Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (December 1874)
John McCabe was carting cook stoves to Matteawan when his horses were frightened by an approaching locomotive. The horses raced along the track and a stove fell off the wagon in front of the engine, which demolished it.
Lewis Tompkins, of the Fishkill Landing Hat Works, put down one of his prized brown mares after it broke its leg in the stable. It was valued at $700 [about $19,000 today].
Patrick Murphy, who worked at the Gowdy brickyard near Dutchess Junction, was arrested on assault charges. Murphy was absent when John Gowdy distributed wages and later demanded his $28 [$775]. Gowdy said he did not have the cash on him and Patrick, who was drunk, attempted to take Gowdy’s horse. When Gowdy resisted, Murphy punched him. Murphy was fined $25, which he had Gowdy take from his pay, leaving him with $3 [$83].
The Matteawan Manufacturing Co. was making 200 dozen ladies’ jockeys every day but was still 150 cases behind filling orders.
Two sheep owned by Jacob VanWyck near Fishkill were slaughtered in his field and the meat carried off.
James Pettigrove moved from Cold Spring to Fishkill Landing to operate Traver’s hotel, which had been damaged by fire on Sept. 3 but restored.
Several young men in Matteawan formed a gymnasium society.
W.H. Mase of Fishkill Landing sold his trotting horse Mountaineer for $6,000 [$166,000].
A Fishkill Landing milkman said he would sell milk through the winter at summer prices of 6 cents [$1.66] a quart.
A Matteawan Free School teacher found in an old history book a handwritten copy of a Thanksgiving sermon preached by the Rev. Samuel Prime on Nov. 23, 1833. [In 1840, the young Presbyterian minister left the village for New York City to become an editor at a Christian newspaper where he worked for the next 45 years.]
The Seamless Manufacturing Co. of Matteawan received an order for thousands of skirts, in variety of sizes, including what were thought to be the largest ever made in the U.S.: 5 feet, 7 inches long; 5 feet, 1 inch around the waist; 10 inches around the hip; and 16 inches at the bottom.
Mr. and Mrs. David Kniffen, of Fishkill, lost two children — their 5-year-old daughter and 2½-year-old son — in the same week to diphtheria. Their third child, an infant, was not expected to survive.
When the Albany Post reported that “Aunt Betty,” the last known person enslaved in New York state, had died in Cayuga County at age 99, the Poughkeepsie Press reported that an inmate at the Dutchess County poorhouse was older. He recalled being traded for a barrel of rum. [According to research by the New York State Archives, a woman named Sophy, who died in November 1876 in Cornwall, was likely the last surviving person who had been enslaved in New York.]
On a late Saturday night train, a passenger refused to pay the fare. The conductor ordered him off at New Hamburg, but the passenger retreated to the toilet and sat with his back against the door. At Poughkeepsie, a police officer ripped off the door with a crowbar.
At 3 a.m. on a Saturday, a fire at John Gerow’s brick building in Matteawan destroyed everything inside, including the stock of the Noel & Smith clothing store, Hatche’s cigar store and Vosburgh’s printing office.
Frank Timoney, the brick manufacturer, and an employee, William Doyle, were struck by an express train south of Dutchess Junction. Doyle was killed and Timoney was not expected to survive. [Timoney lived another 29 years.]
125 Years Ago (December 1899)
A man who missed the last train at Fishkill Landing for Cold Spring hired a wagon. According to the Matteawan Journal, the driver had been on duty for hours and the passenger had not slept for two days, so both fell sound asleep on the journey along the river road. When the horse reached a trough in the village, it took a drink, turned around and returned to Fishkill Landing. There, the passenger and driver awoke and, confused, headed to Cold Spring, where a bystander told them he had seen them two hours earlier.
The State Asylum for Insane Criminals at Matteawan was overcrowded, with 737 prisoners in a space designed for 550. The courts had been committing 14 inmates per month.
William Monfort of Fishkill Landing gave his cat to a Long Island woman. Three days later, it showed up at his door with the skin worn from the bottom of its feet. The cat had walked 60 miles, through two cities and over the Brooklyn Bridge (or stowed away on a ferry), to return.
When James Jaycox, a wealthy farmer, made his will, he told the lawyer he wanted his $20,000 [$760,000] estate to go to his wife and, when she died, to Highland Hospital in Matteawan. The lawyer instead wrote Hudson River Hospital, which was in Poughkeepsie, although it didn’t matter: Because Mrs. Jaycox left no will, the court divided her estate among relatives.
Nicholas Ackerman set fire to his cell at the village jail in Matteawan but was rescued before he suffocated.
Masked men who mugged James Kilbride, a Glenham farmer, on the road to Matteawan took $10 from him but gave back $5.
John Layman, who robbed and killed a Brooklyn coachman who had only 5 cents [$2], died after spending 42 years at the Matteawan asylum. At his trial in 1857, Layman said he had grown tired of being a cobbler and stole $26 [$1,000] from his employer to buy a gun and become a bandit.
Michael Buczny, a prisoner sent to the asylum for killing his ex-fiancée, was described as a cataleptic, or “a living statue.” His limbs became rigid if put into unnatural positions.
Michael O’Donnell, who spent 10 years in prison, including at the Matteawan asylum, for murder before being pardoned when his dying brother confessed to the crime, went on trial in New York City for another killing.
Frank Mason, 30, an inmate at the asylum scheduled for release, received word on Christmas Day that he had inherited a $40,000 [$1.5 million] homestead in Minnesota.
100 Years Ago (December 1924)
Three teenagers were arrested in Beacon for violating a new state law that banned anyone younger than 18 from driving.
Edward Lott of Beacon, a water tender aboard the Coast Guard cutter Hudson, drowned after being swept overboard from a motorboat by a wave near Staten Island. The boat was being towed by the Hudson. The Poughkeepsie Eagle-News called Lott “the first man in the government ranks to lose his life in the long war against rum row,” or Prohibition smugglers.
The Dutchess Board of Supervisors designated the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News as its Republican newspaper and the Beacon Journal as its Democratic newspaper.
About 180 workers at the Dennings Point brickyard went on strike when the firm lowered the minimum daily wage from $3 to $2.50 [$46]. Management said the reduction would allow it to employ everyone through the winter.
Beacon agreed to pay Dutchess $4.25 [$78] weekly for each person it sent to the poorhouse.
After deliberating for five hours, a jury in Poughkeepsie deadlocked on the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been charged with selling cocaine at the Belle Isle brickyards at Beacon. The judge ordered a retrial to begin later that same week.
According to the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, a Connecticut man was sentenced to two to four years in Sing Sing after pleading guilty to a “serious charge made by a 15-year-old Beacon girl.”
75 Years Ago (December 1949)
A 71-year-old Verplank Avenue woman was found dead by neighbors at the bottom of the steps of her porch. She had broken her neck, but the medical examiner said she may have suffered a heart attack.
The Southern Dutchess Singers presented Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at St. Luke’s Church.
Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at Beacon High School about the work of the United Nations, which had been created in 1945.
The city health department began a series of fluoride treatments for 32 children. Appointments could be made by calling 502.
Patrolman Kirkup arrested two 19-year-old Poughkeepsie women shouting and arguing outside 36 Beekman St. They each paid $10 [$133].
Dr. Julius Haight retired after 29 years as the school district physician.
The Beacon Tax and Rentpayers Association said it would not oppose $500 raises for the commissioner of accounts (to $3,500 [$46,000] annually) and city judge (to $2,000 [$27,000] annually) but said the plan should have been disclosed by the Republican majority before the election.
A state judge approved a $1,000 [$13,300] settlement between the parents of a 5-year-old Church Street boy and Kennelly Auto Sales at Chestnut and Main. According to a lawsuit, the boy was playing near a bonfire in an open lot owned by Kennelly when he burned his hands and face.
After undercover officers from the state Alcohol Beverage Control board said they had played slot machines at the Elks Club, the county district attorney, William Grady, ordered Beacon police to investigate. The next day, two officers said they made a “thorough inspection” but found nothing. The year before, the Elks had lost its liquor license for 10 days for allowing gambling, and the ABC recommended the license be suspended again.
The city’s commissioner of accounts reported that he had collected the entire $636,009.89 [$8.4 million] property tax levy for 1949 except for $40 [$530] owed on a vacant lot because no one could figure out who owned it.
Two patrolmen spent the afternoon tracking — but never seeing — an injured deer reported at the Elks Club, Fowler Street, Fishkill Creek, the Braendly Dye Works, East Street, Masters Place and the old St. Joachim’s cemetery. It was last spotted on Robinson Street headed toward the mountains.
A state judge ordered the school district to reinstate the position of director of physical education, which it had abolished a year before. At the same time, the board had created the position of physical education teacher and hired William Ham, the former director, in what he argued was a demotion.
50 Years Ago (December 1974)
Residents on Delavan Avenue who had been plagued by flooding expressed concern at a Planning Board meeting about two proposed buildings, one for the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the other for medical offices. The city engineer said a pipe near Fishkill Avenue was too small for heavy rains.
Beacon native Digger Phelps, 33, the University of Notre Dame basketball coach, published A Coach’s World, a chronicle of the 1973-74 season. Phelps had hired his high school coach, Dick DiBiaso, as an assistant.
A 21-year-old Main Street man was sentenced to five years’ probation for burglary and robbery on the condition he spend at least a year at the Drug Abuse Control Commission facility in Sullivan County.
Six children died in a flash fire of unknown origin at 10 Cliff St. Aged 3 months to 8 years, the victims were the four children of Juan and Alessandra Claudio and the couple’s niece and nephew, whose parents had visited from Wappingers Falls and left them overnight because they were sleeping. A passing motorist spotted the flames.
The children were found in a second-floor bedroom. Firefighters attempted to enter the home through its doors and windows but said the heat was like a blowtorch. “Afterward, all the guys were talking about their kids,” said one. “You feel so helpless, you don’t know what else to talk about.” After a Mass conducted in Spanish at St. John’s Church, the children were interred in two caskets at St. Joachim’s Cemetery.
A drunk driver went through a fence on Main Street and ended up in Fishkill Creek.
The City Council passed a resolution dissolving the Beacon Health Department and calling for a merger with the county, but an attorney noted that if an agency is dissolved, it can’t be merged.
Poughkeepsie defeated Beacon, 74-72, in overtime. Beacon had lost only five basketball games in two seasons under Coach Rick Pam, but four were to the Pioneers.
More than 100 Chemprene employees were put on a four-day week through the holidays to avoid layoffs. At the same time, Tuck Industries put its employees on an unpaid, two-week furlough and Nabisco did the same for two days.
25 Years Ago (December 1999)
For the first time, the City of Beacon observed World AIDS Day. The commemoration began with six Hudson Valley residents telling their stories, followed by a dance performance and a candlelight vigil.
Ronald Ray, the Democratic candidate, had 22 more votes on Election Night than Jack Dexter, the Conservative candidate, to represent Beacon on the Dutchess Legislature. But after absentee ballots were counted, Dexter won by seven votes. After a court battle, the county certified the results in late December. [Dexter was sworn in at a meeting during the first week of January. When the clerk reached his name in the roll call, Dexter responded, “Here, I think.” He served three terms.]
Asked by the Poughkeepsie Journal for her thoughts on possible Y2K glitches, Jessica Erace of Beacon said, “We can always hide in our closets.”
After attending the Beacon High School holiday concert, Charles Dunn said it was the best performance he had seen in 31 years as a teacher.
After a 22-year-old man fought officers arresting him at South Davies Terrace, his 48-year-old father joined the fray. Both were charged with assault.
