150 Years Ago (April 1874)
The Cold Spring Recorder reported that an intoxicated driver had checked his horse so suddenly at Main and Furnace streets that the passenger was thrown backward onto the floor of the wagon. The driver “laid all the blame on the horse, as is usual with men in his condition.”
At 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning, Thomas McAndrew, the watchman at the lower switches, found a bundle of dry goods beside a track. After taking it to his shanty, he spotted a tall man and a short man looking for it. When he confronted them, the men dropped a bundle they were carrying and ran. Authorities believe four bundles were thrown from a train by accomplices who had broken into a freight car.
The Recorder editor worried that a drunk man passed out on the porch of a Main Street grocery did not elicit any pedestrian response, even from children, that the younger generations were destined for “innate coarseness of taste, if not hardened hearts.”
When a stone boat used to move a secondhand iron safe down Main Street became stuck on the tracks, red flags were sent to trains in each direction while the “unsafe safe” was yanked free.
In an illustrated lecture at the Baptist Church, Prof. James Chandler of Waterbury, Connecticut, shared lifelike scenes of astronomy and spectrum analysis, views from the Holy Land and the burning of Chicago.
The Recorder pondered why a young man would take a job as a clerk for 16 to 18 hours a day for less than a third of what he could earn working 10 hours a day in a factory.
A Thursday night birthday party at a Main Street home devolved into a “disgraceful scene,” according to The Recorder, when young men wearing masks began pushing and screaming, insulting the girls and throwing dirt and stones. The bandits dispersed upon the arrival of Officer McCaffrey.
A longtime railroad worker was fired after temporarily leaving the switches in the hands of a young man whose inattention caused a derailment.
The Library Association received 24 bound volumes of its papers and magazines from 1873, including Harper’s, The Atlantic and Scientific American.
Henry Baxter accepted a position on a South American steamer.
The Recorder said it would not publish any further criticism of sermons.
The local furnace discharged its workers because of the low price of iron.
The Cold Spring Village Board proposed a budget of $3,743.50 [about $102,500 today], but voters only approved spending $1,656 [$45,000].
The Plate Glass Insurance Co. replaced the display window at Pelham’s after it was broken by a stone thrown at a dog.
Four inches of snow fell in the village on April 29.
The National Amateur Base Ball Association invited the Kellogg Club of Cold Spring to send delegates to its annual convention at the Astor House in New York City. The association had 29 members in six states.
125 Years Ago (April 1899)
Dr. G.W. Murdock, who was considering an office on Main Street in addition to the one in his home on Morris Avenue, received approval from the Cold Spring Village Board to erect a telephone pole on Church Street.
The Recorder noted that, with warmer weather, “the baby carriage parade will soon commence.”
John Hesson, who the previous winter fell from his boarding house window and broke his leg, then ended up living at the county poorhouse, returned home. He was promptly arrested for public intoxication and sent to the county jail for 30 days.
The telephone that had long been at the Forson Brothers store on Garrison’s Landing was moved to the Reading Room. The brothers said “it interfered too much with their business.”
When asked by the village president to take the position of assessor, Trustee Farrell declined, saying: “No use being assessor if people won’t pay taxes.”
Trustee Ferris said the Village Board should have a lawyer. J. Bennett Southard was nominated and appointed.
The village president said he had received an anonymous complaint about two saloons operating on Sundays. The board’s newly appointed lawyer said procedures were needed to address the matter.
The Ladies Auxiliary of the Methodist Episcopal Church held a social in which they produced an issue of a local newspaper while dressed in costumes made of newspapers. The event raised $51 [$1,900].
The Recorder called out the Millbrook Round Table for asserting that the only way to distinguish Cold Spring water from beer was that the former lacked froth. In fact, it said, village water was “clear as crystal.”
After the Cold Spring assessor released the values for 19 properties, The Recorder asked: “Why is it the Metcalfe family is assessed more than one-third of the entire village personal property assessment” at $35,000 [$1.3 million]? “Why is it that the village assessors can’t find more personal property to assess? A few names appear but many are missing.” And, “Why is it that certain residents of Nelsonville take so much interest in Cold Spring affairs? How about their own village?”
The Cold Spring Hose Co. passed a resolution asking the Town Board to add another exit to Town Hall.
Isaac Smith of Garrison was surprised to go to his barn and find twin heifers. In Continentalville, Benjamin Odell found twin colts.
The water superintendent turned on the drinking fountain at Main and Chestnut streets.
Gov. Theodore Roosevelt appointed William Church Osborn of Garrison (right) as a member of the State Lunacy Commission.
The board was asked to recognize the street running from Main to Railroad Avenue as Depot Square but a trustee suggested it first be established whether the village or the railroad owned the street.
The Bank of Savings in New York City placed an ad seeking information about James Spring, a Cold Spring farmer who had opened an account 43 years earlier that still had a balance.
Allan Crawford, driving home to Continentalville after dark from his job in Peekskill, noticed a bicyclist approaching at full speed. He pulled over and shouted, but the bicyclist crashed into the wagon, startling the horse. Crawford was thrown and the back wheel of the wagon ran over his face, but neither he nor the bicyclist were seriously injured.
John Donohoe purchased a hot-air engine to convey water to every part of his Garrison hotel.
After newspapers in eastern Putnam disparaged the former Cold Spring Village Board for leaving a debt, its displaced members defended their financial oversight, noting that they had hired a police officer for $300 [$11,000] that was not in the budget, that electric streetlights cost more than expected and that heavy rain and snow had led to increased spending on road repairs.
The propeller Homer Ramsdell made its first trip of the season on the river to New York City. The upstairs saloon had been equipped with a new velvet carpet.
George Hustis’ horse bolted after being hit with a potato as it stood in front of Secor’s store.
Frances Monroe, the last surviving of the 11 children of Elisha Nelson, one of the first settlers of Nelsonville, died at age 79.
100 Years Ago (April 1924)
The Putnam County Board of Supervisors voted to approve spending for a new concrete road from Cold Spring to Mekeel’s Corners that would be 34 feet wide along Main Street from Fair to Chestnut and 18 feet through Nelsonville.
The Cold Spring Methodist Church was filled to capacity on a Sunday night for a farewell service for Rev. Jonas Inman when a delegation from the Ku Klux Klan, garbed in full regalia, marched up the aisle. A Klansman handed Inman an envelope of cash, but the pastor said he could not accept the gift unless they removed their hoods.
News reached Cold Spring that Mrs. William Haldane and Miss Elizabeth Haldane, tourists aboard the SS Patria, had attended a reception at the University of Beirut.
Charles Selleck broke six spokes on a front tire while negotiating the Mountain Avenue hill in his Rolls-Royce.
Isaac Tompkins was building a concrete runway from the street to the garage of Leslie Squire’s home on Orchard Street.
The Nelsonville Fire Department appointed a committee to raise $1,000 [$18,000] to build a firehouse.
The Garrison-West Point ferry had a telephone installed.
The executors of the Stuyvesant Fish estate sold 10 acres to William Church Osborn adjacent to his farm and an acre to Donato Yannitelli near the Garrison station.
The Talisman Film Co. of New York City purchased the 3,500-acre Jordon farm, about 2½ miles from Cold Spring, for $200,000 [$3.7 million]. The farm had 150 cows and for 30 years had supplied milk to West Point.
The fire company responded to a mattress fire on Market Street that began when Alonzo Brewer was smoking a cigar in bed.
75 Years Ago (April 1949)
Hosea Odell was charged with criminal negligence and DWI after his passenger, Chester Horton, a disabled World War II veteran, was killed in a traffic accident on Route 301. The men were driving to Cold Spring after hitting the bars when the passenger door flew open on a curve and Horton fell out. Odell stopped and, while backing up, ran over Horton.
Gustave Macher wrote to the Nelsonville Village Board asking it to compel the police officer to ticket drivers who used Main Street between Tony’s Garage and the fork of the roads as a race track.
The Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce basketball team defeated the Nelsonville Chamber of Commerce, 34-22.
Frank Budney was elected engineer of the Cold Spring Fire Co., 45-29, over incumbent Owen Devine, while the presiding captain, John Merante, defeated a write-candidate, Thomas Etta, 36-31.
The Rev. J. King Gordon spoke at the Highlands Country Club in Garrison about his work in Europe as the United Nations correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Co.
George Eggers of Grandview Terrace wrote the state Board of Health and the governor to complain that Cold Spring was paying Gilbert Forman $10 [$130] monthly to let the village dump garbage on his riverfront property.
The highlight of an evening of boxing presented by the Holy Name Society at Loretto Hall was a three-round bout between Freddie Rutligano and his brother, Bobby.
50 Years Ago (April 1974)
The Butterfield Library held a tea to honor Mildred Mastin Pace, a children’s book author who lived in Garrison. Her latest title was Wrapped for Eternity: The Story of the Egyptian Mummy.
After nine months of renovations, the Cold Spring Fire Co. dedicated its new firehouse at Church and Main streets. As a housewarming gift, the Lewis Tompkins Hose Co. in Beacon presented the firefighters with a card table for their pinochle tournaments.
The Nelsonville Village Board passed a resolution recognizing April 30 as a Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer and the need to “humble ourselves before Almighty God.”
The Philipstown Town Board discussed purchasing the Bijou Theatre at 50 Main St. to convert into a community recreation center.
The family of Col. and Mrs. Taylor Belcher donated a landscape painting to the Putnam County Historical Society by Robert Walter Weir, the art instructor at West Point from 1834 to 1876.
Nicholas Angell, a local Democrat challenging Rep. Hamilton Fish, said the fact that Vice President Gerald Ford visited the district to campaign for Fish indicated the incumbent “realizes that he’s in for a fight.”
A representative from Gold Inc. asked the Cold Spring Village Board for a permit to bury cadmium dredged from the Hudson River Cove in a vault on property owned by the Marathon Battery Co.
25 Years Ago (April 1999)
An 86-year-old woman died when she fell from her second-floor bedroom window at 266 Main St. in Nelsonville.
Matt Cannon, a veteran of the Philipstown Lacrosse Association youth program, scored all four goals for O’Neill in the high school’s inaugural varsity lacrosse game, a 4-3 overtime victory at Iona Prep.
Russell Dushin asked the Town Board if, as part of its duties to oversee historic cemeteries, it could maintain a Native American grave on Route 9D.
The state education commissioner dismissed a complaint by a Garrison resident who accused a school board member and PTA volunteer of improperly soliciting votes to support a referendum to expand the school.
The Town Board discussed how best to use a $10,000 grant to make Town Hall more accessible to the handicapped, such as installing an elevator or holding meetings on the first floor.
After the Cold Spring Village Board notified Main Street merchants that it was illegal to place signs, merchandise, planters or benches outside their stores, the Chamber of Commerce suggested a neutral zone of 2 to 4 feet.
Mayor Anthony Phillips said he had asked the county for help paying workers overtime to empty trash cans on Sundays, but it offered no assistance despite promoting tourism in the area.
Town Supervisor Bill Mazzuca rejected a petition to hold a referendum on creating a Village of Garrison. He said the petition was lacking a list of qualified voters, an environmental review and a recent map (the map submitted was from 1965).
