McCleary, Wallin and Crouse’s carpet factory (the upper mill) in Rockton merged with Shuttleworth Brothers carpet (the lower mill) in the East End. The new company was renamed Mohawk.

Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

By Bob Cudmore 

   An estimated 5,000 people attended a parade of   Polish residents in August, 1920, followed by a meeting at the State Armory where resolutions pledging support to the new Polish republic were adopted.

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

   To supplement food available under wartime rationing, Italian-Americans tended vegetable gardens on the flat land south of their homes between the railroad tracks and Mohawk River.

   They built poles for pole beans and lattices to keep tomatoes off the ground. They grew lettuce, zucchini and dandelions, much as their ancestors had done in southern Italian communities such as Pisciotta.

   Already the home of Sanford & Sons carpet, Amsterdam really became “carpet city” in August 1920.   

   McCleary, Wallin and Crouse’s carpet factory (the upper mill) in Rockton merged with Shuttleworth Brothers carpet (the lower mill) in the East End. The new company was renamed Mohawk. 

   George McNeir of the upper mill became chairman of the board but the company was headed by Herbert Shuttleworth.

   In July 1954, Amsterdam celebrated its 150th birthday with a ten-division parade.

   Celebrations went on for weeks at local taverns and ethnic social clubs, which had chapters of the Brothers of the Brush (who did not shave) and Sisters of the Swish (who wore long dresses).

   The Sesquicentennial, as it was called, took place at the beginning of the end of the city’s prominence as a carpet-manufacturing center.

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

   Two people died, eight were injured and litigation went on for years following an accident at the August, 1958, New York State Volunteer Firemen's Convention held in Amsterdam.

   An estimated 2,000 spectators safely watched fire trucks performing maneuvers at speeds of 45 to 65 miles per hour at what was then Coessens Park in the East End.

   At 12:30 p.m. on Friday, August 22, a small fire truck from Oyster Bay, Long Island, was taking part in a competition that required the driver to speed to a designated spot, stop and have the truck's crew unreel a hose.

   The hydraulic line in the truck's brake system broke according to a mechanic's investigation after the crash.  The vehicle plowed through a six foot wire fence striking spectators.

   Recorder reporter James H. Walker, Jr., wrote that a "carnival atmosphere was turned into one of horror."

   67-year old Fred Biege of Cranesville was somersaulted and dragged a short distance.  Biege died two hours later at City Hospital.

  By the time that lawsuits were being settled in 1961, another injured man, Felix Winkel, 47, of Forbes Street in Amsterdam, also had died.

   Injured in the accident were Stephen Mormile, then 12, of Valley View Road; James Van Der Bogart, 8, of East Main St.; William Wyzkowski, 68, of Elizabeth St.; Robert Van Velsor, Kenneth Van Velsor, John Zwolinski and George Wedley, members of the fire truck team. The driver of the truck was treated for bruises and shock. 

   The driver, Wilbur Young, frantically signaled to spectators to get out of the way of his speeding vehicle in vain.

   The Oyster Bay volunteers were known as the Rough Riders, a reference to a military group led by President Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War.  Theodore Roosevelt lived in Oyster Bay.

   The day after the tragedy, fire trucks and firemen paraded from Veterans Field on Locust Avenue to Coessens Park where trophies were awarded.

   I recall a tense atmosphere among the crowd watching the parade, especially when Oyster Bay went by.

Monday, August 21, 2023-Story behind the story Stories from summers past in Amsterdam

Tuesday, August 22, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Sam Goldwyn’s Gloversville connection

Wednesday, August 23, 2023-From the Archives- April 29, 2022-Episode 420-Paul Craddock at UCL Medical School in London England is author of Spare Parts: The Story of Medicine Through the History of Transplant Surgery.

Thursday, August 24, 2023-From the Archives of Focus on History from the Daily Gazette-Chaplain Sidoti

Friday, August 25, 2023-Episode 489-Highlights edition #4 with excerpts from podcasts including the year that defined the American West; pre-Hollywood filmmaking in New York State; female war correspondent Dickey Chapelle and more.

Jerry Snyder this Tuesday

Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Offered

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.

Fort Hunter, NY – Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam on Tuesday, August 22, 2023 at 6:30pm.  The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

https://parks.ny.gov/historic-sites/27/details.aspx

   The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Mohawk Valley Weekend Weather, Sunday, August 20, 2023

56 degrees in The City of Amsterdam at 5:32AM

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