Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Michael Mauro DeBonis discusses his New York History Blog article on Canastota, N.Y., boxing champion Carmen Basilio.

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Thursday, November 17, 2022

Speculator a training site for famous boxers

World heavyweight champion James Joseph “Gene” Tunney trained for his most important fights in Speculator in the Adirondacks in the 1920s.  One of the champion’s sons spoke this summer at a talk arranged by the Friends of the Lake Pleasant Library.  Speculator is a village in the town of Lake Pleasant in Hamilton County.

Bob Gumson

Friday, November 18, 2022- Episode 449-Bob Gumson of Albany, author of In Blind Sight: From Canarsie, Brooklyn with Love, Music and Mischief", his autobiography about living blind.

Mohawk Valley Weather and News Headlines, Wednesday, November 16, 2022

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   Dr. Bloom said that finding recordings of his father’s radio talks would mean a great deal to his family. 

Voice from the past

By Bob Cudmore

   His son and grandson want to hear the voice of Rabbi Samuel A. Bloom once again.

   Bloom came to Amsterdam in 1949 and served as Congregation Sons of Israel’s rabbi for thirty-nine years.  Born in Savannah, Georgia, he was ordained at Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary in Brooklyn.  He later earned a doctorate at New York University.

    His wife, Eleanor Golub Bloom, was executive director of United Synagogue of America for the Empire Region, and on the board of the National Jewish Youth Directors of America.

   According to his obituary, Rabbi Bloom was heard regularly over WCSS radio in Amsterdam for thirty years.  A 1965 newspaper story reported that his commentary was broadcast Saturday mornings at nine on WCSS.  However, apparently neither the radio station nor the family has any of the recordings. 

   The rabbi’s son, physician Michael J. Bloom of Clarence in western New York, wrote, “I remember vividly accompanying him as he recorded the tapes for his radio show.  And how hard it was for me to be perfectly silent as I sat next to him.”

   Dr. Bloom said that finding recordings of his father’s radio talks would mean a great deal to his family. 

   Dr. Bloom’s son Joshua, a Buffalo attorney, wrote, “I, unlike my Dad, never even heard my grandfather's voice after about age three.  So for me it would be a truly incredible experience to find any of these (recordings) or even to find a transcription.”

   Newspaper archives paint a portrait of Bloom as an active speaker.  In 1954 he recounted the history of the Jewish experience in America for a Kiwanis Club meeting in Gloversville, saying that American Jews have followed the words of God which told them when fleeing from Egypt to move on and make progress if they want to be saved.  

   In 1958 he told the Amsterdam Rotary Club that religion won’t save us from all suffering and pain, but can help us understand why we suffer, and teach us to learn and grow from our misfortune.  At a forum on the Vietnam War in 1969 he said he feared the war would last another five years.  That year his synagogue hosted an interfaith Thanksgiving service which had to be repeated because of the large crowd that attended.

   Bloom was active in the Greater Amsterdam Clergy Association and served as its president.  He headed United Way campaigns. 

   Bloom died in July 1988, five months after his wife passed away.  The Recorder eulogized him then as a “wise teacher, a good man.”

Nice picture from The Mohawk Valley, add 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow(scroll down)

Wednesday, November 16, 2022, From the Archives- June 1, 2018-Historians Episode 217-Michael Mauro DeBonis discusses his New York History Blog article on Canastota, N.Y., boxing champion Carmen Basilio.

Thursday, November 17, 2022, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—-Speculator a training site for famous boxers

Friday, November 18, 2022- Episode 449-Bob Gumson of Albany, author of In Blind Sight: From Canarsie, Brooklyn with Love, Music and Mischief", his autobiography about living blind.

Bob Gumson’s career in disability rights advocacy started in his childhood. He received the message from his family that his blindness was merely an inconvenience, something everyone faces. He became his own best advocate at an early age, fighting alongside his family for the right to attend public school and summer camp, participate in a high-school fraternity, and play sports. He also put pressure on New York City to create a resource to serve people with disabilities, which later became the Mayor's Office for Handicapped Affairs

Mohawk Valley Weather and News Headlines, Tuesday, November 15, 2022

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-A voice from the past-Rabbi Bloom

His son and grandson want to hear the voice of Rabbi Samuel A. Bloom once again.

   Bloom came to Amsterdam in 1949 and served as Congregation Sons of Israel’s rabbi for thirty-nine years.  Born in Savannah, Georgia, he was ordained at Beth Joseph Rabbinical Seminary in Brooklyn.  He later earned a doctorate at New York University.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022, From the Archives- June 1, 2018-Historians Episode 217-Michael Mauro DeBonis discusses his New York History Blog article on Canastota, N.Y., boxing champion Carmen Basilio.

Thursday, November 17, 2022, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—-Speculator a training site for famous boxers

Friday, November 18, 2022- Episode 449-Bob Gumson of Albany, author of In Blind Sight: From Canarsie, Brooklyn with Love, Music and Mischief", his autobiography about living blind.

Bob Gumson’s career in disability rights advocacy started in his childhood. He received the message from his family that his blindness was merely an inconvenience, something everyone faces. He became his own best advocate at an early age, fighting alongside his family for the right to attend public school and summer camp, participate in a high-school fraternity, and play sports. He also put pressure on New York City to create a resource to serve people with disabilities, which later became the Mayor's Office for Handicapped Affairs

Stories from Guy Park Manor

By Bob Cudmore

   New York State Power Authority recently announced a $36 million multi-year reconstruction project aimed at creating a Guy Park Manor that is safe for the public. 

   The Manor is the oldest house in Amsterdam, New York, a limestone structure built in 1766 for Irish immigrant Guy Johnson, son-in-law and nephew of Sir William Johnson, Britain’s Superintendent for Indian Affairs in colonial New York.

   Guy Park Manor is adjacent to Mohawk River/Barge Canal Lock 11 and has been vacant about ten years.

   Guy Johnson came to America in 1756, sought out his uncle and married William’s daughter Polly.  Family patriarch Sir William died in 1774.

   Guy and Polly did not have much time to enjoy their new home, fleeing for Canada in 1775 as anti-British sentiment grew during the buildup to the Revolutionary War.  

   After the Johnsons left, the winning side turned the building into a tavern.  “Visitors began seeing a mysterious woman in white in an upstairs room,” city historian Rob von Hasseln wrote, “Some suspected Polly had returned to her home, others thought it was a maidservant dispatched by Guy Johnson to retrieve papers and valuables secreted in the house.  A German hexmeister who travelled the Valley offered to stay overnight in the room and rid it of its ghost; thereafter, the visitations ceased.”

   There were various private occupants of Guy Park Manor over the years including stone cutter James Stewart.  He helped build canal locks, aqueducts and railroad bridges in the area.

   Stewart was struck and killed by a train as he crossed the railroad tracks in front of the Manor in 1860.

   The State took over the Manor in 1907 for canal maintenance when the Mohawk River was made into the Barge Canal.  A movable dam was built at the canal lock adjacent to the Manor.

   Tourism grew when a custodian was hired.  A limiting factor has been the railroad tracks which must be crossed to reach the historic site by auto or foot. 

   For some years the building housed Assemblyman Paul Tonko’s office and the Chamber of Commerce.  In the 2000s the Walter Elwood Museum, looking for a home, moved in.

   Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 left the Manor in a ruined condition.  The Elwood Museum moved up the hill to former Amsterdam mill buildings.

   State government stabilized and rebuilt Guy Park Manor over time but it has remained unused.

   Both of the original Amsterdam area Johnson family colonial homes (Old Fort Johnson and Guy Park Manor) continue to attract travel attention.  And among visitors each year are descendants of Loyalists who come from Canada or the British Isles. 

   Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon added in his book “Annals of a Mill Town,” “The old stone houses provide opportunity for reflection on what might have been had the American Revolution failed.”

   Additional Manor renovations will include installation of a wheelchair lift. As for interiors, upgrades will be made to the mechanical systems and a fire and security system will be installed along with repairs to fireplaces, staircases, flooring, and trim work. The spaces will be reimagined for new exhibitions and to house multipurpose spaces.

   Other improvements include a staircase leading to the moveable dam over the waterway, which will create a pedestrian pathway connecting the Manor to the Empire State Trail, canal, and river.

   Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Erik Kulleseid said. “Communities are increasingly having to plan for and respond to risks – and the rehabilitation of Guy Park Manor is an admirable example of incorporating protective measures designed to withstand future storms while also maintaining the historic integrity of a locally significant site. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, November 14, 2022

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Stories from Guy Park Manor

By Bob Cudmore

   New York State Power Authority recently announced a $36 million multi-year reconstruction project aimed at creating a Guy Park Manor that is safe for the public. 

   The Manor is the oldest house in Amsterdam, New York, a limestone structure built in 1766 for Irish immigrant Guy Johnson, son-in-law and nephew of Sir William Johnson, Britain’s Superintendent for Indian Affairs in colonial New York.

   Guy Park Manor is adjacent to Mohawk River/Barge Canal Lock 11 and has been vacant about ten years.

   Guy Johnson came to America in 1756, sought out his uncle and married William’s daughter Polly.  Family patriarch Sir William died in 1774.

   Guy and Polly did not have much time to enjoy their new home, fleeing for Canada in 1775 as anti-British sentiment grew during the buildup to the Revolutionary War.  

   After the Johnsons left, the winning side turned the building into a tavern.  “Visitors began seeing a mysterious woman in white in an upstairs room,” city historian Rob von Hasseln wrote, “Some suspected Polly had returned to her home, others thought it was a maidservant dispatched by Guy Johnson to retrieve papers and valuables secreted in the house.  A German hexmeister who travelled the Valley offered to stay overnight in the room and rid it of its ghost; thereafter, the visitations ceased.”

   There were various private occupants of Guy Park Manor over the years including stone cutter James Stewart.  He helped build canal locks, aqueducts and railroad bridges in the area.

   Stewart was struck and killed by a train as he crossed the railroad tracks in front of the Manor in 1860.

   The State took over the Manor in 1907 for canal maintenance when the Mohawk River was made into the Barge Canal.  A movable dam was built at the canal lock adjacent to the Manor.

   Tourism grew when a custodian was hired.  A limiting factor has been the railroad tracks which must be crossed to reach the historic site by auto or foot. 

   For some years the building housed Assemblyman Paul Tonko’s office and the Chamber of Commerce.  In the 2000s the Walter Elwood Museum, looking for a home, moved in.

Tomorrow, Monday, November 14, 2022-The story behind the story- Bob with more stories from Amsterdam’s Guy Park Manor.

   Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 left the Manor in a ruined condition.  The Elwood Museum moved up the hill to former Amsterdam mill buildings.

   State government stabilized and rebuilt Guy Park Manor over time but it has remained unused.

   Both of the original Amsterdam area Johnson family colonial homes (Old Fort Johnson and Guy Park Manor) continue to attract travel attention.  And among visitors each year are descendants of Loyalists who come from Canada or the British Isles. 

   Amsterdam historian Hugh Donlon added in his book “Annals of a Mill Town,” “The old stone houses provide opportunity for reflection on what might have been had the American Revolution failed.”

   Additional Manor renovations will include installation of a wheelchair lift. As for interiors, upgrades will be made to the mechanical systems and a fire and security system will be installed along with repairs to fireplaces, staircases, flooring, and trim work. The spaces will be reimagined for new exhibitions and to house multipurpose spaces.

   Other improvements include a staircase leading to the moveable dam over the waterway, which will create a pedestrian pathway connecting the Manor to the Empire State Trail, canal, and river.

   Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Commissioner Erik Kulleseid said. “Communities are increasingly having to plan for and respond to risks – and the rehabilitation of Guy Park Manor is an admirable example of incorporating protective measures designed to withstand future storms while also maintaining the historic integrity of a locally significant site. 

Tuesday, November 15, 2022, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-A voice from the past-Rabbi Bloom

Wednesday, November 16, 2022, From the Archives- June 1, 2018-Historians Episode 217-Michael Mauro DeBonis discusses his New York History Blog article on Canastota, N.Y., boxing champion Carmen Basilio.

Thursday, November 17, 2022, From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—-Speculator a training site for famous boxers

Friday, November 18, 2022- Episode 449-Bob Gumson of Albany, author of In Blind Sight: From Canarsie, Brooklyn with Love, Music and Mischief", his autobiography about living blind.

Bob Gumson’s career in disability rights advocacy started in his childhood. He received the message from his family that his blindness was merely an inconvenience, something everyone faces. He became his own best advocate at an early age, fighting alongside his family for the right to attend public school and summer camp, participate in a high-school fraternity, and play sports. He also put pressure on New York City to create a resource to serve people with disabilities, which later became the Mayor's Office for Handicapped Affairs.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, November 13, 2022

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We’ve raised $5075 so far toward our $6000 yearly Historians Podcast fund drive goal.  We need to raise $425 IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS to stay on track.  Please donate online at https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-historians-podcast-2022  Or send a check made out to Bob Cudmore to 125 Horstman Drive, Scotia, NY 12302.  You may give anonymously and no contribution is too small.  Our latest donation—thanks to Michael Davi.  

Saturday, November 12, 2022- From the Archives- Episode 139, November 25, 2016-T Martin Bennett, author of “Wounded Tiger”: The true story of the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose life was transformed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met. 

Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

Polly had returned to her home...

Tomorrow The Weekend Print Story

Sunday, November 13, 2022 Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder. Stories from Amsterdam’s Guy Park Manor.

After the Johnsons left, the winning side turned the building into a tavern.  “Visitors began seeing a mysterious woman in white in an upstairs room,” city historian Rob von Hasseln wrote, “Some suspected Polly had returned to her home...

Rain, it does look as though the sun will return to The Mohawk Valley tomorrow afternoon

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, November 12, 2022

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On a more somber note, Mohawk’s sales director Z.L. Potter wrote that the local mills were suffering from hard times, “But I pledge you personally and for all members of the sales organization that we will leave no stone unturned that will bring in business, start all Mohawk looms up again and give you the security of employment you desire.”

Selling Amsterdam carpets

By Bob Cudmore

Amsterdam rugs made it at least twice to the White House. The Liberty Rug was one of 20 Axminster carpets woven in Amsterdam by the Shuttleworth mills to mark the initial floodlighting ceremony at the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1916. The rug was then presented to President Woodrow Wilson for his bedroom at the White House.  In 1947 a Chenille rug from Mohawk Carpet showing the Presidential seal was produced for President Harry Truman’s Oval Office.

Following the recent column on Mohawk’s Wheel of Life carpet, woven for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, retired Amsterdam educator Gavin Murdoch has provided Mohawk Carpet publications from his family’s collection.

A 1930 in house publication called the Mohawk Courier contained praise from a New York City theater for a Mohawk rug and described how the Amsterdam firm’s sales force was expanding around the country to fight the Great Depression.

A Chenille carpet from Amsterdam had been installed in 1927 at the Roxy Theatre in New York.  Manager C.W. Griswold was lavish in his praise, “The writer is positively amazed at the life and durability of this rug, subjected to daily traffic for over three years.  It is really remarkable when you consider that we have entertained 25 million persons during this period.”

On a more somber note, Mohawk’s sales director Z.L. Potter wrote that the local mills were suffering from hard times, “But I pledge you personally and for all members of the sales organization that we will leave no stone unturned that will bring in business, start all Mohawk looms up again and give you the security of employment you desire.”

The opposite page described a going away dinner at Saltsman’s Hotel in Ephratah for regional sales managers who were being dispatched to San Francisco, Philadelphia and St. Louis to promote the company’s line.

Colonel G.H. Durston was assigned to San Francisco, and J. Ralph Blocher drew the Philadelphia assignment.  “Invited but not present at the dinner because he was already enroute for his new home in St. Louis was John Smeallie,” wrote the Courier.

A picture showed Smeallie, his wife and daughters standing in front of an automobile pulling an impressive trailer.  Smeallie reported the car and trailer made the 1100 trip without a “mar or trouble.”

Smeallie said, “I snaked the trailer along at 45 and 50 miles per hour on straight concrete stretches and had absolutely no trouble in traffic, even in Cleveland, Indianapolis or St. Louis.  We stopped for some meals and prepared others in transit, Mrs. Smeallie walking about the car and kitchen just as if she were at home.  She claimed it rode much more comfortably than any sedan she was ever in and read a book enroute as well as drinking in the scenery.”

COMPUTER PREDECESSOR

Amsterdam’s former carpet mills produced several kinds of floor coverings—Axminster, Chenille and Wilton.  Wilton carpet has interested me the most, partly because that was what my father, Clarence Cudmore, wove for Mohawk and partly because of its connection to modern days.

Wilton is a wool carpet that can have as many as five colors per pattern. The name derives from Wilton, England.

Wilton was woven on Jacquard looms, invented by Joseph Jacquard in France in 1801  The pattern was determined by hundreds if not thousands of paper punch cards that controlled what color yarn the consumer saw on top of the carpet. 

The Jacquard loom’s punch card system is frequently described as an industrial prototype of early computer hardware.  Since the punch cards could be used multiple times, Jacquard looms even predicted the concept of computer programming.

Tomorrow

The saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater...

Episode 448

Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers—the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

Saturday, November 12, 2022- From the Archives- Episode 139, November 25, 2016-T Martin Bennett, author of “Wounded Tiger”: The true story of the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose life was transformed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met. 

Sunday, November 13, 2022 Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder. Stories from Amsterdam’s Guy Park Manor.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, November 10, 2022

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Wednesday

"Soldier mortals would not survive if they were not blessed with the gift of imagination and the pictures of hope," wrote Confederate Private Henry Graves in the trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. "The second angel of mercy is the night dream." 

Author Wanda Burch discusses her book, “The Home Voices Speak Louder than the Drums: Dreams and the Imagination in Civil War Letters and Memoirs.”  The late singer-songwriter John Kenosian has set some of these letters and memoirs to music. 

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Selling Amsterdam carpets

A 1930 in house publication called the Mohawk Courier contained praise from a New York City theater for a Mohawk rug and described how the Amsterdam firm’s sales force was expanding around the country to fight the Great Depression.

The saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater...

November 11, 2022 Episode 448- Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

Bruce Henderson

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers—the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

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“The Depression, though more severe, was nothing new,” McMartin wrote.  “It was not a bad decade: years at the beginning and end were poor, but 1935-37 were actually quite good years.  In Fulton County, no one starved, no one prospered, and most continued to find some work.”

Glimpses of life during the Depression

By Bob Cudmore

Amsterdam native Isadore Demsky received a few gold pieces as Bar Mitzvah presents in 1929.  Added to money saved from working a paper route, Demsky—who later changed his name to Kirk Douglas--had collected $313, what he termed a fortune in those days.

The young man was going to save the nest egg to go to college but over his mother’s objections gave the money to his father Harry Demsky, a local ragman and legendary strong man. 

“He wanted to buy up a lot of metal, because the prices were so cheap (24 cents a pound) and then sell it at a killing,” wrote movie actor Douglas in his autobiography, “The Ragman’s Son.”

But the bottom fell out of the scrap metal market in 1929 with the crash of the stock market.  The elder Demsky ended up selling the copper he bought with his son’s money for two cents a pound.

Douglas wrote, “That was what the Depression meant to me, that prices came tumbling down and my father lost my savings.  Our scale of living wasn’t much different before, during or after.”

GLOVE CITIES

Historian Barbara McMartin in her book “The Glove Cities” wrote that although Johnstown and Gloversville enjoyed relatively good times in the 1920s, workers and owners in the glove industry had to struggle, even before the Depression.

“The Depression, though more severe, was nothing new,” McMartin wrote.  “It was not a bad decade: years at the beginning and end were poor, but 1935-37 were actually quite good years.  In Fulton County, no one starved, no one prospered, and most continued to find some work.”

SCOOPING COAL

Arnold Wittemeier was born in 1920 in Fort Hunter where his father, Harold, owned Wittemeier’s, one of Montgomery County’s biggest coal companies.

Coal for the family business came on the West Shore Railroad.  In the Depression, Arnold Wittemeier said, coal trains would speed through the valley to try to keep people from taking coal from hopper cars.

“It got so bad that cars of coal were having two tons of coal scooped off of them,” Wittemeier said.

NRA PARADE

An estimated ten thousand people turned out in Amsterdam on a raw and windy November 9, 1933 to parade for economic revival.

The Depression gripped the nation then and former New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt had become President that year.  Roosevelt was launching his New Deal, a key part of which was the National Recovery Administration or NRA.

According to the Albany Evening News, the NRA Parade was the biggest in Amsterdam’s history and featured hundreds of marching mill workers, office employees and school children. There were scores of floats, bands and drum corps.

Republican Mayor Robert Brumagin reviewed the Main Street line of march at a reviewing stand at Church Street. But newly chosen Democratic Mayor-elect Arthur Carter was receiving cheers from the crowd, according to the Evening News, as Carter—a friend of President Roosevelt’s--walked at the head of the contingent from the James T. Bergen American Legion Post.

Michael J. Wytrwal was NRA chairman for Montgomery County.  Wytrwal was a prominent businessman in the Polish neighborhood on Reid Hill. His family operated a coal yard, drugstore and furniture store.

The most notable Amsterdam public works project during the Depression was the municipal golf course, named for Mayor Carter and partly bankrolled by FDR’s federal government. 

BLUE PLATE

In the Depression, Orsini’s Royal Restaurant at East Main and Liberty streets offered a blue plate special.  Genevieve Orsini Hartigan Palumbo said the special cost 35 cents and included meat or fish, mashed potatoes and vegetable.  Coffee was an additional five cents.  Orsini’s also offered a meal ticket for $4.50 that was worth $5 in food.

Wednesday

"Soldier mortals would not survive if they were not blessed with the gift of imagination and the pictures of hope," wrote Confederate Private Henry Graves in the trenches outside Petersburg, Virginia. "The second angel of mercy is the night dream." 

Author Wanda Burch discusses her book, “The Home Voices Speak Louder than the Drums: Dreams and the Imagination in Civil War Letters and Memoirs.”  The late singer-songwriter John Kenosian has set some of these letters and memoirs to music. 

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Selling Amsterdam carpets

A 1930 in house publication called the Mohawk Courier contained praise from a New York City theater for a Mohawk rug and described how the Amsterdam firm’s sales force was expanding around the country to fight the Great Depression.

The saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater...

November 11, 2022 Episode 448- Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

Bruce Henderson

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers—the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

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Monday, November 7, 2022

The story behind the story-Last hurrah for Amsterdam’s Bowler’s Brewery

Tuesday, November 8, 2022 Glimpses of life during the Great Depression

Amsterdam native Isadore Demsky received a few gold pieces as Bar Mitzvah presents in 1929.  Added to money saved from working a paper route, Demsky—who later changed his name to Kirk Douglas--had collected $313, what he termed a fortune in those days.

Wednesday, November 9, 2022 Author Wanda Burch discusses her book, “The Home Voices Speak Louder than the Drums: Dreams and the Imagination in Civil War Letters and Memoirs.”  The late singer-songwriter John Kenosian has set some of these letters and memoirs to music. 

Thursday, November 10, 2022 Selling Amsterdam carpets

Amsterdam rugs made it at least twice to the White House. The Liberty Rug was one of 20 Axminster carpets woven in Amsterdam by the Shuttleworth mills to mark the initial floodlighting ceremony at the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1916.

Executive Order 9066

November 11, 2022 Episode 448- Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers—the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

The last hurrah for Bowler’s Brewery

By Bob Cudmore

   Time caught up with Bowler’s Brewery and its ghost sign on Route 5 in Amsterdam’s West End this month.

   Emergency demolition of the former brewery and All Seasons Motor Sports building at 399 W. Main St. was ordered by city officials who said the structure had become unstable.

   Phil Bowler said some years ago he really wishes he had the formula for the long lasting paint his ancestors used to write the name Bowler’s Brewery on the building.  Phil also said he never got the family beer making formulas or any of the money either.

   Harry Fitch Bowler started his Amsterdam brewery in 1889.  Born in Ipswich, England, Bowler came to Troy, New York, at age four where his father, also named Harry, operated a brewery.

   Young Bowler grew up in Troy, then worked for a brewer in Virginia.  Two of his brothers ran a brewery in Worcester, Massachusetts.

  He married Julia Imogene Millard of Palmyra, N.Y., and honed his beer-making in several cities before coming to Amsterdam.  To brew beer, he used water from the Mohegan Spring on the firm’s property on Carmichael Street.

   Bowler expanded his wooden Amsterdam plant in 1894.  The facility was destroyed by fire in 1895.  He then constructed the five story brick structure in 1896.  The New York Central Railroad built a siding adjacent to the brewery in 1905.

   In 1912 a Bowler’s newspaper ad stated, “For the sake of the health of everyone in your family, take my advice and tell your mother to always have in the house a supply of Amsterdam Brew, bottled lager beer and still ale.”

   Harry’s wife Julia died in 1913 at age sixty. Harry married an Amsterdam woman, Anna Wood, in 1915.  He suffered from heart disease and traveled to Newark, New Jersey, to consult with a heart specialist.  Bowler, 63, died in his hotel room in Newark on February 9, 1917 before he had a chance to see the doctor.  The wake was held at his 24 Grove Street home. He was buried next to his first wife in her hometown of Palmyra.

   Bowler was eulogized as a charitable, community minded family man, a Democrat, although he never ran for public office.  Pictures survive showing him hosting gatherings for employees and customers, with plenty of beer in sight.

   Bowler’s offspring--Arthur, Harry, and Sarah Bowler Burnham--continued brewing after their father’s death but Prohibition of alcohol became law in 1920. 

   Beer lovers had a temporary reprieve that February.  The federal government let breweries sell beer to those who had medical prescriptions for it.  The medicinal beer had nearly twice the alcohol content of beer sold before Prohibition.

   “Tell the glad tidings to suffering men!” wrote the Recorder. “The hop hounds are howling in happy hilarity.”

   However, Prohibition did take hold and the alcohol industry went underground.

   Bowler’s became Chuctanunda Dyeing and Dressing Company to make non-alcoholic products such as soda, at least some of the time.  Buildings, land and equipment were sold to the John P. Dugan Company in 1923. 

   The operation was renamed Amsterdam Cereal Beverage Company.  In 1924 federal agents staked out the plant and impounded a truck leaving the property which appeared to contain real beer.

   Historian Hugh Donlon said federal agents raided the former brewery “with crippling frequency.”

   In 1927 what had been Bowler’s was purchased by George Largay, a Waterbury, Connecticut, brewer.  Largay and Leo O’Mella of Fonda resumed beer production as the Amsterdam Brewing Company when Prohibition ended in 1933.  

   Products included Amsterdam Porter, Amsterdam Stout and Linden Lager Old German Style Beer.  Beer production ended there in the early 1940s.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, November 7, 2022

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