Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
150 Years Ago (March 1875)
Henry Green of Matteawan was selected as Rep. John Whitehouse’s nominee to attend West Point. The Cold Spring Recorder noted that Whitehouse “set a good example by submitting his appointment to the public for a fair competition.”
There were concerns that if the 35-foot-high ice gorge in Matteawan Creek melted with a sudden change in weather, it would flood at least four factories.
According to The Cold Spring Recorder, a Fishkill man received a telegram from a Chicago hotel that his wife had died there. He replied: “Send the body. Let her come through in style. I’ll make it right with you.” Her remains arrived COD.
John Van Benscoten’s young daughter died in Matteawan of measles. There also were at least 40 cases in Glenham.
The Recorder noted that Black workers were arriving from the South in large numbers for seasonal employment at the brickyards.
Richard Haley, a railroad employee who lost his leg in 1873 when he was hit by a train at Dutchess Junction, won a $6,500 [about $188,000 today] judgment. Haley was fixing the track when a locomotive pulling 15 cars passed by. He stepped back on the track and was hit by six cars that had been detached for a siding.
The Episcopal Church at Fishkill owned a silver communion platter inscribed to honor Egleburt Huff, a Norwegian who died in 1765 at age 128. According to one account, Huff claimed he served as a British soldier during the reign of King James II (1633-1701), married for the first time at age 70 while working in New York as a smuggler and fathered 12 children. [Family historians believe he was born Engel Hof in 1687 rather than 1637.]
On March 16, it took the ferryboat 12 hours to break a passage from Fishkill Landing to Newburgh through the ice, which was 8- to 11-inches thick.
125 Years Ago (March 1900)
The Fishkill Herald published an advertisement signed by S. Miller Van Wyck, a retired lawyer in Fishkill Landing, offering a $25 [$945] reward for the conviction of whomever was attempting to poison him and his wife with mercury placed in the bottles of milk delivered to their doorstep. Van Wyck noted his wife stood to inherit considerable property in New Haven and, should she die, other heirs would receive it.
Frank Spencer, a railroad fireman who disappeared a month earlier from an engine on the New Haven line, was presumed dead. The railroad spent $100 [$4,000] to drag the Housatonic River. But a former co-worker spotted Spencer working as a brakeman on the New York Central line when a train stopped at Fishkill Landing. He said Spencer told a confused story about where he’d been.
For the first time in years, Democrats swept the Fishkill Landing election.
John Ackerman and his family lived in a secluded home near Glenham. On a Sunday night, after he left for an errand in Fishkill Landing, his wife found a stranger in the kitchen. She scooped up their two children and ran upstairs into a bedroom, shutting the door and retrieving a gun from the closet. When the man followed her upstairs, she fired through the door. The recoil knocked her down, but she reloaded and fired again. The man cried out and fled, possibly wounded.
100 Years Ago (March 1925)
A $200 [$3,600] reward was offered for the identity of the culprit who poisoned 10 dogs on the same Beacon block.
While making his rounds at the Carroll Straw Hat Factory, night watchman James Corrigan was held up by four men who he said bound and gagged him and stole his wallet, which had $3 [$50] in it. He said he was only carrying a lantern and did not get a look at their faces. Corrigan wriggled to a door, where a passing boy untied him.
More than 500 workers at five brickyards went on strike; they were paid $3.50 [$64] a day but wanted $4.75 [$86]. Loaders asked for an increase of 25 cents per 1,000 bricks.
Fred Hignell, the undertaker, was asked to remove the body of Carl Klien, 18, who died at his home at 73 Ferry St. The coroner mentioned that Klien lived above a bakery, but Hignell misunderstood. Instead, he showed up at Carl Kling’s bakeshop on Main Street, asking, “Where is the body?”
John Van Houghton, a Beacon manufacturer, purchased 300 acres of forest in Fishkill for hunting.
Parishioners at St. John’s Church presented Father James Prendergast with a purse of $1,000 [$18,000] shortly before he left for a two-month pilgrimage to Rome.
The Beacon Herald, a Republican paper, endorsed City Judge Thomas Hassett, a Democrat, for a county judgeship.
Donato Cuziello, 49, a trackwalker employed by the New York Central, was killed about 2 miles north of Beacon by a passenger train. It usually traveled on Track 1 but had been switched to Track 2. Cuziello, who lived on Beekman Street with his family, applied for the job to replace his friend, Coamo De Carlo, who was killed two months earlier at nearly the same place.
Mrs. Milton Smith told police that two men robbed her home at 26 Ferry St. but took only men’s clothing. The men later identified themselves as divorce detectives from Poughkeepsie looking for evidence for a lawsuit brought by her estranged husband. During their visit to the Smith home, the men also encountered Harold Montross. He was taken into custody on a parole violation, but because he was under 21, the judge did not jail him. After the court session, Montross left with Mrs. Smith, despite protests from Montross’ parents about her undue influence. They complained to the judge, who issued arrest warrants for both.
75 Years Ago (March 1950)
With the arrival of spring, Dutchess Manor resumed its Saturday floor shows at 10:30 p.m. and 12:20 a.m. The Ivy Room, with a view of the Hudson, served lobster, oysters and frog legs.
The Beacon Civic Music Association concluded its 1949-50 season with a performance by a young piano duo, Gold & Fizdale, at Beacon High School. Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, who were a couple, met at Juilliard; they later wrote musical biographies and cookbooks.
When the official scorer fired a starter pistol to end the first quarter of a basketball game at Beacon High School, a prankster threw a dead crow onto the court, as if it had been shot.
Stanley Barker, assistant director of the state Bureau of Environmental Sanitation, told members of the Beacon Tax and Rentpayers Association that cities along the Hudson would eventually be forced to build plants to treat the raw sewage they were dumping into the Hudson. Mayor J. Lewis Bolton responded that the city would not construct a plant, which he said would cost at least $250,000 [$3.3 million], until other municipalities committed.
A thief stole $800 [$10,500] from the Bank Square tavern on Ferry Street. Owner Vincent Megna said that when he left the bar at 2:30 p.m., there were 15 patrons and a bartender inside. The cash was in a cigar box in an unlocked safe.
The school board approved spending $7,500 [$98,000] to build a fieldhouse at Hammond Field with dressing rooms.
A 50-year-old Main Street man was expected to lose his arm after it was caught in a machine at the Atlas Fibre Co. on South Avenue.
Jim Barry hit a set shot with 40 seconds left to send St. Joachim’s to the title game of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Parochial League, where the Dutchess County champs fell to Our Lady of Refuge of the Bronx, 29-24.
A 24-year-old Beekman Street man was accused of stealing an 11-inch butcher knife from a block in the meat department at Reliable Food in Bank Square and waving it around inside a nearby tavern until a patrol officer forced him to drop it.
A 23-year-old Main Street man pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct after a confrontation with a police officer who was ticketing his vehicle at 456 Main St. The officer said the man asked if he “was looking for another feather in your cap” and if he would get promoted for ticketing him. He also called the officer “uncivilized.” The accused said he was delivering lobsters to a restaurant. [The case was dismissed after the man apologized in court to the officer.]
A Fowler Street woman sued New York Central for $100,000 [$1.3 million] following the death of her husband, who was fatally injured in the Beacon yards while dismantling a crane car. She said the assignment was not part of his job and that he was unfamiliar with the work.
50 Years Ago (March 1975)
Although it was uncertain whether the Howland library would receive a $200,000 [$1.2 million] loan from the Urban Development Corp., it still planned to move from 477 Main St. to a former department store at 313 Main. The Van Wyck Society wanted to use the current library as an arts and history museum.
After an inspection, the state corrections commissioner criticized the Beacon jail for using one of its six first-floor cells for storage, because inmates might use the items as weapons. He recommended the city build a closet.
George Hughes of Beacon High School won the Dutchess County Scholastic League basketball scoring title, averaging 23.1 points per game.
A state trooper testified during the trial of a 21-year-old Cliff Street woman accused of distributing heroin that he had written “R” with a ballpoint pen on the aluminum-foil packet she sold him. But when the prosecutor removed a piece of tape used to mark the evidence, there was no “R.” The trooper said: “It was there before you took the tape off.”
The Fishkill Correctional Center had five inmates escape within a week. In the first break-out, two prisoners who could barely walk because of serious leg injuries put dummies in their Handicapped Unit beds and somehow scaled a 20-foot fence. One was caught two days later on Red Schoolhouse Road but the other remained at large.
Pete Seeger and other members of the Beacon Sloop Club worked to finish a 50-foot dugout canoe. The project began after Seeger approached Dennis O’Leary of Hudson River Sloop Restoration. “Pete said he had always dreamed of building a dugout canoe, made from a tulip tree in the same way the Indians used to build them,” he said. Two weeks later, while O’Leary was working for ConEd on a power line west of Bear Mountain, a 120-foot tulip tree needed to come down and the utility agreed to donate and deliver the trunk to the Sloop Club.
In the second incident, three prisoners, including two killers, chipped their way with a screwdriver through the 3.5-inch-thick concrete floor of the recreation room (hiding their progress under a piece of furniture), dropped to the basement and filed through a barred window. They walked to a Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 9 and took a cab to Bard College, where a female student who volunteered at the prison as a social worker drove them to Kingston to barhop. All three were soon caught.
A county judge denied youthful offender status to a 17-year-old burglar and sentenced him to state prison instead of probation. As the teen was being handcuffed, his parents hugged him and he and his mother both cried. The prosecutor said that during the six months since his arrest, the boy had not been able to stay out of trouble.
25 Years Ago (March 2000)
The City Council issued a special-use permit for Haven at Beacon Mills, a 180-unit assisted-living facility at 248 Tioronda Ave., the former Tuck Tape site. The Planning Board still needed to approve the site plan.
The Poughkeepsie Journal profiled Ed Murphy and Lawrence Hancock, who had been friends for 83 years. They grew up in Glenham and, after graduating from Beacon High School, both worked for the Texaco Research Center and the Town of Fishkill (Murphy as a constable and dog warden and Hancock as a judge for 62 years) and volunteered as firefighters with the Slater Chemical Co.
The City Council voted 4-3 not to create a police captain position, despite a request from Richard Sassi, who had been captain before being named chief in 1994. He said a captain would take a load off the shift commanders, but most council members felt the 38-man department was top-heavy with six lieutenants and six sergeants.
Students at Beacon High School performed the musical Guys and Dolls.
The state education commissioner visited South Avenue Elementary during a two-day tour of the Hudson Valley. “This is a high-performing school that is doing something right,” he said. “I wanted to see why they are doing so well.”
The City Council tabled a plan to demolish the ski lodge on Mount Beacon after receiving a proposal to restore the building and subdivide the 6-acre property into four home lots. James Bopp, one of the applicants, in 1978 had operated the last trolley up the mountain. “I always had in the back of my mind that I didn’t want the ski lodge to go,” he said.
