Looking Back in Beacon

Editor’s note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.

150 Years Ago (June 1874)

A group of brickyard workers at Dutchess Junction saved three Newburgh boys whose rowboat had capsized in the river.

The Rev. F.R. Masters of Matteawan fell ill at the Howland library on a Friday but was in such a fragile state that he could not be removed. He died at the library the following Tuesday.

When a man named Van Densen met a woman at the Fishkill Landing train station, police arrested them both. Van Densen was charged with deserting his wife.

After the Fishkill Landing Machine Co. sued over the amount of its 1873 taxes, a judge ruled for the village on every point.

Several cattle fell from the long dock at Fishkill Landing into the river while following a thirsty, blind steer that smelled water. All were rescued.

The steam canal boat City of Buffalo, built in Kingston, was having its engine and boiler installed at the Fishkill Landing Machine Co.

Thomas Murphy and John Summers of Fishkill Landing had a mile-long walking match; Murphy won in 10:32.

The Dutchess and Columbia Railroad reported that 21,000 quarts of milk [5,250 gallons] were shipped on its tracks daily.

125 Years Ago (June 1899)

Fishkill Landing and Matteawan banned fountains and sprinkling because the Melzingah reservoir was nearly empty due to a drought. At the same time, officers at the Matteawan State Asylum put the inmates to work laying pipes to bring water from another source.

Fred Newman was arrested in Cold Spring and turned over to Fishkill Landing authorities to answer a charge of seduction. The case was dismissed when he married the girl.

George Appo, a former swindler, was released from the Matteawan asylum to face trial for a New York City stabbing. The doctors determined that he was not insane, just addicted to morphine. [Appo is the subject of a 2007 book by Timothy Gilfoyle, A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York.]

At a bicycle meet hosted by the Stamford Wheel Club in Connecticut, Arthur Ladue of Matteawan won the 10-mile road race in 28:45, edging a New Haven rider by one second.

After a seven-year search for relatives of Emma O’Toole, 50, who had died at the Matteawan asylum with $3,000 in Irish bank notes [about $548,000 today] sewn into her clothing, the prison clerk identified a niece in New York City.

A woman from Brooklyn visited the Fishkill Landing police to ask for help locating her 3-year-old daughter, whom she believed had been kidnapped by her estranged husband and his sister, a former village resident.

William Badeau, 72, a multimillionaire who grew up in Fishkill and had a thick, snow-white beard, offered Fishkill Landing and Matteawan $20,000 [$757,000] if they would merge and rename themselves Badeau. Although he was a lifelong bachelor, Badeau said he hoped his children could say: “The proud and grateful townspeople named the place after papa.”

Earlier in the year, Gov. Theodore Roosevelt had enacted a law that allowed Fishkill Landing and Matteawan to unify if residents agreed. The boards of both villages held a joint meeting and set a vote for July 11. The trustees rejected Badeau’s offer before voting 5-4 to use the name Matteawan if the merger was approved.

Thomas Defreese, who lived on Academy Street, became a father at 74 by his second wife. He was already a great-grandfather through his children by his first wife.

100 Years Ago (June 1924)

A new state law required Beacon to move its municipal elections from March to the fall and the expiration of terms from March 31 to Dec. 31.

A state judge granted an annulment to a 24-year-old Beacon woman who said her 31-year-old husband, a Newburgh barber, beat her. She was granted custody of their 17-month-old son.

State police could not locate three men who attempted to rob Elmer Dolson at the schoolhouse on the Poughkeepsie road three miles north of Beacon. The men fired three shots that struck his Ford roadster.

Traveling at 50 mph, the rigid airship USS Shenandoah passed over Beacon on a practice flight from New Jersey to upstate New York.

George Decker, 14, died at his home after a fistfight with Harold Wood, 13. Harold testified at a coroner’s inquest that he and George had been bickering while walking home from school and that George punched him in the face. Harold said he hit George in the chest in response, and George fell backward, striking his head on the curb. Inexplicably, the two doctors who performed the autopsy attributed the brain bleed that killed him to “the twisting and straining of the youth in the excitement of the fight.” The coroner ruled that Harold acted in self-defense.

Anthony Ferrone of Wilkes Street was a crew member of the USS Mississippi when an explosion during firing tests killed 48 sailors off the coast of California.

Burglars stole $150 worth of bananas from the cellar of the New York Fruit Co.

Three men were accused of beating a Highland man unconscious and robbing him of $5. Officers took the victim to the ferry station at the foot of Main Street, where he spotted and identified the men, who each had rap sheets.

After shooting Louis Brown in the face during a craps game at a Dutchess Junction brickyard, the suspected killer commandeered a taxi to make his escape toward Kingston, police said.

75 Years Ago (June 1949)

Doctors at a Philadelphia bronchoscopic clinic took X-rays of the chest of a 13-month-old Beacon boy but could not locate a peanut he swallowed. He had been rushed to Philly behind a police escort.

A Kingston woman and her husband were arrested and charged with abandoning their newborn at Highland Hospital. Authorities said the mother, who gave a fake name and address when admitted, fled down a fire escape.

The Fishkill Drive-in Theatre on Route 9 held its grand opening with Buck Privates starring Abbott and Costello and Gung Ho with Robert Mitchum and Randolph Scott.

The Beacon Chamber of Commerce planned to distribute 5,000 copies of a “blue book” listing its 182 members.

More than 500 people attended the rally and court of the Beacon Girl Scouts Council at the high school.

The police chief suspended an officer for a week without pay for drinking on duty.

Hamilton Fish, the former congressman, proposed that the federal government construct a bridge connecting Beacon and Newburgh and name it for the late secretary of defense, James Forrestal, a native of Beacon. If not a bridge, Fish said, the government could rebuild the historic Mount Gulian house, which had burned down in 1931, as a memorial.

50 Years Ago (June 1974)

After two months of talks, 79 sheet-metal workers at the Green Fuel Economizer Co. plant went on strike. The firm made industrial fans for steel mills and mines.

A dozen inmates at the Matteawan State Hospital locked three guards in a utility closet, took control of the ward and broke into the medicine cabinet. After an hour, the officers convinced the prisoners to let them out.

At its ninth annual High School Theater Awards, the County Players named David Dideo as best actor for his performance in Night Must Fall.

The City Council heard only negative comments from residents at a hearing on a request to open a propane-gas business at Main and River streets.

A federal judge agreed to hold a hearing after nine inmates at Matteawan State Hospital filed a $1.525 million [$9.7 million] class-action suit, alleging cruel and unusual punishments and the improper use of tranquilizers. The lawsuit cited the use of “strip cells” in which inmates said they were bound without bedding or toilets for days or weeks.

The City Council granted a special-use permit for a Kentucky Fried Chicken on Fishkill Avenue near Mead Avenue.

The owner of a luncheonette at 164 Main St. was sentenced to six months in the county jail for promoting gambling. “We will never know how many children went unfed because of the money their fathers spent on you,” the judge said.

A 41-year-old man died following an explosion at a home he was renovating on Conway Place.

Vera Baran, who had been the school board clerk for 29 years, announced her retirement. She had served 52 board members and seven superintendents.

The New York Daily News reported that the former superintendent of the Matteawan State Hospital had been told the year before that he could resign or face discipline in the death of a 25-year-old female inmate who had been placed in a straitjacket and tied to a bed in violation of prison regulations.

25 Years Ago (June 1999)

The City Council agreed to use $60,000 [$113,000] in state grant money to buy two parcels at the corner of Verplanck Avenue and Main Street for a 40-space parking lot. “This is good news,” said Sheila Wicklow, the president of the Beacon Business Association and owner of the Little Pie Shop.

Pete Seeger was the headliner at RiverFest ’99 in Cornwall.

Cardinal John O’Connor, the archbishop of New York, attended a groundbreaking ceremony for an addition to the Carmelite Monastery. The nuns had moved to Beacon from the Bronx in 1982.

Steve Gold, a member of the City Council, created a website to honor the 95 Beacon soldiers who had died in wars since 1917.

The city agreed to pay $14,400 [$27,000] to repair the leaky roof over the porch of the Memorial Building.

A 29-year-old man was stabbed in the forearm, cheek and back during a fight on Main Street.

Responding to an emergency call at 2 a.m., police found 10 casings from two handguns at the corner of Main and Cedar. The bullets struck the Howland library and two businesses.