hospital, apparently because she had received such good care.
Dr. C.C. Robinson and his sister, who had wintered in St. Petersburg, Florida, traveled to Elkins, New Hampshire, for the summer.
A wealthy Brooklyn manufacturer of medical supplies who in 1921 had shot and killed a police officer argued for his release from the Matteawan asylum, saying he had been cured of his psychopathic personality and was prepared to stand trial. Before the killing, the defendant carried a gun everywhere he went, including to the theater, saying he feared sabotage.
Edith Gluckman, 39, of Manhattan, was sent to the Matteawan asylum after she killed her husband with an ax while he slept. She was said to suffer from epileptic attacks and homicidal mania.
A state judge granted an “Enoch Arden divorce” to Mary Raymond, whose husband had gone missing in 1908. The couple had married in Beacon in 1891 and had two children. [The Enoch Arden doctrine, named for Tennyson’s 1864 poem, allows a divorce when a spouse has disappeared, typically for at least seven years.]
The City Council voted down a resolution to revoke the liquor license of William King after two commissioners said they had witnessed a crowd of unruly drunks outside his tavern on a Saturday night. “If the police don’t take care of it, I move that we suspend every one of them,” said one.
John Buris, who served as a boy in the Boer War in South Africa and was wounded eight times in World War I, died at age 45.
75 Years Ago (May 1949)
The Beacon Theatre was showing the color films South of St. Louis, with Joel McCrea and Alexis Smith; Take Me Out to the Ball Game, with Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams and Gene Kelly; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with James Stewart, Jean Arthur and Claude Rains.
Firefighters used ladders to rescue occupants of the second and third floors of the former Bradley Hotel at Spring Valley and Churchill streets, including John Bradley, its former operator, who ran a grocery at street level. The tenement blaze was discovered at 1:30 a.m.
Beacon City Judge Benjamin Roosa was arrested in Poughkeepsie for a parking ticket. The officers waived his $2 bond. As he left headquarters, Roosa greeted the chief and praised the officers. “The boys are all right,” he said.
A Poughkeepsie patrol officer fired five shots as he chased a Beacon man accused of petty larceny through the downtown streets — three into the air as a warning and two in the direction of the suspect, George Van Orsdall, a handyman who had stolen a cancer fund container from Braw’s tavern that contained $15.20 [$200].
James V. Forrestal, 57, a Beacon native who served as secretary of the Navy and the first secretary of defense during and after World War II, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery after he jumped from the 16th floor of the Navy hospital where he had been admitted for mental health treatment. Rep. Lindy Boggs (D-Louisiana) said Forrestal had been “subjected to a campaign of abuse and vilification” that “should give pause to the irresponsible elements of the press and radio.” President Harry Truman said, “This able and devoted public servant was as truly a casualty of the war as if he had died on the firing line.”
50 Years Ago (May 1974)
A 24-year-old Park Avenue woman was in critical condition at Vassar Hospital after her husband said he found her sitting on the steps of their home at 3 p.m. with a head injury. Police said it appeared she had surprised a burglar, who struck her with a hammer. The second floor of the home was ransacked, although nothing was taken, including the $100 [$635] in her purse.
The Fulton Fish Market was again selling Hudson River shad. “Four years ago, no one wanted to touch a fish from the Hudson,” said Nick Gadaleto, a fish merchant in Highland. “The fish tasted oily and after working with the fish for a while, your hands began to smell like diesel oil.”
Beacon High School closed for a day following a brawl that involved up to 50 students. When the school reopened, eight police officers in plain clothes and six clergymen were stationed inside the building.
A 23-year-old man was arrested after he struck his former landlord in the head with an 8-inch-long chisel during an argument over back rent at her rooming house.
After a six-man race, Harry Lynch and John Raymond, a Black employee at IBM, were elected to the school board.
John “Cookie” McMichael, 34, a guard at the Matteawan State Hospital, was killed during a shoot-out in Queens with two Housing Authority officers. According to police, McMichael had walked out of a bar and started firing wildly into the street.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at Hammond Plaza, a condo project at Beekman and Ferry streets.
A 30-year-old man who pleaded guilty to selling heroin to an undercover police officer on Main Street for $20 [$125] said the officer first gave him marijuana and, after they smoked together, said he felt sick and needed heroin.
The City Council went into closed session after the finance commissioner, Joseph Gallio, voted “no” on the routine approval of $43,000 [$273,000] in invoice payments. Reporters heard shouting between Gallio and the mayor; Gallio later said he was miffed because he had not seen four or five of the smaller invoices.
Gov. Malcolm Wilson enacted a law creating the Beacon Industrial Development Agency.
A 20-year-old Wappingers Falls man was killed when a stolen car he was driving hit a tree on Howland Avenue at 1 a.m.
The Boujikian Art Gallery at 478 Main St. hosted an art fair with the Dutchess County Association for Retarded Children. James Boujikian, the art director at West Point, had opened the gallery in 1963.
25 Years Ago (May 1999)
Martina Heath, a senior at Beacon High School, won four events at the Section I, Class B state track qualifier in Montrose: the long jump, high jump, 100-meter hurdles and 200-meter dash. Jorge Rojas set a school record while winning the boys’ pentathlon and La’Shawn Martinez was first in the girls’ 100-meter dash.
A man was arrested after he confronted a 19-year-old woman in the parking lot of the Beacon Market on Fishkill Avenue and stole her car and $16 in cash.
For the fourth vote in a row, there were no challengers to incumbents running for re-election to the school board.
Following the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado, students at Beacon High School covered a 20-foot mirror with pledges of support for “a safe, nonviolent and tolerant” school. Tamika Moore, the student council treasurer, came up with the idea.
To encourage residential development, the City Council doubled the lot-size minimums for Craig House, Beacon Hills and University Settlement Camp.
Tahir Gecaj of Beacon submitted an application with Jewish Family Services of Dutchess County to have his family from Kosovo resettled in the U.S. His mother, sister, brother-in-law and their five children were among 600,000 refugees who fled fighting between Albanians and Serbs.
