Fly-In if you would like. Pilots: Tower Frequency 121.3; Ground 121.9. Land at Schenectady County Airport and taxi to Richmor Aviation North. Tell them you are going to ESAM.

Small donations this year to The Go Fund Me Thing

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  or The U.S. Mail. A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Historians Episode #470 this Friday, April 14, 2023

Patrick Chaisson has written a multi-media presentation “Wings of Victory: Aircraft Production in New York State during WWII.” Patrick Chaisson is a retired (26 year) US Army Lieutenant Colonel now an author/historian from Scotia.

The Empire State Aerosciences Museum will hold its monthly Fly-In Breakfast on Saturday, April 15, 2023 from 8:30 am – 10:30 am at 250 Rudy Chase Drive, Glenville, NY 12302 (off Route 50). Enjoy an assortment of pancakes, french toast, eggs, sausage, potatoes, juice, coffee, tea, fruit and more. The breakfast is open to the public.

At 10 am, Historian & Author, Patrick Chaisson, will host a multimedia presentation on the New York Air National Guard in the Vietnam War. Chaisson, himself the son of an Air Guard veteran and a retired Army officer, relates the story of how the New York Air National Guard went from a poorly-funded "flying club for weekend warriors" - as some saw it - to a professional organization that served with distinction in South Vietnam from 1965 to 1969.

His talk will combine period photographs with modern computer technology to share the story of Air Guard flight crews in combat. Those who attend may be surprised how many New York Air National Guard service members fought in the Vietnam conflict - including airmen and airwomen, who lived and served in the local area.  Veterans and the general public alike will enjoy this lively, fast-paced presentation about a little-known but important role played by the New York Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Fly-In if you would like. Pilots: Tower Frequency 121.3; Ground 121.9. Land at Schenectady County Airport and taxi to Richmor Aviation North. Tell them you are going to ESAM.

Lonely hearts killing case linked to Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore

   An Amsterdam woman was the step-daughter of a 1949 victim of a notorious murderous couple.

   Mary C. Fay was listed in the 1930 census as a hospital nurse living in Albany with her father, Matthew Fay, and step-mother, Janet J. Fay (nee Flinn). 

   Mary Fay married a prominent physician, Alton Spencer.  In 1940 Mary and Alton were living in Canajoharie with their daughter.  They subsequently moved to Amsterdam. 

   Matthew Fay, Janet Fay’s husband and Mary Spencer’s father, was a steamfitter.  Matthew and Janet lived on Caldwell Street in Albany until Matthew’s sudden death in 1946.

   At the end of 1948 Janet Fay, then about 60, was lured into a romantic relationship by Raymond Martinez Fernandez, a native of Hawaii who wore a toupee.

   Historian David Fiske wrote in a New York History Blog article, “The modus operandi was to use ‘lonely hearts’ ads to lure lonesome women into romantic situations in order to make use of their financial resources. In several cases (at least) the victims were then murdered.”

   Fernandez was joined in the scheme by Martha Beck.  Beck, who had children in Florida, was originally earmarked to be one of Fernandez’s victims, but the couple fell in love. 

   Fiske wrote that Fernandez began courting Fay at her Albany apartment on New Year’s Eve of 1948, “Beck stayed out of the way at a hotel. After their initial meeting, Beck was introduced as the sister of Fernandez (a ploy used with other victims).  Before long, Fernandez proposed marriage to the lonesome widow, and she accepted.”

   Fiske said Fay introduced her new friends to the Spencers at their Summit Avenue home in Amsterdam in early 1949.  Dr. Spencer told the Albany Times Union, “We weren’t suspicious in any way.”

   A short time later Fay took several thousand dollars from her bank account, left Albany and went to Valley Stream on Long Island with Fernandez and Beck. 

   Mary and Alton Spencer received a typed letter supposedly from Fay that did make them suspicious. 

   "We received many letters from Mrs. Spencer's stepmother," Dr. Spencer told the Times Union.  ''None ever were typed.  We thought it was very unusual."  Mary Spencer went to Albany and convinced police to search for her step-mother.

   Police found that Fay was murdered in Valley Stream after Beck became jealous when she saw Fernandez in an embrace with Fay.  Beck, who weighed 200 pounds, bludgeoned Fay with a hammer and Fernandez then strangled Fay with a scarf, according to prosecutors.

   The couple then went to Michigan, having found another lonely victim there.  Fiske wrote, “Their killing spree halted when they were arrested in Michigan, where they admitted to having murdered a woman and her young daughter.  Because they were in a state with no death penalty, they also felt comfortable telling police there about a widow they had murdered in New York State.”

   Police found Fay’s body in Ozone Park in Queens, buried in the cellar of a house the killers had rented.  Mary Spencer went to Queens to identify her step-mother’s body. 

   New York State, which had a death penalty then, extradited Fernandez and Beck.  Fernandez blamed Beck for the killing.  He did tell police he had murdered 17 women, but authorities could not confirm that.

   Both were found guilty after a 30 day trial that summer.  Mary Spencer testified about the visit the two killers had made to her Amsterdam home.

  Fernandez, 36, and Beck, 31, professed their love for each other before being executed by electric chair at Sing Sing prison in 1951.  The case has been the subject of a book, e-book and 1970 film.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023-Tessa Bridal, a native of Uruguay, tells the stories of people who disappeared during South American political turmoil in the 1970s in her book The Dark Side of Memory.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Fonda minister was pioneer syndicated journalist

The Fort Plain Museum Presents The Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley June 9-11, 2023

Register on-line https://fortplainmuseum.square.site/conference

Email [email protected]

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

Kevin Hall, author of a memoir on growing up in Ilion, New York. Follow this young boy from his ages of 6 through 13, as he explores his hometown of Ilion, the town he grew up in, the neighborhoods he lived in, and the many friends he enjoyed spending time with. Enjoy his many adventures and the sometimes-unexpected consequences of those adventures, not always anticipated by the young boy.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Small donations this year, a good thing(grassroots)

: not adapted from or added to an existing facility or operation : totally new

It's Monday, April 10, 2023

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  or The U.S. Mail. A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Monday, April 10, 2023-Story behind the story, Pastries and popularity and a family of myopes.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023-Honeymoon killers linked to Amsterdam

   An Amsterdam woman was the step-daughter of a 1949 victim of a notorious murderous couple.

   Mary C. Fay was listed in the 1930 census as a hospital nurse living in Albany with her father, Matthew Fay, and step-mother, Janet J. Fay (nee Flinn). 

Wednesday, April 12, 2023-Tessa Bridal, a native of Uruguay, tells the stories of people who disappeared during South American political turmoil in the 1970s in her book The Dark Side of Memory.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Fonda minister was pioneer syndicated journalist

...this Friday

April 14, 2023-Episode 470-Patrick Chaisson has written a multi-media presentation “Wings of Victory: Aircraft Production in New York State during WWII.” Patrick Chaisson is a retired (26 year) US Army Lieutenant Colonel now an author/historian from Scotia.

Pastries added to popularity and a family of myopes

By Bob Cudmore

   John Vidulich, who became one of Amsterdam’s favorite bakers, was a native of Austria who came to America at age 14 in 1898.  Born into a family of seven, he and his wife Josephine Guiffre from Genoa, Italy, also had seven children.

   Their youngest daughter was Virginia Vidulich, known as Vidge, who attended high school at St. Mary’s Institute during the Great Depression,

   By then her father operated Vidulich’s Bakery at 63 Guy Park Avenue and would give his youngest daughter the key to the shop when St. Mary’s played basketball at home.

   After each game, Vidge led a parade of ball players and girlfriends to the bakeshop where they enjoyed the many treats inside.

   “It helped with my popularity,” said Vidge.  Izzy Demsky, who became the actor Kirk Douglas, came often to the bakery for his favorite, doughnuts.  Doughnuts were cream filled, jelly filled or plain.

    Vidge became Virginia Vidulich O’Brien after marrying Richard O’Brien of Glens Falls in 1946.

   The O’Briens lived in Saratoga Springs.  Vidge worked in press relations for the Saratoga Harness Track.  She conducted tours for school children.  She received kudos from sports columnist Art Hoefs for her role in Howard Tupper’s television coverage of harness racing on WRGB.

   She was director of the Saratoga Harness Hall of Fame for twenty years.  She was the first female member of the National Harness Racing Hall of Fame’s Communicators Corner in Goshen, N.Y. 

   Later in life she added another nickname, Gertie.  Childhood friend and later Malta resident John Bennison explained how Virginia became Vidge in the first place.

   John’s father, Harold Bennison, was a native of Frankfort, N.Y., an optometrist who moved to Amsterdam in 1932 with his wife Hazel. 

   The Bennisons and their seven children rented a home on McElwain Avenue.  Next door was the Vidulich family, well known because of their bakery.

   Bennison’s sister Anne was the same age as Virginia Vidulich and the girls became lifelong friends.

   Bennison added, “Virginia was in and out of our house a lot, and we all loved her.  A problem for the younger children was trying to pronounce Virginia Vidulich.  What came out was Vidge, which she happily accepted, as it was based on love and respect.  Everyone in my family called her Vidge and it was used all day at St, Mary’s school, and she was Vidge for life.”

   Bennison moved back to the area after retirement and attended St. Mary’s Church in Ballston Spa.

   Bennison wrote, “One Sunday, I saw Vidge across the church and after Mass, I followed her across the parking lot.  I called out, ‘Hi, Vidge!’  She stopped and without turning around, she said, ‘Oh, you must be a Bennison.’  We remained friends until her death in 2010.”  She was 91.

   Optometrist Harold Bennison died in 1944.  His widow put her husband’s optometric equipment in storage.  By then the family was living at 252 Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

   Their son Robert became an optometrist after returning from service in the U.S. Navy in World War II.  Robert used his father’s equipment and established his office on Church Street and later moved his practice to a large store in the Albany area called GEX.

   He was the first eye doctor I ever saw.  My parents, sister and I all wore glasses and I recall Dr. Bennison used to joke that we were a family of myopes, a scientific word for nearsighted people.  Young Dr. Bennison eventually moved to Arizona where he died in the 1980s.    

   John Bennison, who worked many years for the Boy Scouts, died in 2021 at the age of 92.

The Fort Plain Museum Presents The Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley June 9-11, 2023

Register on-line https://fortplainmuseum.square.site/conference

Email [email protected]

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

The third Highlights Edition of 2022 has excerpts from 12 podcasts including stolen Little League Dreams, an Erie Canal balladeer and a boy’s life in Ilion, New York.
The Historians

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, April 10, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

It is Sunday, April 9, 2023. The need is to raise $350.00 on-line by this eveneing

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast  or The U.S. Mail. A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Pastries added to popularity and a family of myopes

By Bob Cudmore

   John Vidulich, who became one of Amsterdam’s favorite bakers, was a native of Austria who came to America at age 14 in 1898.  Born into a family of seven, he and his wife Josephine Guiffre from Genoa, Italy, also had seven children.

   Their youngest daughter was Virginia Vidulich, known as Vidge, who attended high school at St. Mary’s Institute during the Great Depression,

   By then her father operated Vidulich’s Bakery at 63 Guy Park Avenue and would give his youngest daughter the key to the shop when St. Mary’s played basketball at home.

   After each game, Vidge led a parade of ball players and girlfriends to the bakeshop where they enjoyed the many treats inside.

   “It helped with my popularity,” said Vidge.  Izzy Demsky, who became the actor Kirk Douglas, came often to the bakery for his favorite, doughnuts.  Doughnuts were cream filled, jelly filled or plain.

    Vidge became Virginia Vidulich O’Brien after marrying Richard O’Brien of Glens Falls in 1946.

   The O’Briens lived in Saratoga Springs.  Vidge worked in press relations for the Saratoga Harness Track.  She conducted tours for school children.  She received kudos from sports columnist Art Hoefs for her role in Howard Tupper’s television coverage of harness racing on WRGB.

Early tomorrow morning, Monday, April 10, 2023-Story behind the story, Pastries and popularity and a family of myopes. Thoughts that did not make into the print story, you know, the things that pop into your brain as soon as you are done. This can happen as you are walking down the stairs to put the laundry in.

   She was director of the Saratoga Harness Hall of Fame for twenty years.  She was the first female member of the National Harness Racing Hall of Fame’s Communicators Corner in Goshen, N.Y. 

   Later in life she added another nickname, Gertie.  Childhood friend and later Malta resident John Bennison explained how Virginia became Vidge in the first place.

   John’s father, Harold Bennison, was a native of Frankfort, N.Y., an optometrist who moved to Amsterdam in 1932 with his wife Hazel. 

   The Bennisons and their seven children rented a home on McElwain Avenue.  Next door was the Vidulich family, well known because of their bakery.

   Bennison’s sister Anne was the same age as Virginia Vidulich and the girls became lifelong friends.

   Bennison added, “Virginia was in and out of our house a lot, and we all loved her.  A problem for the younger children was trying to pronounce Virginia Vidulich.  What came out was Vidge, which she happily accepted, as it was based on love and respect.  Everyone in my family called her Vidge and it was used all day at St, Mary’s school, and she was Vidge for life.”

   Bennison moved back to the area after retirement and attended St. Mary’s Church in Ballston Spa.

   Bennison wrote, “One Sunday, I saw Vidge across the church and after Mass, I followed her across the parking lot.  I called out, ‘Hi, Vidge!’  She stopped and without turning around, she said, ‘Oh, you must be a Bennison.’  We remained friends until her death in 2010.”  She was 91.

   Optometrist Harold Bennison died in 1944.  His widow put her husband’s optometric equipment in storage.  By then the family was living at 252 Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

   Their son Robert became an optometrist after returning from service in the U.S. Navy in World War II.  Robert used his father’s equipment and established his office on Church Street and later moved his practice to a large store in the Albany area called GEX.

   He was the first eye doctor I ever saw.  My parents, sister and I all wore glasses and I recall Dr. Bennison used to joke that we were a family of myopes, a scientific word for nearsighted people.  Young Dr. Bennison eventually moved to Arizona where he died in the 1980s.    

   John Bennison, who worked many years for the Boy Scouts, died in 2021 at the age of 92.

The Fort Plain Museum Presents The Revolutionary War Conference 250 in the Mohawk Valley June 9-11, 2023

Register on-line https://fortplainmuseum.square.site/conference

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday, May 26, 2023 the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany, Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

Email [email protected]

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

A history of the Mohawk River with Mary Zawacki, executive director of the Schenectady County Historical Society. When the last Ice Age began to melt 22,000 years ago, the Mohawk River flowed with more force than Niagara Falls.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, April 9, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

It is Saturday, April 8, 2023 

This weekend the need to raise $350.00 on-line Go Fund Me

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast

or The U.S. Mail

A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday, May 26, 2023 the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany, Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

Saturday April 8, 2023-Jennifer DeBruin is author of three historical novels and is working on a non-fiction-book on Loyalist espionage during the American Revolution. 

The unrivalled beauty and abundance of the Mohawk Valley, engulfed in the fight for liberty, forced the Eamers to choose between the freedom sought by many and the debt to the king who had provided refuge in the burgeoning colony of New York from the religious persecution in their homeland.

Sunday, April 9, 2023- Pastries and popularity and a family of myopes

John Vidulich, who became one of Amsterdam’s favorite bakers, was a native of Austria who came to America at age 14 in 1898.  Born into a family of seven, he and his wife Josephine Guiffre from Genoa, Italy, also had seven children.

Email [email protected]

Bob Cudmore "History stories from The Mohawk Valley"

NBC TV has aired an episode of their popular family history show Who Do You Think You Are including scenes filmed in Fonda and Johnstown. Actor Nick Offerman (who plays Ron Swanson in the sitcom Parks and Recreation) traced his ancestors to families from upstate New York. Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar, Montgomery County New York historian, explains why Fonda’s Old Courthouse is a mecca for genealogists and upstate New York historians.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, April 8, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

This evening at 7 in Hagaman, Bob Cudmore talks history

The Demskys of Amsterdam and a little about the Bob to-do list.

Passion: a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept, Thank You Webster

The Hagaman Historical Society meets at 6:30 pm at the Calvary Reformed Church, 15 Church.  Bob’s talk will be at 7 pm.  Please use the side entrance to the church.  Bob will be accepting donations for The Historians Podcast fund drive. 

Go Fund Me Goal in April $1,500.00

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast

The Thursday Morning tally no change at $1,005.00, up $50.00 from Monday, Thank You. The need $350.00 by the close of the weekend.

U.S. Mail A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

“Mohawk Valley History with Bob Cudmore”

....from Gloversville

What’s it like to be the boss’s son? Rod Correll is author of the memoir “Learning to Be a Leatherman-A Rite of Passage.” Correll lived in the leather business for 50 years, from childhood up to when he left the business to return to Yale for an MBA.

An artistic gunsmith

By Bob Cudmore

A loom fixer for an Amsterdam carpet mill set up shop as a gunsmith in 1948 and then made his living building custom rifles and repairing firearms until his death in 1960.

Raymond Overbaugh, born in 1903 in the town of Florida, once told a reporter, "I always fooled around with guns in my spare time."  He worked 28 years fixing looms for Bigelow-Sanford’s Amsterdam carpet mills before opening his gun shop in a small building next to his home off Route 5 near Cranesville.  Later he moved his family and shop to Tribes Hill. 

Many American soldiers returning from World War II brought souvenir weapons home from the war, in particular Mauser rifles made for the German army.

According to a 1953 story by Truman Temple in the Daily Gazette, Overbaugh’s best selling items were deer hunting rifles converted from Mauser 8 millimeter rifles.  He turned out about 30 rifles a year plus doing repair work.

“The ‘Overbaugh Special’ is in demand all over the country by certain small arms fanatics who can pay the necessary $110 (and up) for a hand-crafted rifle that combines German precision with light handling qualities,” Temple wrote.

Overbaugh knew his hunting customers wanted a firearm much lighter than the one German soldiers carried.  He trimmed about a fourth of the weight off each Mauser and the finished product weighed seven pounds

“I just trim down the stock and take a bit of metal off here and there,” Overbaugh said.

Today, Overbaugh’s rifles are seen infrequently at gun shows and can go for $2,000 each, according to firearms fanciers.

John Del Savio, an official of the Pine Tree Rifle Club in Johnstown, said an Overbaugh rifle was known for having diamond shaped inlays, black and white.  The black inlays were made from ebony and the white inlays were ivory.  Overbaugh also put a tiny signature on the barrels of some of his guns

In the early 1950s Johnstown native David Acker and his father, gun collector Adolph Acker, used to visit Overbaugh’s shop.  It was a small space that could comfortably handle a half dozen people. 

During one visit by the Ackers a customer came in and inquired about a special firearm order.  After he left, the word was passed that the customer was Amsterdam native Kirk Douglas, home for a visit from Hollywood.

Overbaugh said in the 1953 interview that his oddest repair job was work done on two submachine guns for the Amsterdam police.  Local police carried the weapons on those days when the carpet mills paid workers in cash.  Overbaugh said police never had to fire them.

Overbaugh favored Colt automatic weapons.  He said that that the Germans made the best rifles, the British made the best shotguns and the best revolvers were made by Smith & Wesson in America. 

Reporter Temple said that Overbaugh’s shop was surrounded by tame squirrels and birds, “He walked to the door and coaxed chickadees down to feed from his hand. 

At the time of the interview, Overbaugh said he had 200 guns in his collection, including a German machine gun from World War I that he kept in the basement.  His shop was hard to find and he had toyed with the idea of painting the machine gun and putting it in front of his shop as an advertisement.  Overbaugh’s collection then also included a half dozen pistols dating from the American Revolution. 

Overbaugh’s 1960 obituary noted that he was known for artistic gun building.  His wife Olive and son George survived him.  George Overbaugh worked with his father for a number of years.  Raymond Overbaugh was buried at Amsterdam’s Fairview Cemetery.

Posted Early tomorrow, Friday, April 7, 2023 

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love. 

CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library.

On Friday May 26, the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany

Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade

Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

Email [email protected]

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, April 6, 2023

A chance of showers, mainly between 10am and 5pm. Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a high near 60. Light southwest wind becoming west 9 to 14 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Tomorrow evening at 7 on the 6th of April in Hagaman.

Bob Cudmore History Talk, you are invited

Let Bob Cudmore aquaint you with the history of your ancestors in The Mohawk Valley 

The Hagaman Historical Society meets at 6:30 pm Thursday at the Calvary Reformed Church, 15 Church.  Bob’s talk will be at 7 pm.  Please use the side entrance to the church.  Bob will be accepting donations for The Historians Podcast fund drive.   

Go Fund Me Goal in April $1,500.00

Link: The Historians Go Fund Me  https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast

The Wednesday Morning tally steady-going at $1,005.00, up $50.00 from Monday, Thank You. Need to raise $350.00 by Sunday Night.

U.S. Mail A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302. (Bob checks the mail twice a day)

“Mohawk Valley History with Bob Cudmore”

David Pietrusza is author of “Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal.”

Wednesday, April 5, 2023-Michael Doyle is author of “The Ministers’ War

Thursday, April 6, 2023-The Artistic Gunsmith

A loom fixer for an Amsterdam carpet mill set up shop as a gunsmith in 1948 and then made his living building custom rifles and repairing firearms until his death in 1960.

Friday, April 7, 2023 (Edit is complete, total time 29 minutes)

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday May 26, the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany; Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade; and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

Email [email protected]

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Leader Herald Make Us A Part Of Your Day

https://www.leaderherald.com/

Historians information from over the weekend...

Bob Cudmore is helping Jay Towne and the Foothills Arts Council produce a documentary on December holiday traditions featuring Mohawk Valley people.  Interviews are being recorded starting today at the Amsterdam Free Library. We will keep you up to date.

$1,500.00 is the goal in the month of April

The Historians Go Fund Me  https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast

The Monday Morning tally $955.00 (Webster-A tally is a continuous count of something)

U.S. Mail A check to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 Fooling the Ragman (and they did it with a smile)

According to Kirk Douglas’s book, his father was born Herschel Danielovitch in Russia and came to America in 1908.  His wife Bryna or Bertha Sanglel followed two years later.  Their six daughters and one son all were born in America.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023-Michael Doyle is author of “The Ministers’ War: John W. Mears, the Oneida Community, and the Crusade for Public Morality.”  The book describes a 19th century utopian community in upstate New York.

Thursday, April 6, 2023-The Artistic Gunsmith

Friday, April 7, 2023-Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday May 26, the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany; Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade; and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

“Inside the Amsterdam City Limits, History with Bob Cudmore”

Jerry Snyder was one of the founders of Historic Amsterdam League, which focuses on the history of Amsterdam, N.Y.

Edmund Wilson and the Mohawk encampment

By Bob Cudmore

   Edmund Wilson, a famous journalist and man of letters, visited Chief Standing Arrow at the 1957 Mohawk Indian encampment on farmland adjacent to the Schoharie Creek in Fort Hunter.  Wilson wrote about the encounter in his book, “Apologies to the Iroquois.

   Standing Arrow put a sign on Route 5-S that said Indian Village.  During the previous summer, the Mohawks sold souvenirs to tourists.

   The encampment was an attempt to repossess part of an 8,000 acre tract the Mohawks said was not included in land ceded to the U.S. government by the Iroquois Confederacy in the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1784.  According to historian and newspaper reporter Hugh Donlon, there was talk of 3,000 Mohawks coming to the settlement from the reservation on the Canadian border with northern New York.

   When Wilson arrived, the Chief, also known as Frank Johnson, was away and his family not too willing to communicate.  On a second visit, Wilson knocked at the door and no one came to answer it.  When Wilson was getting back in his car, Standing Arrow appeared in the doorway and waved to him.

   Wilson said, “It was a characteristic of an Indian that, not being up and dressed, he should not shout that he would be out in a minute but should wait until he could present himself with dignity.”

Please contribute to the 2023 Historians Podcast fund drive.  We had no donations during the past week and we are way behind last year. 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. Thank you as we work to Historians Episode #500 later this year.

   Descended from an upstate New York family named Talcott, Wilson maintained a summer home at Talcottville, north of Utica in Lewis County between the Adirondacks and Tug Hill Plateau. 

   Wilson found that Standing Arrow was part of an Iroquois nationalist movement with adherents at the Onondaga reservation in the Syracuse area and at reservations in northern New York and Canada. 

   Inside, Standing Arrow’s hut was “small but not ill-kept.”  There was a landscape of a lake hanging on the wall, along with a feathered headdress and a rattle made from the shell of a snapping turtle.  Wilson said Standing Arrow, a chief from the St. Regis Reservation, was a charismatic figure.   

   Although he had heard unfavorable things about Standing Arrow, Wilson was “won over” by the Chief saying, “He appealed to the imagination.”  Standing Arrow’s features reminded Wilson of the young Napoleon, even though he had “a slight cast in one eye.”

   “He had also, as I could see, some of the qualities of the Mussolinian spellbinder,” wrote Wilson.

   Wilson added, “A Mohawk who disapproved of Standing Arrow told me that his eloquence in English – of which his command was imperfect – was nothing to his eloquence in Mohawk.”

   Standing Arrow produced a document from attorney E.A. Everett from 1924 backing the Chief’s claim that the Mohawks still owned the land around the Schoharie Creek.  Everett credited the Iroquois Confederacy with creating the only pre-European government in America.

   Wilson learned that some of the men in the settlement were high steel workers who had labored that year on the nearby Thruway Bridge over Schoharie Creek.  That bridge collapsed during flooding 30 years later killing 10 people. 

   Mohawks are excellent working on tall construction projects--walking on a narrow beam is not difficult for them.  Wilson’s book includes “A Study of the Mohawks in High Steel” written by Joseph Mitchell, describing the lives led by Mohawks living in New York City.

   After a harsh winter, the Schoharie Creek encampment was gone by the summer of 1958.  Eviction orders were served by Sheriff Alton Dingman following court action in March.  Some of the Mohawk huts were burned.   The Mohawks were offered land in the town of Fulton in Schoharie County but if there was a settlement in Fulton, apparently it was short lived.

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Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, April 3, 2023

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When Wilson arrived, the Chief, also known as Frank Johnson, was away and his family not too willing to communicate.  On a second visit, Wilson knocked at the door and no one came to answer it.  When Wilson was getting back in his car, Standing Arrow appeared in the doorway and waved to him.

Edmund Wilson and the Mohawk encampment

By Bob Cudmore

Bob will have more information tomorrow. The Story Behind the Story Monday Podcast

   Edmund Wilson, a famous journalist and man of letters, visited Chief Standing Arrow at the 1957 Mohawk Indian encampment on farmland adjacent to the Schoharie Creek in Fort Hunter.  Wilson wrote about the encounter in his book, “Apologies to the Iroquois.

   Standing Arrow put a sign on Route 5-S that said Indian Village.  During the previous summer, the Mohawks sold souvenirs to tourists.

   The encampment was an attempt to repossess part of an 8,000 acre tract the Mohawks said was not included in land ceded to the U.S. government by the Iroquois Confederacy in the Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1784.  According to historian and newspaper reporter Hugh Donlon, there was talk of 3,000 Mohawks coming to the settlement from the reservation on the Canadian border with northern New York.

   When Wilson arrived, the Chief, also known as Frank Johnson, was away and his family not too willing to communicate.  On a second visit, Wilson knocked at the door and no one came to answer it.  When Wilson was getting back in his car, Standing Arrow appeared in the doorway and waved to him.

   Wilson said, “It was a characteristic of an Indian that, not being up and dressed, he should not shout that he would be out in a minute but should wait until he could present himself with dignity.”

Please contribute to the 2023 Historians Podcast fund drive.  We had no donations during the past week and we are way behind last year.    PLEASE DONATE 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. Thank you-every contribution helps.

   Descended from an upstate New York family named Talcott, Wilson maintained a summer home at Talcottville, north of Utica in Lewis County between the Adirondacks and Tug Hill Plateau. 

   Wilson found that Standing Arrow was part of an Iroquois nationalist movement with adherents at the Onondaga reservation in the Syracuse area and at reservations in northern New York and Canada. 

   Inside, Standing Arrow’s hut was “small but not ill-kept.”  There was a landscape of a lake hanging on the wall, along with a feathered headdress and a rattle made from the shell of a snapping turtle.  Wilson said Standing Arrow, a chief from the St. Regis Reservation, was a charismatic figure.   

   Although he had heard unfavorable things about Standing Arrow, Wilson was “won over” by the Chief saying, “He appealed to the imagination.”  Standing Arrow’s features reminded Wilson of the young Napoleon, even though he had “a slight cast in one eye.”

   “He had also, as I could see, some of the qualities of the Mussolinian spellbinder,” wrote Wilson.

   Wilson added, “A Mohawk who disapproved of Standing Arrow told me that his eloquence in English – of which his command was imperfect – was nothing to his eloquence in Mohawk.”

   Standing Arrow produced a document from attorney E.A. Everett from 1924 backing the Chief’s claim that the Mohawks still owned the land around the Schoharie Creek.  Everett credited the Iroquois Confederacy with creating the only pre-European government in America.

   Wilson learned that some of the men in the settlement were high steel workers who had labored that year on the nearby Thruway Bridge over Schoharie Creek.  That bridge collapsed during flooding 30 years later killing 10 people. 

   Mohawks are excellent working on tall construction projects--walking on a narrow beam is not difficult for them.  Wilson’s book includes “A Study of the Mohawks in High Steel” written by Joseph Mitchell, describing the lives led by Mohawks living in New York City.

   After a harsh winter, the Schoharie Creek encampment was gone by the summer of 1958.  Eviction orders were served by Sheriff Alton Dingman following court action in March.  Some of the Mohawk huts were burned.   The Mohawks were offered land in the town of Fulton in Schoharie County but if there was a settlement in Fulton, apparently it was short lived.

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“Inside the Amsterdam City Limits, History with Bob Cudmore”

A look at Guy Park Manor, arguably Amsterdam’s oldest house.

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Fooling the Ragman

According to Douglas’s book, his father was born Herschel Danielovitch in Russia and came to America in 1908.  His wife Bryna or Bertha Sanglel followed two years later.  Their six daughters and one son all were born in America.

Wednesday, April 5, 2023-

Michael Doyle is author of “The Ministers’ War: John W. Mears, the Oneida Community, and the Crusade for Public Morality.”  The book describes a 19th century utopian community in upstate New York.

Thursday, April 6, 2023-The artistic gunsmith

Maria Riccio Bryce

Friday, April 7, 2023

Episode 469- Composer, choral director and pianist Maria Riccio Bryce, creator of a new work called Requiem: What Remains Is Love.  CD recordings are available at Amsterdam Free Library. On Friday May 26, the Requiem will be performed at St Paul’s Episcopal on Hackett Blvd in Albany; Saturday, May 27, at First Reformed on N. Church St in the Schenectady Stockade; and Sunday at 3pm on May 28, at Trinity Lutheran on Guy Park Avenue in Amsterdam.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, April 2, 2023

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