The Historians

The latest print story posted this Sunday, August 21, 2022 on The Historians

"Reader Roman Laba asked for more details when I mentioned Theron Akin"

Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder- Amsterdam’s controversial Mayor Theron Akin

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Markers kept prisoners from straying

Daily Gazette

          Back in 1840, jail limit markers were established in Montgomery County and throughout the state after a ruling from the Court of Common Pleas.

          “They were introduced to provide a person who was in jail for a civil action the ability to leave the jail to work, visit family or to carry on other business,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Michael J. Amato.

          Individuals locked up for bad debts, for example, could get a job close to the jail, as long they stayed within the limits of the stone markers.  The prisoners left the lockup at sunrise and had to return by sunset.  It was a 19th century version of electronic bracelets for non-violent prisoners.

          Amato said that county supervisors set the boundaries of the markers, which could not exceed one mile in each direction from the jail.  Montgomery County had eight markers.  Amato has had one of the markers installed near the entrance of the current jail on Route 5S in Fultonville.

          “The last time the markers were used was about 1913,” Amato said.  “I think that we might be one of the only counties with jail limit markers left.”

JAIL HISTORY

          Amato recently gave a talk on the history of jails in the Mohawk Valley at a meeting of the Charleston Historical Society.

          In 1772, Tryon County was created during the British colonial era.  Johnstown became the county seat of the sprawling jurisdiction that covered much of Upstate New York west of Albany County.  A jail was built in Johnstown that year and the building still stands, although no longer used as a jail.

          At the end of the Revolution in 1784, Tryon County was renamed for patriot General Richard Montgomery and in 1836, the county seat was moved to Fonda.  There was such an outcry from the people of Johnstown that they were granted their own county, Fulton County, split off from Montgomery County in 1837.

          By 1838, a jail and courthouse had been built in Fonda at a cost of $30,500.  The jail was located where the Department of Public Works facility is today, behind the Old Courthouse. 

          In 1881, that jail was destroyed by fire.  According to a newspaper account, the fire was started at 3 a.m. by inmate Patrick Claffey, described as a “desperate character,” jailed for breaking into a store in St. Johnsville.  Sheriff William Scharff was awakened and found it impossible to put out the blaze.  The 22 prisoners were removed safely to the courthouse where they were “strongly guarded” until they could be taken to the jail in Johnstown.

          A new jail was built in Fonda and occupied in late 1882 at a cost of $40,000.  “Although secure, the jail is free from dampness and has plenty of light,” stated an article in the Mohawk Valley Democrat.

          The state closed that jail because of poor conditions in 1911 and again inmates were sent to Fulton County.  In 1913, a jail was built adjacent to the Old Courthouse at a cost of $55,000.  This building still stands and was used as a jail until 1997 when it was shut down because of state requirements.  The current jail in Fultonville was built at a cost of $14 million.

          Among artifacts Amato displayed at his recent talk was a civil debt account book from the 1860s, a record of collections by the sheriff, such as securing four dollars from a man who didn’t pay for a hired horse.  Amato also has an old set of jail keys and a sharp wooden letter opener carved by an inmate in the 1920s, a recreational pastime for prisoners that would be frowned upon today.

Off the Northway

Friday, August 19, 2022- Episode 436-Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of newspaper columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.  One of the principal topics is the history of the GlobalFoundries semiconductor facility in Malta, which employs three thousand people and plans a second plant at its Luther Forest location.

This Weekend on The Historians from Amsterdam, New York

Saturday, August 20, 2022-From the Archives-Episode 157, March 31, 2017-Former CIA historian Nicholas Reynolds discusses author Ernest Hemingway’s involvement with American and Soviet spy agencies in the 1940s.  Reynolds is author of “Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy.”

Sunday, August 21, 2022-Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder- Amsterdam’s controversial Mayor Theron Akin

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, August 18, 2022

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On May 9th of 1769, a bill was introduced in the Provincial Assembly to create a new county out of "the westernmost part" of Albany County.

At that time, Albany County comprised all of the Colonial Province of New York from Ulster and Dutchess Counties to Fort Stanwix (now Rome) and the Iroquois land to the west.

In a letter dated November 28, 1771, Guy Johnson suggested to his uncle (and father- in- law), Sir William Johnson, that the courthouse for the new county be located in Johnstown. Sir William concurred with this recommendation and offered to contribute "to the erection of the necessary Edifies."

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Episode 353-Retired State Supreme Court Justice Robert Best chronicles the history of Johnstown’s 1772 Fulton County Courthouse, the oldest courthouse still in use in New York State.  

Tomorrow, Thursday, August 18, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—Markers kept county jail prisoners from straying.

          “They were introduced to provide a person who was in jail for a civil action the ability to leave the jail to work, visit family or to carry on other business,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Michael J. Amato

Off the Northway

Friday, August 19, 2022- Episode 436-Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of newspaper columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.  One of the principal topics is the history of the GlobalFoundries semiconductor facility in Malta, which employs three thousand people and plans a second plant at its Luther Forest location.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, August 17, 2022

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Fulton County's historic courthouse

By Bob Cudmore

Located at 223 West Main Street in Johnstown, the Fulton County Courthouse was built in 1772 when New York State was still a British colony.

The building is the oldest existing courthouse in the state and one of the oldest buildings in the nation still in use as a courthouse.

Robert P. Best worked in the historic structure as a State Supreme Court Justice for 15 years, Fulton County Judge for 10 years and District Attorney. Best was previously mayor of Gloversville and before that a law clerk to his uncle Willard Best who was also a Fulton County judge. Robert Best, a Pennsylvania native and U.S. Navy veteran, retired in 2006 and lives in Florida.

He has been writing a booklet on the history of the Jbookletohnstown courthouse. The booklet has now been publishd.

Best said that Sir William Johnson who had founded Johnstown suggested to colonial Governor William Tryon that a county be created west of Albany "for doing legal business." The Governor liked the idea and the new jurisdiction was named Tryon County. The first judges were relatives or friends of Johnson.

Johnson contributed 500 pounds toward the cost of building the courthouse in the summer of 1772. Best said Johnson "also provided 25 gallons of rum to refresh the brick masons, the mill wrights and the other sundry help who built the courthouse during the hot months." It was the only courthouse west of Albany when it was first built.

Two years after the courthouse was constructed Johnson died and soon the Revolutionary War began. After the war the name of the county was changed from Tryon to Montgomery to honor patriot General Richard Montgomery who died while leading an attack on Quebec City in the Revolutionary War. The building became the Montgomery County Courthouse.

Development along the Mohawk River including the Erie Canal and railroad became the "big thing" economically, according to Best. The Montgomery County seat moved to Fonda, located on the river, in 1836. The courthouse, jail and clerk's office in Johnstown were sold at public auction for $2,040 the next year.

The people in and around Johnstown were dissatisfied that the county seat had moved and convinced the State Legislature to create a new county from part of northern Montgomery County, naming the new county after Robert Fulton who had improved on the invention of the steam engine.

The Johnstown courthouse, jail and clerk's office were repurchased. Best said that lawyer and later judge Daniel Cady is called the Father of Fulton County for presiding over this transaction. Cady's daughter was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the pioneer suffragist.

Best said, "In 1980 something, an architectural firm went through (the courthouse), gave it good marks as continuing as a courthouse. It needed air conditioning and a few other things but otherwise it passed muster.

"So holding court in it was just a habit with me. It was there before I was elected and I hoped that it would stay after I was elected. It was like a movie scene from an old movie of what a courthouse looks like and it still does. A landmark in the city of Johnstown and I'm glad that it still is."

Best added, "There's not many things left around nowadays that reflect the past and I hope that it doesn't become one of those monuments that somebody wants to tear down or burn like is happening in other places."

Best's daughter, art teacher Meredith Best, is designing artwork for the booklet including pictures of the courthouse, Sir William Johnson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022-From the Archives-January 15, 2021-Episode 353-Retired State Supreme Court Justice Robert Best chronicles the history of Johnstown’s 1772 Fulton County Courthouse, the oldest courthouse still in use in New York State.  Meredith Best, an art teacher and the judge’s daughter, describes the artwork in a booklet on the courthouse history written by her father which has now been published.

Thursday, August 18, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—Markers kept county jail prisoners from straying.

Friday, August 19, 2022- Episode 436-Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of newspaper columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.  One of the principal topics is the history of the GlobalFoundries semiconductor facility in Malta, which employs three thousand people and plans a second plant at its Luther Forest location.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, August 16, 2022

A stalled upper level system and developing surface low will
bring variable cloudiness and isolated to scattered showers and
thunderstorms, mainly during the afternoon hours, through
Thursday. Drier and warmer weather is expected to return Friday
into this weekend. Rain chances look to increase again early
next week.

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Amsterdam High School’s hardworking class of 1945

by Bob Cudmore

   The war that dominated their hgh school years was drawing to a close as the Amsterdam High School class of 1945 yearbook reported that students would not forget 1944’s D-Day assembly and the 1945 memorial service for President Franklin Roosevelt.

   Richard Ellers, voted by classmates the wittiest and noisiest boy, witnessed the Presidential funeral and wrote a first person account for the school paper, The Item.  Ellers, who died last year, became a journalist with Ohio’s Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

   Class member Jesse Henderson served as a physician in Schenectady.  The late Thomas Constantino became president of Amsterdam’s Noteworthy Company which morphed into today’s Sticker Mule.

   Voted senior class president was Louis DeLuca, Senior.  It was a good choice.  DeLuca held the class together by forming a committee who organized reunions every five years until 2005.

   Louis married his high school sweetheart, Madaline Smith, and they moved to Harvard Street where they raised four sons.

   Louis worked in the printing business with his classmate Tom Constantino at Noteworthy.   For 23 years, DeLuca taught printing and photography at Amsterdam High.  He helped students gain employment in the printing industry.   

   John Tesiero’s yearbook picture stated, “Pleasure before business.”  Tesiero would reverse that prophecy to become one of the region’s most successful businessmen, president of Cranesville Block and owner of the downtown Amsterdam Riverfront Center.  He and his wife had their own booth at the popular Raindancer Restaurant.

In The Paper Gazette this Weekend "Mayor Akin" https://dailygazette.com/

On-line next Weekend

   Another member of the class was Roger Bowman who starred on the high school baseball team that had a five-year, 47 game winning streak which ended with a 1-0 loss to Norwich. 

   Bowman went on to pitch for the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates.  His major league career ended in 1955 and he died in 1997. 

   Students endured a coal shortage during the war.  It was so cold that classmate Durward DeGroff came to school in his pajamas.

   The 1945 class roster reported that my oldest cousin, Myrna Cudmore, wanted to be a missionary and probably would be “saved.”  She married Baptist minister George Hawthorne, whose family had moved to Amsterdam from New Jersey to work in the carpet industry.  Myrna and George’s sons, Joel and George, also became Baptist pastors.

   Myrna Iris Cudmore Hawthorne passed away peacefully at age 95 in her home in Silver Spring, Maryland June 16.  Her daughter Peggy and family lived across the street. 

   Myrna’s son George had died May 30 at age 65.  Myrna’s husband George passed away many years ago.  Both George the father and George the son struggled with Polycystic Kidney Disease.

   Myrna was the only child of Stanley and Viola Cudmore of Amsterdam, who spent the last years of their lives in Silver Spring with Myrna and her family.  Stanley had come to Amsterdam from Torrington, England, with his father Harry in 1911.  Stanley and Viola, a hairdresser, lived on Arnold Avenue.  Stanley worked for Herbert Singer at Amsterdam Printing. 

   Myrna went to Oneonta State teachers’ college and taught elementary school in five states including New York and Maryland.  As a minister's wife, she served in many churches alongside her husband, including a church in Gloversville.  Her faith and her family were very important to her. 

   Myrna and I had periodic phone chats in recent years, talking about family and friends she knew in the Amsterdam area.  As our relatives passed away there were some subjects that only were recalled by Myrna and me.

   Myrna attended the Montgomery Hills Baptist Church in Silver Spring for over 50 years.  Because of pandemic inspired electronic communication, we were able to watch her thoughtful memorial service via Zoom. 

Bob Cudmore guests this month on Warren Garling’s radio personality podcast Radio Split Ranch.  Hear how playing rock music terminally offended the station manager in Bob’s first job.  Learn about Bob’s big break in Boston and how he cured it.  Hear what the big boss thought about the Bob and Ben Farnsworth comedy show (“they are just awful”) and much more.  Listen here- https://www.podbean.com/ei/pb-st3tn-1295717

New this Friday

August 19, 2022- Episode 436

Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of newspaper columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.  One of the principal topics is the history of the GlobalFoundries semiconductor facility in Malta, which employs three thousand people and plans a second plant at its Luther Forest location.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Sunday, August 14, 2022

Lots of sun today as weak high pressure controls the weather as
it shifts east of our region. Some thin high clouds will
increase later this afternoon, especially south of I-90 as an
upper closed low begins to gradually form in the OH Valley. So,
sunshine and light winds will help temperatures reach the upper
70s to lower 80s and lower to mid 70s in higher terrain.

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Bob sending the e-mail blast today, look for it in the next few hours

Want to be part of the blast:

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Today, Saturday, August 13, 2022 in The Daily Gazette Paper-Paper

Bob Cudmore Focus on History Mayor Akin

Saturday, August 13, 2022-Episode 371-Bevis Longstreth

 Chains Across the River, a historical novel dealing with the great chains that American forces stretched across the Hudson River during the American Revolution to prevent the British fleet from sailing from New York City to Albany.

The Historians "On the Radio" today at 12:05PM

WCSS Amsterdam 106.9FM

Episode 435

Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

Sunday, August 14, 2022-Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder-The hard-working class of 1945 at Amsterdam High School, including my oldest cousin, Myrna Cudmore Hawthorne. 

Next Week on The Historians with Bob Cudmore

Friday, August 19, 2022- Episode 436

Stephen Williams is author of Off the Northway, a collection of newspaper columns written by Williams, who retired after 42-years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.  One of the principal topics is the history of the GlobalFoundries semiconductor facility in Malta, which employs three thousand people and plans a second plant at its Luther Forest location.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Saturday, August 13, 2022

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This Sunday, August 14, 2022 here on The Historians

Gazette Story "Class of 44"  

Richard Ellers, voted by classmates the wittiest and noisiest boy, witnessed the Presidential funeral...

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Carter served in the U.S. Army in World War I.  He never took to carpet making, working instead in the wholesale grocery business.  In 1923, he married Lorraine Conrad.  They did not have children.

Former mayor makes friends with FDR

By Bob Cudmore

          From time to time in the 1930s and 1940s Amsterdam Mayor Arthur Carter would get in a police car for a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit his friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

          Lionel Fallows, son of Carter’s sister Nellie, said Roosevelt came through for the Amsterdam mayor.  It was a triumvirate, Fallows said, with three Democrats in power—Carter, New York Governor Herbert Lehman and Roosevelt. There was money for a golf course, named for Carter, and money for other Amsterdam projects.  Fallows said Carter could have done more but political opponents sometimes stymied the mayor.

          Arthur Carter was born in 1897 in Kidderminster, England, a center of the English carpet trade that was a source of carpet-savvy immigrants who helped build Amsterdam’s leading industry.  The youngest of several children, he came to America when he was nine and lived with his family on Lefferts Street in the East End.

          Carter served in the U.S. Army in World War I.  He never took to carpet making, working instead in the wholesale grocery business.  In 1923, he married Lorraine Conrad.  They did not have children.

          Fallows said he did not know if his favorite uncle went beyond the eighth grade in school but said Carter took correspondence courses.

The year after his marriage, Carter started working for the State Comptroller’s Office in Albany as an auditor and got to know Roosevelt. 

Carter ran unsuccessfully for office in Amsterdam three times.  Fallows said his uncle was terrified at first by public speaking but through practice became an expert at holding an audience.

          In 1933, Carter was elected mayor, a year after Roosevelt was elected President.  Carter was re-elected five times, the last time in 1941.  He was also Democratic Party chairman, then a powerful position in Montgomery County. 

          In 1943, Carter left the mayor’s job in Amsterdam for the military.  A temporary mayor, John Klubakowski, served until Wilbur H. Lynch was elected and then sworn into office as Amsterdam mayor in 1944.

          Awarded the rank of major, Carter served as military mayor of Bologna, Italy during the Allied occupation.  He learned Italian on the job.

          When he returned to America, Carter went into broadcasting.  He did a program on WSNY radio in Schenectady called Carter’s Comments. 

In 1948, Carter was the principal founder of Community Service Broadcasting Corporation and radio station WCSS in Amsterdam.  Carter was station president until 1953.  He later worked in the financial field.

In 1963, Carter was prevailed upon by the Democratic Party to oppose Republican Marcus Breier in a race for Amsterdam mayor.  Breier won.

          Carter won more elections than any other Amsterdam mayor, although he did not serve the longest.  That distinction goes to John Gomulka who served three consecutive four-year terms starting in 1968 and Mario Villa, who served eight years starting in 1980 and a separate four-year term beginning in 1992.

          According to Fallows, Carter always enjoyed strong support among Amsterdam’s Polish immigrants in the Fourth Ward and counted Reid Hill businessman Michael Wytrwal as one of his strongest supporters. 

          Arthur Carter died on August 29, 1983 at age 86.  He and his wife lived at 4 Beacon Avenue on Market Hill.  He was a member, treasurer and vestryman at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church for more than 25 years.  He is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, as his wife was Roman Catholic. 

A member of Masonic Lodge 829 for 64 years, Carter belonged to the Amsterdam Elks Lodge for 50 years.  He was past commander of the James T. Bergen American Legion Post.

Tomorrow

Episode 435

Friday, Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

To round out the first year of Radio Split Ranch conversations, enjoy the dean of Capital Region broadcasting, Bob Cudmore.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, August 11, 2022

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Tomorrow, Thursday, August 11, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—Former Mayor was friends with FDR.

Arthur Carter was born in 1897 in Kidderminster, England, a center of the English carpet trade that was a source of carpet-savvy immigrants who helped build Amsterdam’s leading industry.

This Sunday, August 14, 2022 here on The Historians

Gazette Story "Class of 44"  

Richard Ellers, voted by classmates the wittiest and noisiest boy, witnessed the Presidential funeral...

Friday, Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

August 12, 2022-Episode 435

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adélaïe Labille-Guiard’s fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris. 

Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, August 10, 2022

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Information for this story was provided by Tom Fryc of Amsterdam and the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.

Fritz Vogt Collection

https://collections.fenimoreart.org/collections/5551/fritz-g-vogt/objects

Focus on History

Artist was drawn to country homes

By Bob Cudmore

          He slept in barns and relieved the pain of rheumatism with too much alcohol. 

He spoke broken English and died at the Montgomery County almshouse in Yosts in 1900.  And he left a collection of 200 drawings that became the subject of an exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City in 2003.  The retrospective was also displayed in Cooperstown and Orlando, Florida.

          “No one knows what Fritz Vogt did during the first 48 years of his life in Germany, where he was born in 1841,” wrote New York Times reviewer Ken Johnson.  In 1890, Vogt came to America and spent his last ten years as a traveling artist, recording what Johnson called “lucid descriptions” of the homes of his clients, primarily farmers in Schoharie and Montgomery counties.  He did 40 drawings of farms, churches and other buildings in the town of Sharon, for example, and 25 in Canajoharie.

W. Parker Hayes, Jr., a project director for the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibition service, produced the catalog book for Vogt’s retrospective, Drawn Home: Fritz Vogt’s Rural America.  The catalog was published by the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.

At first, Vogt drew realistically with graphite pencils then switched to colored pencils and his work became more complex with multiple perspectives.

“Somebody could have happened to buy him a set of colored pencils,” Hayes said.  “Or somebody said ‘I want this in color’ and all of a sudden his constituency decided, ‘Hey I want my work in color.’”

Why did farmers want pictures of their homes?  Hayes said New York State agriculture was facing competition from the Midwest.  There was nostalgia for the dwindling numbers of “gentleman farmers.”  Vogt’s drawings also mirror another late 19th century social trend—publication of county atlases depicting the homes of wealthy people.

Hayes was able to chronicle Vogt’s life from oral histories recorded in the 1960s, interviews with elderly people who had known Vogt when they were children.  Hayes created a database of Vogt’s work to fill in biographical details in that the artist dated and described each drawing. 

The oral histories, for example, state that Vogt picked hops. “In August of every year from 1891 until he died he didn’t do any drawings,” Hayes said.  “August is the beginning of the hops picking season.  You can prove or verify what’s out there about Fritz Vogt through what the drawings say.”

A few drawings indicate that Vogt was paid a couple of dollars for a specific piece.  Vogt was more often paid in kind, with a place to stay, meals or alcohol. 

 Vogt fit in with the region’s existing German-American population.  “He relied on an ethnic network to get the basic things in life and to find patrons,” Hayes said.  Vogt had a “good rapport” with children and may have earned money by teaching German.

Hayes wrote that Vogt was “a short, smallish man with a quick step, yet slightly rotund.”  Hayes added: “He wore five or six second-hand shirts layered over each other, the underlying shirts visible through holes in the outer layers.  He slept in the shelter of barns between two buffalo-hides on a pile of hay.  When Vogt entered a home to complete his drawings, he wore a pair of slippers or crude shoes fashioned from carpet remnants.”

“There often are little things in his drawings,” Hayes said. “The way a certain cornice has some flourish.  He saw those things.  He knew the homeowners who lived there were very attuned to that.  But at the same time he had a perspective that was different because he didn’t have a home.”

Hayes wrote: “We are left with the great irony of a homeless man who expressed an intimate knowledge of the idea of home.”

Information for this story was provided by Tom Fryc of Amsterdam and the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.

Tuesday, August 9, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Homeless artist drawn to country homes

Wednesday, August 10, 2022-From the Archives-March 26, 2021-Episode 363-How the Adirondack forest preserve was motorized.  The guest is John Warren, founder and editor of New York Almanack.

Thursday, August 11, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—Former Mayor was friends with FDR.

Lionel Fallows, son of Carter’s sister Nellie, said Roosevelt came through for the Amsterdam mayor.  It was a triumvirate, Fallows said, with three Democrats in power—Carter, New York Governor Herbert Lehman and Roosevelt.

This Friday, August 12, 2022-Episode 435

Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adélaïe Labille-Guiard’s fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris. With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Tuesday, August 9, 2022

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Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 9, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette-Homeless artist drawn to country homes

Wednesday, August 10, 2022-From the Archives-March 26, 2021-Episode 363-How the Adirondack forest preserve was motorized.  The guest is John Warren, founder and editor of New York Almanack.

Thursday, August 11, 2022- From the Archives of the Daily Gazette—Former Mayor was friends with FDR .

August 12, 2022-Episode 435-Susanne Dunlap discusses her book The Portraitist, a novel based on the life of 18th century French artist Adélaïde Labilleo-Guiard whose life went on amid the changes and terror of the French Revolution.

Based on a true story, this is the tale of Adélaïe Labille-Guiard’s fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris. With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle.

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History

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

   Actor Nick Offerman and a production crew from NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” recorded interviews at sites in the Albany area and 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.

   Offerman is best known for his role as Ron Swanson in the sitcom “Parks and Recreation.”  Researchers traced his roots to a Mohawk Valley couple, Bartholomew and Eva Pickard and their grandson, Joseph Mabee.

   Montgomery County historian Kelly Yacobucci Farquhar said that members of the Mohawk nation complained about Eva Pickard, “Their complaint was that she owned a tavern around the area we know today as Indian Castle which is actually in Herkimer County.  They complained that she would get them drunk and have them sign away their land.”

   Farquhar said there are references to this issue in documents in the Sir William Johnson papers, copies of which are at the Johnstown library.  Pickard apparently was removed from her land.

   Years later her grandson Joseph Mabee was able to recover a lot of that land in return for his military service with the rebels in the Revolutionary War.

   By then Sir William Johnson was deceased.  His family and many Mohawks and others loyal to the British crown had left the Mohawk Valley.

   At the end of the TV show Offerman and relatives are seen standing on the land in question, located in the Herkimer County town of Danube west of Minden in Montgomery County.

   Neither Farquhar nor Erica Wing of the Johnstown library was interviewed on camera.  Farquhar, who has been with the county history department for 26 years, said, “I was OK with that because I was very nervous thinking about whether I would be on camera  A lot of people were hoping the local historians would be filmed as well.  I think the historians they had on did a fantastic job relating what was going on at that time.”

   Offerman and history professor Tim Shannon of Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania discussed Offerman’s ancestry on the TV show in an interview filmed in Fonda.

   Shannon said, “(Offerman) seemed very much interested in learning about the Mohawks and their relations with the colonists there.  I was glad to have the occasion to visit the Montgomery County Department of History and Archives and appreciated the staff's willingness to accommodate the film shoot.”

  Originally the TV show was to start production in March 2020 but the work was postponed by the pandemic.  Production actually began in September, 2021.

   Farquhar credits county supervisors with foresight for creating the Department of History and Archives in 1934.  There was Depression-era federal funding available to have the staff then document area history. 

   The staff would get copies of church and cemetery records from across the state because at one time Montgomery County and its predecessor Tryon County encompassed territory west of Schenectady to Central New York, north to Canada and south to Pennsylvania. 

   Farquhar said over 30 counties can trace their origins back to Montgomery and Tryon County. “That’s why genealogists and local history researchers come here to do research.”

   An event is being planned in Fonda on Saturday, August 27, to mark the 250th anniversary of the creation of Tryon County, the British colonial name for what became Montgomery County.

   That day there will be historical tours of the area, artisan and militia reenactors and a new promotional video for the Department of History and Archives.

Amsterdam and Mohawk Valley Weather, Monday, August 8, 2022

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