Memories of the Mohawk Valley
By Bob Cudmore – Daily Gazette, 6-5-04
Mail and electronic messages have been coming in regarding the old days in the Mohawk Valley.
Famous Ferry Owner Buried Near Glen
Al Adams of Amsterdam provided information about a Montgomery County link to the American Revolution. On Route 30A, about four miles south of the town of Glen, is a New York historical marker noting that a nearby grave is connected to General George Washington.
The marker states that William McConkey is buried there and that McConkey, who lived from 1777 to 1825, was the “owner of ferry on Delaware River on which Washington crossed December 25, 1776.” After crossing the river, Washington and his troops defeated the British in Trenton, New Jersey.
Her First Name Was Estelle
In a recent column on the 100th anniversary of the Montgomery County Historical Society, which operates Old Fort Johnson, it was noted that Mrs. Frederick Greene was the first female president of the society in 1915, one of the first women in the state to head a historical society. Mrs. Greene’s first name was unknown. Mary Manning of Amsterdam has provided that elusive fact, producing an obituary notice for Frederick Greene stating that Mrs. Greene was Estelle Delbridge Greene, a native of Atlanta, Georgia. Frederick Greene was an official of his family’s knitting mill in Amsterdam. Manning’s aunt had been a cook for the Greenes.
Newspaperman Remembers
Richard G. Ellers now lives in Warren, Ohio, after a career as a newspaper reporter, most notably at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Ellers lived in Amsterdam when he was young and has memories of the Carpet City.
In a cold spell in either 1943 or 1944, Amsterdam High School closed to conserve coal. Ellers said, “We were told that closing A.H.S. saved as much coal as all the other schools burned.” Ellers said the snow crunched underfoot when it was very cold, adding, “That crunch is linked in my memory to walking to Christmas midnight mass at St. Michael’s from our home, an apartment on East Main Street downtown.”
Ellers also remembered that in the spring, “You could see the strata of winter in the curbside snow piles, snow-cinders-snow-cinders and so on.”
At Christmas in his East Main Street apartment, Ellers could hear the Salvation Army bell ringer on the street below. There was only single pane glass on the windows in the apartment and Ellers said, “I can still hear the clink-clink-clink of snow chains on cars driving below. Occasionally every third or fourth clink would be counterpointed with a double thunk, which was the sound of the ends of a broken chain slapping the underside of a fender.”
Rugmakers in 1939
Virginia Dybas Czeluzniak of Amsterdam contributed a scorecard from the 1939 season of the Amsterdam Rugmakers baseball team in the Canadian-American League. Admission was 40 cents and the scorecard, which she had filled out, cost five cents. Herbert Shuttleworth, 2nd, who went on to head Mohawk Carpets and Mohasco, is listed as president of the Rugmakers and Eddie Sawyer is manager.
Czelusniak, who grew up on Crane Street, said she and her friends walked to the ball field at what was then Mohawk Mills Park and liked to talk with the young ballplayers. She recalled when Joe DiMaggio and the New York Yankees came to play the local team.
Amsterdam native Sam Zurlo noted that practically all the businesses that advertised in the 1939 score card are no longer in operation—Andy Russo’s Service Station, East End Coal Co., Peoples Ice, Lawrence’s Market and Olbrych’s Dairy, for example. Also gone from the local scene is Sampone’s at 225 East Main Street, which advertised that its treats were always a hit—“On a hot day, stop and refresh yourself in our modern fountain.”
###
|
