Looking Back in Philipstown

150 Years Ago (January 1875)

The passengers of the Union, which was still running between Newburgh and Fishkill Landing [Beacon] well into January, were surprised to see a schooner under full sail between the cakes of ice. She was the Norma, of Cold Spring, picking up a load of pig iron in Newburgh.

The 4-year-old daughter of Thomas Jaycox of Mekeel’s Corner [at Route 301 and Route 9] recited a poem of 56 lines after hearing it read only a few times.

Because of a water shortage, the 4 p.m. train from New York had to send its engine ahead from Garrison to get enough water to bring the cars to Cold Spring.

Susannah Evans, 27, who began crusading against the evils of alcohol in her native Wales at age 11, spoke at the Methodist Episcopal Church. Known as the “Cambrian Oratress,” she first toured the U.S. in 1863 at age 15. She moved to Brooklyn in 1869 and became a National Women’s Temperance Union lecturer.

While setting nets in the ice, James Purdy accidentally stepped into an air hole. He threw one end of the coil on his shoulder for his assistant to grab, but the young man instead ran for help. Jimmy managed to get himself out.

Elias LaForge bought Alfred Webb’s paint store on Stone Street.

A Fishkill Hook man named Evans, after dropping friends at the Cold Spring station, had a few drinks. According to The Recorder, while driving drunk in the dark and “not knowing enough to let the horse take his way home,” Evans led the animal off the road and the wagon overturned. He was discovered by John Knapp in the morning underneath the wagon, asleep.

Annie Keerman, a student at School No. 3, was arrested by Constable McAndrew for twice missing school but excused when he realized she was lame.

An elderly man of culture and education wandered around the village for two days. According to The Recorder, “no one seemed to know whence he came, nor whither he would go, but the impression generally made wherever he conversed was that he had been a preacher and that he was escaped from some asylum.”

The New York Central Railroad ordered all posters and advertising removed from its depots, including at Cold Spring.

A woman whose imitation bird blew off her hat near the post office offered a reward for its return.

After Pete, a dog owned by Constable McAndrew, ignored his master’s call to get off the tracks ahead of an express train, the cowcatcher threw it into a fence, knocking out its teeth. Passersby offered pistols, but the officer took the dog home, and, after six days of treatment, Pete was able to come downstairs.

125 Years Ago (January 1900)

James McIlravy drove his horse to Newburgh on a Sunday morning, but while there, it became ill with spinal meningitis and was shot on Tuesday afternoon.

There were no winners in the contest held by E.M. Jaycox at his store to guess the name of the prize doll on display. The answer was Bridget.

Michael Raftery, who escaped from the Carmel jail in September, was seen in the village but jumped on a freight train before Officer McCaffrey could arrest him.

Local actors portrayed Mrs. Jarley and her famous collection of historical, modern and Mother Goose mechanical “wax figures” in a performance at Town Hall hosted by the Girls’ Friendly Society and the Men’s Club of the Episcopal Church.

Harry Bronson, a Fishkill peddler, accused George Hall of stealing seven turkeys and 12 ducks from his wagon, but Hall was released for lack of evidence.

A cow owned by the Rev. P.L. Connick broke out of the pasture and ended up on the railroad tracks with the aid of a boy who chased it.

Boyd’s drugstore marked 50 years in business in Cold Spring. Charles Boyd opened his store on Jan. 1, 1850, below the tracks, then moved to the “Boyd block” on upper Main around 1870. When he died in 1880, his widow, Isabella, and a relative, James Boyd, took over.

Why is the Horse Taking the Stairs?

Q: On the Putnam County seal, a rider is shown atop a horse descending stairs. What’s the story there?
A: The rider is Gen. Israel Putnam, the county’s namesake. According to Jennifer Cassidy, the Putnam County historian, the seal depicts his 5-mile flight in Connecticut in 1779 from Horseneck (now Greenwich) to Stamford with the British in pursuit. One early version of the story says that, during the chase, Putnam led his horse down nearly 100 stone steps; the British hesitated at the slope, and Putnam escaped. The original seal, adopted in 1813, a year after the county was created from the southern portion of Dutchess, had a plow, a rake and the head of an ox.

The Board of Trustees refused to pay a bill from the Cold Spring Light, Heat and Power Co. until it improved the incandescent streetlamps. The Recorder noted it was not unusual to see Nelsonville residents carrying lanterns on their way to Cold Spring. It said the lights seemed to be only about 90 candlepower, far from the 1,000 candlepower the village contracted for.

Harry Austin, the American Express wagon driver, contracted blood poisoning after scratching his lip.

The Cold Spring Hose Co. changed its name to the Cold Spring Fire Co.

The Albany and Troy Flier left Garrison at 10:06 a.m. and arrived in New York City in 56 minutes.

The Recorder said that rumors that John Cosgrove’s children in Continentalville had scarlet fever were untrue; it was the measles.

The paper noted that, while the Christmas pageant in the hamlet was entertaining, “the children were not very well drilled,” probably because of all the sickness.

The Recorder advised: “If every man got every cent he earned and every man earned every cent he got, there would be a different distribution of incomes.”

William Blake, a lawyer who founded The Putnam County Republican in 1858, died at 82. Blake wrote the first history of Putnam County in 1849.

The blacksmith John Eyes was busy sharpening horseshoes because of the icy roads.

Edward Birkins, who owned a graphophone and many cylinder recordings, said he enjoyed closing his eyes and imagining he was at a West Point dress parade. [Powered by a hand crank, the graphophone could play recordings of up to two minutes. One popular model sold for $5, or about $190 today.]

Charles Warrens’ milk wagon slid at the corner of Maple Terrace and Parrott Street and overturned, with the contents of the cans flowing into the gutter.

P. Kemble Paulding presented the Haldane school with marble busts of Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci to display on pedestals in the hall.

Sammy Gregg secured a position as assistant gardener on the Tarrytown estate of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil.

The Haldane principal was confined to his room after a box of guns being unloaded at the school fell on his left toe. [The guns were likely for a newly formed Army cadet corps.]

The Rev. Joseph Duryea sent word to Garrison to have the pony team he purchased from the late Vice President Garret Hobart brought to New York City for his children.

A fire that broke out at midnight in the upstairs closet of an apartment over the Garrison post office was attributed to mice gnawing matches. A bucket brigade extinguished the flames.

A stylishly dressed woman was making the rounds of dressmakers, collecting $5 [about $190] for bogus state labor licenses.

100 Years Ago (January 1925)

The Recorder listed 11 properties in Philipstown that were sold for unpaid taxes, including a home and lot in Cold Spring owned by the Annie Dahlweiner estate that had $18.21 [$330] outstanding and was sold for $100 [$1,800].

Dr. Louis Genesse, newly arrived from Stamford, Connecticut, opened a dental office in his home on Locust Ridge.

The Rev. Stanley Brown-Serman of the Committee for Completing the Cathedral presented an illustrated lecture at St. Mary’s Parish House on the campaign to finish St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. Although the cornerstone was laid in 1892, only a third of the structure was complete.

The Philipstown Electric Corp. asked the Town Board for a franchise. It noted that the Cold Spring Light, Heat and Power Co. had declined for 26 years to extend its lines outside the village. The Philipstown firm was created in 1921 by 15 residents who provided $30,200 [$545,000] in capital.

In a long letter to The Recorder, Arthur Ives, president of the Cold Spring Light, Heat and Power Co., noted that Central Hudson Gas and Electric owned most of the stock in the Philipstown Electric Corp.

Prompted by the sale of the Stuyvesant Fish estate for $100,000 [$1.8 million] to a charitable organization, the Putnam Board of Supervisors discussed whether too much land was being taken off the tax rolls. The Philipstown supervisor said exempt property now was about 14 percent of assessed real estate.

Mary Cox, the widow of William Cox, received $1,400 [$25,000] from a group insurance plan purchased by the J.T. Robinson button factory for its employees.

William Post suffered a severe scalp wound when he lost control of his sled on Parrott Street and crashed into a telephone pole.

The Rogers-McKinstry Drug Corp. purchased and renovated the Dalzell drugstore.

75 Years Ago (January 1950)

In a letter to the Putnam County News & Recorder, Kenneth Walter of Garrison took issue with an assertion by George Benzinger of the American Legion, in his weekly, front-page column about the threat of Communism, that the League of Industrial Democracy was a party front. “Men who hold public positions of responsibility and influence ought to check the facts,” he wrote.

George and Lorna Ritchie, who operated the Fireside Tea Room on Route 9 in the North Highlands, moved the business across the road to the former site of Jean’s Luncheonette. They held a grand reopening on a Friday night with entertainment in the cocktail lounge at 11 p.m. and a free buffet at midnight.

Vincent Liuzzo, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Benedict Liuzzo, who had a summer home in Cold Spring, was ordained into the priesthood. Three of the Liuzzos’ 11 children, who grew up in the Bronx, were priests. When Father Vincent visited the St. Lawrence school in Beacon, affiliated with his order, the students were given the rest of the day off in his honor.

The program for an American Legion Forum on Communism held at the Haldane School on a Friday night included the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America”; a short film, Crossroads for America; and an address by former Rep. Hamilton Fish. “There is no compromise with treason,” he said, estimating that 2 million “Red stooges” operated in the U.S., following a “master plan” from Moscow.

At the forum, Fish announced the winners of a Haldane essay contest on the “best way to defeat Communism.” Peggy Nakos, a recent immigrant from Greece, was recognized for her submission, in which she recalled hearing screams in the night and seeing strangled bodies on the streets at daybreak. “Don’t let it happen here,” she warned.

Two teenage protégés of Ray Impellittiere, a former contender for the world heavyweight title, won bouts in the Golden Gloves amateur tournament. Joey Lyons won two fights by decision, while Joseph “Moe” Mazzuca won by knockout before being knocked out. Both boys fought at 147 pounds, representing the Cold Spring Holy Name Society.

The Garrison Volunteer Fire Co. approved plans for a firehouse on Upper Station Road.

25 Years Ago (January 2000)

About 50 people welcomed the new year at Depot Square watching a “Millennium Ball” ascend a flagpole. At 4:45 a.m., Officer Bujarski saw several people running into the pedestrian underpass with the ball; he found it behind a residence. Mayor Anthony Phillips offered a $200 reward for information on the thieves.

In a letter to the PCNR, Sister Mary Martin of Graymoor said her “greatest regret” from 1999 was that “the paint that Dennis Heiner so courageously put on Chris Ofili’s blasphemous painting of the Holy Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Museum of Art was removable.”

The Village of Nelsonville launched a website.

After three votes, the Putnam County Legislature elected Arne Nordstrom as chair. The incumbent chair, Tony Hay, had rankled members with his comments about illegal immigrants, said Sam Oliverio Jr., one of the Legislature’s two Democrats, who joined with three Republicans to approve Nordstrom, 5-4.

The Desmond-Fish Library in Garrison held its fourth annual Martin Luther King Day celebration with folk singer Pete Seeger and Ron Daniels, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a former presidential candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party.

Several residents attended a meeting of the Town Board to protest its decision to close the Toddler Learning Center at the Continental Village Clubhouse, which had operated for 17 years under the direction of “Miss Kathy” Lowenberg.

During a public hearing before a capacity crowd at the firehouse, the Cold Spring Planning Board heard comments on a 16-unit condo development proposed for 1 Main St. A group of residents created the Cold Spring Planning Coalition to oppose the project, citing the rapid growth of tourism in the 10 years since the development was first proposed.

Betsy Calhoun, a member of the Garrison school board, said she wanted to see, on behalf of taxpayers, the architect’s specs for the rough carpentry, septic system and electric/plumbing trench of a modular unit being built to create temporary classrooms. The other six members of the board protested. “We don’t see you as managing the building project,” said one.

The Haldane boys’ basketball team defeated Pawling at home, 101-32.

Firefighters who responded at 5 a.m. to heavy smoke at The Tin Man antique store at Main and Rock streets found a work light in the display window had fallen and burned through the floor.

Police arrested a Nelsonville woman for collecting twice on the same winning $40 lottery ticket at Dairy Mart, where she was a cashier.

The developer of the proposed Point Lookout development on 93 acres on Route 9D in south Philipstown submitted a revised plan to the Town Board that reduced its size to a 100-room hotel, 100 assisted-living units, 88 condos and eight homes.