Culled by Judy Garrison  From April 1915 issues of The Andes Recorder 

100 Years Ago

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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With commentary by Jim Andrews

March was a lion at both ends and in the middle, and the winds and the weather have been good “germ” distributors, and grip [sic] is pretty general.

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Dennis Danehy, the new cheese maker for the Elk Cheese Company at the Co-Operative Dairy Company plant, has rented the S.T. Goodman house opposite the Central Hotel. [Jim Andrews: Don’t know about the cheese company but the item says it was at the Co-Operative Dairy Plant which was on the site of Romo Machine. The Simeon T. Goodman house that Mr. Danehy rented is currently the real estate office to the right of Hogan’s.]

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Charles B. Wilson, a professor in the State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, has been appointed State Commissioner of Agriculture to succeed Calvin J. Huson, who recently resigned. No doubt that Professor Wilson is fitted for the position so far as the scientific part but has he had the practical experience which should go with the position. The department of agriculture is run mainly in the interest of the millionaire farmer and not in the interest of the main tillers of the soil. A practical man is needed and should be demanded by the farmers. [Ed.: My bolding to show how very opinionated our local newspaperman could be in those days.]

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A Prohibition Measure

Hereafter peace officers and constables in towns of New York state will be authorized to forbid the sale of intoxicants to a person addicted to their use by serving a notice in writing upon dealers, according to the provisions of the Jones bill signed Monday by Governor Whitman. [Ed.: Didn’t know that there was a state law passed prior to national prohibitionthat was tailored to target inebriates.]

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Storm of Long Ago Recalled on its Fifty-Eighth Anniversary

The one great event in snowfalls toward and from which all similar storms are reckoned was the Big Snow of 1857. Tuesday, April 13 was the fifty-eighth anniversary of that Big Snow. For two days the sky had been dark and the storm started with a few snow flakes on the afternoon of April 13, and at six o’clock on the evening of April 14, there was from four to five feet of snow and many buildings had collapsed. On April 19 another three feet of snow fell, and May 1, there was not a fence in sight. Before the first storm the weather had been warm and farmers had been plowing. The editor often heard his father, from whom he gleaned the above facts, state that it was six weeks before he got back to the plow where it stood in the furrow.

Many were out of hay when the snow came and there was much suffering of cattle. Paths were shoveled to the woods and trees felled for the cattle to browse. Even the straw beds were used to help keep the stock from starving, and it was a case of get through the best way possible. [JA: I wrote an article about that 1857 storm for the ASHC newsletter a few years back. Here it is:

“You Think We’ve Had a Bad Winter?”

The following was taken from the flyleaf of a Daybook from the “Bill of Goods purchased for to sell in store built 1856” signed HJAM, most likely a clerk in Duncan Ballantine’s recently opened mercantile business:

 “Great snowstorm in April 1857” April 14^th Snow fell two feet 8” on 15^th April snow one ft. making in all an average of 3 ft. 8 in. On the 16^th, 17, 18, 19 Snow a little more than 8 inches—on the 20^th snow fell two feet 4” on the 21 snow fell 6” making in all 6 feet 6”.]~