Culled by Judy Garrison With commentary by Jim Andrews – From July 1922 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
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Mrs. Andrew Fenton, of Margaretville, has completed her course of study at the Albany Law School. [Jim Andrews: I would assume that this woman would be related to the Attorney Donald Fenton who came from Margaretville. He married Isabelle McCumber (I think that was her maiden name) who used to stay at her grandmother’s across the street from me on High Street.]
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The house of Harry Lakin, on the river road a short distance below Shavertown was destroyed by fire Sabbath afternoon and Mrs. Lakin was terribly burned….Mrs. Lakin’s clothing caught fire and almost immediately she was enveloped in flames. Seizing a pail of water she poured that over herself but it had no effect on the flames. She then seized a rug and wrapping it around her smothered out the fire, but not until all of her clothing except her corset was burned off, and the corset saved her life….They have fixed up the garage for a kitchen and are going to sleep in the workshop until they can get a new house built. He [Mr.Lakin] has just been building a new barn this summer and this is a hard blow on him. [JA: This was located across the road from the Shavertown Cemetery. I’m sure this was caused by the kitchen range and was unfortunately more common than one would imagine. The Recorder has published accounts of other such fires.]
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Six thousand dollars of registered Liberty bonds stolen from the Andes bank on May 16, 1921, have been recovered. With the arrest of six men [said to be members of a nationwide combine to dispose of loot from bond and mail robberies] in New York and Boston the authorities believe they have rounded up a gang which has been largely responsible for a series of bank and mail robberies. …Max Sonand, who is under arrest in Boston, had been active in disposing of the bonds in New York city, in Norfolk, Va., and Washington, D.C., according to the reports of the secret service. In Boston he met his trouble when a clever jeweler to whom he wanted to transfer a Liberty bond of $1,000 for a $650 diamond, noticed that the spelling on the bond read “Frances Knapp” and realized that Frances was a woman’s name. He called a policeman. The bond was one of three of $1,000 belonging to the late Mrs. Frances Knapp, of Andes. [JA: This robbery was one of several that prompted the National Bank of Andes to move from the now Ron Guichard’s realty office building to a new structure adjacent to the stop light. The bank moved to its current location in 1976.]
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Professor James Brisbane and family, of Brooklyn, are spending his vacation at the home of his brother, Grant Brisbane, on Dingle hill. [JA: The Grant Brisbane home is now the home of ASHC board members Mike and Cathy Castellano. Our own Margaret Brisbane Moshier, ASHC board member and Thrift Shop Chair, is a direct descendant.]
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William T. Forrest, who recently sold his farm in southern Bovina to Senator Peter G. Gerry has bargained for the residence of W. J. Dillon Delaware avenue in Delhi.
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The cornerstone of St. James church at Lake Delaware, in the town of Bovina, was laid Tuesday with fitting ceremony. Most of the Episcopal clergy located in Otsego and Delaware counties were present. Clergy and choir vested in St. James chapel where the procession formed and marched a distance of a few rods across the bridge to where the St. James is under construction. A notable feature of the procession was the presence in the line of 125 boys in scout uniform, members of Robert Gerry’s boys camp, where each summer he takes care of 125 boys from New York city. The church and parish house are being built by Miss Angelica Gerry, daughter of Commodore Elbridge Gerry of New York. The cost will probably be $200,000. The foundations are of concrete, but the superstructure of both buildings is to be of field stone from the Gerry estate. The buildings are located in the triangle of ground, made by the road leading to the Gerry estate intersecting the state road. [Ed.: The church was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, church architect of Cram & Ferguson, Boston. It is said to have been inspired by the 12th century Saint Mary’s Church in Iffley, Oxford, England. It possesses both late Romanesque and early Gothic themes. To view earlier articles and mentions on the Gerry estate readers may want to do a search on the Gazette website.]~