Category: Local history

Contributing writers will sally into archives and recover stories and voices from the past, from many communities in this independent stretch of hills between wide rivers and the Taconic and Hoosic ranges and the Green mountains.

  • Issue:

    Local paper’s roots date to abolitionist era

    In the fall of 1842, the agricultural muses visited local poets, inspiring “odes” to be read at that year’s Washington County Fair. “In a sweet healthy air, with a farm of his own, secluded from tumult and strife, the farmer, more blest than a king on his throne, enjoys all the comforts of life,” began read more

    Local paper’s roots date to abolitionist era
  • Issue:

    Brookside Museum seeks funds to stay open

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    Local history venue for Saratoga County aims to broaden mission   K. Michelle Arthur, the executive director of the Brookside Museum in Ballston Spa, stands near a hands-on exhibit. The museum’s leaders say it may be forced to close unless it can raise $100,000 in emergency funds by March. Joan K. Lentini photo   By read more

    Brookside Museum seeks funds to stay open
  • Issue:

    Paying an extra penny for the day’s news

    Hundreds of daily newspapers went out of business a century ago, and others raised prices and cut expenses as they dealt with shortages of newsprint that sent the industry’s costs soaring. The Post-Star of Glens Falls, in an urgent alert to readers and advertisers, described what happened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, when that city’s daily newspapers read more

    Paying an extra penny for the day’s news
  • Issue:

    In prison baseball, a home-field disadvantage

    The Prison Nine baseball team of Great Meadow prison in Comstock, N.Y., had a high turnover of players and always was the home team, even when playing against “the locals.” “Although some of last year’s prison team have left the confines of Great Meadow, it is reported that an excellent team has already been welded read more

    In prison baseball, a home-field disadvantage
  • Issue:

    Of candy, conquest and the space age

    My childhood whimsy in the early 1960s was influenced by the space race, but my imagination extended far beyond the moon. I would hop on the backyard swing set, and after swinging a bit, I’d count down, very loud, in a deep voice in the style of a Mission Control television announcer, from 10 to read more

    Of candy, conquest and the space age
  • Issue:

    How the 1960s recast Vermont, from politics to art

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    Two shows explore how the 1960s reshaped Vermont’s politics and art In 1960, demonstrators in downtown Bennington joined nationwide protests that pushed the Woolworth’s chain to end segregation of its lunch counters in the South. This photo, from the May 1960 Bennington College Bulletin, was credited to Jon L. Allen and is included in the read more

    How the 1960s recast Vermont, from politics to art
  • Issue:

    After world war, new roles for Hudson Valley military base

    It was the Hudson Valley equivalent of turning swords into plowshares.“Camp Whitman, in the town of Beekman, Dutchess County, is no longer a military establishment,” The Post-Star of Glens Falls reported on May 7, 1920. “It is being transformed into a vegetable farm, its use being given to the Hudson River State Hospital Commission,” which read more

    After world war, new roles for Hudson Valley military base
  • Issue:

    Measuring time as a college shuts down

    Time has run out for Green Mountain College, which last month held a bittersweet final commencement ceremony. The college had struggled recently in the face of declining enrollment and operating deficits. With its endowment of $2.9 million dwarfed by a debt load of more than $22 million, Green Mountain’s president announced in January that it read more

    Measuring time as a college shuts down
  • Issue:

    Religion, slavery fueled local debate in 1856 campaign

    Religious freedom was an underlying issue in the 1856 presidential race, 72 years before Democrat Al Smith became the first practicing Roman Catholic nominee for U.S. president in 1928. Critics of John C. Fremont, the first presidential candidate of the newly formed Republican Party, spread reports that Fremont was a Roman Catholic, insinuating that his read more

    Religion, slavery fueled local debate in 1856 campaign
  • Issue:

    Uprising over farmers’ rents sent a governor packing

    New York Gov. Silas Wright wrote that $500 was “reasonable and fair compensation” to state Attorney General John Van Buren, the son of former President Martin Van Buren, for two weeks of work representing the state at an 1845 trial stemming from the Anti-Rent rebellion. Critics disagreed, and made the sum, the equivalent of about read more

    Uprising over farmers’ rents sent a governor packing