150 Years Ago (June 1874)
Burglars tied up two unarmed guards at the West Point Foundry and used gunpowder to blow open and empty the office safe at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday. They took $4,400 worth of bonds [$121,000 today], $250 in cash and $200 in Treasury notes. The Cold Spring Recorder noted that before the foundry bought the safe, a bank messenger would walk from the train station every other week carrying a satchel with $10,000 to $15,000 [$275,000 to $410,000] in payroll cash that was left with a guard.
A burglar broke a cellar window at Coleman’s grocery, emptied a jug of molasses and filled it with French brandy. John Dougherty was arrested the next day after being found drunk in a barn with the jug beside him.
A builder had finished the framework for cottages on Garden Street. “It is a great benefit to see small, single tenements erected, the rent of which may be placed within the diminished means of our mechanics and laborers,” said The Recorder.
An anonymous resident complained in a letter to the editor that a group of boys regularly swam nude in the foundry pond in view of young girls and middle-aged women on shore. “What sort of citizens will these young boys make?” the reader asked. “What respect will they have for women? Are they not becoming hardened in shamelessness? Will they not be likely to sympathize with vile criminals? Shall we not hear of them as the patrons of leg dramas and ‘French’ plays?”
The Recorder noted that while 100 people had been arrested at a dogfight in New York City, just as many assembled on Main Street to watch an impromptu battle between dogs belonging to Father O’Callaghan and J.H. Brewer.
Capt. C.E. Herbert, after hearing a splash at the furnace dock, saw two hands sticking out of the water and reached down to rescue young Robbie Dechauden by his hair. The boy, who was visiting relatives, walked home wet.
J.E. Dore sued the Hudson River Railroad Co. for $500 [$14,000] after a train killed his horse and destroyed his wagon.
The flagman at the north end of the Garrison tunnel spotted a body in the river about 10 feet from shore and waded out to retrieve it. The man had no identification other than a handkerchief embroidered “A.St., No. 10.”
A jury in Carmel acquitted George Truesdell, who had been accused of stealing boxes of cigars from Seth Secor’s store. His co-defendant, Willie Spellman, pleaded guilty before trial.
Clara Louise Kellogg, the opera diva who had a home in Philipstown, drank brandy that she forgot had been mixed earlier with aconite to create a potent home remedy. She was saved by the prompt application of an antidote.
More than 100 men scoured the Highlands for John Mowatt, 30, who was said to be deranged. He was found five days later in the Dismal Swamp near Sugar Loaf and said he had not eaten anything but birch bark.
Two boys accused of stealing the cashbox from milkman Charley Warren’s cart said they would return it only if they received immunity from prosecution.
A Hudson River Railroad detective sailed for Europe in search of two suspects in the theft of $36,000 [$992,000] from the firm’s safe at Grand Central depot, including Isaac Baxter, who grew up in Nelsonville.
Three older women who hesitated before accepting an invitation to ride a railroad handcar at Garrison were injured when one of the men driving was pitched into them, knocking them on the tracks, where they were run over.
125 Years Ago (June 1899)
John Henderson, a former Garrison resident who was a New York City detective, was among the witnesses called by the Mazet Committee, which was investigating corruption. The Recorder noted Henderson “had a case of bad memory.”
The Recorder noted that passengers could take dogs aboard the steamers New York and Albany, but only in crates.
The Nelsonville board granted a five-year franchise to Samuel Barriett to provide electric light, power and heat to the village.
A day after 11-year-old Eugene Ward of B Street died of spinal meningitis, his 4-month-old brother succumbed to “summer complaint.” The boys were buried in a casket covered in flowers by Eugene’s classmates at Haldane. A week later, the 4-month-old’s twin brother also died.
A friend who borrowed an incubator from Josiah Ferris only got 18 chickens from 160 eggs. After Ferris showed him how to use it, he got 60 chicks from 64 eggs.
A chapter of the Ancient Order of Foresters, a fraternal organization founded in the U.K. in 1745, was established in Cold Spring.
John Bergen was being lifted by a friend as they played with the rope hoist at Coe’s store when he fell and fractured both arms.
A piano was seen at the Garrison station attached to a pony that was to pull it over the mountain.
Julian Hawthorne, a New York City novelist who was the son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, leased the Chadwick estate for the summer.
The Rev. J. McH. Farley, a Black minister from Petersburgh, Virginia, passed through Garrison while walking through the U.S. to raise funds for Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. “He received generous assistance from some of the foremost people of Garrison,” The Recorder reported.
A piano was placed in the Colonial Room of the Albany Historical Society that had belonged to Mrs. Beverly in Garrison, who played it to entertain Gen. George Washington and other colonial officers.
According to The Newburgh News, a team of men delivering pianos had to stop on the road near Cold Spring because their path was blocked by a 6-foot snake stretched across the road. They killed it with rocks and discovered two pug puppies in its belly.
Cornelius Hafkenschiel launched a bootblacking [shoeshine] route.
Rear Adm. Francis Higginson of the U.S. Navy spent a day visiting William Haldane. Higginson commanded the battleship Massachusetts during the Spanish-American War and was chairman of the United States Lighthouse Board.
Lena Depew was confined to her room with blood poisoning after a pinprick.
The proprietor of the Hill Country Inn in Garrison built a water tank powered by a windmill to supply the hotel.
Cadet Corps A and B of Haldane High School were measured for uniforms, which consisted of white trousers, white negligee shirts, white belts, navy blue Windsor ties and military caps.
Two days of rain ended an 11-week drought that had reduced the hay crop by 75 percent and destroyed the oat crop.
The Putnam County Chrysanthemum Society was formed in Philipstown.
George Melville Boynton, who was walking from the Brooklyn Citizen offices to San Francisco, stopped at the Garrison Hotel for dinner. He was raising funds for an expedition to the North Pole.
100 Years Ago (June 1924)
Property owners on the proposed state road through Cold Spring and Nelsonville were advised to install sewer connections past the curb line before the streets were paved with concrete. The Recorder said that lead pipes made the best connection, and a reader suggested that the telephone and electric wires be buried during the work.
Mrs. Harry DeLanoy Sr. received a letter from Washington Roebling, 87, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, who recalled his visit to Cold Spring 30 years earlier with his first wife, Emily Warren, a relative of Mrs. DeLanoy.
The Garrison School canceled its graduation ceremony because of an outbreak of the mumps.
The Philipstown Garden Club announced its annual window box competition.
Nearly 1,000 people filled Our Lady of Loretto for the first Mass by the newly ordained Rev. William Torpey of Manitou. His brother, the newly ordained Rev. John Torpey, presented his first Mass the following week.
For their annual musical, students at Haldane High School presented The Love Pirates of Hawaii.
75 Years Ago (June 1949)
The Philipstown Times advised: “There’s no monkey business about a new hat. It either makes you look 10 times better or 1,000 times worse.”
The Haldane girls’ baseball team defeated visiting Beacon, 20-1.
Jack Sterling, who took over the early morning radio programs on WCBS from Arthur Godfrey, saluted Cold Spring as part of a series of profiles of East Coast villages. He called it “a little Hudson Valley town of 2,000 people and five churches.”
George Perkins, newly appointed as assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and a member of the Haldane school board since 1933, spoke at the Haldane High School commencement.
The Haldane boys set six school records at the Class C sectional track meet, including in the low hurdles, high jump and 100, 220, 440 and mile races. The team finished second overall after dropping the baton in the relay race.
After 31 years at the Garrison post office, Salvatore Dahlia was appointed postmaster when Arthur Walsh retired.
J. Irving Jones Jr., of Railroad Avenue, moved to Washington, D.C., to join the police force. His departure was delayed by an emergency appendectomy.
The Recorder noted that the abandoned hilltop residence known as “Dick’s Folly” was now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Anton Chmela, who had rented a sandblaster to remove years of graffiti. They hoped to heat the home with power from the property’s two waterfalls.
Rep. Hamilton Fish explained at the annual Communion Breakfast of the Knights of Columbus at the Highlands Country Club how “the Red Scourge menaces Christian civilization.”
The Haldane district announced that, because of increased state aid, the tax rate would drop by 2 percent, to $18.38 per $1,000 of assessed value, in 1949-50.
A 17-year-old Long Island teenager drowned while swimming in the abandoned mountain pool at the former Cornish Estate off Route 9D. Firefighters hauled a boat for about a quarter-mile through the terrain to reach the site.
Garrison residents gathered to discuss recommendations from a school board committee to (1) merge grades 5 to 8 with Haldane and (2) construct a new building or expand the current one.
The Merger That Almost Was
By Jude Morrison
Garrison and Haldane have had an on-again, off-again flirtation with merging their districts but the schools’ leaders nearly pulled it off nearly 60 years ago, in 1968.
Four years earlier, Robert Roda, then supervising principal at Haldane, had invited officials from Garrison, Manitou and Putnam Valley to discuss their “mutual problems,” according to a news account from the time.
While Putnam Valley later dropped out, the Haldane, Garrison and Manitou school boards unanimously supported a merger, as did the PTAs at Haldane and Garrison. But in a referendum held on June 17, 1968, residents rejected the “recentralization” proposal, 695-594.
Many New York districts merged in the 1960s, and a report from Haldane noted that the state Education Department had called for it to consolidate with Garrison and Manitou.
At the time, there had been a surge of families to western Putnam County but neither Garrison nor Putnam Valley had high schools. Garrison sent its students to Highland Falls and Putnam Valley to Lakeland and Peekskill.
A merger would have created challenges such as transporting students over a larger area that included dirt roads. But Haldane said studies showed that “better schools can be supported on a larger tax base.”
The referendum was created by a committee of school board members from Haldane, Garrison and Manitou. It issued a statement saying it hoped residents “will agree that recentralization will provide the means toward achievement of a much improved, better coordinated system for the education of the children in our communities.”
The Putnam County News & Recorder also backed the referendum, arguing in an editorial that it would provide students with a “superior general education” and specialized programs for the “academically talented, vocationally oriented and slower learners,” without increasing taxes.
The 1,311 votes in the referendum was a record turnout, according to The PCNR, but did not end the debate over merging.
Five years later, the state released a consultant’s report recommending that the three districts merge. While Haldane and Manitou agreed, Garrison felt that “while there would be some slight financial gain resulting from the merger, their children would suffer educationally, at least for the first five years,” according to a news account.
As recently as October, a study of the impact on property taxes if Haldane and Garrison merged concluded that they would rise 33 percent for Garrison residents and drop 20 percent for Philipstown residents taxed by Haldane.
“My gut tells me this is an absolute dead end,” said David Gelber, a Garrison board member.
Jude Morrison, who lives in Garrison, is a junior at St. Regis High School in New York City and a member of The Current’s Student Journalists Program.
50 Years Ago (June 1974)
The Philipstown Highway Department parked a silver Army surplus trailer in a vacant lot near the Garrison station; the town hoped residents would fill with 25 tons of newspapers and magazines for recycling.
The Garrison Depot Theatre hosted its first production after adding cushions, circulating fans and metal chairs to replace the noisy wooden ones. The number of seats was reduced to 75 to provide more legroom.
Jimmy Budney, a centerfielder for the Haldane baseball team who hit .461 during his senior season, was named to the league all-star team.
Kevin McConville, the son of Village Clerk Ronald McConville, was selected to attend American Legion Boys’ State in Morristown, New York.
Peggy Christiana of Clove Brook Drive underwent ear surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Rep. Hamilton Fish [son of the earlier Rep. Hamilton Fish] said that 24 percent of the 41,564 constituents who responded to his annual survey thought President Nixon should resign and 39 percent said he should be impeached.
Haldane voters, by a 534-328 vote, rejected a revised budget for the 1974-75 school year and proposals to purchase library books (439-435), instructional materials (452-427) and furniture and audiovisual equipment (499-373). They approved spending for transportation, building repairs and the lunch program.
The Church of Scientology, established in 1952, opened a mission in Cold Spring under the direction of Gene Hobel.
25 Years Ago (June 1999)
The Cold Spring Antiques Dealers Association hosted a show at the former Marathon Battery factory site on Kemble Avenue.
The Putnam County Historical Society purchased “Foundry at Cold Spring on the Hudson” (1857), by Hudson River School painter Johann Hermann Carmiencke, with a grant from resident Patricia Cloherty.
Seventy-seven Main Street merchants and residents signed a petition presented to the Village Board to protest (1) an increase in parking fines from $15 to $45; (2) a restriction on benches and (3) a restriction on flags. One merchant noted that other riverfront towns had parking fines of $10 or $15 or had installed meters. “If a customer gets a $45 ticket, they’re not coming back,” said Jane Rutter, president of the Chamber of Commerce. Mayor Anthony Phillips countered that, of 10 parking tickets issued in May, five had been issued to Main Street merchants.
A resident asked the board to test the sandbox at Tots Park, which he thought might contain lime.
The Town Board passed a law requiring the owners of automatic fire alarms to obtain permits and pay fines for repeated false alarms.
The Haldane baseball team won the Section I, Class D title with a 5-4 win over Blind Brook at Dutchess Stadium. The Blue Devils were down 4-3 in the top of the final inning but scored twice on a combination of walks and singles.
Chris and Sharon Davis purchased the Garrison Golf Club and said they planned to donate conservation easem*nts on 60 of its 134 acres to the Open Space Institute to restrict development.
The Garrison school board voted to press charges against Burton Laux and trustee-elect Betsy Calhoun for allegedly trespassing to determine the location of the district’s septic system and bedrock with ground-penetrating radar. The dispute was part of a larger battle over plans to expand the school.
New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Fire Commissioner Thomas von Essen presented the Walter Scott Medal for bravery to firefighter Jonathan Shields of Cold Spring for carrying a disabled 70-year-old man out of a burning building in the Bronx.
After firefighters responded to a report of a drowning at Continental Village Lake but were told by lifeguards it was a false alarm, eight divers decided to search anyway. They saved one of their own when he became entangled in the boundary ropes and lost his regulator.
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Type: News
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
