History, Natural History & the Arts
Breaking news from Sandy Hill was published at 5 am Monday April 2, 1883, the day the Glens Falls news cycle was cut in half from 24 to 12 hours.
“A bout of fisticuffs occurred at the freight depot yesterday afternoon in which several glove handlers were engaged. No less than forty spectators were present. No damage was done beyond desecration of the Sabbath,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported in its debut issue. [Read more…] about In 1883 The Glens Falls News Cycle Was Cut In Half
Oh what pun it is to chuckle over Prohibition one-liners published in 1920 issues of The Post-Star, a daily newspaper of Glens Falls, NY. [Read more…] about Prohibition One-Liners From 1920
Daredevil stunt man and movie actor Rodman “The Human Fly” Law had been shot out of a “monster sky rocket” and had jumped in a specialized “aeroplane parachute” from the Brooklyn Bridge and the 792-foot Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world at the time.
For his next feat, Law came to the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Early Stunt Men, Daredevils ‘The Human Fly’ & ‘Hurricane Hutch’ in NY
Charles Evans Hughes and Al Jolson shared a small stage at Marion, Ohio in 1920 as part of Republican presidential candidate Warren Harding’s “front porch” campaign.
Hughes, a lawyer in New York City at the time, and “a troupe” of Big Apple entertainers traveled on the same train from New York City to Marion the morning of Aug. 24. [Read more…] about Al Jolson and Harding’s ‘Front Porch Campaign’
House Speaker David A. Henderson, at the turn from the 19th to 20th centuries, had a reputation for spontaneously breaking into a patriotic song when making speeches.
But when it came to newspaper reporters, he kept silent, even during an extended tour of New York state in summer 1902. [Read more…] about David A Henderson Tours New York State in 1902
Getting the vote was just one of the issues suffragettes encountered in the late 19th century.
They also faced the premise of some theologians who contended the afterlife was restricted to an exclusive old boy’s club.
“A benignant looking, white-bearded patriarch,” who distributed candy to local children annually on Christmas Eve, debunked the theory in a Sunday afternoon debate in 1894 at Psychical Hall.
No — not Santa Claus. [Read more…] about Meredith B. Little: Leading Glens Falls Spiritualist
French pugilist Georges Carpentier was traveling with the Seils-Floto Circus from Albany to Montreal in May 1920 when the train stopped briefly at Plattsburgh.
(In an interesting side note, Carpentier was traveling in the same private rail car that President Woodrow Wilson used a few months previous on his trans-continental campaign to gain support for the League of Nations.) [Read more…] about French Pugilist Georges Carpentier’s Visit To NY
The Plattsburgh Daily Press in late 1894 fact-checked the boasts of M.W. Howard, age 32, of Alabama, and George M. Southwick, age 31, of Albany, who each claimed to be the youngest member of the incoming U.S. House of Representatives.
Actually, it was local Representative-elect Wallace T. Foote Jr., who would still be 30 when he took office, that would have the distinction. Foote represented New York’s 23rd District, which included Essex, Clinton, Franklin, Warren and Washington counties. [Read more…] about Wally Foote: ‘The Most Handsome Man in Congress’
No one, other than railroad workers, was around on Sept. 5, 1916 when the campaign train of Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes stopped at the Louisville, Kentucky station, en route to Lexington and eventually upstate New York. [Read more…] about Politics and War Preparations: Charles Evans Hughes in Plattsburgh
Constituents in New York’s 21st Congressional District, unlike U.S. Rep. Constantine B. Kilgore, D-Texas, didn’t get caught taking summer naps, joked The Plattsburgh Sentinel on April 5, 1889.
Kilgore, better known by the nickname “Buck,” had persistently blocked Republican John H. Moffitt, who represented New York’s North Country, from securing a $10,000 appropriation to construct a road through the military reservation in Plattsburgh. [Read more…] about John H. Moffitt’s North Country Political Biography