A Normansville Help Wanted Ad

Looking around the internet for what kinds of cows they had at Normanskill farm (really, and the answer is Guernseys,) I found this ad for a Single Man that  made me chuckle. 

In tiny print over on the right:

Wanted - Single Man to take charge of Cow barns.  Must be good milker and strictly temperate. C.P. Stevens, Normansville, Albany County, N.Y.

Good with his hands and not a drinker - could be on match.com  ;)

And then, in large print below the Normansville ad, is this gem.  

Now playing at Madison Square Garden Fat Stock ...

I am easily amused on this rainy Monday afternoon.

Source: The Cultivator & Country Gentleman, Volume 60. October 31, 1895. Albany, NY  via Google Books. 

A New Book and a New Office

It is official - I will have a new book coming out in about a year. Last week in the mail I received my official, signed contract from the History Press.  I'll be rounding up my then and now articles from Our Towne Bethlehem and other unpublished items I have written and putting them together in a book.  32,000+ words and 60 pictures. Yikes! It is a lot of work but I am excited to make the articles available in a more permanent format.  Now, they are out for the month with Our Town and then they disappear from print, and from their website.   I'll probably include some odds and ends from this blog as well.  So wish me luck.  September 1 is my first big deadline.  We're looking to bring the book out in the spring of 2016.

In other big news, after 7 1/2 years of working mostly from home, your town historian has an office space at town hall and will be keeping office hours.  Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-noon.  Right now I am in the cubicle that is outside the supervisor's office.  Many thanks to all of those at town hall who have eased my transition to coming into the office, and thank you Robin for putting up with me invading your space!

And no that is not me on the right.  That's Katie Ladd working in the Callanan's office in South Bethlehem.

Slingerlands Players

Sometimes my job is all about serendipity.

The Bethlehem Historical Association is gathering items about Bethlehem in 1965 and I was able to lend them some posters from the Slingerlands Players.  Literally, the day I handed  over the posters, I opened an email from John L. Moore's son.  Was I interested in some of his father's artwork related to the Slingerlands Players?  Yes, yes I was.

It turns out that Moore was a graphic designer who lived in Elsmere.  He designed many, many of the promotional items for the Slingerlands Players and saved most of them.

The Slingerlands Players got their start in 1952.  Here's a clip from the November 20, 1958 Spotlight from an article called The Slingerlands Players and How They Grew:

(Love how they describe housewives!)

Productions, usually two or three a year, were put on at the Middle School and later the High School.  In 1972, they were able to buy a run down, former hotel in Unionville. It was just off Delaware Avenue on Unionville Feura Bush Road.  The Unionville Playhouse was their home until the group disbanded in the early 1980s.   For about 30 years, the Slingerlands Players were a fine example of community theater.

John L. Moore became involved with the Slingerlands Players as early as 1965 - he, his wife Hedi and their three children, moved to Elsmere in 1959.  He opened his own shop, John Moore Graphics, in 1972.  Besides his excellent graphic design work for the Players, Moore had a few bit parts here and there, worked on production design, scenery and sets.  Moore passed away in 2012. Hedi still lives in Elsmere.

When I asked his son what else I should know about his father, he threw in the tidbit that he was a long time friend of Julia Child.  Moore met her before she was a famous chef while both were in the service in World War II.

Henry Ford and a Bethlehem Connection

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Chauncey Hakes and his wife Anna. Rockledge, their lovely Van Wies Point home, is this year's Vanguard Showhouse and also the subject, along with 2 others, of my April then and now for Our Towne Bethlehem.

Chauncey - besides having a great name - was quite the character.  He had a real passion for those new-fangled automobiles which he turned into a successful career with the Albany Garage and the Hakes and LeBourveau dealership. And now I know what Chauncey looked like, and who he hung out with.  Thanks to Ruth C. for pointing me to this wonderful photo.

Here is Henry Ford's camping party at Green Island in 1919.  This was the site of Ford's new tractor plant.  From left to right we have H.S. Firestone, Jr, H.S. Firestone, Thomas A. Edison, John Burroughs, Mayor James R. Watt of Albany, Henry Ford, Chauncey D. Hakes and Samuel Ott.

Recognize any of those names? 


To see more Ford pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thehenryford/6436553699/

To find out more about the showhouse: http://vanguard-aso.org/index.asp

And for the latest Our Towne Bethlehem: http://www.ourtownebethlehem.com/

Blue Postcards

Recently, these postcards caught my eye at a local antique show for a couple of reasons.

First - they are blue!  I have never seen blue postcards like this.  They were created using the cyanotype photo process - like blueprints. This process dates from the 1840s and was popular for photographs, and hence postcards,  between 1890 and 1910. *

Second, they both have Bethlehem connections - sort of.

Consider the cows. 

Bethlehem and dairy farming go way back.  There's a quote from over 200 years ago that describes Bethlehem as being "very fruitful of pasture and having great quantities of excellent butter."  So the blue cows caught my eye.  Flipping the card over, I found that it was postmarked June 1906 and sent to Miss. E.  J. Twitchell, Slingerlands.  I believe this is Emma Josephine Twitchell daughter of noted Albany artist Asa W. Twitchell.**  The Twitchell home on New Scotland Road used to be in Slingerlands - that is Bethlehem - until it was annexed by the city of Albany in 1967.


Consider the Normanskill

What first caught my eye with this card, besides the blue, is the handwritten "Normanskill Creek."  The Normanskill is part of Bethlehem's northern border with Albany and the picture certainly looks like it could be our part of the creek.  Flipping it over, I note that it is postmarked October 1906 and was sent to Miss Iva Wilber, Delanson, NY.  As it turns out, the Normanskill does flow through Delanson - so the only connection to Bethlehem is through the waters of the Normanskill.

If you are curious, here's what the sender, C.J.L, had to say to her cousin Iva.

"Hello, Delanson.  Is this you cousin?  How is the weather?  Oh-no we didn't have any snow yet.  Did you hear about our perch on a tandem 75 miles to Colorado Springs?  We are off the perch now for a while.  Do you belong to the W.C.T.U.? Received D.S. Review today, so we keep tabs on you, see? C.J.L."

The WCTU is the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.  The D.S. Review is probably a local Delanson newspaper.



NOTES

* Check out this article for lots of info about old postcards.
http://notesonphotographs.org/index.php?title=Michas,_Ania._%22An_Introduction_to_the_History,_Identification_and_Collectability_of_Early_Postcard_Prints.%22#Cyanotype


**
Read more about Asa Twitchell here.
http://www.albanyhistory.org/albanyhistory/resources/twitchell_by_mcclintock.pdf

Waiting for the Spring Freshet

Are you enjoying this nice old-fashioned winter we are having?  Are you waiting for the spring freshet?  That's not a phrase we hear too much these days.  The spring freshet is the flooding that occurs when the winter's river ice starts to break up causing jams. The ice jams then block the normal flow causing flooding.

Besides the desire for springtime, I've been thinking about the freshet because of a history mystery that has been solved.

Back in July 2011 I hung up a poster at town hall with this text and the series of photos below.

What is going on, and what are those men blowing up?

These photos are a cold and wintery history mystery to contemplate on a hot summer day. They came out of a scrapbook found in the attic of a historic Van Wies Point home.  The house has been associated with the Welch and Hakes families and the activity most likely took place on the Hudson River. 

Beyond that we are left only with questions.  Here are a few I am thinking about: Who are the men in the photograph? Why are they blowing something up out on the ice of the Hudson River.  What company owns the icehouse in the photo?

What do you think? 

No. 1

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

No. 7

No. 2

Last week I was delving into that attic box again and came across this clipping.
Mystery solved!

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to find the complete article.

The date of the article is March 9, 1912.  Here are the captions which match the photo numbers above.  

No. 1—William Welch, blaster in charge, removing the dynamite from box and putting it in thawing out box. 

No.2—As the dynamite exploded. 

No 3 Thawing the dynamite with hot water. 

No.4—Ties sticks of dynamite together, inserting cap and attaching fuse wire. 

No. 5—Drawing the explosive to the scene of action. 

No. 6 Heating the water to thaw out dynamite. 

No. 7—Explosive is put in canvas bag and lowered through hole in the ice.

William Welch was a resident of Van Wies Point.  One census described him as a marine engineer. 

Shoes in the Wall

Last week I enjoyed a visit with a Slingerlands homeowner.  Her lovely Victorian house is right on New Scotland Road east of the underpass and was built about 1880.   During a recent renovation she found these in her dining room wall, between the lathe and plaster and the exterior of the house, underneath the window.

Concealed shoes are a fascinating find - the first ones I have heard of in Bethlehem.  You can Google all about them - but the consensus is that shoes were hidden in walls to ward against evil or for good luck.  Others have speculated that they are related to fertility (you know  - the old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do.)  The shoes are almost always very worn, often children's or women's shoes.  One article I read speculated that this was something men did and never talked about which explains the complete lack of written, historic records about the practice.  The only evidence is the shoes themselves.  The earliest shoes found go back to the 1400s in England and the practice was carried over to the states.

So you owners of historic houses, keep an eye out - you never know what you will find when you open those walls.



Here are some links in case you want to read more.

http://wayhistsoc.home.comcast.net/~wayhistsoc/whs/Shoes_in_the_Wall/shoes_in_the_wall.htm

http://foottalk.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-question-of-why-shoes-were.html

http://www.archleathgrp.org.uk/archive/ALG_concealed_shoes.pdf