The Way We Were
Culled by Judy Garrison from April 1916 issues of
The Andes Recorder 100 Years Ago
Week In and About ANDES
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Events of a Week as Chronicled byhe Man on the Street
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With commentary by Jim Andrews
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John Burroughs, the naturalist, celebrated his 79th birthday at West Park near the Hudson, April 3. He celebrated the day with his son and three grandchildren, and they boiled sap and made jack wax. His wife is in the south. His new book “Under the Apple Trees,” will soon be published. He says the best solution of life is found in the words “mind your own business and be cheerful.”
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It is stated that owing to the European war it will be impossible to obtain Paris green. Potato bugs will rejoice. [Ed.: Paris green, also called Schweinfurt green, an extremely poisonous bright green powder, was used extensively as a pigment in wallpaper and as an insecticide to kill plant fungi.]
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Words like women’s dresses are getting shorter. The Philadelphia North American has adopted simplified spelling of 12 words, viz: Tho, altho, thru, thruout, thoro, thoroly, thorofare, program, prolog, catalog, pedagog and Decalog. [Ed.: My very modern word processor tried to return some words to the old—and also the current—spellings!]
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The Whitaker roller mill located at the depot has shut down for the summer. The heavy snows of the winter and the inability to get into the woods caused a shortage of blocks.
[Jim Andrews: I’ve never heard of this mill. However, there were several businesses that were short-lived. This was probably one of them.]
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After the way some men stood on their heads in Shavertown last week, the people have decided the one thing needed is a lock-up, and one lady will donate the site to set it on. It should be large enough to hold two dozen and built of plank with grate roof, in order that snow can be used for bedding them down and the falling rain to quench their thirst. [JA: It wouldn’t surprise me if this activity involved a bit too much alcohol!]
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Friday at a meeting of the Andes Town Board it was voted to discontinue what is known as the “Bullet Hole” road. The road which was a short cut from the Biggar hollow road to the Tremperskill was used but little and its closing relieves the town from keeping up two bridges. The road is closed on the application of Leslie Muir and mother, whose farm it passes thru and their house is the only one on it. [JA: I’m thinking that this old road followed the Bullet Hole stream from the Reynolds farm down to the old Muir farm, now Brit Geiger’s. Ethel Reynolds would know. The valley from the Reynolds farm to the Tremperskill is very narrow. The first try at building a railroad in the 1870s was to follow this route from the Muir farm up through the Reynolds farm and over into Lake Delaware. The venture ran out of money and the huge cut that was started at the Muir (Geiger) farm adjacent to the ice pond was stopped in mid progress. There was also a cattle underpass that was constructed in Reynolds’ meadow as well as some grading that is still in place.]~