The Historians Podcast fund drive for 2023 

We’ve raised $1135 toward our $7000 goal. Online at https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

A suppertime murder in Fort Johnson

   William H. Marshall, Jr., 27, was shot twice in the head at suppertime on Wednesday, March 12 1919 at his home in Fort Johnson.

   The fatal shots came from a revolver apparently held by Nellie Bostwick Dery...

Wednesday, April 19, 2023-From the Archives- Episode 49, March 2, 2015 Larry Gooley, author of "Terror in the Adirondacks," the story of serial killer Robert Garrow.

Larry Gooley

https://www.lawrencegooley.com/

Thursday, April 20, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Amsterdam Mayor Burt Deal

Friday, April 21, 2023-Episode 471-A highlights edition with excepts from: Steve Haggerty on Norman Rockwell’s models; Denise Van Buren on Beacon, New York; Kate Fagan on women’s basketball; Charles Evans on Valerie Andre, French surgeon and rescue pilot; Alan Maddaus, on the Prestons of Galway, a 19th century family; Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of Requiem: What Remains Is Love; Patrick Chaisson on aircraft production in New York State during WW II.”

The Demskys of Eagle Street

By Bob Cudmore

In his day, ragman Harry Demsky was as well known in Amsterdam as his son Isadore. 

Isadore, who was called Izzy, changed his name to Kirk Douglas and became a Hollywood actor and producer after World War II.  The comment next to Isadore’s picture in the 1934 Amsterdam high school yearbook stated, “Not to know him argues yourself unknown.”

Harry Demsky, also known as Herschel, was a legendary strong man, drinker and brawler.  Kirk Douglas wrote in his 1988 autobiography, “The Ragman’s Son,” that his father was “the toughest, strongest Jew” in Amsterdam.

Douglas wrote, “There were other stories about my father that raised him to the level of legend: that he popped metal bottle caps and crushed shot glasses with his teeth; that he would go from saloon to saloon with an iron bar, betting for drinks that he could bend it with his bare hands, and doing it.”

According to Douglas’s book, his father was born Herschel Danielovitch in Russia.  His wife, Bryna or Bertha Sanglel, was born in Belarus.  Their six daughters and one son were born in America.  According to census records the children were Bessie, Catherine, Marion, Isadore (Kirk), Ida, Freda and Ruth.

My aunt Vera Cudmore and my mother Julia Cook were childhood friends with the Demsky girls.  My mother said she was afraid of Harry Demsky.

Harry left his Eagle Street home most days with his horse-drawn wagon, traveling the streets of Amsterdam yelling “Rags, any rags!”

The rags and scrap metal collected were sold to what we would call a recycling company.

Douglas wrote, “I’d help my father stuff the rags into burlap bags.  I’d jab four holes in the top of the bag, lace a woman’s discarded stocking through the holes, knot it, and add it to the pile of bags.”

Harry and his wife Bryna separated in their later years.  At Douglas’s expense, Harry lived at Boggie’s Fourth Ward Hotel on Amsterdam’s East Main Street.  Bryna resided with one of her daughters in the Capital District and then moved to the Jewish Home for the Aged in Troy.

Harry also stayed at the home of one of their daughters in Troy late in his life and two days before he died in 1954, he was moved to the Jewish Home for the Aged.  Douglas visited him but flew back to California early on a Sunday, believing his father was rallying.  Harry, 70, died later that day and was buried at the Cranesville cemetery of Congregation Sons of Israel of Amsterdam.

Bill Simons of Oneonta has written several articles about Kirk Douglas and his family for Jewish publications and has visited Harry Demsky’s grave on Cranes Hollow Road in Cranesville, guided there by Amsterdam Eagle Street native John Naple.

Douglas named his Hollywood production company after his beloved mother, Bryna.  The actor was at his mother’s bedside in 1958 when she passed away at age 74 at an Albany hospital.  Her body was buried at Temple Israel Cemetery in Albany,

When Douglas came back home to Amsterdam in 1985 for the dedication of a park in his honor adjacent to the Chuctanunda Creek, he recalled how his mother would sit on the porch of their home on Eagle Street and say “Ahhh America, such a wonderful land.” 

Kirk Douglas died at age 103 in 2020. Historic Amsterdam League installed a marker at the corner of East Main and Eagle streets explaining that the famous actor and producer was born nearby.

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

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