This week on “The Historians” podcast, an interview with Gloversville Leader Herald columnist and former Fulton County historian Peter Betz on murders most foul. Betz says his readers react the most to crime tales in his bi-weekly history column. In a 1934 murder, a nurse kept her wits about her, but her friend, a popular Gloversville shoe salesman, died anyway. Listen at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
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Fulton County
Erie Canal Birthday Party Planned At Schoharie Crossing
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will celebrate the 189th Birthday of the Erie Canal at its annual Birthday Bash on Sunday, October 26th from 1 to 5 pm. This year will feature rides from Run by Dogs Dogsledding, a pie raffle, and a beard contest, as well as local farmers showcasing their products, a pumpkin decorating contest, cider tasting, and music. Free walking tours will be available at 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm.
Schoharie Crossing will also be exhibiting a cannon used to announce the opening of the canal in 1825 that has been loaned by the Fulton County Historical Society’s Fulton County Museum for this occasion. [Read more…] about Erie Canal Birthday Party Planned At Schoharie Crossing
Johnstown: Serial Killer Robert Garrow Talk Thursday
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Association will offer a public review of the case of convicted Adirondack serial killer Robert Garrow tomorrow, Thursday, October 2 at the Johnstown Eagles Club, 12 S. William St., at 7 pm. The presentation will be given by regular New York History Blog contributor Lawrence P. Gooley, who is the author of Terror in the Adirondacks: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert F. Garrow.
Garrow, an abused Dannemora child turned thief, serial rapist, and killer who admitted to seven rapes and four murders (although police believed there were many more). Among his victims were campers near Speculator where Garrow escaped a police dragnet and traveled up Route 30 through Indian Lake and Long Lake and eventually made his way to Witherbee where he was tracked down and shot in the foot. Claiming he was partially paralyzed, Garrow was shot and killed during an attempted prison escape in September 1978 – he had faked his paralysis. [Read more…] about Johnstown: Serial Killer Robert Garrow Talk Thursday
The Historians: Peter Betz, Finger Lakes Culinary History
This week on “The Historians”, retired Fulton County historian and Leader Herald history columnist Peter Betz has the story of an early drowning — or not — in the Sacandaga Reservoir. In the second half of the show I talk with Laura Winter Falk about her book Culinary History of the Finger Lakes: From the Three Sisters to Riesling (History Press).
Listen to the whole program at “The Historians” online archive at http://www.bobcudmore.com/thehistorians/
[Read more…] about The Historians: Peter Betz, Finger Lakes Culinary History
North Country Teacher Taught Southern Freedmen
Back-to-school time perhaps brings back, for adults, the memory of a favorite teacher. But of those who are so warmly remembered, how many can elicit this wish by a former student of a 19th century teacher?
“If I could be permitted, how gladly would I again fill up the wood-box in your room and kindle the fire on your hearth…”
Those words came from the prestigious African American preacher, Rev. Daniel Webster Shaw (who, interestingly, was the son of a former slave, Harriet Shaw, with whom Solomon Northup was acquainted in Louisiana). “If I have done anything, or come to anything worth while, it is all mainly due to your timely helpfulness and godly admonition,” Shaw wrote. “I think of the school days on the Tache [Teche, a bayou in Louisiana], and all the kind ways in which you helped me to start out in life.” [Read more…] about North Country Teacher Taught Southern Freedmen
Summer Festival at Kanatsiohareke This Weekend
The Kanatsiohareke (Gah-Nah-Joe-Hah- Lay- Gay) Summer Festival is a family-friendly celebration of Mohawk culture that is shared with friends, relatives, volunteers and everybody in the local Mohawk River Valley community.
The event includes Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) storytelling, dancing, music and culture as well as contemporary music. Vendors will be selling Native American art works and crafts. Food will include some traditional Mohawk dishes as well as organic grass-fed beef. [Read more…] about Summer Festival at Kanatsiohareke This Weekend
In Johnstown, Hope for Votes for Women Trail Funding
It’s late afternoon in Johnstown, NY, magic hour, right before sunset when filmmakers capture the best lighting. Nancy Brown, a fifth grade teacher, is waiting to take us to the local historical society and out to dinner with three other board members of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Hometown Association.
This is the town where well-known women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton grew up. The place is also loaded with history of the American Revolution, plus generations of tanners and workers in the glove industry who lived and worked here. We can’t get to the Johnstown Historical Society at 17 North William Street without passing sites of major historical interest. It’s as if everybody is related in some way to this historical community. It looks like classic small town America, made in America. [Read more…] about In Johnstown, Hope for Votes for Women Trail Funding
William Henry Burr: Gloversville’s ‘Great Literary Detective’
Many people probably remember that at the end of the 19th century the city of Gloversville, in Fulton County, was recognized as the glove-making capital of the world. However, one of Gloversville’s famous sons, William Henry Burr, has been all but forgotten.
Referred to as “the great literary detective” by one of the 19th century’s foremost orators and political speechmakers, Robert G. Ingersoll, Burr was born in Gloversville on April 15, 1819. His father, James Burr, was one of the founders of the glove industry in the community, once known as Stump City. [Read more…] about William Henry Burr: Gloversville’s ‘Great Literary Detective’
Johnstown: St. Patrick’s Masonic Lodge
I noticed that there was a report in the Leader Herald on the Johnstown Masons of St. Patrick’s lodge, so I thought this bit of history might be timely:
St. Patrick’s Lodge No. 8 (now called St. Patrick’s Lodge No. 4) in Johnstown, NY, founded by Sir William Johnson, is one of the oldest Masonic Lodges in the State of New York. Sir William Johnson was raised a Master Mason on April 10, 1766, in Union Lodge No. 1, located in Albany, New York, (now Mount Vernon Lodge No. 3).Augustine Prevost, a brother of the Union Lodge, wrote to Johnson a few weeks earlier, on March 23, 1766, informing him that Johnson’s friend and fellow Masonic brother Normand McLeod, had formally notified Union Lodge of Johnson’s desire to be a master of a lodge in Johnstown. Prevost noted in the letter: [Read more…] about Johnstown: St. Patrick’s Masonic Lodge
Schenectady: The Life of Clarissa Putman
Clarissa Putman, the jilted lover of Sir John Johnson, son of William Johnson, has been the subject of much Mohawk Valley mythology over the years.
The Schenectady County Historical Society (SCHS, 32 Washington Avenue, Schenectady) will host a talk on Saturday, November 3, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. by Peter Betz entitled The Life of Clarissa Putman to sort out fact from fiction by providing a non-fictional mini-biography of her life based on reliable sources. [Read more…] about Schenectady: The Life of Clarissa Putman