What the local newspaper said 100 years ago

Digging into an ash heap a few days ago, snow was found.

The sheds at the New Paltz Hotel which broke down last winter from the weight of snow have been rebuilt.

The road on the west side of the Wallkill has been very muddy of late.

The high rents and general congestion in New York City and vicinity are driving people into the country. Most of the purchases of real estate in our village of late have been by city people. D.C. Storr finds no difficulty in renting his houses. Houses with all the modern improvements rent readily. A resident of this town who proposed to build a house this spring and made inquiry as to the cost, says that a house can be bought in our village at half the price it would cost to build. The recent sale of four farms in Gardiner and vicinity is announced. All were sold to persons living in New York and Long Island.

An addition for a sleeping room is to be built to the Baldwin Store, corner of Oakwood Terrace and Main Street. Myron Freer of Ohioville does the carpentry work. This store has been entered several times lately, the thief each time breaking a pane of glass in the window.

There have been but two men in the jail at Kingston of late and the time of one is up in a few days. Since liquor is no longer sold there is little use for jails.

The Patentees’ Trunks, so called, on which the papers relating to the settlement of New Paltz were kept for perhaps 150 years, have been taken from the Huguenot Bank to the Memorial House.

Saturday, May 15, was the first day when wearing straw hats was allowable, but the weather was so disagreeable that none were seen on our streets.

At last it is settled and the Normal School will conduct a summer session. Ever since the appropriation bill was introduced into the Legislature, the local authorities have been reasonably confident of securing one of the schools, but nothing is certain in this life until the papers have been signed and sealed. It is a difficult matter, not so much to secure an appointment as to get a vote of funds. The old State of ours requires some money for running expenses. The School will open Monday, July 5 and continue until Aug. 13. No academic work of any kind will be given. Anyone is welcome, who is a high school graduate or who has taught. There is no tuition or other expenses of any kind in connection with the school.

Philip H. DuBois is planting out about fifteen hundred fruit trees. Raymond Jenkins has been setting out apple trees on what was formerly the Henry DuBois place on the road to Minnewaska.

At the cold storage building at the Clintondale station there are still about 1000 barrels of apples in cold storage. Most of them are Ben Davis. Mr. York is in charge. The price of Ben Davis apples now is $6.50 a barrel. There were about 14,000 barrels of apples placed in the building last fall. Sol. Dubois has a considerable quantity of apples still in cold storage. It is proposed to store eggs as well as apples, but so far no eggs have been placed in the building. All kinds of spraying material are for sale.

Farmers find it very hard to get help. But on Saturday a young man from an agricultural college dropped in our office for information as to where he could find a good farmer who needed help. He wanted practical experience on a farm.

Nearly all the farmers at Springtown are using tractors. Onion seed has been planted and some oats was sown last week in dry ground. Springtown farmers are not planting as many potatoes as usual this year on account of the difficulty of getting help, and the shortage of seed potatoes which are selling at five dollars a bushel.

Eggs have come out poorly this spring with all poultry growers averaging hardly fifty percent. They are doing rather better now. The heavy laying strains come out poorest. Frank Van Sycle has had his incubator enlarged and it will now hold 4200 eggs. It has been filled several times this season. Millard DuBois alone had 2400 eggs in it.

The Hudson River Day Line will open the 1920 season Saturday when the Robert Fulton will leave Albany for New York City and the Washington Irving will leave New York for Albany. The season for 1920 will be from May 15 to October 24^th.

The opening of the Mohonk House on Saturday, May 8^th, was several days earlier than last year. There are now about 65 guests.

The plan of taking the children to the Normal by trolley car from the different schools along the line seems to be a success. Inquiry made of the children shows they are pleased with the change, as they are able to make better progress in a graded school than in a school with only one teacher. One of the reasons given for the condemnation was that since there are now so many Italian children there was too much crowding in the school-room. In the Ohioville school half the children are said to be Italians.

More interest is shown in lawn tennis than in baseball on the normal grounds of late.

Governor Smith has signed the Lockwood-Donohue teachers’ pay bill which assures an increase of salary to public school teachers throughout the state, ranging from $600 for teachers in New York city to $250 for teachers in the country district schools.

It is requested by the Sullivan-Shafer Post, No. 176, of New Paltz, NY, that all members and Ex-Service men meet at the Fire Rooms at 10 o’clock Memorial Day, May 31, prepared to march in a body to the Cemetery to pay tribute to our dead comrades. Floral wreaths have been purchased and will be placed on the Soldiers’ Monument at this time. Remember the boys who lie “Over There” and turn out. Those donating flowers for soldiers’ graves will leave same at the Independent office not later than 11 a.m. on Memorial Day morning.