Monday, October 30, 2023-Story behind the story- Ghosts of the Mohawk Valley

Tuesday, October 31, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Johnny Podres and Alex Isabel

There are Amsterdam connections to the late Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres who died January 13 at age 75 at Glens Falls Hospital.  A longtime Queensbury resident, Podres was best known for shutting out the New York Yankees in game seven of the 1955 World Series.

Wednesday, November 1, 2023-From the Archives- February 10, 2023-Episode 461-Alan Maddaus is author of Wright Peak Elegy: A Story of Cold War, Nuclear Deterrence and Ultimate Sacrifice. The book tells the story of a U.S. B 47e jet bomber that crashed into Wright Peak in New York’s Adirondack Mountains in in January 1962. 

Thursday, November 2, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Helping Sam Stratton

Friday, November 3, 2023-Episode 497-Several topics from Bob Cudmore’s Focus on History newspaper column: Amsterdam NY’s connection to Piscotta, Italy; carper mill tales; union Leader Leonora Barry.  Plus an interview with Phillip Malcolm Bowler about his ancestors’ brewery in Amsterdam.

The Historians Podcast fund drive has raised $4630 so far.  Our most recent generous contributions came from Jackie Murphy, Jim Kaplan, Dave Northrup and Wanda Burch. 

Go Fund Me Monday Update-$2370.00 in need by December 31, 2023

U.S. Mail Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

on-line: The Historians Podcast, organized by Bob Cudmore 

Ghosts in the Mohawk Valley

By Bob Cudmore

   Wishing good weather to Historic Amsterdam League for tonight’s conclusion of their likely sold out Ghosts of the Past tour at Green Hill Cemetery.

   One cemetery resident portrayed in a previous tour was Lewis Putnam Strang, who liked fast cars, according to Jerry Snyder of the League.

   A descendant of Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam, Strang was born in Amsterdam in 1884.  He died in 1911.  Snyder wrote that Strang “became the first Indy driver ever killed, pinned beneath his car when it overturned during a reliability test run in Wisconsin, going four miles per hour.” 

   The year Strang died he had taken part in the first Indianapolis 500.  Strang did well in other races, even beating legendary driver Barney Oldfield. 

   Daisy Crouse Rhinehart was interred at age 79 in 1961 in the Crouse family mausoleum at Green Hill.  She was placed in a bronze casket dressed in her ermine wrap. 

   Her father, David, was one of the original owners of the large carpet mill on Lyon Street, called the upper mill. 

   Daisy divorced twice.  Her first husband, John Smith, was a traveling trading stamp salesman.  She and second husband Roy Rhinehart had homes in Saratoga Springs and Florida. 

   In 1955 an assault complaint was lodged against Daisy by her cook.  After allegedly biting the Saratoga undersheriff Daisy was dubbed Hurricane Daisy in the newspapers.

   The oldest building in Amsterdam, Guy Park Manor, had a ghost, according to city historian Rob von Hasseln.  Guy Park Manor is currently being converted into an education center

   The building’s first residents were British Loyalist Guy Johnson and his wife Polly, who fled to Canada during the American Revolution.  The winning side turned the building into a tavern.

   “Visitors began seeing a mysterious woman in white in an upstairs room,” von Hasseln wrote.  “Some suspected Polly had returned to her home, others thought it was a maidservant dispatched by Guy Johnson to retrieve papers and valuables secreted in the house.  A German hexmeister who travelled the Valley offered to stay overnight in the manor and rid it of its ghost; thereafter, the visitations ceased.”

   The reputed haunting of Widow Susan Road in the town of Amsterdam by Susan DeGraff still gets attention from ghost hunters.  The road runs from Chapman Drive (formerly Route 5) up a hill to Route 67.

   Local lore has it that driving down the road and chanting “Widow Susan” three times conjures the spirit.

   Renee Mallet, in her book “Ghosts of New York’s Capital District,” wrote, “Most of the witnesses report seeing a lady in an old fashioned white dress, walking along Widow Susan Road, sometimes crying but always searching for something.”

   Susan Thomas, born in Perth in 1821, married Harmanus DeGraff in 1838. They lived at the bottom of the road.  Harmanus died around 1848.

   Susan and a daughter moved to Michigan where the widow died in 1892.  She was buried at Green Hill.

   The story was that Susan haunted her old neighborhood looking for her husband’s grave, thought to have been in a family cemetery.

   However, Jerry Snyder found that Alonzo DeGraff, the widow’s son, purchased a plot at Green Hill in 1883 and had his father and other family members exhumed from where they were buried and moved to Green Hill.  When Susan died in 1892 she was buried next to her husband. 

   There have been reports of ghost-like activities in the Old Montgomery County Courthouse in Fonda where the office of county historian Kelly Farquhar is located.  At different times people have seen a woman in a long blue dress walking on the building’s second floor. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, October 30, 2023

46 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:48AM 

The Daily Gazette Family of Newspapers is excited to announce the launch of a brand-new website that encompasses our three daily newspapers as well as our newly-acquired arts and lifestyle site.

Each of the four publications still has a separate and distinct home on the website, but they all reside under The Daily Gazette umbrella, and we’ve ensured that they’ve retained their individual identity and scope of coverage.