June and Spoon 

The 2022 Historians Podcast fund drive needs your favor!  To donate click, https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast-2022  Or direct a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Thank You

Later this week on Thursday Bob will give us an update on his working weekend at The American Revolution Conference 

Tuesday, June 14, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Drum corps in World War II 

Wednesday, June 15, 2022-From the Archives-Episode 154, 2017-Lynn Herzig describes growing up in a hamlet on New York’s Tug Hill Plateau over fifty years ago.  Herzig is author of Where’d you go? “Out!” What’d you do?  “Nothing!” Unique memories of growing up in Beaver Falls, N.Y. during the 1950s.

Thursday, June 16, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Gerald Barnell the band man.

Friday, June 17, 2022-Episode 427-Journalist David Levine is author of “The Hudson Valley: The First 250 Million Years.”  His book explains how Hudson New York for a time was part of the whaling industry.  He also includes stories about Alexander Hamilton, the Mohicans and slavery in the time of Dutch colonial rule.

How can you be first on your block to read Bob Cudmore’s weekly Focus on History column? You can buy a Saturday copy of the Daily Gazette or Amsterdam Recorder!  Or get an online subscription.  Here’s another detail: Bob’s column sometimes runs Sunday in the Gazette and Monday in the Recorder.  Here at column HQ we wait a week and send an email blast on Sunday with the week old column. This coming weekend hear on The Historians "What I don't like about Amsterdam"

Remembering Amsterdam with Mike Mancini

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History  

   Battalion Chief John Michael Mancini served over 37 years with the Amsterdam Fire Department and added many anecdotes to my local history stories over the years.  We knew each other because both of us worked in local radio at WCSS and WVTL.  A resident of Northville at the end of his life, he died last month at age 80.

   Mancini said there were three fires in the city’s history he couldn’t forget, including one in which he almost lost his life.

   That nasty blaze destroyed the Speedline Warehouse on Front Street in the 1990s.  An overhead door had burned off giving Mancini and other firefighters access to the building.  As they moved forward, a propane tank exploded.

   “Three more steps and I would have got it,” Mancini said.  The blaze was so intense that burning debris ignited nearby buildings.  Mancini said the cause was arson.  The case took four years to prosecute but a conviction was finally secured. 

   Mancini recalled great loss of life in an Amsterdam blaze in 1955 long before he joined the fire service when a tenement with no clear exits burned on Schuyler Street.  Twelve people perished and their bodies were lined up outside the building awaiting removal by funeral directors.  The cause apparently was a kerosene heater.

   The third fire that saddened the community took place on February 21, 1967 at the Guy Park Avenue home of Tony Greco, Amsterdam schools athletic director.  Greco was not home but his wife and children died.  The Greco home was behind Engine #5 on Division Street.  Mancini became a firefighter later that year.

   Mike’s father operated a funeral home on East Main Street.  Across the street was Boggie’s Fourth Ward Hotel.

   Mike’s great uncle founded the establishment and his uncle and aunt, John and Eva Boggie, ran the restaurant and hotel for many years.  Kirk Douglas’s father Harry Demsky lived in the hotel for a time, as did my grandfather, Harry Cudmore, and my uncle Percy Cudmore.  The Boggies were English and Italian and the restaurant featured pizza.

   Mike said his parents enjoyed ground coffee at the Van Dyk restaurant farther west on East Main and young Mike would have tea.  He put cream in his tea from little glass bottles with cardboard tops.  The Van Dyk closed in 1954.

   After tea and coffee, the Mancinis often crossed the street to the Federal Bake Shop where the family would buy a jellyroll.

   Mike attended St. Casimir’s Elementary School through eighth grade.  He was a graduate of Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1959.

   Mike and his father John were among those at the Columbian Community Center, a social hall on East Main Street, when Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and his wife “Happy” enjoyed a musical performance by the Mohawk Valley Chorus during the summer of 1970.

   Rockefeller told the bartender to buy everyone at the bar a drink.  The Governor then told Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson to take care of the tab. 

   According to Mike, Wilson said he frequently paid for Rockefeller’s largesse in that the nation’s richest governor seldom carried cash.  In future years the Mohawk Valley Chorus received substantial grants from Rockefeller’s arts council.

   In addition to hosting a local radio talk show for 20 years with Sam Zurlo, Mike also played 1950s music on the radio.  He liked attending county fairs.  He liked cars and boats and in his later years took part in competitive go kart racing.

. Mike received the Firefighter of the Year award twice, once for the rescue of a child, and the other for his commitment to public safety education.

The 2022 Thomas Paine Festival
New Rochelle, New York
June 16, 17, and 18, 2022
Commemorating the Roots of Democracy in America
New Rochelle, NY—Honoring the legacy of one of America’s most iconic Founding Fathers, the Huguenot &
New Rochelle Historical Association, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association, and the Thomas
Paine Memorial Association are pleased to announce the 2022 Thomas Paine Festival, to take place June 16-
18, 2022.
The Festival will inaugurate the newly named Thomas Paine New Rochelle Center featuring the unique
historical sites adjacent to one another on North Avenue in New Rochelle -- the Thomas Paine Cottage
Museum (est. 1784), the Thomas Paine Monument (est. 1839), and the Thomas Paine Memorial Building (est.
1925).

https://www.thomaspainecenter.org/#/

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, June 13, 2022

https://dailygazette.com/

https://www.recordernews.com/

Leader Herald

FULTON COUNTY, JOHNSTOWN, LOCAL NEWS, MONTGOMERY COUNTY, THE GLOVERSVILLE LEADER HERALD

https://www.leaderherald.com/