None of my calendars at home or at my other workplaces show that April 27 is Arbor Day. Dates can vary from year to year, but in general the modern-era day is observed in April. In our area in 1927, Arbor Day was observed on Friday, May 6. A number of springtime tree planting projects from that year are still around today, all in the interest of re-forestation.
Seen today along county Route 9 in the town of Oneonta, near the Oneonta Country Club, there is a wooded park area that provides access to Otego Creek. Until not long ago and still seen on some maps, this site was called Hemstreet Park. The origin of this park dates back to April 1927.
Mrs. Florence Hemstreet was a member of the Oneonta Woman's Club and was giving a report to the club on Tuesday, April 26, that caught everyone by surprise. The club had a forestry committee, which Mrs. Hemstreet had chaired for four years. She presented a plot of some seven acres on the western side of the Otego Creek, to be known as the Woman's Club Park. At some point it was renamed in Hemstreet's honor.
As reported in the April 27 edition of The Oneonta Star, "The announcement was received with hearty cheers for the enthusiastic chairman of the committee, who has devoted practically all her time for the past three weeks since the land was acquired in preparing it for presentation to the club." Somehow she managed to keep the project a secret as several people went to work at clearing brush and dead trees on the site and planting some 7,000 small trees, furnished by the state of New York.
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Driving along state Route 23 today in the town of Pharsalia, Chenango County, one will see a state historic marker featuring a game refuge, said to be the first such area acquired by New York in 1926.
It was reported on Monday, May 2, 1927, that about 2,000 of this tract of 4,500 acres of abandoned farmland would become a "demonstration forest," with about 500,000 trees to be planted during the season.
Arthur S. Hopkins, assistant superintendent of State Forests said, "The area is essentially a rolling upland with a few steep slopes or deep ravines. There is excellent cover for food for game birds and animals; also excellent trout waters in a network of brooks which comprise the headwaters of the Canasawacta creek."
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Oneonta High School students had a half-day of school on Friday, May 6. In observation of Arbor Day, the Oneonta Rotary Club brought several students out to upper East Street to plant about 10,000 spruce and pine seedlings.
"The planting this year will be on the Gifford farm, located on the westerly side of East street near the school house a short distance from the city line," the Star reported. The schoolhouse referred to is the former District No. 4 school, also known as the Yager Hollow School. This planting was to protect the city's watershed. Another group of students had planted seedlings here four years earlier.
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John D. Clarke, a U.S. Congressman, was a speaker at a Men's Club dinner of St. James' Episcopal Church in Oneonta on Wednesday, May 4.
Clarke was a resident of Arbor Hill, a residence in Fraser, near Delhi.
Clarke was the author of the Clarke-McNary bill, for the application of reforestation across the country.
Clarke truly believed in his theories of reforestation, beginning with his own planting of numerous rows of spruces surrounding Arbor Hill.
Clarke spoke of how 20 million trees had been planted in the state during 1926, but there was plenty of room for improvement on those numbers, as "this number could be planted on the idle acres of Delaware county alone."
On Monday: Oneonta was visited many times by movie stars in the 1940s and '50s.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or email him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com. His columns can be found at www. thedailystar.com/marksimonson.
Mark Simonson
Spring tree plantings were numerous in 1927
- Mark Simonson
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General Clinton Canoe Regatta got a new home in 1972
Ever since 1963, when Charles Hinkley and a group of Tri-Town businessmen came up with the idea for what we know today as the General Clinton Canoe Regatta, people lined the shores of the Susquehanna to watch the canoeists as they made their 70-mile trek from Cooperstown to Bainbridge.
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Sunday movies in Oneonta finally shown in 1934
You know an issue is divisive when a vote to resolve it is quite close. In Oneonta during the early 1930s there were probably plenty of discussions or arguments at the family dinner table or sermons from the pulpits on Sunday mornings, regarding whether or should be able to see a movie in Oneonta on Sunday.
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Politics, fitness and landmarks dominated local news in May 1968
Area residents mulled over the idea of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller as their next President of the United States. New fitness opportunities emerged for all ages. One area landmark was saved while another was razed. It was only a part of our life and times in May 1968.
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Local people sought income in many ways in 1933
In the economy that was the Great Depression, there were times people would do what it took to try to earn some money.
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Local windstorm in 1983 caused tense moments
I realize I've got the wrong month in mind when I say "May came in like a lion." However, that's what happened in 1983 as a number of twisters moved through our region, leaving plenty of damage behind in their trails. Add some melting snow and heavy rain, and scenes of cleanups were widespread 30 years ago this month.
- Saturday, May 4, 2013
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Disaster, expansions put people to work in May 1913
- Monday, April 29, 2013
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Job opportunities abounded in area 45 years ago
If you were looking for a job in April 1968 in our area, or perhaps looking to change your employment situation in the near future, opportunities were pointing in your favor.
- Saturday, April 27, 2013
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Oneonta greeted an aviation giant in 1928
An early aviation superstar came to Oneonta in 1928.
- Monday, April 22, 2013
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Area saw its own armed standoffs 30 years ago
This past Friday, we watched how the Boston area went into a lockdown during a tense search for the last suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. Had I still been living and working in that area, as I was in the early 1990s, I would have had a day off from work Friday, as police scoured the city of Waltham.
- Saturday, April 20, 2013
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U.S.S. Maine explosion, war drew much local sentiment
For most people in our area in early 1898, a growing conflict between two distant nations probably didn't get much attention, other than some glances at the newspaper. When a young Oneonta man was one of many injured or killed in an explosion of a battleship he was aboard, the local attention increased markedly to what was soon to become the Spanish-American War.
- Monday, April 15, 2013
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Oneonta river walking path came from a surveyor's daydream
Leon Kalmus of Oneonta spent a lot of time surveying land near the Susquehanna River in the early 1970s around the time Interstate 88 was being planned and built in this area. What he saw along the shores of the river, he called “pristine,� and soon had an idea for some kind of walking or hiking pathway along the shores of the river in the town of Oneonta.
- Saturday, April 13, 2013
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Decline of Prohibition led to return of beer in April 1933
“I think this would be a good time for a beer,� remarked President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he signed the Cullen-Harrison Act on March 22, 1933. This marked the beginning of the end for Prohibition that year.
- Monday, April 8, 2013
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Dietz Street shifted from residential to commercial through the years
By taking a walk along Dietz Street today, heading north to Walnut Street, one can see a lot of businesses and the recently refurbished parking lot on the east side of the street. It would take some imagination to see this street lined with houses and a church, but prior to the late 1940s, that’s what was there.
- Saturday, April 6, 2013
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Oneontans voted for a 'dry' city in 1918
- Monday, April 1, 2013
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Future city historian kept family busy for Easter and April 1958
- Saturday, March 30, 2013
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Colliscroft became new Oneonta landmark in 1902
If the Oneonta building trade sector of the economy could have awarded a plaque to a most valuable individual customer of 1902, it would have nearly been a shoo-in. That was Edward H. Pardee, who was listed in the Oneonta Directory around that time as a farmer, on Southside.
- Wednesday, March 27, 2013
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Historic Cooperstown cottage got a new address in 1988
To unknowing tourists seeking information from the tourism information center at 31 Chestnut St. in Cooperstown, they would probably believe that the mid-19th century cottage had always been on that site. It blends in well with some of the grand old houses along that street, and the same tourists might think it has an interesting history behind it.
- Saturday, March 23, 2013
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Free mail delivery began in Oneonta 125 years ago
- Monday, March 18, 2013
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Oneonta enacted first building code 60 years ago
There will be no parade, fireworks display or commemorative coins minted for the occasion.
- Saturday, March 16, 2013
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Area isolated during historic March 1888 snowstorm
Earlier in the week, we recalled the "Blizzard of 1993," which was one containing historic snowfall that fell on our region on Saturday, March 13. It was the largest recorded in a single local snowfall in the 20th century, and ever since another storm dating back 105 years. The latter snowfall was worse than the 1993 storm, falling overnight into Tuesday, March 13, 1888. It was commonly referred to as the "Blizzard of 1888."
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