Fort Plain Museum chairman Norm Bollen has announced that the museum has reached an agreement with a private collector to purchase an original portrait of Sir William Johnson painted in 1756.

“We are very excited to add this historic painting to our collections” said Bollen. The purchase of this painting is in line with our ongoing mission to preserve and collect the 18th century history of the Mohawk Valley for future generations to learn from and enjoy. The painting was originally owned by Robert Chambers, the author of more than 70 novels and short stories, many of which were about the Mohawk Valley in the American Revolution, with several turned into popular silent movies of that era.

The painting, currently on loan to the museum, will remain on exhibition while the museum raises the money to complete the transaction. Contributions supporting the purchase may be sent to the Fort Plain Museum, P.O. Box 324, Fort Plain, NY 13339.

By Bob Cudmore

An Amsterdam native who went on to be a patent attorney has contributed recollections of the former Castler’s Market from the days when the store was at 113 East Main Street.

Henry S. Miller, Jr., who lives now in Massachusetts, worked at Castler’s starting in 1948.  Miller’s father, Henry S. Miller, was a salesman for H.J. Heinz and was known to grocers as “the pickle man.”  The father became friends with Charles Castler.

 Eventually, the elder Miller worked weekends at the market and helped his son get a job delivering groceries on the weekend with Jack Davis in old-fashioned bushel baskets. 

“Typically, I would knock on the customer’s door and be invited into the kitchen, empty the contents of the basket on the table, and collect the fee,” Miller wrote. “Charlie was generous.  Every week, I would deliver several baskets to poor families and was instructed not to collect the fee.  When I came in from the run on Saturday afternoon, I would help my father make the hamburger.”

Miller said that Castler had a “magic potion” to add to hamburger so it would stay red all week.  Their motto was “not the cheapest, but the best.”  

“Jack Davis is a story in itself,” Miller said.  “He was much more comfortable driving a team of horses than driving a panel truck delivering groceries. He never understood the gearshift selection and would start up in the middle of Bell Hill in second gear, slipping the clutch until the vehicle finally moved.  I was about 14 at the time and I would have to remind him to shift in first gear.

In the wintertime when it snowed, we put chains on and he would simply spin the wheels until the chains broke or the truck moved.

“Jack lived up on Perth Road near the intersection of Log City Road. Another thing about Jack, he smoked a pipe and used Blue Boy tobacco.  Blue Boy was only sold in two places in town; one was Whelan’s Drug at the corner of Chuctanunda and Main Street.  The tobacco looked like some of the shavings my daughter uses in her hamster cage and smelled about the same.  Jack would spill more than he got into his pipe.  It was all over the inside of the truck.  Incidentally, the truck had only one seat and I sat on a wooden milk carton next to Jack, long before seatbelts.

“There was another meat cutter, Bill Barbuto. After he left, a meat cutter by the name of Fox worked there for a while, but he would slip out the back door several times a day and go over to the hotel on Washington Street for a pack of cigarettes.  The problem was, he was a good meat cutter.

I also remember Floyd Castler as Uncle Floyd and a small fellow named Les.  Les lived with his family on Market Street over a pool hall, if I recall.  Sadly enough, Les and his family lost all their worldly goods one night in a fire.  

“I remember Mike Sagarese had a vegetable concession in the front of the store and on the sidewalk in the summer.  He had a young fellow working for him, my age, named Herb Elliott. Herb and I had a friendly rivalry going because he played basketball for Amsterdam High School and I played for St. Mary's.”

Friday, July 28, 2023-Episode 485-On the road to our 500th episode.  Larry Gooley wrote the history of Adirondack serial killer Robert Garrow.  Gooley was interviewed in March 2015 on Episode 49 of The Historians Podcast.

Saturday, July 29, 2023-From the archives-Episode 155, March 17, 2017-Christina Baker Kline discusses her historical novel “A Piece of the World.”  The book deals with artist Andrew Wyeth and Christina Olson, pictured in a provocative 1948 painting, “Christina’s World.”  Kline was author of the best-selling historical novel, “Orphan Train.”

Sunday, July 30, 2023 -Focus on History-Amsterdam’s rye bakeries

Mohawk Valley  Weather, Thursday, July 27, 2023

75 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:59AM

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