Looking Back in Philipstown

150 Years Ago (March 1876)
Two young men from Peekskill opened a pistol-shooting practice gallery in the Lloyds building (the former Methodist Episcopal Church). In their first organized competition, in which shooters stood erect and fired from 55 feet, William Ladue won the silver cup, hitting the target with 25 of 25, 48 of 50 and 446 of 500 shots. On his last target, he fired five consecutive shots within an inch of each other inside the bull's eye.
In a sermon at the Baptist Church, the Rev. C.J. Page explained how a Christian's dying day was better than his birthday.
The Cold Spring budget included funds to improve Parsonage Street between Main and Pine and deepen the well on Stone Street.
A boat filled with lumber that sank near the lighthouse at West Point was raised and towed to shore to be unloaded.
At Fort Montgomery, two amateur actors were wed by the Rev. Mr. Millett as part of a play. The next day, the woman claimed it had been a legal marriage.
The ballot for the annual Cold Spring election included 20 candidates for trustee, 10 for assessor, 11 for street commissioner and eight for fire warden.
A four-day warm spell that began March 5 swept away the last vestige of snow in the village and ice on the Hudson.
The barn of Charles and Daniel Hustis, on the road to Fishkill just north of the North Highland schoolhouse, caught fire at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday. The brothers managed to get two horses out, but Charles nearly lost his life enticing one of the other two. Neighbors gathered, but nothing could be done. The brothers lost the horses, wagons, harnesses, farming utensils, a mowing machine, grain and hay.
That same night, at 11 p.m., Pierce Denny walked outside his family's home in Putnam Valley and noticed a bright light in the northern room, where a fire had been kept part of the day. Because they had difficulty rescuing a blind boarder, Maria Davenport, Denny and a laborer, John Van Buskirk, had time only to save one item: a melodeon.
Josiah Hustis, 60, of North Highland, after serving as a pallbearer at the funeral of Mrs. Shaw, returned home and complained of pain at the base of his skull. He was taken by neighbors to his sister's home in Fishkill, but died there within an hour.
The Cold Spring Library Association canceled a free evening of literary readings and music after spectators filled all 450 seats and every corner at Town Hall, including the stairwells and stage. The editor of the Cold Spring Recorder scolded the organizers for the debacle and said he would no longer advertise free events. "Ten cents for admission and ten cents' worth of common sense would have made the evening a pleasure," he wrote. However, the next week, he reversed himself when the association said the rescheduled event would require a free ticket.
In a commentary entitled "Youthful Depravity," the Recorder editor wrote: "It is a pity that we cannot, in some way, mete out punishment by the laws to that worse class of sins — those which lie way down in the dirty soul. But alas, the spirit of our laws is to punish the effect and leave the cause to produce other effects. We refer to the arrest of several schoolboys and self-esteemed young men for breaking the windows and otherwise damaging John Chase's house [at Breakneck] on the night of the 4th. [Chase had apparently been accused of living with a woman without being married.] The injury to the property is the far lesser crime — the devilish instinct which leads our lads to chase every filthy, drunken and beastly creature in woman's form which comes within 2 miles of the village is 10,000 times worse than the occasional tearing down of a railroad shanty."
Joseph Cox came into town for the first time since Dr. George Murdock removed his right eye.
The sheriff sold the stock of William Coleman, the bankrupt West Street grocer.
The Kellogg Opera Troupe, led by Philipstown resident Clara Louise Kellogg, was touring New England.
The Recorder noted that more than 100 inches of snow had f...