The ‘‘Our town’’ column is compiled each month by Carol Johnson of the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection. The entries have been copied from the June issues of the New Paltz Independent. To get a closer look at these newspapers of the past, visit the staff of the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection at the Elting Memorial Library at 93 Main Street in New Paltz, or call 255-5030.
There is still much confusion on account of the Daylight Saving Law. All trains on the New York Central and West Shore [railroads] running as far as Poughkeepsie adhere to the old time.
A large amount of freight is being received at the New Paltz station. This includes farmers’ supplies and fertilizer, freight for Mohonk and a very large amount of material for the J. G. White Co. for their work at Dashville Falls. Two car loads of cement came on Friday and a car load of brick on Saturday. Some of the freight is hauled by the company’s truck, but it is mostly taken by Van Pine.
There were about 500 persons who desired accommodations at Mohonk on Memorial Day. There are rooms for only 450. It is estimated that several thousand automobiles passed through our village on Memorial Day. Most of the guests for Mohonk come by the Wallkill Valley Railroad, but some come by the trolley and autos are sent to Poughkeepsie for some. Some come by their own autos to New Paltz and many go to Mountain Rest. If autos as well as railroad cars could be taken across the Hudson on the Poughkeepsie bridge, it would be a great convenience. On at least two days recently, the autos, desiring to cross on the ferry, extended all the way up Main Street. to Market Street.
A great many grapevines are dead this year, having been killed by the extreme cold weather. There is much complaint that corn recently planted is not coming up well. Strawberries are ripe. The late rains have improved the crop. There will be no peaches in New Paltz this year. One fruit grower, who had some blossoms of two varieties, reports that nearly or quite all of
the young fruit has been killed by the frosty nights.
On Sunday evening in the opera house there will be held and interesting, instructive and educational treat for our people, when Rev. Kevoort Damlamian, a native of Armenia, born in Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, will give a lecture on the present-day conditions in Armenia, the oldest Christian nation in the world. In addition there will be shown four reels of moving pictures depicting the conditions in Armenia and the Bible lands, what the Near East Relief has done, is doing and hopes to accomplish. Rev. Ernest Clapp is chairman of the Near East Relief Committee. Armenia has been and is the most persecuted nation in the world, through the outrages and crimes of the Turks.
About a dozen women are now employed in the New Paltz stores and business places.
At the meeting of the Embroidery Club at Mrs. H. B. LeFevre’s on Tuesday afternoon there was a Rag Bee to make carpet for the new Library building. Highland, like New Paltz, is about to begin a drive for the Library. Subscriptions to the New Paltz Library fund amount to more than $3000.
The Libertyville school, which is in charge of Miss Hayes of the Normal, gave an entertainment a short time ago. Until a short time ago there were just seven boys and no girls in the school. Entertainment assistance was rendered by pupils from the Normal. There were songs, recitations and dances.
To decide what pupils in the third supervisory district of Ulster County are eligible to take part in the spelling contest at the Ulster County Fair, tests have been conducted by the District Superintendent of Schools. The winner at the county fair will be allowed to take part in the spelling match at the state fair to be held in Syracuse.
Nearly or quite all of the men teachers at the Normal have large gardens and work them. Dr. John C. Bliss is certainly in the lead with his peas this year. They were white with blossoms a week ago.
A great many people from out of town attended the Commencement exercises at the Normal School on Wednesday. A large number who came to our village to attend Commencement stopped at the New Paltz Hotel. The house was filled.
Those who attended Commencement Week at the Normal found the campus very beautiful. There is an abundance of roses in all parts of the grounds. There is also a great variety of peonies and flowering shrubs in bloom.
At the Baccalaureate service on Sunday many had their first view of the interior of the auditorium. It would seat 1200, and the architectural design and construction are admirable. The acoustics are good. The music by the orchestra and the singing were under the direction of Miss Ann E. Clark. At the beginning of the services the graduating class in caps and gowns, came marching in and took seats reserved for them in the front. The sermon was by Otto F. Bartholow, of Mount Vernon, NY. Dr. Bartholow said many things of much importance in his sermon. He spoke of God’s call to man through his personality and he spoke of present labor troubles and other topics of present-day interest. The preacher has been engaged in writing a history of Westchester Co. and in his sermon alluded to the history of New Paltz and the inscription on the Boulder Monument which he had visited that morning.
On Monday evening the new building was dedicated, an event to which the citizens of New Paltz quite as much as the faculty and students had been looking forward for the prosperity of the village is inseparably connected to with the prosperity of the school. The dedicatory address was made by Dr. John H. Finley, State Commissioner of Education and President of the University of the State of New York. Dr. Finley has international reputation as an educator, scholar and a poet. In promising a bright future for the New Paltz Normal, he said that all the Normal Schools in the state will eventually become Normal Colleges forming the University of the State of New York.
On Tuesday, threatening showers brought no fear to the graduating class this year for the new auditorium made the former custom of outdoor Class Day exercises unnecessary. The entire class in delicately tinted summer frocks — so much more becoming and appropriate to the sweet girl graduate than the scholastic, but unflattering cap and gown — had seats upon the stage, which had been transformed into a June meadow by large jardiniers of buttercups and daisies. After the exercises in the auditorium everybody was invited to a “Garden Party” in the gym, where the class in picturesque garden hats to match their downs generously dispensed delicious strawberry ice cream and cake and pretty little blue bell favors to all the guests. The gymnasium had never been more festive, with its swaying canopy of blue bells floating from old rose streamers, and refreshment tables decorated with the class colors scattered over the room. Besides local guests, many out-of-town friends and relatives of the class were present.
The 34th Annual Normal School Commencement Exercises were held in the auditorium Wednesday morning. The exercises began with the imposing entrance of the graduating classes of 1920 in caps and gowns led by the faculty and members of the Local Board who took seats up on the stage. Justice of the New York Supreme Court, the Hon. G. DuBois Hasbrouck’s address to the graduating class was a delightfully refreshing potpourri of sound judicial advice, of scientific technicalities, of learned philosophy and of whimsical fancies and was in itself a convincing proof of the truth of the theory the speaker advocated. That is, the desirability of much knowledge about many things.
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