In an era long ago, Republicans had a majority in the New York State Assembly. But Democrats were better at baseball. [Read more…] about Some 1896 Lighter Side of Political History Anecdotes
Port Henry
Port Henry’s 20th-Century African American Community
Dr. Alice P. Green will make a virtual online Zoom presentation about her recent book, Outsider: Stories of Growing Up Black in the Adirondacks (Center for Law and Justice, 2023). Outsider details her experiences as her family grappled with poverty, race, and acceptance in the mid-20th-century Champlain Valley. [Read more…] about Port Henry’s 20th-Century African American Community
The Musicians of the Sailing Canalboat O.J. Walker
2023 marks the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Champlain Canal, which connects Lake Champlain to the Hudson River and the rest of the New York State canal system.
In commemoration of this important anniversary, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is doing an inventory of our collections relating to canalboat shipwrecks in the lake. Today, I want to share an interesting story about one of these canalboat wrecks, the sailing canalboat O.J. Walker. [Read more…] about The Musicians of the Sailing Canalboat O.J. Walker
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
During Prohibition – which ended on December 5, 1933 – my grandfather’s brother Denis Warren, a veteran of some of the bloodiest American battles of the First World War, was left for dead on the side of Route 9N south of Port Henry on Lake Champlain. He was in the second of two cars of friends returning from Montreal, both “heavily loaded with Canadian ale” according to a newspaper account.
Going through Port Henry, Essex County, local customs agents gave chase and the car he was in hit a rock cut and he was badly injured in the accident. Figuring his was dead, or nearly so, and worried he would go to prison, one of Denis’s best friends rolled him under the guardrail, climbed into the other car, and sped off. [Read more…] about Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
Political News From Historic Northern New York Newspapers
Question: How dies a mine worker who lives in Port Henry arrive at work in Mineville at 7 am, works an eight hour-day, with a half-hour lunch break, and gets back to his home in Port Henry a little after 2:30 pm. [Read more…] about Political News From Historic Northern New York Newspapers
Brooklyn Royal Colored Giants Baseball in Northern New York
“A cloudburst of the harshest kind ever known in local baseball history,” hit Port Henry on Lake Champlain, June 14, 1923. It was not the kind of cloudburst of rain which disrupts a ballgame and sends fans scrambling, but a cloudburst of talent that finds local fans cheering for the visiting team.
The Brooklyn Royal Colored Giants professional baseball team defeated the Port Henry semi-professional team, comprised primarily of local players, 20-1 in a game the home team was not expected to win. Sourian, the Giants pitcher, had 19 strikeouts. [Read more…] about Brooklyn Royal Colored Giants Baseball in Northern New York
Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
Dennis Warren left his job as a coal shoveler on the New York Central Railroad in Albany to ship out to the First World War. His transport ship had a close call with a German submarine on the way over, but got there in time to take part in what one of the bloodiest military campaigns in American history.
For Americans after the war, the Argonne would mean what Normandy meant just 25 years later – sacrifice. Sadly, that sacrifice in the Argonne Forest was never repaid to Dennis Warren, who met the death of a smuggler – running from an officious and invasive law on a treacherous mountain road near Port Henry on Lake Champlain.
According to the newsman who reported his death at the age of 29, “Canadian Ale was spread across the road.” [Read more…] about Smugglers & The Law: Prohibition In Northern New York
Ben Stickney’s Press: A New York Inventor’s Piece of World Postal History
Appeals from officials in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York to President Calvin Coolidge in 1924 resulted in the reappointment to federal government service of “undoubtedly the greatest inventive genius that Essex County has ever produced.”
Benjamin R. Stickney, a Moriah Center native, was a chief engineer at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing when President Warren Harding dismissed Stickney and 27 other federal bureaucrats, without notice, on March 27, 1922. [Read more…] about Ben Stickney’s Press: A New York Inventor’s Piece of World Postal History
Wally Foote: ‘The Most Handsome Man in Congress’
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’
Port Henry: Hollywood of the East
The Whallonsburg Grange Lyceum is set to continue their spring series “Hidden in Plain Sight” with the presentation “Port Henry: Hollywood of the East” on Tuesday, March 10th. [Read more…] about Port Henry: Hollywood of the East