Editor's note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.

150 Years Ago (April 1876)

The station master at Matteawan had four boys arrested for stealing eggs from the freight house.

Willett Dates, the baggage master at the Dutchess Junction station, bought the restaurant at the depot.

When the Addington family came down to breakfast in their home on South Avenue near Beacon Street on a Tuesday morning, they found their pantry had been raided. A burglar had broken through a basement window and taken loaves of bread, a dish of meat, four pounds of butter, pickles, preserves and canned goods.

W. Burnett Jr., a clerk at Dr. Schneck's drugstore in Glenham, was sleeping in the store when he was awakened at 5 a.m. on a Sunday by someone trying to unlock the cellar door. When he opened the door, the culprit fled.

The Dutchess & Columbia Railroad freight depot burned, destroying $3,000 [about $93,000 today] worth of stock owned by the paper bag factory.

The bankrupt Newburgh Lager Beer Brewery was sold at auction for $10,000 [$300,000]. It was said that many evangelical Christians owned stock. The firm had a capacity of 800 barrels per week.

According to The Cold Spring Recorder, "Matteawan is becoming a sort of mecca for tramps. On Sunday night, no less than 50 applied for and were furnished with lodgings" by the poor master.

M.E. Dietrich bought a property on Ferry Street and planned to divide the lower floor into two stores.

A clay slide at Dutchess Junction reminded James Mackin of when he was a boy and a slide happened near Low Point in which the trees slid down the bank but were not uprooted.

W.G. Van Buskirk, the master mechanic of the Dutchess & Columbia Railroad, and the first engineer to run a locomotive west of the Mississippi River, was interviewed by the Fishkill Landing correspondent of The New York Times. Van Buskirk recalled that his trains hit and killed people so often that he stopped counting at 17. One night, at a hotel in the west where he was staying, a clergyman from Arkansas overheard Van Buskirk discussing the number of people he had killed and cried, "Monster! Monster!" He was told that Van Buskirk was a train engineer, but the minister was offended anyway and moved to another hotel. The next morning, as Van Buskirk's train left town, a horse pulling a wagon carrying two men became frightened and pulled it onto the tracks. The horse and passenger were killed, and Van Buskirk realized it was the preacher, who had hired the wagon rather than take the train. At the funeral, the minister said: "Truly, Providence, thy ways are mysterious."

Alexander Turney Stewart died at age 72. Known as the "merchant prince" of New York City, he built a $50 million [$1.5 billion] fortune as a dry-goods merchant and real estate investor. At the time of his death, he was rebuilding and expanding a cassimere and carpet factory known as Glenham Mills to compete with foreign products. He expected to bring skilled workmen from abroad and was building homes for them. Stewart bought the mill for $195,000 [$6 million] after it failed in 1873 and made extensive improvements; its first shipment of carpets arrived at his flagship Manhattan store two weeks before his death.

During a storm, the Hudson overflowed at the long dock, washing away wells along the tracks and uprooting trees and fence posts. A flood also came down Fishkill Creek, threatening the wooden dams and filling cellars with 3 feet of mud.

The Matteawan correspondent for The Poughkeepsie Journal lamented that the village didn't have a ready-made clothing store or a good bakery.

Justice Ormsbee fined Mrs. McBurney $5 [$150] for assaulting James Leslie with a shovel.

Stolesbury Brothers closed their branch in Matteawan to concentrate on their wholesale and retail grocery trade at Fishkill Landing.

Zacheus Marsh, known for his tobacco, died at Glenham of apoplexy [stroke].

When the factory bells sounded on a Sunday night during services at the Pilgrim Bap...