The Historians

Bob Cudmore will Moderate

Queen Libby of Fonda   

By Bob Cudmore

   A formidable woman from Italy stopped a train, saved a man from the electric chair and was a major property owner in Fonda. 

   Born in Atripalda in southern Italy on March 10, 1873, Elizabeth Luciano came to Fonda by herself in 1889 as a teenager and lived at the James Snell house on Railroad Street.  She had relatives who lived in Johnstown.  Her obituary claimed she was the first Italian immigrant to settle in Fonda.  

   People in the Mohawk Valley called her Queen Libby or Queen Lib.  According to one of her grandchildren, she received her nickname after knocking down a man who had used an ethnic slur about Italians. 

   “The next time you see me, you bow,” she reportedly told the fallen man, leading him to refer to her as Queen Libby.

      She married Italian native, James Cassell, in 1891.  They had three children before Cassell died.  In 1901 Luciano married Alphonso Mancini; he hailed from Pietramelara, Italy, and worked for the railroad.  They had four more children. 

   The couple returned to Italy for a time where Alphonso was a jailer.  Elizabeth came back to America by herself and Alfonso eventually followed her back to Fonda. 

   Queen Libby ran a boarding house and grocery store in the west end of Fonda, where she fed, housed and cared for Italian Americans who worked on the railroad.  She purchased sixteen two family houses in the village.  Patsy Cassell, one of Libby’s sons, ran a Fonda tavern called Patsy’s for many years.

      In 1923, one of Libby’s daughters, Eva Mancini Pepe, was about to give birth to her first child.  Eva was married to Ralph Pepe, whose father, Salvatore, founded Pepe’s Bakery on Amsterdam’s South Side.

   According to the Recorder, Libby was informed by telephone that her daughter was about to have a rare Caesarean section at St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam.

    Libby secured a red flag at the Fonda train station and when an express came “thundering in its usual way” she waved the red flag, convincing the engineer to stop the train and then convincing him to take her to Amsterdam. 

   Arriving at the hospital, she charged into the operating room.  Libby also made a phone call to the New York Central Railroad and demanded that the next possible train stop in Fonda to take her husband to Amsterdam. 

   The headline from the newspaper read, “Flags train to reach daughter as stork comes: Fonda woman bossed the whole New York Central Railroad but got to Amsterdam hospital on time.”

   The child born that day was Vincenza Pepe.  Eva Pepe ultimately had seven children and the child she bore in 1924 was Salvatore Pepe of Amsterdam.

      “Queen Libby was strong-minded, tough but a gentle grandmother,” Salvatore Pepe said, recalling that Libby gave quarters to her grandchildren. 

      Ann Sherman of Amsterdam also claimed Queen Libby as a grandmother.  Sherman’s mother was Constance Cassell, one of the children from Libby’s first marriage.

   According to Sherman, Queen Libby was an interpreter for Italians who could not speak English who were brought before the court in Fonda.

   Libby once saved an innocent man who was charged with murder from the electric chair.  Libby called Italy where the real murderer had fled and had him sent back to the United States for trial.  Governor Franklin Roosevelt was so impressed that he visited Fonda to commend Libby.

  Alphonso Mancini died in 1936.   Queen Libby suffered a stroke and later died in 1937.  Both were buried at St. Cecilia’s Cemetery in Fonda.  Her grandchildren said her funeral was one of the biggest funerals ever seen in the village.

Monday, January 16, 2023-Story behind the story, Queen Libby of Fonda.

Tuesday, January 17, 2023, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-The Sanford Stud Farm fire in 1939

A tragic event in Amsterdam’s history was the January 9, 1939 fire that killed 25 thoroughbred horses and did $200,000 damage at the Sanford Stud Farm outside the city limits on Route 30.  A police dog also died in the blaze.

Wednesday, January 18, 2023-From the Archives-Episode 76, August 30, 2015- Nick Bunker is author of “An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America.”  The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  

Thursday, January 19- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Death rode the wings of the wind

Friday, January 20, 2023-Episode 458-New York State Historian Devin Lander.  250th American independence anniversary coming in years ahead.

As New York State Historian, my duties are twofold; to help provide support and coordination to the historical field, including local historians, academic historians, and historical societies and museums; as well as to conduct research on various topics relevant to New York State history and the New York State Museum.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, January 15, 2023

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Exhibit told of disaster, gallows, justice

By Bob Cudmore

More than 2,000 people died on May 31, 1889, when the South Fork Dam collapsed at Lake Conemaugh sending a wall of water and debris into Johnstown, Pennsylvania, already experiencing flooding from the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek rivers. 

Six weeks later, a flood struck Johnstown, New York along the Cayadutta Creek.  The story of the local Johnstown flood is part of the exhibit “Once Upon a Time in Johnstown” at the Fulton County Museum to mark the 250th anniversary of Johnstown’s founding.

Joan Loveday, Fulton County Historical Society president, said in early July of 1889,  “After heavy rains, the Cayadutta Creek raised eight feet in 30 minutes and the creek banks and foundations were rapidly inundated as hundreds of people gathered along the creek and bridges to watch the flood.

“Police tried in vain to move sightseers from the water's edge, when many people were dumped into the raging current. Five men died.  Four dams and seven bridges were destroyed.  Factories and skin mills along the creek were severely damaged.”

The New York Times printed this account on July 11, “This city is slowly relieving itself of the terror which came down upon it with the flood yesterday, and…wonders at the strange coincidence of name and tragedy with that of the unhappy town in Pennsylvania.” 

ORGINAL GALLOWS  

Also a part of the Johnstown exhibit at the museum is the original gallows used for hangings at the old Fulton County jail.

Loveday said, “When the Johnstown jail was renovated, I believe then Fulton County Historian Lou Decker brought the gallows to the museum and it has been in the basement.  I am told it was on display once before.  The gallows is a huge wooden beam with a hook on it.  Due to the weight of it, we have it suspended on two old glove machines covered with fabric.”

Another exhibit, featuring famous Johnstown women, tells the story of Elizabeth Van Valkenburg, born in 1799, the only woman to be hanged on the gallows on display at the museum.

Loveday said, “A very poor judge of husbands, Elizabeth chose drunkards who were child and wife beaters and non-supporters, who made her and her children's lives miserable.  After the death of her first husband who died of stomach problems, she was remarried in six months to John Van Valkenburg in 1834.

“To remedy the abuse of this husband, Elizabeth laced John's brandy with arsenic, which of course made him ill.  Suspicions were raised and when Elizabeth heard she was wanted for questioning she was found hiding in the foundation of a Kingsboro home.  She was escorted home for the night.  She ran off again with the sheriff in hot pursuit and hid in the loft of a barn.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth fell through the hay hole in the loft and broke her hip.

“When John died, Elizabeth was incarcerated in the old Johnstown jail for almost a year.  At her trial she was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.  When she signed a full confession, she confessed to killing her first husband as well. Since Elizabeth was unable to stand, the gallows had to be modified to hang her in a chair. This hanging took place January 24, 1846.  Elizabeth is buried without a headstone in the Colonial Cemetery in Johnstown.

“Sympathy ran high for poor Elizabeth, who in 1845 would have had no rights to her children or possessions, had she left her husband.  It is a sad story, but part of Johnstown's history.”

The Fulton County Museum, 237 Kingsboro Avenue in Gloversville is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  No admission is charged but donations are appreciated. 

Friday, January 13, 2023

Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s

Saturday January 14, 2023

Ricardo Herrera is author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778. 

Herrera is visiting professor at the US Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.  Previously he was professor of military history at the School of Advanced Military Studies, US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  He served as an armorer and cavalry officer in the US Army.

Sunday, January 15, 2023-Queen Libby was an important and colorful early resident of Fonda 

Born in Atripalda in southern Italy on March 10, 1873, Elizabeth Luciano came to Fonda by herself in 1889 as a teenager and lived at the James Snell house on Railroad Street. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, January 12, 2023

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Today the second Highlights Podcast of 2021 features Jim Richmond on Saratoga County history, Mike Hauser on Fulton County sports, Sarah Patten on women spies, Thruway questions from Robert Burns, John Warren on motorization of the Adirondack Park, Jim Kaplan on New York City’s South Street Seaport and Roland Vinyard on West Virginia caver Pete Hauer.

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Exhibit told of disaster, gallows, justice

“Police tried in vain to move sightseers from the water's edge, when many people were dumped into the raging current. Five men died. 

Friday, January 13, 2023

...there was a good turn to the right

Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, January 11, 2023

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Amsterdam mourned city official in 1953

Alex Isabel was a champion of area sports

By Bob Cudmore

Amsterdam was shocked one Sunday morning in January, 1953 when city recreation superintendent Alex H. Isabel, 53, died suddenly of a heart attack at his Forest Avenue home. 

Isabel was also a Brooklyn Dodgers scout and basketball and baseball coach at St. Mary’s Institute at the time of his death.  Three years later, a Little League baseball field was dedicated in his honor, a field that still bears the family name on Upper Locust Avenue.

            “He was never sick a day in his life,” recalled Isabel’s son, Gerard, known as “Pup,” a nickname his father gave him.  The night before his death, Alex Isabel spoke at a dinner of the St. Agnello Club, an Italian-American organization in the West End where he spent much of his life.

            As were many West Enders, Isabel was born in Pisciotta, Italy.  He came to New York City at age six where he lived on Little Italy’s Cherry Street before his family settled in Amsterdam.           

Isabel’s athletic skills became apparent when he played baseball for Amsterdam High before World War I, getting an offer from the New York Giants.  Instead, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and suffered hearing loss while on board the battleship Michigan. 

After the war, Isabel finished high school and played baseball at St. Mary’s Institute.  He married Ann Murphy in 1923 and they had three children. 

Isabel played and coach baseball in the popular semi-professional leagues of the day.  He pitched for the Gloversville-Johnstown Twin Cities and played and managed the Ticonderoga team in the Northern League in 1925 and 1926.  He played baseball for teams including the Mohawk Mills Karnaks, Tonquas Tribe and the West End Athletic Club of Albany.

In 1940, Alex Isabel began coaching baseball at St. Mary’s, adding basketball duties a year later. 

He became acting recreation superintendent for the city in 1944 when superintendent S. Joseph Golden was serving in the Navy.  Golden returned but resigned shortly after the war.  Isabel became superintendent from 1946 until his death.

He spearheaded improvements at city playgrounds and led local baseball teams into national tournaments.  He made college possible for many youngsters and was lauded for his efforts in fighting juvenile delinquency by keeping youth busy with productive pursuits.  He brought in drama teacher Bert DeRose to begin a popular series of summer musicals.

As a scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Isabel scoured Upstate New York and parts of New England and Canada.  His best-known find was Johnny Podres of Witherbee, New York, who pitched for the Dodgers in the World Series in 1953.  

Brothers Guy, Hector and Alex were all involved in operation of Isabel’s Restaurant on West Main Street, although Guy and his wife Ida were the principal restaurateurs.  “Pup” Isabel, who was a waiter at Isabel’s, recalled that across from the restaurant on West Main Street in the old days was a public bath, next to a three-chair barbershop, candy store and a poolroom.  “Pup” said his father Alex was good at pool, too.  He was also a high scoring bowler. 

The week that Alex Isabel died, recreation activities halted in Amsterdam.  His funeral mass at St. Mary’s Church attracted a huge crowd of state and local dignitaries, a Brooklyn Dodgers delegation, St. Mary’s students and 115 boys from the Little League and Little-Bigger League. 

At the 1956 dedication of Alex Isabel Memorial Field, committee chairman Nicholas DeCross stated:  “It is hoped that the boys who play on this field will pattern themselves after Alex and attempt to pass on to their boys what he tried to instill in those who played for him.”

Wednesday, January 11, 2023-Our second Highlights Podcast of 2021 features Jim Richmond on Saratoga County history, Mike Hauser on Fulton County sports, Sarah Patten on women spies, Thruway questions from Robert Burns, John Warren on motorization of the Adirondack Park, Jim Kaplan on New York City’s South Street Seaport and Roland Vinyard on West Virginia caver Pete Hauer.

Thursday, January 12-The Daily Gazette-Exhibit told of disaster, gallows, justice

More than 2,000 people died on May 31, 1889, when the South Fork Dam collapsed at Lake Conemaugh sending a wall of water and debris into Johnstown, Pennsylvania, already experiencing flooding from the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek rivers. 

Friday, January 13, 2023

....The hotel became the college

Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, January 10, 2023

...again not much weather to report

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Monday, January 9, 2023-Story behind the story, Amsterdam Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023-The sudden death of Amsterdam sportsman Alex Isabel 

Amsterdam was shocked one Sunday morning in January, 1953 when city recreation superintendent Alex H. Isabel, 53, died suddenly of a heart attack at his Forest Avenue home. 

Isabel was also a Brooklyn Dodgers scout and basketball and baseball coach at St. Mary’s Institute at the time of his death. 

Wednesday, January 11, 2023-Our second Highlights Podcast of 2021 features Jim Richmond on Saratoga County history, Mike Hauser on Fulton County sports, Sarah Patten on women spies, Thruway questions from Robert Burns, John Warren on motorization of the Adirondack Park, Jim Kaplan on New York City’s South Street Seaport and Roland Vinyard on West Virginia caver Pete Hauer.

Thursday, January 12-The Daily Gazette-Exhibit told of disaster, gallows, justice

Friday, January 13, 2023

Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s

Think Summer in The Mohawk Valley and East/West

Cycle the Erie Canal Bike Tour

Photo:Dylan Carey

https://www.ptny.org/cycle-the-erie-canal/annual-bike-tour

July 9-16 2023

The old courthouse, Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics

By Bob Cudmore

   The Fulton County Courthouse in Johnstown was one of many topics among Focus on History columns in 2022.

   Judge Robert P. Best published the booklet “Everything West of Albany in 1772.”  The Johnstown courthouse was built in 1772 when New York State was still a British colony.  The structure at 223 West Main Street is the oldest existing courthouse in the state. 

   Best, who retired in 2006, said, “It (looked) like a movie scene from an old movie of what a courthouse looks like and it still does.”

   What’s it like to be the boss’s son?  Rod Correll took up that question in a column about his memoir, “Learning to Be a Leatherman-A Rite of Passage.”

   Rod, who lived some years in Gloversville, was descended from two important figures in the leather industry, his grandfather Herman Loewenstein and his father

Rudy Correll.

   Another Focus on History traced the connection between Amsterdam and singer Jeff Buckley, who recorded the most popular version of Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen’s anthem “Hallelujah” in 1994.  

   Jeff Buckley’s father was musician Tim Buckley III who spent his early years in Amsterdam and Fort Johnson.

   Amsterdam’s Ukrainian community was chronicled in stories about Amsterdam’s Ukrainian Church, St. Nicholas on Pulaski Street, and late local Ukrainian activist Myron Swidersky.  Ukrainian immigrant Peter Segen married my mother’s sister.

   Amsterdam Fire Department Battalion Chief John Michael Mancini, who died during 2022, added many anecdotes to our local history stories. 

   Mancini described one fire in which he almost lost his life.  That nasty blaze destroyed the Speedline Warehouse on Front Street in the 1990s.  An overhead door had burned off giving Mancini and other firefighters access to the building.  As they moved forward, a propane tank exploded.

   “Three more steps and I would have got it,” Mancini said.  The blaze was so intense that burning debris ignited nearby buildings.  Mancini said the cause was arson.  The case took four years to prosecute but a conviction was finally secured. 

   A national family history television show focused on a TV celebrity’s Mohawk Valley ancestors in 2022.

   Actor Nick Offerman and a production crew from NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” recorded interviews at the Old Courthouse in Fonda, home to Montgomery County’s history and genealogical collections, and the Johnstown Public Library, in the city founded by British colonial leader Sir William Johnson.

Researchers traced Offerman’s roots to a Mohawk Valley couple, Bartholomew and Eva Pickard and their grandson, Joseph Mabee.

   The Marquis de Lafayette visited Schoharie Crossing in Fort Hunter by canal boat in 1825 and had a reunion with two Mohawk Valley patriots, Thomas Sammons and his son Simeon.

   According to historian and attorney Jim Kaplan there are plans to commemorate Lafayette’s American tour to mark its 200th anniversary in 2024 and 2025.

      The Marquis was a wealthy French aristocrat whose father had been killed by the British, when young Lafayette was only two years old.  

   Lafayette fought alongside George Washington during the American Revolution.  Lafayette played a key role in the British defeat at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781.

   And according to another column, outdoorsman, historian and educator Donald R. Williams of Gloversville owes a lot to his grandfather, John Whitman.

   “He was a carpenter, Adirondack guide and farmer up in the Adirondacks,” Williams said. “And I inherited all my love of the Adirondacks and my love of tools and all those things from my grandfather.”

   Williams’ latest book is a hefty volume with many pictures called “Grandfather’s Tool Chest.”

   One tool looks like a tennis racquet holding a u-shaped piece of cedar.  It was used to fluff up feather beds.

Not much January weather in the weather this Week 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, January 9, 2023

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The old courthouse, Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics

By Bob Cudmore

   The Fulton County Courthouse in Johnstown was one of many topics among Focus on History columns in 2022.

   Judge Robert P. Best published the booklet “Everything West of Albany in 1772.”  The Johnstown courthouse was built in 1772 when New York State was still a British colony.  The structure at 223 West Main Street is the oldest existing courthouse in the state. 

   Best, who retired in 2006, said, “It (looked) like a movie scene from an old movie of what a courthouse looks like and it still does.”

   What’s it like to be the boss’s son?  Rod Correll took up that question in a column about his memoir, “Learning to Be a Leatherman-A Rite of Passage.”

   Rod, who lived some years in Gloversville, was descended from two important figures in the leather industry, his grandfather Herman Loewenstein and his father

Rudy Correll.

   Another Focus on History traced the connection between Amsterdam and singer Jeff Buckley, who recorded the most popular version of Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen’s anthem “Hallelujah” in 1994.  

   Jeff Buckley’s father was musician Tim Buckley III who spent his early years in Amsterdam and Fort Johnson.

   Amsterdam’s Ukrainian community was chronicled in stories about Amsterdam’s Ukrainian Church, St. Nicholas on Pulaski Street, and late local Ukrainian activist Myron Swidersky.  Ukrainian immigrant Peter Segen married my mother’s sister.

   Amsterdam Fire Department Battalion Chief John Michael Mancini, who died during 2022, added many anecdotes to our local history stories. 

   Mancini described one fire in which he almost lost his life.  That nasty blaze destroyed the Speedline Warehouse on Front Street in the 1990s.  An overhead door had burned off giving Mancini and other firefighters access to the building.  As they moved forward, a propane tank exploded.

   “Three more steps and I would have got it,” Mancini said.  The blaze was so intense that burning debris ignited nearby buildings.  Mancini said the cause was arson.  The case took four years to prosecute but a conviction was finally secured. 

   A national family history television show focused on a TV celebrity’s Mohawk Valley ancestors in 2022.

   Actor Nick Offerman and a production crew from NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” recorded interviews at the Old Courthouse in Fonda, home to Montgomery County’s history and genealogical collections, and the Johnstown Public Library, in the city founded by British colonial leader Sir William Johnson.

Researchers traced Offerman’s roots to a Mohawk Valley couple, Bartholomew and Eva Pickard and their grandson, Joseph Mabee.

   The Marquis de Lafayette visited Schoharie Crossing in Fort Hunter by canal boat in 1825 and had a reunion with two Mohawk Valley patriots, Thomas Sammons and his son Simeon.

   According to historian and attorney Jim Kaplan there are plans to commemorate Lafayette’s American tour to mark its 200th anniversary in 2024 and 2025.

      The Marquis was a wealthy French aristocrat whose father had been killed by the British, when young Lafayette was only two years old.  

   Lafayette fought alongside George Washington during the American Revolution.  Lafayette played a key role in the British defeat at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781.

   And according to another column, outdoorsman, historian and educator Donald R. Williams of Gloversville owes a lot to his grandfather, John Whitman.

   “He was a carpenter, Adirondack guide and farmer up in the Adirondacks,” Williams said. “And I inherited all my love of the Adirondacks and my love of tools and all those things from my grandfather.”

   Williams’ latest book is a hefty volume with many pictures called “Grandfather’s Tool Chest.”

   One tool looks like a tennis racquet holding a u-shaped piece of cedar.  It was used to fluff up feather beds. 

Monday, January 9, 2023-Story behind the story, Amsterdam Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023-The sudden death of Amsterdam sportsman Alex Isabel 

Wednesday, January 11, 2023-Our second Highlights Podcast of 2021 features Jim Richmond on Saratoga County history, Mike Hauser on Fulton County sports, Sarah Patten on women spies, Thruway questions from Robert Burns, John Warren on motorization of the Adirondack Park, Jim Kaplan on New York City’s South Street Seaport and Roland Vinyard on West Virginia caver Pete Hauer.

Thursday, January 12-The Daily Gazette-Exhibit told of disaster, gallows, justice

Friday, January 13, 2023

Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, January 8, 2023

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Saturday January 7, 2023-Historian Peter Betz explores various theories on the origin of the name of the Montgomery County hamlet of Tribes Hill.  He also recounts horse runaway stories from Fulton County.

The Erie Canal

https://www.eriecanal.org/Schoharie.html

Sunday, January 8, 2023

The old courthouse, Amsterdam Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics

Another Focus on History traced the connection between Amsterdam and singer Jeff Buckley, who recorded the most popular version of Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen’s anthem “Hallelujah” in 1994.  

The Old Courthouse "The Podcast"

The Historians making digital hay while the sunshines

January

Friday, January 13, 2023-Episode 457-Historian and Daily Gazette reporter Bill Buell on Schenectady in the 1920s.  Proctor’s Theatre, Hotel Van Curler, Charles Steinmetz, WGY and more.

Friday, January 20, 2023-Episode 458-New York State Historian Devin Lander on historical plans for 2023.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, January 7, 2023

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1888 blizzard impacted the living and the dead

By Bob Cudmore

   The blizzard of 1888 disrupted the lives of people in Montgomery County along with the rest of the northeastern United States.

   The March storm played a role in the funeral of Mrs. Robert Hartley in West Galway and West Charlton near Amsterdam.

   In 1860, Amsterdam woodworker Isaac Shuler had opened a shop to make cabinets and furniture. Soon Shuler was making coffins and after the Civil War, he began offering undertaking services.

   After Shuler died, W. Max Reid operated the undertaking business.  Reid wrote a 1901 history book, “The Mohawk Valley.” 

   According to a newspaper accounts Mrs. Hartley’s funeral service was held at the Presbyterian Church in West Galway as the blizzard raged on Monday, March 12, 1888.  H.O. Wilkie was the undertaker for the Shuler funeral home.

   Wilkie had 26 men with him who opened the roads as a procession set out for the West Charlton cemetery.  They traveled two miles reaching the farm of John Cunning but could go no farther.  The corpse was left at the Cunning farm.

   Snow was said to be as high as the backs of the horses as Wilkie and the driver of the team pulling the hearse, Wells Johnson, trekked back to Amsterdam.

   No road could be seen and Johnson walked ahead of the team to find the road.  Wilkie was thrown from the seat of the hearse several times when they hit potholes.  The trip took four hours.  Several mourners were stranded for several days at the West Galway church.

   Burtiss Deal, born in 1882 in Amsterdam, was living with his parents in West Galway in 1888.  His father was operating a textile mill there.

   The snowstorm and the birth of Deal’s younger brother Howard occurred simultaneously. The doctor was marooned with the Deals for several days until the roads were cleared.  Deal was elected mayor of Amsterdam in 1947 and served four, two-year terms.

  The 1888 storm dealt a heavy blow to the railroads.  A cattle train was stalled between Amsterdam and Tribes Hill.  Dead cattle had to be removed from the cars.  Passenger and freight trains were stalled in Amsterdam on the north and south sides of the Mohawk River. 

   Conductor Mason of train 52 on the south side of the river had a big crew and, according to a published account, “Attended to the wants and comforts of his passengers in first class style.  The jovial conductor had each foot incased in a canvas bag and presented a comical sight walking around in his improvised snow shoes.”

   One reporter wrote, “Mrs. Cole, the New York Central ticket agent, was besieged with questions from belated travelers, but answered every one with a kind word and a smile.”

   The wind was described as being “almost a cyclone at times.”  As far as the eye could see there was four feet of snow.

   Charles Yund, a saloon keeper on Amsterdam’s South Side, stuck a large flag in a snow pile which completely covered one of his entrances.  A reporter wrote, “It is intended to notify customers that he is not entirely buried.”

   On some city streets where the snow was shoveled, the banks on either side were on a level with the second stories of the houses.  Tunnels through the snow were common sights.  Citizens were urged to dig out fire hydrants.

   There was at least one old timer who was not impressed with the 1888 storm.  Stephen R. Voorhees told a reporter that in the winter of 1836 a snow storm had visited the region which was more severe. It snowed steadily, he said, for three days and three nights.

Going into the Weekend

Friday, January 6, 2023

Afoot tomorrow

Episode 456

The historic Fulton County courthouse, Ukrainians who settled in Amsterdam, Lafayette in Fort Hunter and other 2022 topics from Bob Cudmore’s Focus on History columns in the Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder.

Saturday January 7, 2023-Historian Peter Betz explores various theories on the origin of the name of the Montgomery County hamlet of Tribes Hill.  He also recounts horse runaway stories from Fulton County.

Sunday, January 8, 2023- The old courthouse, Amsterdam Ukrainians, Lafayette and other 2022 topics

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, January 5, 2023

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