The Way We Were – July 2009

100 years-thumbnailCulled by Judy Garrison  from July 1909 issues of

The Andes Recorder  – 100 Years Ago

With commentary by Jim Andrews and  John Dickson

Week In and About ANDES

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Events of a Week as Chronicled by the Man on the Street

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Nine of the automobiles of the Binghamton Club passed thru Andes on Saturday.

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John T. Roney, on the Tremperskill, is having his house, barn and wagon house re-painted.  C. D. Shafer of Shavertown, is doing the job. [John Dickson:   John T. Roney was a neighbor on the Tremperskill when we moved there in 1938.  He was Willie Roney’s grandfather.]

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Frank Myers, of Bovina, has completed his work in George Elliott’s meat market.  Clifford Dickson, who has been in Coulter’s market, takes his place.  [JD:  Cliff Dickson was my uncle, who owned the store on the corner and my father worked for him from 1933 to 1945 when he became New York veterans counselor for Delaware County.]

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Richard McCall, who was formerly in business in Andes, dropped dead at his home near Delhi, Thursday evening, June 24, while walking in the yard, aged 68 years.  During the civil war he served in the famous “Sickles’ Brigade.”

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Wednesday while Charles McLean’s team was standing at Armstrong Bros. they took fright and ran around the store, coming back thru under the movable walk used to pass from the second floor of the store to the mill.  Colliding with a post in the fence just at the corner of Johnson’s law office, they left the wagon and ran out onto Main street where they were caught. [Jim Andrews:  Charlie Johnson was a longtime Andes lawyer who owned Louise Redden’s house.  She and George bought the house from Charlie’s estate—I just vaguely remember him.  His office was in the little building where Scott Hill has his shop—the former Charles Carman studio.] [Ed.: The paper is chock full of horses-run-amuck articles, e.g. “Ed Seacord Caught Between Seeder and Barb Wire Fence” and “Team of A. A. Dowie Frighten Saturday at an Automobile.”  Alas, we don’t have room to reproduce them all here.]

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Friday there was a “bee” at Andes cemetery and considerable was accomplished in making gravel roads, etc.

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The hay crop in this vicinity will be much below the average.  The drouth of last fall seriously effected [sic] the growth on old meadows.

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The fourth in Andes was sane enough but the evening of the Third and even that of the Fifth had all the earmarks of insanity. [Ed.: Fireworks and firewater?  Any readers want to speculate?]

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There was a slight white frost Monday morning, July 5, in Andes.  An Oneonta Star subscriber states that on July 4, 1859, there was a snow storm.  The 4th just passed was the coldest since the weather bureau was established in 1871.

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David P. Mayham, town superintendent of highways, has finished measuring the roads of the town and finds that the aggregate mileage is 164 miles.

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The dry weather in Andes is becoming serious.  Crops are suffering and unless rain comes in a few days oats and potatoes will be an utter failure.  Pastures are bare and the mill supply is falling off rapidly.

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Railroad Men in Andes

Wednesday Superintendent Wagenhorst, of the Delaware & Eastern, and J. W. Lurze of New York City….came to Andes on a special train on a prospecting tour.  Liveryman Hyzer took the party thru Gladstone Hollow, past Tunis Lake and into Bovina and returned by the Turnpike.

They were also over the remainder of the line looking over the country and it looks as if there was ”something doin”.  [JA:  It’s quite possible that they were considering continuing the line to Delhi.  Two attempts had been made, in the 1870’s and in the 1890’s, to connect up with Delhi, but both attempts went bankrupt.  1909 was before the D & E started having financial problems, so the idea of expansion was probably a reality.]~