The Historians

Looking for more of The Bob Cudmore Stories from over the years, click the link at the top of this page "Archive Articals"

We have raised $3435 toward this year’s $7000 fund raising goal.  Please donate to help support the Historians Podcast.  Give online here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Wednesday, August 23, 2023-From the Archives- April 29, 2022-Episode 420-Paul Craddock at UCL Medical School in London England is author of Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

Paul Craddock's Spare Parts offers an original look at the history of medicine itself through the rich, compelling, and delightfully macabre story of transplant surgery from ancient times to the present day.

How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660's?
Why did eighteenth-century dentists buy the live teeth of poor children?
And what role did a sausage skin and an enamel bath play in making kidney transplants a reality?

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Chaplain Sidoti

One of Amsterdam’s most decorated veterans of World War II was a non-combatant Roman Catholic U.S. Army chaplain, the Reverend Anthony R. Sidoti.  He was awarded two Silver Stars, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star in the war.

Friday, August 25, 2023-Episode 489-Highlights edition #4 with excerpts from podcasts including the year that defined the American West; pre-Hollywood filmmaking in New York State; female war correspondent Dickey Chapelle and more.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, August 23, 2023

60 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:04AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

We have raised $3435 toward this year’s $7000 fund raising goal.  Please donate to help support the Historians Podcast.  Give online here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Goldwyn and Gloversville

By Bob Cudmore

Samuel Goldwyn, one of the movie moguls who led Metro Goldwyn Mayer or MGM in the last century, lived in Gloversville as a young man.

Born Schmuel Gelbfish in Warsaw Poland’s Jewish ghetto around 1879, he made his way to the United States in 1898.  Samuel Goldfish, as he was known by then, had learned the glove trade in Europe and heard that Gloversville was a center of that business and home to many Jewish glove-cutters.

According to historian Peter Betz, Goldfish’s first Gloversville job was as a sweeper at the Louis Meyers and Son glove factory at West Pine and South Main Streets.  He earned $3 a week.  He earned more money when he became a glove cutter at Joseph Moses Bacmo Gloves.  He went to Gloversville Business College to improve his manners and speaking skills.

He became a foreman for the Elite Glove Company and eventually a salesman for Elite.  Before he was 30 he was earning $15,000 a year.  He sent money to his family in Europe and his two younger brothers came to America and also sold gloves.

Goldfish was promoted to sales manager for Elite and transferred his offices to New York City where he was exposed to the first productions of the movie industry.  He started Goldwyn pictures in 1917 and changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn.

Goldwyn did not produce films for M-G-M but did produce movies for his own company, Samuel Goldwyn Productions.  Among them were “Hans Christian Anderson,”  “Guys and Dolls,” “Porgy and Bess” and “The Best Years of Our Lives.”  Goldwyn died in 1974.

BACK TO GLOVERSVILLE

On October 30, 1945 Goldwyn came back to Gloversville and attended a dinner at the Kingsborough Hotel.  He told the Leader Herald, “I have a great affection for this town.  This is the place that gave me my first start in life.”  He had not been there, he said, since 1906.

Goldwyn originally came to Gloversville as a teen ager, “I not only got my first job here, but stayed long enough to get my citizenship papers which is perhaps the greatest gift to any man to become a citizen of this great country.”

Goldwyn was invited to Gloversville in 1945 by Vern Steele, program chairman for the men’s club of the Kingsborough Presbyterian Church.  Steele had sent the invitation to the movie mogul when Goldwyn was visiting Saratoga Springs. 

Goldwyn was eager to return.  He and writer Alexander Woollcott had planned a trip to Gloversville some years back but Woollcott died in 1943 before the trip could take place.  Woollcott apparently had spent some time in Gloversville when Goldwyn lived there.

At the hotel, Goldwyn met with Albert Aaron who had provided Goldwyn his first job in Gloversville.  Also on hand was Jacob Liebglid, who taught a penniless Goldwyn the glove trade in Hamburg, Germany, after Goldwyn had run away from his Warsaw home.  Liebglid also raised enough money from the Jewish community in Hamburg to get Goldwyn a ticket to England, first stop on Goldwyn’s passage to America.  In 1945 Liebglid lived at the Kingsborough Hotel.

Goldwyn said, “When I was a boy my one outstanding ambition was to get enough money to have dinner in the Hotel Kingsborough.  And after that I wanted to stroll through the lobby, back and forth in front of the window and watch the pretty girls as they walked up and down the street.  I realized my ambition but couldn’t resist the impulse to do it again tonight when I was in the lobby.”

The hotel closed many years ago and the building on South Main Street today is the Kingsboro Apartments.

This Evening at 6:30

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023-From the Archives- April 29, 2022-Episode 420-Paul Craddock at UCL Medical School in London England is author of Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

Paul Craddock's Spare Parts offers an original look at the history of medicine itself through the rich, compelling, and delightfully macabre story of transplant surgery from ancient times to the present day.

How did an architect help pioneer blood transfusion in the 1660's?
Why did eighteenth-century dentists buy the live teeth of poor children?
And what role did a sausage skin and an enamel bath play in making kidney transplants a reality?

Thursday, August 24, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Chaplain Sidoti

Friday, August 25, 2023-Episode 489-Highlights edition #4 with excerpts from podcasts including the year that defined the American West; pre-Hollywood filmmaking in New York State; female war correspondent Dickey Chapelle and more.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, August 22, 2023

55 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:02AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Tuesday Evening at 6:30

Jerry Snyder (Scroll down for everything you need to know)

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

We have raised $3435 toward this year’s $7000 fund raising goal.  Please donate to help support the Historians Podcast.  Give online here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. 

Monday, August 21, 2023-Story behind the story Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Sam Goldwyn’s Gloversville connection

Samuel Goldwyn, one of the movie moguls who led Metro Goldwyn Mayer or MGM in the last century, lived in Gloversville as a young man.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023-From the Archives- April 29, 2022-Episode 420-Paul Craddock at UCL Medical School in London England is author of Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

Thursday, August 24, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Chaplain Sidoti

Friday, August 25, 2023-Episode 489-Highlights edition #4 with excerpts from podcasts including the year that defined the American West; pre-Hollywood filmmaking in New York State; female war correspondent Dickey Chapelle and more.

Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore 

   An estimated 5,000 people attended a parade of   Polish residents in August, 1920, followed by a meeting at the State Armory where resolutions pledging support to the new Polish republic were adopted.

   On warm summer evenings in the 1940s, the streets of Amsterdam’s West End were sometimes deserted.

   To supplement food available under wartime rationing, Italian-Americans tended vegetable gardens on the flat land south of their homes between the railroad tracks and Mohawk River.

   They built poles for pole beans and lattices to keep tomatoes off the ground. They grew lettuce, zucchini and dandelions, much as their ancestors had done in southern Italian communities such as Pisciotta.

   Already the home of Sanford & Sons carpet, Amsterdam really became “carpet city” in August 1920.   

   McCleary, Wallin and Crouse’s carpet factory (the upper mill) in Rockton merged with Shuttleworth Brothers carpet (the lower mill) in the East End. The new company was renamed Mohawk. 

   George McNeir of the upper mill became chairman of the board but the company was headed by Herbert Shuttleworth.

   In July 1954, Amsterdam celebrated its 150th birthday with a ten-division parade.

   Celebrations went on for weeks at local taverns and ethnic social clubs, which had chapters of the Brothers of the Brush (who did not shave) and Sisters of the Swish (who wore long dresses).

   The Sesquicentennial, as it was called, took place at the beginning of the end of the city’s prominence as a carpet-manufacturing center.

   A float in the 1954 parade depicted a flying carpet.  Within a year, Bigelow-Sanford, one of the city’s major carpet makers, was moving out of town.

   Two people died, eight were injured and litigation went on for years following an accident at the August, 1958, New York State Volunteer Firemen's Convention held in Amsterdam.

   An estimated 2,000 spectators safely watched fire trucks performing maneuvers at speeds of 45 to 65 miles per hour at what was then Coessens Park in the East End.

   At 12:30 p.m. on Friday, August 22, a small fire truck from Oyster Bay, Long Island, was taking part in a competition that required the driver to speed to a designated spot, stop and have the truck's crew unreel a hose.

   The hydraulic line in the truck's brake system broke according to a mechanic's investigation after the crash.  The vehicle plowed through a six foot wire fence striking spectators.

   Recorder reporter James H. Walker, Jr., wrote that a "carnival atmosphere was turned into one of horror."

   67-year old Fred Biege of Cranesville was somersaulted and dragged a short distance.  Biege died two hours later at City Hospital.

  By the time that lawsuits were being settled in 1961, another injured man, Felix Winkel, 47, of Forbes Street in Amsterdam, also had died.

   Injured in the accident were Stephen Mormile, then 12, of Valley View Road; James Van Der Bogart, 8, of East Main St.; William Wyzkowski, 68, of Elizabeth St.; Robert Van Velsor, Kenneth Van Velsor, John Zwolinski and George Wedley, members of the fire truck team. The driver of the truck was treated for bruises and shock. 

   The driver, Wilbur Young, frantically signaled to spectators to get out of the way of his speeding vehicle in vain.

   The Oyster Bay volunteers were known as the Rough Riders, a reference to a military group led by President Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War.  Theodore Roosevelt lived in Oyster Bay.

   The day after the tragedy, fire trucks and firemen paraded from Veterans Field on Locust Avenue to Coessens Park where trophies were awarded.

   I recall a tense atmosphere among the crowd watching the parade, especially when Oyster Bay went by.

Jerry Snyder tomorrow, Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, August 21, 2023

68 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:17AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

McCleary, Wallin and Crouse’s carpet factory (the upper mill) in Rockton merged with Shuttleworth Brothers carpet (the lower mill) in the East End. The new company was renamed Mohawk.

Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore 

   An estimated 5,000 people attended a parade of   Polish residents in August, 1920, followed by a meeting at the State Armory where resolutions pledging support to the new Polish republic were adopted.

   On warm summer evenings in the 1940s, the streets of Amsterdam’s West End were sometimes deserted.

   To supplement food available under wartime rationing, Italian-Americans tended vegetable gardens on the flat land south of their homes between the railroad tracks and Mohawk River.

   They built poles for pole beans and lattices to keep tomatoes off the ground. They grew lettuce, zucchini and dandelions, much as their ancestors had done in southern Italian communities such as Pisciotta.

   Already the home of Sanford & Sons carpet, Amsterdam really became “carpet city” in August 1920.   

   McCleary, Wallin and Crouse’s carpet factory (the upper mill) in Rockton merged with Shuttleworth Brothers carpet (the lower mill) in the East End. The new company was renamed Mohawk. 

   George McNeir of the upper mill became chairman of the board but the company was headed by Herbert Shuttleworth.

   In July 1954, Amsterdam celebrated its 150th birthday with a ten-division parade.

   Celebrations went on for weeks at local taverns and ethnic social clubs, which had chapters of the Brothers of the Brush (who did not shave) and Sisters of the Swish (who wore long dresses).

   The Sesquicentennial, as it was called, took place at the beginning of the end of the city’s prominence as a carpet-manufacturing center.

   A float in the 1954 parade depicted a flying carpet.  Within a year, Bigelow-Sanford, one of the city’s major carpet makers, was moving out of town.

   Two people died, eight were injured and litigation went on for years following an accident at the August, 1958, New York State Volunteer Firemen's Convention held in Amsterdam.

   An estimated 2,000 spectators safely watched fire trucks performing maneuvers at speeds of 45 to 65 miles per hour at what was then Coessens Park in the East End.

   At 12:30 p.m. on Friday, August 22, a small fire truck from Oyster Bay, Long Island, was taking part in a competition that required the driver to speed to a designated spot, stop and have the truck's crew unreel a hose.

   The hydraulic line in the truck's brake system broke according to a mechanic's investigation after the crash.  The vehicle plowed through a six foot wire fence striking spectators.

   Recorder reporter James H. Walker, Jr., wrote that a "carnival atmosphere was turned into one of horror."

   67-year old Fred Biege of Cranesville was somersaulted and dragged a short distance.  Biege died two hours later at City Hospital.

  By the time that lawsuits were being settled in 1961, another injured man, Felix Winkel, 47, of Forbes Street in Amsterdam, also had died.

   Injured in the accident were Stephen Mormile, then 12, of Valley View Road; James Van Der Bogart, 8, of East Main St.; William Wyzkowski, 68, of Elizabeth St.; Robert Van Velsor, Kenneth Van Velsor, John Zwolinski and George Wedley, members of the fire truck team. The driver of the truck was treated for bruises and shock. 

   The driver, Wilbur Young, frantically signaled to spectators to get out of the way of his speeding vehicle in vain.

   The Oyster Bay volunteers were known as the Rough Riders, a reference to a military group led by President Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War.  Theodore Roosevelt lived in Oyster Bay.

   The day after the tragedy, fire trucks and firemen paraded from Veterans Field on Locust Avenue to Coessens Park where trophies were awarded.

   I recall a tense atmosphere among the crowd watching the parade, especially when Oyster Bay went by.

Monday, August 21, 2023-Story behind the story Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

Tuesday, August 22, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Sam Goldwyn’s Gloversville connection

Wednesday, August 23, 2023-From the Archives- April 29, 2022-Episode 420-Paul Craddock at UCL Medical School in London England is author of Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

Thursday, August 24, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Chaplain Sidoti

Friday, August 25, 2023-Episode 489-Highlights edition #4 with excerpts from podcasts including the year that defined the American West; pre-Hollywood filmmaking in New York State; female war correspondent Dickey Chapelle and more.

Jerry Snyder this Tuesday

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, August 20, 2023

56 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:32AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Saturday, August 19, 2023-From the archives-September 17, 2021- Episode 388-Katie Turner Getty discusses the prison ships that England used to hold prisoners of war during the American Revolution. 

Katie Turner Getty on YouTube

The Battle of Bunker Hill did not "really happen" on Breed's Hill, and it didn't "only happen" on Breed's Hill. Hyperfocusing on "Breed's Hill" obscures other important actions on the Charlestown peninsula on June 17, 1775!

Tonight at 7

Cosby Gibson and Tom Staudle to play at Hyde Hall (Glimmerglass Park)
Hi Y'all -
For those in Upstate N.Y., today, Saturday (August 19, 2023 | 7:00 p.m.), Please Join Cosby and I as we will be doing sound and warming up for the band Bog Hollow (Tom White and his All-Star Band), w/a short set of Erie Canal songs so break out the lawn chairs for a summer folk concert!

Sunday, August 20, 2023-Focus on History-Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

An estimated 5,000 people attended a parade of  Polish residents in August, 1920, followed by a meeting at the State Armory where resolutions pledging support to the new Polish republic were adopted.

Historians Episode#488 on the way to #500 this Fall

Kiersten Marcil, author of the American Revolution historical novel Witness to the Revolution.

Kiersten Marcil YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x33QXqqzhU

https://www.kierstenmarcil.com/

Kiersten Marcil on Mohawk Valley Radio this Weekend

The Historians Podcast is heard at Noon on Saturday on WCSS, 1490 AM, 106.9 FM in Amsterdam and WKAJ, 1120 AM, 97.9 FM in St. Johnsville.  Historians Podcast airs weekly on RISE, WMHT’s radio service for the blind, and on WBDY 99.5 FM in Binghamton.

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, August 19, 2023

62 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:40AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

   A flight of six P-40 fighters took off from a temporary airstrip concealed in a nearby apple orchard to fight the attacking planes.  Von Hasseln said that it is likely that Lieutenant Phillip Cochran was part of the fighter group in Fort Plain.  

The day we bombed Fort Plain

By Bob Cudmore

   Just over three months before the United States entered World War II, the American military simulated an enemy attack on the airport in Fort Plain.  Robert von Hasseln has posted notes on the incident on the Facebook page of Historic Amsterdam League.

   According to press accounts, 46 soldiers and two officers were on the ground at Fort Plain’s airport on Tuesday, August 26, 1941, having arrived the night before.  They included an artillery regiment that would defend the airstrip against a simulated attack by six fighter planes and one bomber flying out of the airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.  A passenger on the bomber was Lieutenant Robert Ardison of Fort Plain.  Dynamite was used to simulate bomb impacts.  Roads were closed off and spectators prohibited from the immediate area.

   A flight of six P-40 fighters took off from a temporary airstrip concealed in a nearby apple orchard to fight the attacking planes.  Von Hasseln said that it is likely that Lieutenant Phillip Cochran was part of the fighter group in Fort Plain.  

   Pictures of the Fort Plain exercise were included in the December 1 edition of Life magazine, just a few days before America was attacked for real at Pearl Harbor.  One of the photos shows a pilot reading in a barn who appears to be Cochran. 

   Von Hasseln said Cochran was the inspiration for “Colonel Flip Corkin” and “General Philerie” in Milt Caniff’s cartoon strips “Terry and the Pirates” and “Steve Canyon.”  In real life, Cochran was commander of a fighter group flying in Burma in support of British and American Special Forces.  Cochran pioneered many innovative tactics including operating from temporary unimproved airfields.

   “Perhaps he got the idea flying out of Fort Plain in 1941,” von Hasseln wrote.

LEPPER ROAD

   Lepper Road in Fort Johnson is named for an immigrant family from the German Palatine region who fought in the American Revolution.

   The parents of Jacob Lepper and his brother Frederick were killed by Mohawk chief Joseph Brandt and his forces in 1778 in the massacre at Andrustown in the western Mohawk Valley. At the time of the massacre, the Lepper brothers were off fighting with the Tryon Militia. Two years later at the Fort Planck massacre, Frederick’s wife Mary and their one-year-old son were captured and taken to Canada.

   After the war, Jacob and his wife Mary built a home on what is now Lepper Road in Fort Johnson. Jacob helped his brother Frederick ransom Frederick’s wife and child from Canada and they too moved to Fort Johnson.

   The original family homestead is still a private residence.  There is an historical marker at Lepper Road and McDonald Drive. The original settlers are buried in a private cemetery some 300 yards behind the home.

   Amsterdam native Mark Lepper of North Waterboro, Maine collected the preceding information. An insurance professional, Lepper did his research in the 1990s when employed in the Utica area. 

Tomorrow, Friday, August 18, 2023 Episode#488 on the way to #500 this Fall

Kiersten Marcil, author of the American Revolution historical novel Witness to the Revolution.

Kiersten Marcil on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x33QXqqzhU

https://www.kierstenmarcil.com/

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Jerry Snyder was born and raised in Amsterdam, NY where he attended Amsterdam schools, graduating from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1972. He then went on to graduate from Union College in 1976 with BS in Mechanical Engineering. Snyder was a Technical Service Engineer for Ingersoll-Rand out of Painted Post, NY (near Corning) and then worked at General Electric as an Engineering Supervisor/Principal Project Engineer until his retirement in 2014

In 2003, Snyder discovered old postcards on E-Bay as an information source during a research project and began collecting them. His long-time interest in Amsterdam history, mostly from the engineering perspective in their industries, railroads and trolley systems and other infrastructure (dams, canal, bridges, power plants) lead him to become one of the founders of the Historic Amsterdam League in 2010, where he has served in various positions since, including president. Also in that year, he co-authored the Arcadia Publishing issued book titled Amsterdam in their Postcard History Series, showcasing about half of his collection. The book was co-authored with Amsterdam Historian Robert von Hasseln.

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, August 17, 2023

71 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:53AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Jerry Snyder was born and raised in Amsterdam, NY where he attended Amsterdam schools, graduating from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1972. He then went on to graduate from Union College in 1976 with BS in Mechanical Engineering. Snyder was a Technical Service Engineer for Ingersoll-Rand out of Painted Post, NY (near Corning) and then worked at General Electric as an Engineering Supervisor/Principal Project Engineer until his retirement in 2014

In 2003, Snyder discovered old postcards on E-Bay as an information source during a research project and began collecting them. His long-time interest in Amsterdam history, mostly from the engineering perspective in their industries, railroads and trolley systems and other infrastructure (dams, canal, bridges, power plants) lead him to become one of the founders of the Historic Amsterdam League in 2010, where he has served in various positions since, including president. Also in that year, he co-authored the Arcadia Publishing issued book titled Amsterdam in their Postcard History Series, showcasing about half of his collection. The book was co-authored with Amsterdam Historian Robert von Hasseln.

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

from the Daily Gazette-Bombing Fort Plain

 Just over three months before the United States entered World War II, the American military simulated an enemy attack on the airport in Fort Plain.  Robert von Hasseln has posted notes on the incident on the Facebook page of Historic Amsterdam League.

This Friday Episode#488 on the way to #500 this Fall

August 18, 2023

Kiersten Marcil, author of the American Revolution historical novel Witness to the Revolution.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, August 16, 2023

69 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:01AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

The Historians Podcast is heard at Noon on Saturday on WCSS, 1490 AM, 106.9 FM in Amsterdam and WKAJ, 1120 AM, 97.9 FM in St. Johnsville.  Historians Podcast airs weekly on RISE, Albany Public Radio 89.1WMHT’s service for the blind, and on WBDY 99.5 FM in Binghamton.

Sunday School fatality

By Bob Cudmore

The first passenger fatality on the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad (F.J. & G.) did not take place until 1889, nineteen years after the first steam train made the inaugural run between Gloversville and Fonda. 

For those who worked on the local railroad, though, injury and death were more commonplace.  In his book “Our Railroad,” author and retired Amtrak engineer Paul Larner wrote, “That the railroad industry was unforgiving of carelessness is an understatement.  It wasn’t enough to be careful, to a serious extent you also had to be lucky.  For train service employees on the F.J. & G. the likelihood of receiving a serious injury or death in any year was one chance in nine.”

In August of 1889, for example, brakeman Ed Young, 19, of Gloversville was gravely injured when his foot was caught in a guardrail while he was trying to couple a locomotive and caboose near Fonda.  Young was thrown under the engine. 

Young died later that day surrounded by his parents, siblings and doctors who were unable to save him.

Historians Episode #500 this November 

The Historians Podcast yearly fund drive now stands at $3,435.00 a thousand dollars less than last year at this time.  Please help us reach our $7000 goal for the year by donating online here- https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast   Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.  You may give anonymously.  No amount is too big or too small.  Thank you. 

The Gloversville Intelligencer wrote, “When told that he must die, he received the intelligence calmly, and even told the doctors that he would rather die than live with both legs gone.  Afterwards he actually tried to cheer his relatives, telling the weeping group not to cry for him.”

The railroad paid for brakeman Young’s funeral and fellow workers erected what Larner called a fine tombstone for him.

Young’s father, Richard Young, had been an F.J. & G. conductor who was discharged from the railroad in 1878.  Richard Young had failed to get his train out of the way of another, causing a collision.  Seven years later, the elder Young went back to work for the railroad as a laborer.  

The first F.J. & G. passenger death took place during an excursion of the Baptist Sunday School of Amsterdam to Sacandaga Park, an amusement park operated by the F.J. & G. that ended up being flooded when the reservoir now called Great Sacandaga Lake was created in 1930.

Citing newspaper accounts from 1889, Larner wrote that 28-year old Ralph Beach of Amsterdam broke his neck when he fell from a train.

The August 10 Gloversville Intelligencer reported that Beach was standing on the lower step of a coach enjoying the scenery a short distance above Mayfield when the accident occurred on a sharp curve.

“Young Beach, who was leaning forward to look back, was pitched from the step as the train rounded the curve,” the paper reported.  He was killed when his head hit a telephone pole.  Beach’s fiancé and his sister were both on the train.

A coroner’s inquest was held in Northville that day and the death was ruled accidental, the result of Beach’s negligence.

The Intelligencer wrote, “It was due entirely to carelessness on the young man’s part, and should serve as a warning to others to pay more regard to the instructions of the road, and avoid standing on the platform and steps of the coaches.”

The second passenger death on the local railroad took place a year and a half later in 1891.  According to Larner, a workman on the then new Adirondack Hotel being built at Sacandaga Park fell from the platform of a northbound train.

Larner’s “Our Railroad” covers from 1867 to 1893, the years when the F.J. & G. steam railroad was built and when work began on the electric trolley line that ultimately operated under the F.J. & G. name.  The railroad is gone now and part of its roadbed is a bicycle and walking trail.

Wednesday, August 16, 2023-From the Archives- November 6, 2020-Episode 343-Retired Colonel Dave Cummings discusses efforts to research St. Joseph’s Shrine in the Adirondack hill town of Bleecker.  St. Joseph’s Church, torn down in 1919, was the first Roman Catholic Church built in Fulton County.

Thursday, August 17, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Bombing Fort Plain

New this Friday, August 18, 2023

...may be some spice down the road

Episode 488-Kiersten Marcil, author of the American Revolution historical novel Witness to the Revolution.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, August 15, 2023

67 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:05AM

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

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Monday, August 14, 2023-Story behind the story- Death rode the wings of the wind

It was January 8, 1928

Tomorrow

Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Sunday School fatality

The first passenger fatality on the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Railroad (F.J. & G.) did not take place until 1889, nineteen years after the first steam train made the inaugural run between Gloversville and Fonda. 

Wednesday, August 16, 2023-From the Archives- November 6, 2020-Episode 343-Retired Colonel Dave Cummings discusses efforts to research St. Joseph’s Shrine in the Adirondack hill town of Bleecker.  St. Joseph’s Church, torn down in 1919, was the first Roman Catholic Church built in Fulton County.

Thursday, August 17, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Bombing Fort Plain

Friday, August 18, 2023-Episode 488-Kiersten Marcil, author of the American Revolution historical novel Witness to the Revolution.

The first soldier I killed was a kid, and he haunted all my dreams after that.
The twenty-first century doesn’t prepare you for 1778.

Without warning, the roar of the traffic and the stink of funeral lilies fade away. Just as Savannah Moore notices that the world around her has changed, a man wraps her in his arms and presses a knife to her throat. Only after she escapes, with the help of Captain Jonathan Wythe, does she realize she has been inexplicably sucked into America’s Revolutionary War. Anything Savannah does could alter the course of history and threaten the family she left behind.

Kiersten Marcil

https://www.youtube.com/@KierstenMarcil

If These Pages Could Talk, Authors: Kiersten Marcil, Sevannah Storm, and Jodi Christensen S1, ep. 1

Authors and editors unite! Kiersten and co-host Sevannah Storm are joined by Kiersten's editor and fellow author, Jodi Christensen. Giggles, insider info on how acquiring editors pick querying authors manuscripts, reasons why the first page matters to editors, love for time travel romance, and book discussion abounds.

Death rode the wings of the wind  

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History-First published in Gazette and Recorder 

   Three aviators, including a Gloversville native, died January 8, 1928 when their plane crashed into a Montgomery County buckwheat field. 

   Wreckage was found near Rural Grove in the town of Root on the south side of the Mohawk River between Fultonville and Canajoharie. 

   WGY radio in Schenectady, on the air for under six years, broadcast an appeal about the missing aircraft sometime after six p.m. that Sunday.

   A Mrs. Quackenbush told WGY that she heard a crash and was convinced the plane had fallen.

  The Gloversville native who perished in the accident was Edward M. Pauley.  Born in 1895, Pauley served in the motor transport corps on the ground in World War I, learning to fly after the war.  He then rejoined the U.S. Army Flying Corps, earning the rank of captain.  Pauley married Marion Howarth of Johnstown. They had no children.

   Pauley headed Flyers, Incorporated, the first commercial air service based in Albany.  His firm carried passengers and freight and flew racing editions of the Albany Evening News to Saratoga Springs for the 1927 horse racing meet. 

   Albany Mayor John Boyd Thatcher mentioned Pauley’s name as a possible future superintendent of the almost-constructed Albany Airport in Colonie.

   On that Sunday in 1928 veteran pilot Raymond Henries flew from Long Island to Albany on his way to Buffalo to deliver a new Fairchild monoplane. 

   The large single engine plane was to be based in Buffalo for Colonial Western Airways.  Henries had a passenger with him, former pilot George Benedict, then in his family’s clothing business in Illinois.

   Pauley decided to fly with Henries and Benedict to Buffalo where two planes ordered by Flyers, Inc., were to be delivered.  Pauley planned to make arrangements to have his new planes flown to Albany.

   Despite thick fog, the Fairchild monoplane left Westerlo Island airfield south of Albany, piloted by Henries, around 2:00 p.m.  Several hours later Colonial Western Airways reported the aircraft had not reached Buffalo.

   It was still foggy early Monday when Montgomery County Sheriff Seeley Hodge formed a posse of about 30 men who began a ground search. 

   Searchers found the wreckage in Tuesday morning near a farm being worked by J.E. Bartlett off what is today Route 162. 

   A plane from Schenectady Airport doing an aerial search for the missing aircraft saw the activity on the ground and landed on a nearby field.

   The Albany Evening News reported, “Death rode on the wings of the wind.”

   Pilot Henries’ body was about 75 feet from the main wreckage.  Passengers Pauley and Benedict were found crushed inside the plane.

   The crash investigation was hampered by the arrival of what authorities estimated to be three thousand to eight thousand gawkers and souvenir hunters.  Investigators for example could not find part of the instrument board of the plane.  It was located in the possession of a Gloversville businessman

   The cause of the crash was never pinned down.  Fog was likely a factor but there were reports from people on the ground who heard a plane’s engine that seemed to be misfiring before the accident.

   Captain Pauley was buried at Ferndale Cemetery in Johnstown.  His story was researched by his great niece, Frances N. Burnham of Scotia. 

   Burnham had wondered whether her great uncle wanted his story told in a book I was working on in 2011.

   She asked her great uncle Edward Pauley’s spirit to make her Christmas cactus bud if he wanted the story told.  The cactus had been passed down through several generations of the family.

   The cactus produced several flowers.  Burnham said, “Doggone it. He did it.”  Burnham died in 2013.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, August 14, 2023

65 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 6:18AM

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