The ‘‘Our towns’’ column is compiled each month by Carol Johnson of the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection. The entries have been copied from the January 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.
Happy New Year!
The boys are riding downhill on Mohonk Avenue.
The recent storm badly crippled the telephones in this section.
Montgomery has a Chicken Thief Detecting Society which holds its annual meeting for the election of officers on New Year’s Day.
During Christmas week from December 17 to 22, more mail was handled at our local post office than ever before in the history of the office. Approximately 1400 parcel post packages were dispatched during the week. Out of this number 837 were insured. Twelve hundred parcels were received for delivery. Out of this number 603 were insured for which signatures must be obtained on delivery. Approximately 9,000 postal cards and 12,000 letters passed through the canceling machine during the week. During the month $5,180.74 was received for postal money orders. Paid money orders amounted to $2556.05. For the year ending December 31, 1923, the proceeds of the office exceeds $10,000. Elsewhere, as well as at New Paltz, the Christmas mail was the largest ever known.
Sometime ago the grading south of the library building was finished and a gas pipe fence put up between the library grounds and Berry’s Garage. Too late it occurred to the management that the old picket fence would have been more in keeping for the purpose.
We have purchased and are installing in the Independent Office a new power press to take the place of the one which has been on the job since the paper was established over a half a century ago. The large press purchased of the New Paltz Times was discarded at once, but much of the material purchased from the Times office we have still in use. We have shed no tears at the loss of the old press. It has done much good service, but it has outlived its usefulness. The old press has been moved out and the new one moved in with no casualties except a shattered window pane and a broken railing and front steps, which give our staid office the look of a man who has been damaged in a fight. The Independent this week is printed at Highland, thanks to the courtesy of the Highland Post. The paper is smaller on account of the inconvenience of printing at a distance.
The conservation commission reports that a newly discovered worm is killing rabbits in large numbers in this state. It is similar to the tape worm and bores thru the intestines. Many rabbits have been found sitting under a bush as if asleep, and dissection has shown that death was due to worms.
The Copeland bill giving federal permission for the Po’keepsie bridge passed the Senate last week. It is expected that there will be no opposition to the appropriation of $1,800,000 to be used in the construction of the piers.
Three boys thought to be from Poughkeepsie were caught in an ice floe near Highland on Tuesday morning and had a narrow escape from death. Finally, a rope was thrown to them and fastened to the boat and it was dragged ashore.
Last Friday night the Hunter basketball team visited that of New Paltz, much to our pleasure. Contrary to the rules of etiquette, the New Paltz quintet did not give the Hunter team full sway. That is, they defeated the visitors by the large score of 43 – 19, but the game was not as slow as the score might suggest. There was exceptionally good shooting as well as fine pass work by both teams, and our boys had to do considerable work to secure their points. The pleasant victory was topped off with dancing which followed immediately.
Our own village was represented on Friday evening at the reading of her own poems given in the Po’keepsie High School Auditorium by the Vassar poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Miss Millay is one of the best of living poets. She has the power of using the common things of life as fuel to feed the divine fire. A striking example of this is shown in one of the poems she read, the one about hearing the frogs, and being smitten with a sense of “savage beauty”. She read perhaps fifty poems in all from including sections from her books, The Harp Weaver, Second April, A few Figs from Thistles, and Renascence. Miss Millay looked ethereal in a black gown, the skirt of which was embroidered with symbolic looking figures in white. She was received by a capacity house.
At the present time, great difficulty and much valuable time is lost during the early and late hours of the night and morning by the local telephone operator in getting someone who lives near the button at the fire house to get out of bed and sound the fire alarm. The telephone company will not install a button in their office as it was hoped they would do. In order that we may have day and night service, continuously, another fire alarm button will be placed at the corner of Main and Grove Streets. A feature of placing the alarm at this point will be the fact that it will serve a large section of our village which lies away from the fire house. A large red sign with white letters “Fire Alarm” will be placed on the pole and a large red light at night. Many times strangers passing through our villages late at night in autos discover fires and do not know where to send in the alarm. We ask all who live in this section of our village, to remember that this box is there. We ask everyone in the village to make it a point to learn how to send in the alarm.
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