History, Natural History & the Arts
The year 1886 in Washington County, New York, ended on an optimistic tone.
“But thou, the old year, has not been a very hard one, especially,” The Granville Sentinel reported on December 31st, 1886.
Extended periods of drought followed by weeks of unseasonal warm rain gave way in the final days of the year to seasonal weather. [Read more…] about The New Year in 1887, Granville, Washington County
Lake Champlain froze completely on January 8th, 1887, missing by just two days the seventy-year record for earliest freeze.
“Saturday morning (January 8th) was the coldest of the season, the mercury registering 26 below zero – in the shade,” The Granville Sentinel reported on January 14th. [Read more…] about The Joys of a January Freeze, 1887
This little piggy from Eagle Lake apparently did not want to go to market.
“Hebert Moore’s pig is still at large. Motorists are requested to drive with care in the vicinity,” the Ticonderoga Sentinel reported on July 15th, 1920. “A reward of $1 is offered by L. Lodge to anyone who will catch said pig single handed. Mr. Lodge must witness the catch. $3 if done after dark.” [Read more…] about An Anthology of Pig Tales from Northern New York
If there was one thing 19th century Granville Sentinel publisher Anna McArthur disliked more than Democrats, it was a competing newspaper attempting to siphon off Republican readership. [Read more…] about A Washington County Political Newspaper Brawl
It’s a whimsical winter notion.
“Some imaginative and wonderfully learned German scholars tell us that every snow flake is inhabited by happy little beings, who begin their existence, hold their revels, live long lives of happiness, and delight, die and are buried, all during the descent of the snowflake from the world of clouds to the solid land,” The Granville Sentinel reported on May 12th, 1886. [Read more…] about Whimsical Winter Notions For A Snowy Day
Call it an antiquarian newspaper holiday miracle.
“Rather a peculiar thing happened a few days ago,” Lieutenant Howard Smith of Hudson Falls wrote his mother from a military hospital in France on December 26th, 1918. “One of the orderlies of this ward found a picture of me in The Post-Star while he was in another ward. It was an account of my getting a Boche.” [Read more…] about A First World War Holiday Miracle
President William Howard Taft dozed for nearly five hours in the wee hours of the July 6th, 1909 morning as The Mayflower, his private rail car, was parked at the esplanade end of track No. 13 at Grand Central Station inn the city of New York. [Read more…] about President Taft At Old Ticonderoga
The weather at Granville, in Washington County, in June 1877, was ideal for agriculture.
“This is the weather that makes farmers happy,” The Granville Sentinel reported.
Corn and flax crops looked promising, but “vigilance and perseverance is to be the price of potatoes.” [Read more…] about A Plague of Potato Bugs in 1877 Washington County
Counting and verification of votes in the 1884 presidential election, as now, was controversial, with Republicans claiming fraud and inaccuracy.
“Republicans are diehard here. All their hope lies in finding a clerical error in the returns,” a Lake George correspondent wrote in a dispatch published November 11th in The Morning Star of Glens Falls. [Read more…] about The 1884 Election Also Brought False GOP Claims of Voter Fraud
Presidential elections can strain neighborly relations, as reiterated in Washington County’s Granville Sentinel in 1876.
“The one pleasant thing about it, when the cruel suspense is over, they’ll be less lying in the newspapers and less personal defamation in the streets,” the Sentinel quipped on October 29th. [Read more…] about Local Newspaper Editor Ponders Election of 1876