Culled by Judy Garrison With commentary by Jim Andrews From October 1921 issues of The Andes Recorder 100 Years Ago

WEEK IN AND ABOUT ANDES

Events of a week as chronicled by the Man on the Street

Fifty years ago September 20, snow fell in the Catskill Mountains.

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W.C. Oliver, W. J. Howland, Geo. Polley, Edsall Hanlon and Alfred Reynolds are in New York City this week attending the world series ball games. [Jim Andrews: All of the above listed were businessmen in Andes in 1921. Many of them had played baseball on the town team and therefore were interested enough in the game to travel to New York to view the World Series.]

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The two steam shovels on the Andes Margaretville State road are now both nearing the top of Palmer Hill and only about a mile of grading remains to be done. The shovel on the eastern slope of the hill is near the watering trough and the one on the west slope is within a few hundred feet of the top. Concrete is being laid on the Margaretville end. [JA: This documents the construction of Route 28 over Palmer Hill and indicates the first paved road in that section was of concrete. The completion of this improved highway greatly reduced the price of the shipment of goods since shipment by trucks was much cheaper and more convenient than shipment by rail. The completion of this road also put another nail in the coffin of the Andes branch of the D & N railroad which only managed to stay solvent for another 4 years before closing down.]

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Howard Gladstone is a candidate for postmaster, making a pair to date; Donald Dickson being the other.

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An important real estate deal was transacted in Andes this week. William T. Hyzer has sold his house and lot and garage to Guerdon Hotchkin. The sale also includes his electric light plant and the movies. Mr. Hyzer retains the Ford agency and does not give possession of the house for two months. The new owner will take over everything else by November 1, and next week expects to begin preparations for the erection of a new garage 50×100 feet. [JA: This is the property immediately to the left of the Wilson’s Bread building.  The garage construction mentioned here refers to the large 2 ½ story building still remaining behind the house. The garage that was razed for this construction contained the Ford agency as well as the Delco light plant for the village.  In later years, the new garage housed the trucking business of W.E. (Rastus) Bramley.]

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George Elliott, the butcher, had two calves die last week from eating Paris Green. He had a cow and the calves on the Burdett lot, now owned by Alex Stott, in the lower part of the village. Last week Monday one calf was found dead and this was buried. Friday the other was missing and was found in the Tremperskill at the rear of the lot when pulled from the water the green liquid ran in a stream from its mouth. Later Paris Green was found at the edge of the bushes. The only way that it could get there was by the aid of human hands. Who could have did such a dastardly act cannot be imagined. Not only did the act endanger the lives of animals, but the lives of people as well. [ED: Invented as “emerald green” in 1814 by two chemists in Schweinfurt, Bavaria—attempting to produce an improved pigment over Scheele’s green—it was seen in 1822 to be toxic. In 1867 farmers in Illinois and Indiana found that Paris Green was effective against the Colorado potato beetle. By the 1880s Paris Green had become the first widespread use of a chemical insecticide—it contains arsenic compounds—in the world. It was heavily sprayed by airplane in Italy in 1945 to control malaria. It was once used to kill rats in Parisian sewers, which is how it acquired its common name.]

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An informal farewell reception was given by the Park Hill Reformed church in the lecture room of the church, Yonkers, N.Y. on Tuesday evening, October 11, to Miss Elizabeth Gordon Bruce, daughter of the late Rev. William Patterson Bruce, who is to sail from San Francisco, October 22, on the S. S. Nanking, as a Missionary to Amoy, China. [JA: Elizabeth Bruce (Bessie to those of us who remember her) was the granddaughter of Rev. James Bruce (Rev. William’s father) and niece to the Hon. Matthew Linn Bruce.  Bessie served as a Reformed Church missionary in China, being driven out by the Japanese during World War II.  She returned after the war and served until 1958 when she retired to Andes and lived in the family’s homestead, now the home of Buffy Calvert.]

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Miss May Bruce motored to Andes on Friday last from Poughkeepsie with Miss Edith Mayo, of Rochester, Minn., daughter of Dr. Charles Mayo, the celebrated surgeon, Miss Elizabeth Rogers, of New York, Miss Geraldine Beavers, of Sommerville, N.J., Miss Ruth Rosenfield, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Miss Wilhemina Wagner, of Chicago, members of the class of 1922, of Vassar College, and spent over the week end. [JA: Dr. Charles Mayo was one of the two brothers who founded the famed Mayo Clinic. Buffy relayed to me that the ladies mentioned continued their friendship even after her mother, May Bruce Stuart, passed away.]

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The first snow of the season came on Sabbath and Pisgah was white. It is seldom that snow comes before frost. The first frost of the season came on Wednesday night, October 12, when thermometers went to 28.~