The Historians

Tragedy at the laundry

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder

Sunday, August 31, 2025

     A steam pipe that broke in the boiler room of an Amsterdam laundry claimed three lives, seriously injured another man and left Donald F. Lasher of Fort Johnson with indelible memories.

Lasher was a 19-year old truck driver working for contractor Adam Haberek on the expansion of the Robison & Smith laundry on West Main Street in Amsterdam on Wednesday, October 8, 1947. A steam line with 250 pounds of pressure ran from a separate boiler room into the existing laundry.

On the scene that morning was one of the laundry’s founders, Franklin Robison of Gloversville, who had started the business with Willard Smith decades earlier.

Lasher said that Robison asked the power shovel operator, Steve “Smitty” Kaufman, “To trim off the projections hanging from the end of the wall. Kaufman put the shovel under the wall, raised the whole wall off the ground and settled the wall down.” Kaufman said he couldn’t “Get anything off.” He removed the power shovel from the site.

Lasher said, ‘Mr. Haberek arrived to inspect the job. At that moment Mr. Robison noted that dirt had crumbled from under the supporting wall. Steam was starting to leak from the flanged joint in the line outside the building. Realizing the line would soon break, Robison sent boiler operator William Rule into the boiler room to shut down the system. Robison followed him. Another worker, DeMilt Quackenbush, and Lasher trailed behind.

Lasher said, “I stood by the side door and was wiping the closed door window to see the action outside when I suddenly found myself on the floor in a steam-filled room. When the wall fell, the pipe had broken outside. It swung down inside with the open end three feet from the floor. Five inches of 250 pound steam was escaping into the room.”

Lasher continued, "I realize now the good Lord was with me for before me was light. I crawled through the door that was letting in the light. It had blown open enough for me to get through. I escaped without a scratch.” Lasher ran to the back entrance. Quackenbush, 51 from Fort Hunter, tried desperately to get out but the green swinging doors opened inward.  “An arm came crashing through the window, extended slowly and slid back into the building never to be seen again,” Lasher said.

Lasher’s truck was nearby. He started the truck and forced the doors open with the truck’s bumper. He parked the truck and ran back to the side entrance.

Lasher said, “Quackenbush made it to the back of the room but not out. Mr. Robison wandered around in the room, trying to shut off the boilers. Like the walking dead, he came out.” Robison, 62, died two days later.

Rule, the boiler man who lived on Division Street in Amsterdam, came out and could not speak. Lasher’s wife Helen later told her husband that Rule’s adrenaline brought him out of the building. He died later that day.

The boilers were turned off although steam was still escaping as screaming sirens announced the arrival of firemen. Quackenbush was dead when firemen found him inside. Haberek was rescued, coming out supported on either side by firemen.

Lasher said, “He had found refuge in the runoff ditches along the walls of the boiler room where he had crouched in a fetal position. His burns were limited to whatever skin had been exposed. He didn’t totally recover for at least a year, when he went back to work.”

A coroner’s inquest ruled the deaths of Quackenbush, Robison and Rule accidental. Lasher said, ‘I escaped because I saw the light to clear outside air. Thank you, God Almighty.” Lasher died in 2017.

You can call Bob Cudmore at 518 346-6657 or email [email protected]

Amsterdam native’s operatic career cut Short

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, August 24, 2025

     Albert Sochin, an Amsterdam born opera singer who performed as Albert DaCosta, died at age thirty-nine in an automobile accident while driving to sing in a production of Carmen at the Jutland Opera in Denmark.

Albert’s father was Joseph Sochin, member of a prominent Amsterdam Jewish family who operated Sochin’s men’s clothing store first on Guy Park Avenue then on Market Street. Albert’s mother, Violet DaCosta, was a member of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, where their son was a boy soprano in the youth choir.

When Albert’s voice changed he sang baritone in the 1940s. He was in great demand. Reader Ken Garrick, who suggested this story, said his aunt recalled that Albert occasionally was a soloist at the then Second Presbyterian Church in Amsterdam with “a tremendous voice.” Albert performed at weddings, funerals, high school productions and concerts of Mohawk Mills Chorus, now the Mohawk Valley Chorus.

Near the end of World War II Albert joined the Navy. He met H. Jean Rower from Toledo, Ohio at a Navy concert in Corpus Christi, Texas, where they were both performing. Albert and Jean married at the Corpus Christi Naval Base chapel in July 1945 and went on to have six children.

After the war Albert studied music for three years at Juilliard School, moving to New York City. He auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera in 1952 on a live program on ABC television.

The judges were not impressed with his baritone voice and told him he should sing tenor. Albert set to work training. A year later impresario Charles L. Wagner said that Albert was “one of the finest tenor voices” he had discovered.

In 1954 the Met held another live television audition and tenor Albert Sochin DaCosta was one of the winners. He was signed to a contract for the 1955-56 season.

An imposing man, Albert’s first role at the Met was as the sailor in Tristan und Isolde. At the end of 1955 he returned to Amsterdam to sing and raise money for the Rotary Club’s student loan program. Hugh Donlon of the Recorder wrote, “A remarkable voice notwithstanding, the nicest thing about him is his friendly way.”

By 1962 Albert concluded he was not getting enough work in America. He moved with his family to Europe where, he said, most cities with more than seventy-five thousand people have opera houses.

They lived in Switzerland for a time where he sang in Zurich and then moved to Horrem, Germany, a suburb of Cologne where Albert was leading tenor of the Cologne Opera Company.

His last trip to America was in 1966 when he visited his father in Amsterdam and his mother at a hospital in Tarrytown, New York. His mother returned with him to Europe and was convalescing with her son’s family when Albert died the next year.

News coverage of the 1967 accident said a car driven by Albert skidded on a sharp curve that was slippery from rain, leaving the highway, crashing through trees and overturning. Albert apparently died instantly. The man with him, Dutch singer Jan Gerksen, was slightly injured.

Albert’s mother Violet died the next year in Briarcliff Manor, New York, where Albert’s widow Jean and her family had moved. Jean Sochin soon relocated to Jamaica, Vermont and worked at a school district in Townshend.

Albert’s father, Joseph Sochin, died in 1969 while visiting his daughter-in-law in Vermont. Jean Sochin, pianist and vocalist in her own right, died in 2007 at age 87. She was survived by five of their children, fifteen grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

To reach Bob Cudmore please call 518 346 6657 or email [email protected]

The South Side Servicemen's News

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, August 17, 2025

     The front page story in the Servicemen's News from February 1945 eulogized the pastor of Amsterdam's Mount Carmel Church, Reverend John Reidy, who died that month. Father Reidy was remembered for his judgment and advice during his 16 years as pastor. He also was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

"The body lay in state at Mt. Carmel Church where an honor guard chosen from the many societies of the church kept vigil," wrote the News. The priest was buried at St. Agnes Cemetery in Cohoes and Reverend Harold McKeon, at least temporarily, was handling spiritual duties at Mt. Carmel.

Full of newsy community events, sentiment and occasional humor, the Service Men's News was dedicated to the "South Side boys" from Amsterdam in World War II.

Another item read, "Harold Sweet (the ice man) was still traveling with 1944 truck plates when apprehended by the State Police. His only comment, 'Sorry, officer, I have new ones but I have been so busy delivering ice to war workers that I haven't had time to put them on yet.' P.S. "No fine. Case dismissed."

The Fifth Ward Service Flag Committee put out the News and Angelo "Susie" Sardonia was managing editor.

Some speculate Sardonia's nickname stemmed from a crush he had on a girl named Susie. His daughter Maryann Salm said the nickname could have come after her father formed his band in the 1930s, Susie's Washboard Band also known as Susie's Swingsters.

Susie's Washboard Band was a hit at the 1930 Sportsmen's Show in Amsterdam and at Leggiero's gas station on Bridge Street where the band drummed up business on Wednesday nights.

Sardonia worked at Chalmers Knitting Mill and its successor Montco, heading the knitting room, dye house and maintenance. He also co-owned a tavern named Susie's on Bridge Street across from the mill. He was married to Helen Reichel and they had a son and two daughters.

Salm said, "Dad was never drafted. I think The Servicemen's News was a way he could help. That little newspaper was quite an undertaking."

The News reported that Tony Fabozzi broke his shinbone in the final minutes of a basketball game between St. Mary's Institute and Amsterdam High School. Tony had scored 19 points when injured. St. Mary's won the game, the talk of the town for days. The editor commended sportsmanship shown on both sides.

"This department takes its hat off to Sgt. Al Peters who recently returned from the South Pacific and who donated a pint and a half of blood for Mrs. (Tony) Alexander," wrote the News about a woman who had an operation at St. Mary's Hospital. "Hurrah for our boys who are doing so much to bring comfort to anyone who is in need regardless of race, color or creed. Mrs. Alexander is resting comfortably as we go to press."

The Mohawk River had given up its ice pack in February, "Our sympathy to the Public Works Department, who soon will be ridding the streets of the cinders spread on during the severe freezing weather."

After the war, Sardonia was instrumental in building the Fifth Ward Memorial Park on Bridge Street.

He served over 20 years as Fifth Ward Alderman, from 1944 to 1948 then from 1958 to 1973, when he lost an election to Lawrence Morini. Longtime friend Bert DeRose recalled that in one campaign, Sardonia organized a Kettle Band, young people banging on tin cans and buckets drumming up votes for Sardonia.

Sardonia's wife Helen died in 1968. In 1972, Sardonia married Margaret Schultz, a widow with two grown children. Angelo Sardonia died at age 76.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

The Woodland Players in Fort Johnson

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, August 10, 2025

     There was a lot working against the Woodland Players in their night-time outdoor performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" on July 13, 1904 at the three-year-old Antlers Golf Course in Fort Johnson.

The performance was originally scheduled the night before but had been rained out. It was chilly for July. There also could have been some apprehension among the actors about the financial solvency of their employer, Woodland Players, owned by the Phil Kilfoil Company of New York City.

The audience loved the show, according to a rave review the following day in the Amsterdam Recorder. An estimated 350 people sat on camp chairs to watch Shakespeare's pastoral comedy. Many in the audience arrived on crowded trolley cars from nearby Amsterdam.

The play was performed atop a hill overlooking the old Antlers clubhouse with the woods forming what the reviewer called "an ideal background" to a grassy stage. Japanese lanterns lighted the audience "with a soft flickering light" and Minch's local orchestra played popular songs before the play, keeping the crowd entertained while they waited.

When the play began, "powerful calcium lights" illuminated the stage and trees with what the newspaper called "a bright but weird glow, which might be well described as exaggerated moonlight."

The reviewer said the entire company performed well and delivered their lines clearly and distinctly. The review gave special praise to Ivah M. Wills who played Rosalind, F.J. McCarthy as Touchstone and James A. Young as Jacques de Boys.

"Now that the affair is over," wrote the reviewer, "And has proved an unqualified success, it may not be amiss to state that previously there was just a slight undercurrent of doubt as to the ability of any company traveling as does Kilfoll's at present, to properly present a play of such caliber.

"But the first lines were scarcely uttered when all questions along this score were obliterated, and the audience settled itself for what would have been a theatrical treat under any circumstances, but was doubly so amid scenes so absolutely fitting."

A couple weeks after leaving Amsterdam, however, producer Phil Kilfoil was charged with passing bogus checks in Oswego. Kilfoil left Oswego for New York City. A warrant was issued. He was arrested in New York City and returned to Oswego then was released on bail.

Kilfoil told the press, "We have been victims of circumstances and there was no intention of defrauding any persons in Oswego. We have met with poor business and benefit performances have so far proved a failure. I have secured funds to meet every obligation incurred by the company and will go on the road again as soon as this unfortunate affair is settled."

The Oswego and Amsterdam papers reported on July 30 that charges were dropped when Kilfoil's business partner, Charles Wiegand, provided enough funds to back the checks. Wiegand was described as a supervisor of the New York Central Railroad in New York City.

The Recorder said the actors apparently were among those not getting paid, "The company has been receiving money and one by one the members are leaving Oswego as fast as their remittances arrive. There will be no more Woodland Players, it is said, and both Wiegand and Kilfoil have expressed their intention of abandoning the dramatic field as a non-paying venture."

As for the Fort Johnson venue for the Woodland Players' 1904 production of "As You Like It," the Antlers golf course prospered for many years but its elegant clubhouse burned to the ground in a 1965 fire. A new clubhouse was built. The course today is called Rolling Hills Country Club.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Summer years ago in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette

Sunday, August 3, 2025

     The first golf course built in the Amsterdam area was the private Antlers Country Club, opened in 1901 on land in Fort Johnson and Tribes Hill off Route 5. Today, the facility is Rolling Hills Golf Course.

City residents discussed the idea of an Amsterdam municipal course as early as 1929. By 1934, the choice was made to build on 200 acres of farmland on the border between the city and town of Amsterdam off Van Dyke Avenue.

Construction was made possible through a $100,000 federal appropriation and $23,000 in city funds. Democratic Mayor Arthur Carter was instrumental in advocating for the golf course with President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration and the facility was named for Carter.

The course opened in 1938. The designer was Robert Trent Jones, who went on to be a legend in golf course design. A native of England who grew up in Rochester, New York, Jones created his own landscape architecture curriculum while attending Cornell. He began his career by designing six federally funded golf courses, including Amsterdam’s

BASEBALL

     As a youngster, the late John Szkaradek tried to get into Amsterdam’s Mohawk Mills Park for free by finding baseballs that had been hit out of the park. If that didn’t work, he and other youngsters resorted to peepholes in the park fence.

The Amsterdam Rugmakers played at the park, a farm team for the New York Yankees. Today the facility is named Herbert Shuttleworth II Park in honor of the carpet mill executive who was president of the Rugmakers in the early 1940s.

The Yankees came to Amsterdam twice in the 1940s. In 1942 Joe DiMaggio was the star attraction. In 1949 the Yankees came to Amsterdam with Casey Stengel as the manager plus Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto on the team.

The 1942 game was particularly remarkable in that the grandstand had burned eight days before the arrival of the Yankees. Work crews from Mohawk Carpet Mills were pressed into service and the grandstand was rebuilt for the Yankees game.

The Gloversville Glovers also played in the Canadian-American League with the Rugmakers. Major league manager Jack McKeon, who led the Florida Marlins to a World Series victory in 2003, was a catcher for the Glovers in 1950.

Retail stores have been built at the Fifth Avenue and Route 30A site of the old Glovers Park.

VACANT SUMMER STREETS

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

To supplement food available under wartime rationing, the Italian-American residents were tending vegetable gardens on the fertile 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 in the province of Campania.

A PARADE

     In July of 1954, Amsterdam celebrated its 150th birthday with a ten-division parade. The Vail Mills drive-in float featuring young women in bikinis was a crowd pleaser.

Celebrations went on for weeks at local taverns and  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, was a joyous and raucous event that took place at the beginning of the end of the city’s prominence as a carpet-manufacturing center.

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

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 3

Amsterdam civic leader lamented the loss of Trees

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder

Sunday, July 27, 2025

     A woman who lived most of her life while Amsterdam was a village lamented the loss of many trees after the municipality became more industrialized.

"There was more greenness, more freshness in the village in those old days than there is now," wrote M. Annie Allen Trapnell in a paper presented to the Century Club. In 1895 Trapnell had founded the women's club and remarks from the paper she presented were preserved.

Recorder newspaper columnist Hugh Donlon quoted Trapnell in an article he wrote  years ago. Donlon said other writers of Trapnell's generation also lamented the loss of Amsterdam's trees.

City officials, Trapnell said, wanted to make the community "look like their idea of a great city." The municipality became a city in 1885.

She wrote, "One alderman in answer to an entreaty to spare the trees said: 'New York City does not have trees. There are no trees on Broadway.' What noble trees were sacrificed by those pitiless vandals!"

The one tree most often remembered by early twentieth century writers was an old pine that stood near historic St. Mary's Church on East Main Street.

Trapnell said the "scraggly, irregular" tree was a "trysting place," marking the goal of lovers' walks in old Amsterdam, 

“And what tales that old tree could have told! Market Street was handsome then. Fine trees overshadowed the sidewalks and fronts of the houses. Many substantial citizens had their residences there. Enclosed in white picket fences were little green lawns."

John Sanford's home was near the foot of Market Street. This John Sanford was Stephen Sanford's father. Stephen was the one who built up the family carpet mills as time went on.

Trapnell wrote, "Stephen Sanford's mother was often seen at work, planting fresh bulbs or gathering fragrant roses. In the rear behind the flowers a vegetable garden extended far back to the Chuctanunda Creek."

Annie Allen Trapnell was the daughter of Beriah Allen. She was born in 1832 in Blue Corners, a hamlet in West Charlton. Her family moved to Church Street in Amsterdam when she was a child and Annie was educated at Amsterdam Academy.

The school was on lower Market Street, a building Trapnell described as a "large, ancient white structure, with its fine broad piazza extending across the entire building."

She became a teacher in Watertown, New York. In 1868 she was among the first to teach at the Normal School in Potsdam, today a college in the State University system. She returned home and taught at Amsterdam Academy.

Reverend William Trapnell, rector of St, Ann's Episcopal Church, took an interest in Annie. According to a 1945 history of the Century Club, Trapnell waited many "brave and patient years" to wed Annie. In 1872 Reverend Trapnell left Amsterdam for a parish in Maryland and Annie and he finally married. She was forty and he was sixty. He died four months later.

Returning to Amsterdam after a European tour, Annie Trapnell lived at the Allen family home on Church Street. When she wasn't traveling, she spent her days supporting community activities in the growing mill town.

In 1908 while on a trip to Hampton, Virginia, Trapnell became seriously ill. Several of her friends traveled there and were with Annie when she died November 9.

Her body arrived by train in Amsterdam and mourners thronged St. Ann's Church for the funeral. The floral bouquets included 250 white roses, a rose for each 1908 member of the Century Club. She was buried at Green Hill Cemetery.

Trapnell left a $12,000 estate including bequests to St. Ann's, Amsterdam Free Library and the Children's Home.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Internet pioneer was a top Student

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder

Sunday, July 20, 2025

     When computer programmer Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, 74, died in 2016 in Lincoln, Massachusetts, news stories noted his roots in Amsterdam, Vail Mills and Broadalbin.

Tomlinson is credited with sending the first email message between separate computers in 1971 and making the decision to use the ‘at’sign-@-to separate the sender’s name from the sender’s Internet address. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. At his death from a suspected heart attack he was a principal engineer for Raytheon.

Born in Amsterdam on April 23, 1941, Ray was the son of Raymond and Dorothy Tomlinson who lived near the village of Broadalbin in Vail Mills, a hamlet in the town of Mayfield.

According to the Boston Globe, Tomlinson’s father had worked in Amsterdam’s carpet mills then was co-owner of a grocery store on Main Street in Broadalbin. Ray delivered groceries for the store. His mother, the former Dorothy Aspin, worked for a dry cleaner. He had two younger brothers, Gary and David.

“We knew he was smart but had no idea how smart,” said Samuel ‘Tom’ Tomlinson one of Ray’s cousins.

Ray was valedictorian of the class of 1959 at Broadalbin. The class had about forty-five students. Ray was on the golf and soccer teams and played basketball. He was in the senior play, the junior prom committee and the rocket club.

He played trumpet in the high school band and, according to his cousins, he had perfect pitch, the ability to recreate a musical note without hearing a reference tone.

In the class will, he left his “ability to do a six step geometry program in fourteen steps to anyone who has the time and ability to do it.”

‘Tom’ Tomlinson said that he and Ray spent time with Ray’s brother Gary on Great Sacandaga Lake. ‘Tom’ lived in Hagaman but his family had a camp on the lake.

Ray’s girlfriend in high school was Barbara Andersen. Andersen told the Daily Gazette the young man came up with a “concoction of wires and things” that enabled her to talk with him while not interfering with her family’s business phone at the White Holland House restaurant on Route 29.

Ray graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy in 1964. He earned a master’s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965.

When ‘Tom’ Tomlinson was living in Colorado, Ray came to visit him once. Ray had been sent by his employer to fix a major problem at the computer system at the North American Air Defense Command near Colorado Springs.

Ray was married to Ann Tomlinson of West Palm Beach, Florida. He and his wife had been separated for many years, though not divorced, according to the Boston Globe. They had two daughters, Brooke Tomlinson McKenzie of St. Petersburg, Florida and Suzanne Tomlinson Schaffer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and two grandchildren.

He leaves a partner of ten years, Karen Seo of Lincoln, Massachusetts. In recent years, Seo and Tomlinson were working together on a project breeding miniature sheep.

Thanks to reader Mike Schuttig for suggesting another visit to Ray Tomlinson’s story.

NOSTALGIA NEIGHBORHOOD 

     Louis “Sam” Hildebrandt died July 1 after a brief illness at Glens Falls hospital.

“Sam” and his father Louis Hildebrandt Sr. were among the founders of the Friends of the Sanford Stud Farm, which has aimed at preserving the Amsterdam farm’s remaining structures.

Louis Sr. had been a thoroughbred jockey for the Sanfords.  “Sam” Hildebrandt’s wit and wisdom will be missed.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Death rode the wings of the Wind

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette

     Three pioneer aviators, including a Gloversville native, died when their plane crashed into a buckwheat field near Rural Grove in the Montgomery County town of Root on January 8, 1928.

The Gloversville native who perished in the accident was Edward M. Pauley. Born in 1895, Pauley served on the ground in World War I in the motor transport corps. After the war, he became a pilot as a civilian then rejoined the U.S. Army Flying Corps, earning the rank of captain. Captain Pauley married Marion Howarth of Johnstown. They had no children. He was in the Army reserves when he died.

Pauley headed a company called Flyers, Incorporated, the first commercial air service based in Albany. His firm, based at the Ten Eyck Hotel, carried passengers and freight and flew racing editions of the Albany Journal newspaper to Saratoga Springs for the 1927 horse racing meet. Albany Mayor John Boyd Thatcher mentioned Pauley’s name as the future superintendent of the almost-constructed Albany Airport.

On Sunday, January 8 veteran pilot Raymond Henries flew from Long Island to Albany on his way to Buffalo, delivering a new Fairchild monoplane. The large single engine plane was to be based in Buffalo for Colonial Western Airways. Henries had a passenger, 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.

WGY radio in Schenectady announced the plane was missing sometime after 6:00 p.m. Telephone reports poured in from listeners. Some heard what they thought was a crash about 3:00 p.m. near Rural Grove in the town of Root, on the south side of the Mohawk River between Fultonville and Canajoharie. A Mrs. Quackenbush of Rural Grove reported she heard a crash and was convinced the plane had fallen.

Early Monday morning Sheriff Seeley Hodge formed a posse of about 30 men who began a ground search. Searchers found the wreckage on Tuesday morning near a farm being worked by J.E. Bartlett off what is today Route 162, between Currytown and Middle Grove. A plane from Schenectady Airport doing an aerial search saw the activity on the ground and landed on a nearby field.

Pilot Henries’s body had been thrown about 75 feet from the main wreckage. The bodies of passengers Pauley and Benedict were found crushed inside the plane.

The Albany Evening News reported, “Death rode on the wings of the wind with the three missing aviators whose bodies were found on a farm hillside near Rural Grove today, strewn with wreckage of their big Fairchild monoplane.”

The crash investigation was hampered in the coming days by the arrival of what authorities estimated the arrival of thousands of souvenir hunters. Investigators 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. The thick fog was likely a factor but there were reports from people on the ground who said they heard a plane’s engine overhead that seemed to be misfiring before the accident.

Captain Pauley was buried at Ferndale Cemetery in Johnstown. His story was researched by his niece, Frances N. Burnham of Scotia, with the assistance of town of Root historian Bill Maring.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Bob Cudmore is a france writer.

518 

Storming Fort Fisher in the Civil War

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder

     Bruce Anderson, an African American war hero buried in Amsterdam, fought alongside a Canajoharie white man, Zachariah Neahr, in a daring mission during the battle of Fort Fisher, North Carolina, near the end of the Civil War.

Anderson was born in 1845, then worked as a farmer in New York. He was among a small number of African Americans who enlisted in white Union regiments.

Neahr was born in Palatine in 1830 and lived most of his life in Canajoharie. Neahr married Sophia Martin in 1854.

Neahr and Anderson enlisted in Company K of the 142nd New York Infantry Regiment at Schenectady.

Fort Fisher protected the rebel port of Wilmington, North Carolina, where blockade runners brought in supplies for Confederate troops. The Union tried unsuccessfully to capture the fort in late 1864.

Union warships sailed to Fort Fisher again in January, 1865. Major General Alfred Terry's soldiers approached by land.

The Union armada shelled the fort. A landing party went ashore but the lightly armed force was decimated by Confederate fire. The 142nd New York was one of four regiments approaching Fort Fisher by land.

A wall made of wooden stakes was held by rebel sharpshooters, making the Union advance impossible. General Terry asked for volunteers to move forward with axes and chop a breach in the wall. Privates Anderson and Neahr were among the volunteers.

Neahr later said, "Right there I gave up my life for my country."

The small party cut an opening in the wall that other soldiers passed through. Most of the volunteers with axes, however, were killed.

Only Anderson, Neahr, Alaric Chapin, George Merrill and Dewitt Hotchkiss survived.

The Confederates surrendered that night. The next day the main powder magazine at the fort exploded, killing 200 men on both sides.

The survivors of the raid on the wooden wall or palisade were recommended for Congressional Medals of Honor after the battle but the paperwork was lost.

Neahr returned to Canajoharie later in 1865. He had a son Charles and a daughter who became Mrs. Albert Hatter. A prominent Democrat, Neahr held some government jobs--post inspector and overseer of the poor.

Neahr received his Medal of Honor in the 1890s after petitioning for it. He died from tuberculosis on July 21, 1903. He was living on Mill Street in Canajoharie and was buried at Canajoharie Falls Cemetery. His death and the Fort Fisher connection received newspaper coverage in New York City, Syracuse and Rochester.

Anderson then hired a lawyer and finally got his medal in 1914, as did two other Fort Fisher attack survivors, Alaric Chapin and George Merrill. Dewitt Hotchkiss never received his medal.

Anderson spent the last years of his life in Illinois and Amsterdam. He died in 1922 at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany and was buried at Green Hill Cemetery in Amsterdam.

According to an article by historian Daniel Weaver, Bruce Anderson's grandson, Ambrose "Cowboy" Anderson of Gloversville, learned of his grandfather's bravery a few years ago. Ambrose Anderson attended a cemetery tour that included a stop at his grandfather's grave conducted by Montgomery County historian Kelly Farquhar.

Ambrose Anderson was one of the first African American Montford Point Marines, who entered World War II in 1943.

Anderson survived Japanese kamikaze attacks getting to the island of Iwo Jima. He hauled ammunition and supplies to infantry units while under fire from the Japanese during the 1945 battle of Iwo Jima.

Anderson, a corporal, served in Japan during the U.S. occupation after the war. In 2012 he received the Congressional Gold medal, the nation's highest civilian award.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]

Amsterdam native survived submarine Disaster

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History Daily Gazette 

     Donato "Danny" Persico entered the sunken submarine's escape hatch, crawling up a steel ladder as his hands were too chilled to grasp the ladder rungs.

Persico, who lived on Broad Street on Amsterdam's South Side, was one of the survivors from the submarine U.S.S. Squalus, which sank May 23, 1939 in the Atlantic Ocean off the Isles of Shoals, New Hampshire.

Valves malfunctioned during a test dive. The after compartments filled with water, drowning 26 men.  Persico was almost crushed by a torpedo.  Squalus settled on the ocean floor in 243 feet of water. 

 "This happened so fast, there was no chance for an alarm," Persico told Daily Gazette. "We lost power and lost lights."

In forward compartments, sealed by watertight doors, 33 men were still alive.

"I had goose bumps. I was scared," Persico said. At 20, he was the youngest man on board. Survivors donned woolen coats and stayed still, using as little air as possible.

Persico was among the last rescued on the fourth trip of a diving bell deployed from the rescue ship Falcon. Rescuers used the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber, a diving bell that could withstand depths beyond lethal limits.

The first three trips went perfectly. Captain Oliver Naquin, Persico and six other sailors were in the diving bell for the last rescue. About halfway up, there were problems with the lifting cables.

Rescuers dropped the diving bell back to the bottom and pulled it in by hand with only one frayed strand of cable. The final rescue took many hours using the frayed cable.

Persico's father had died in 1929. The family, including Persico's mother, Carmela Pinto, were kept informed as the rescue unfolded by Amsterdam Police who stopped at the family home with updates

The family received two telegrams. The first said Persico was alive. The second said he had been rescued.

When his mother visited Persico at a hospital after the rescue, he told her he would continue in the submarine service, adding his shipmates felt the same.

The Navy was able to raise the Squalus. It was repaired and recommissioned as the Sailfish and was awarded nine battle stars in World War II.

Persico served aboard two other submarines. One of them, U.S.S. Batfish, sank three Japanese subs. He earned a Bronze Star. A stone marking his Navy service is at Fifth Ward Veterans Park.

His nephew Anthony Signoracci said Persico, "Always had a sly smile on his face. I think it was because he cheated certain death."

Persico retired from the Navy in 1956 as a chief torpedo man and recruiter and then had a career as a heavy equipment salesman in the Capital Region for L.B. Smith Company.

Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon wrote the Recorder story in 1961 when Persico visited Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for the first time since 1939. He was there for the launch of the nuclear submarine Tinosa.

On hand for a picture were Persico, Congressman Sam Stratton and John Donlon, Hugh's son. John was executive officer of Tinosa and later commanded nuclear submarines.

Persico married Felicia Puglia of Amsterdam in 1973. They met at the bar of the former Peter Stuyvesant Hotel in Amsterdam. They married years later when Persico returned to Amsterdam after his mother died. They had no children. "He was my hero," Felicia said.

In 2000 Persico was one of the Squalus survivors at a ceremony naming a destroyer for the man who organized their rescue, Charles "Swede" Momsen.

Persico died in 2001. The intersection of Florida Avenue and Bridge Street was named Persico Square that year.

Bob Cudmore is a freelance writer.

518 346 6657

[email protected]