Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (January 1875)
When a 54-year-old employee of the Glenham Company died, it was discovered he had $8,000 [about $230,000 today] on deposit at five banks in New York City. He left the money to his sister’s children in Ireland except for $100 [$2,900] bequeathed to his landlady.
Although navigation on the Hudson River stopped on Jan. 4 because of the ice, the ferry was still running between Newburgh and Fishkill Landing.
In a single day, Thomas N. Avery & Co. shipped 815,000 paper bags from its factory in Fishkill Landing.
The Rev. Jabez Marshall, pastor of the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Matteawan, answered a call to lead the church at Ludingtonville, a hamlet in the Town of Kent.
The “arithmetic man” at the Newburgh Journal calculated the distance between the Newburgh dock and Dutchess Junction as 2 miles and 22 feet. The distance between the Dutchess Junction and Fishkill Landing train stations was 1.57 miles.
William Morgan, who had been arrested at the Fishkill Landing depot for stealing a $50 government bond, was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Nathaniel Cerine of Matteawan lost his brood of Dorking hens to thieves.
The Matteawan Fire Department called a community meeting to explain its need for a steam fire engine. Two factory owners pledged $1,000 [$29,000] and residents raised $800 [$23,000]. Mr. Alden of the rubber works at Wiccopee donated $300 [$8,600] and offered to provide the hose at cost.
Justice Barnard refused to sanction a disciplinary plan adopted by the Fishkill school board, saying he objected to sending misbehaving students to jail or the poorhouse but was open to other places of confinement.
Diphtheria killed several Matteawan residents.
Dewitt Hall was seriously injured while crossing Mountain Lane when he was run down by a sled.
An early morning fire at Melham’s in Matteawan destroyed $5,000 [$143,000] worth of shoes.
Beacon Crossings
An exhibit at the Beacon Historical Society that continues through March highlights the city’s bridges, including crossings at East Main Street, Churchill Street, Wolcott Avenue, Long Dock Park and Dennings Point, as well as the historic Tioronda and Bridge Street/Groveville bridges and two former railroad bridges at Sucker Falls and Rocky Glen.
Shown here are some of the 315 local men who worked during the Great Depression to build the Wolcott Bridge, notable for its Egyptian and Art Deco motifs. Completed in 1933, it was nicknamed the Cooperation Bridge because it required a partnership between the city and state. The historical society, at 61 Leonard St., is open from 10 a.m. to noon on Thursdays and 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturdays. See beaconhistorical.org.
125 Years Ago (January 1900)
After a three-day trial, a jury ruled that Mrs. Lillian Ash of Fishkill Landing had to pay $15,000 [$564,000] in damages to malvina Prunier of Vermont for alienation of the affections of Frederick Prunier, 32. She had asked for $75,000 [$2.8 million]. According to the Vermont Phoenix, Frederick Prunier was a nurse who cared for William Campbell, a wallpaper manufacturer, during his last days. In his will, Campbell left nearly $1 million [$38 million] to Ash, who had been his housekeeper and whom he had hoped to marry, if he could persuade her husband to divorce her. Prunier was arrested for non-support and allegations he attempted to kidnap one of his children but successfully appealed to Gov. Theodore Roosevelt to avoid extradition to Vermont.
Mr. Oakes, the photographer, and his wife welcomed a 12-pound baby girl.
According to the Fishkill Standard, August Dondero, a “relic hunter” in Matteawan, purchased a black walnut and brass piano from James McIlravy of Cold Spring. Made by J.H. & M. Leib of New Haven and New York around 1785, it was formerly located in the Longfield House on Market Street in Cold Spring. Inside the piano, Dondero found a photo of Mr. Longfield and a page of sheet music from 1819 entitled “Mountain Belle Schottische.”
“Washington Crossing the Delaware,” a poem by J. Hervey Cook of Fishkill Landing, was expected to be published as a book with illustrations.
Charles Taylor, a dog breeder in Matteawan, sued the American Express Co. for $800 [$30,000] for the loss of two Scotch collies, Beacon Chief and Beacon Flossie. After competing at a Pittsburgh dog show, he shipped them home. One arrived dead and the other died the next day, he said, allegedly because they had been delayed in transit and not fed. Taylor said he had paid $350 [$13,000] for Beacon Chief but American Express argued the dog had no market value. “I have always held that a dog is property,” said Judge Barnard, who heard the case. “You can’t separate a dog from man; they have been together since the world began.”
According to the Fishkill Herald, a Matteawan businessman showed promise as a competitive pedestrian by walking to Cold Spring and back in a “remarkably quick time” to win a wager.
After six stays over four years, Edward Clifford lost his last appeal when the governor declined to commute his death sentence. The former railroad detective in 1895 had captured the infamous train robber Oliver Curtis Perry, who was sent to the Matteawan asylum for the criminally insane. A year later, Clifford was fired for being drunk on duty and responded by killing his supervisor. Friends said he started drinking only after receiving a $1,500 [$56,000] reward for catching Perry.
100 Years Ago (January 1925)
Robert Kent Jr. failed to appear for his retrial on charges he slapped and knocked down a Beacon attorney, Robert Doughty, during a deposition. After a court-ordered psychiatric exam, Kent was sent to the Matteawan asylum. Two doctors found him to have “an exaggerated ego to a great degree” and a belief that people were conspiring against him.
Stanley Jakubiel, 21, who had attended St. Joachim’s School before leaving for college, died of injuries sustained in a car accident in New Jersey. Riding with six friends, he was ejected during a collision at 1 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
Harry Malone, the editor and publisher of The Yonkers Record, died at his home of pneumonia at age 42. The Matteawan native moved to Yonkers in 1904 to become a reporter for The Yonkers Herald. Eight years later, he founded The Record, which published on Sundays.
The Mount Beacon Incline Railway said it would take people up the mountain on the morning of Jan. 24 to view the total solar eclipse. At St. Joachim’s Church, meanwhile, Alice Devine and John Branigan were married at 9 a.m. during the two minutes of darkness.
Dutchess County requested the extradition of Murray Robinson, a former Beacon resident who was in custody in Virginia. Edward Phalen alleged that he sold Robinson a car on a conditional bill of sale until the title was transferred but that Murray drove it out of state. After Phalen traveled to Richmond and had Robinson detained, the suspect sued him for $50,000 [$900,000] for false arrest.
John Austin, 40, was critically injured after being crushed under a henhouse that he was attempting to move by himself. He was found unconscious and taken to the hospital with several broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Alfaretta Stevens sued her estranged husband, George Stevens, the owner of the North Avenue Garage, for non-support. On the stand, Stevens admitted he earned $9,000 [$162,000] annually and had $90,000 [$1.6 million] in the bank.
75 Years Ago (January 1950)
Mrs. and Mrs. Percy Sweet spent the holidays with their son, Birdsall, 32, at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where he was confined to an iron lung because of infantile paralysis [polio] contracted in Beacon when he was 13. He had been able, until May 1949, to attend movies and tour the hospital grounds in a wheelchair but always had to return to the lung to sleep. [When Birdsall died in April, after nearly 19 years living with polio, Time published an obituary: “Through most of his ups and downs, Birdsall Sweet kept his spirits high, learned to make the best of his ironclad life. He learned checkers, chess and cards, dictating his plays to a nurse. He followed baseball avidly, improved his bridge with the help of visiting Vassar girls. He read, with a nurse turning every page, and worked his eyes so that he soon had to have strong glasses. Last year he learned canasta.”]
A 16-year-old passenger who injured his nose in a car crash was awarded $350 [$6,300] in damages from the other driver.
A Brooklyn police officer charged with manslaughter for killing his uncle, who was dying of throat cancer, was declared insane and sent to the Matteawan asylum.
Francis “Dutchy” Farmer, 48, was fatally injured on Route 9D when the car in which he was a passenger collided head-on with a taxi and he went through the windshield.
Augustus Bopp, a patrol officer with the Beacon Police Department for 37 years, was honored with a retirement dinner at the Whitestone Hotel.
Beacon Motors, at 285 Main St., held daily drawings for a 50-gallon gas card for customers who stopped by to see the new Dodge and Plymouth models.
A 2-year-old boy died in a fire on Meade Avenue. He was being watched by his aunt while his parents worked when a kerosene-burning kitchen range exploded. The aunt, outside getting water from the well, could not reach the bedroom where he was sleeping.
A Smith Street man was arrested for driving 65 mph in a 25-mph zone on Fishkill Avenue.
A 95-year-old South Cherry Street woman injured her foot and ankle when she was knocked down at Main and Hamilton streets. The driver said her foot slipped off the brake as she was making the turn.
Dr. C. Jonathan Slocum, a psychiatrist who co-founded the Craig House sanitorium, died at age 76. He and Dr. Robert Lamb purchased Gen. Joseph Howland’s estate, known as Tioronda, in 1915.
Beacon’s Hall of Fame Inventor
George Judson, a Beacon native who co-created the continuous-flow blood separator, will be inducted on May 8 into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the group announced on Jan. 15.
Judson (1918-1992) is one of 17 inductees in the 2025 class. The awards are presented in partnership with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
After growing up in Beacon, Judson studied civil engineering at the University of Kansas and in 1952 began working for IBM. In 1962, his 17-year-old son, Tom, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia and admitted to a National Cancer Institute (NCI) hospital near Washington, D.C. During a tour of the blood bank, Judson noted the cumbersome process of removing and replacing white blood cells in patients and envisioned a simpler and quicker method with continuous flow.
He took his idea for a machine that would separate blood’s components to Dr. Emil Freireich, director of the leukemia program at NCI, and IBM gave him a year’s paid sabbatical to develop a prototype. Freireich, who died in 2021, will also be inducted May 8.
Tom Judson died in 1964, before the machine could be completed. But today, blood-cell separators are standard equipment to treat cancer patients, burn victims, blood and bone marrow disorders and during heart surgery. Before the machine, patients could only receive whole blood.
50 Years Ago (January 1975)
John Raymond, a school board member, said he was opposed to any measures, such as busing, to balance the “alleged racial imbalance” of the city’s elementary schools unless there was evidence it was harmful to learning.
Glenn Houghtalin, 32, a Republican who represented Beacon on the Dutchess County Legislature, was elected chair, deposing the incumbent Republican, George Reid, in a 22-12 party-line vote. Reid’s supporters and the Democrats had pushed for a secret ballot but failed on a 19-16 vote.
The Beacon council dissolved the city health department and turned its functions over to Dutchess County.
The City Council promised a “belt-tightening” budget but almost immediately had to allocate $50,000 [$293,000] to fix a sewer line that collapsed on Water Street.
Beacon police ended their investigation of a Dec. 7 fire that killed six children on Cliff Street. They could not determine its origin but concluded the flames spread quickly because the interior woodwork had been painted with deck enamel thinned with lighter fluid. Investigators said the parents, while escaping through second-floor windows, caused an updraft that fanned the blaze.
The City Council approved a four-bay building for the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps on a site off Delavan Avenue donated by Highland Hospital. The building would be constructed by Navy Seabees.
A 23-year-old patrol officer was suspended after being charged with assault for throwing a Spring Valley Court woman against a car while attempting to break up a fight. The woman, her husband and her sister were charged with disorderly conduct. The sisters began fighting while the husband was being arrested for a previous assault. Oscar Nieves, identified by The Poughkeepsie Journal as a “spokesman for Puerto Ricans in Beacon,” said the incident “would not have occurred if Hispanics were on the Beacon police.”
In response, Mayor Robert Cahill said the 33-man force, which had two Black officers, would need only one more Black and one Hispanic officer to reflect the racial makeup of the city, which was 11 percent Black and 5 percent Hispanic. He also claimed it would be difficult to hire a Hispanic officer because most Hispanic residents of Beacon were elderly, children or women and the job required a high school diploma and a clean record.
Gary Sickler, a former Beacon resident convicted in 1969 of killing Kathleen Taylor, 20, of Wappingers Falls, made a final appeal to overturn his 25-years-to-life sentence. When he killed Taylor, he was out on parole after serving eight years for raping a 9-year-old girl in the woods near the New York Rubber Co. [The state Court of Appeals upheld his conviction. Sickler died in prison in 2013.]
25 Years Ago (January 2000)
About 100 children were enrolled in the school district’s half-day pre-K program, the only one of its kind in Dutchess County.
The school board submitted blueprints for a 200,000-square-foot high school to the state Education Department for approval. The current school, built in 1915 and expanded in 1937 and 1987, had 830 students in a space designed for 600.
The Ballet Arts Studio hosted an open house for Scott Beall, the author of Functional Melodies: Finding Mathematical Relationships in Music, who had recently moved to Beacon from San Francisco.
The city received a $40,000 state grant to demolish a 175-foot smokestack off Dennings Avenue that had been part of the city’s incinerator before it was closed because of federal pollution controls.
