Cato was a seventeen-year-old slave who lived several hundred miles north of the Mason-Dixon line in the Town of Charlestown in Montgomery County New York where people are shocked to find slavery existed until July 4th 1827 after which a few slaves still remained slaves because their owners’ kept them in darkness about emancipation day. Cato’s life was tragic from the day his mother gave birth to him and his first master, Mr. Benjamin Ward of Middlesex, New Jersey, took possession of him. Ward was a no account drunk, according to Cato “a man of very corrupt and immoral habits, subject to habit ..read more

When John Fea died on April 20, 1931, his obituary declared he was “one of Amsterdam’s best known residents.” Today he is all but forgotten. Fea was born in Cherry Valley on April 10, 1852. He attended school in Fort Plain and Canajoharie. He was an industrious boy who earned money by selling molasses candy to passengers at the Canajoharie Palatine Bridge Railroad station. One day in 1866 a tall, thin, grizzled man and a short, stocky, burly man with a close-cropped red beard got off the train to take the stage coach to Sharon Springs. When the tall man saw Fea with his candy, he asked the sho ..read more

Daniel T. Weaver When a man has four ex-wives and scores of political enemies, it is difficult to create an unbiased account of his life. Of Theron Akin (1855-1933), mayor of Amsterdam, New York for two terms (1920-24), his fourth wife said in 1923, “that he sometimes seized a chicken nearly prepared for the table and had hurled it into the garbage pail: that he would on other occasions, when displeased, burn his best silk shirts; and that this winter the Mayor had, to his wife’s knowledge, taken but one bath.” She made her complaints in person to Amsterdam’s corporation counsel who then call ..read more

Daniel T. Weaver Shortly before 8:00 p.m. on the evening of June 28, 1937, Mrs. Fred B. Benjamin of 12 Jackson Street in the City of Amsterdam, NY heard screams coming from 16 Jackson Street where sisters Mary B. Enders, 81, and Jennie V. Enders, 84, lived. Their nephew, William G. Serviss, 45, lived there as well. Mrs. Benjamin phoned Mrs. James Burke of 17 Jackson Street telling her she was afraid there was something wrong next door. She asked Mrs. Burke to accompany her to the Enders’ house. Mrs. Burke agreed. The two women went to the house and rang the doorbell. William Serviss came to th ..read more

Daniel T. Weaver Thanksgiving Day 1893 was not a happy time for many people in Amsterdam, New York. The Panic of 1893 was a financial crisis which lasted four years and had a negative impact on the city. Many newspapers blamed the crisis on free trade or the removal of tariffs on American goods. The city of Amsterdam was used as an object lesson for the “blighting effects” of “the tariff wreckers.” In an account in the Amsterdam Daily Democrat published the day after Thanksgiving, Amsterdam was described as a city where “Nearly every mill is shut down. Thousands of men and women, who a year ag ..read more

My father, may he rest in peace, would have had a good laugh at Andrew Cuomo’s executive order limiting gatherings at private residences to ten people since there were 14 children in our family. The Amish in New York state must also be laughing, since many of them have large families including two families in Montgomery County with 19 and 21 children respectively. Normally, I do not support scofflaws, whether it be mayors who run sanctuary cities or sheriffs who say they will not enforce the SAFE act, but it does seem like it is going too far to ask sheriffs to enforce Cuomo’s grinchy, just b ..read more

“Voting is neither free nor fair if the State requires voters to pay for postage,” claims Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat. “During a pandemic, when millions of New Yorkers will vote by mail to protect their health and safety, it is vital that we remove every barrier to the vote. This amounts to a poll tax: the cost of a single stamp could represent a difficult decision that no one who is barely scraping by should be forced to make.” Other lawmakers have joined Rosenthal. And civil rights advocates are calling the need to put a 55 cent stamp on an envelope in order to return a ballot “vot ..read more

When Margaret Martin married the Reverend Alexander Gordon, she probably didn’t know what she was getting into. Gordon’s first wife had died, and left behind two children for his second wife to raise. Gordon wasted no time getting his second wife, a young parishioner in his congregation, pregnant. Since the Margaret’s first baby was a girl and Gordon did not have any girls, they named her after his first wife. Between 1824 and 1832, Margaret gave birth to five children, bringing the size of her family to nine. The family was poor. Gordon never earned more than $200 a year. Alexander Gordon was ..read more

In spite of Joe Biden’s support for voting by mail in the upcoming presidential election, the possibility of fraud as President Trump has suggested is real, but there are other problems with voting by mail that have nothing to do with fraud. One problem is the United States Postal Service. I worked for the post office in Amsterdam, New York for five years. I was a clerk most of the time, but I also carried mail when needed, worked the stamp window and was a substitute supervisor. With the exception of a couple of bosses—particularly one who said “I don’t care if you lose both arms and both leg ..read more

Daniel T. Weaver Never say never. When I first heard in 2015 that Donald J. Trump was running for president, I was dumbfounded. To me Donald Trump was nothing but a celebrity, a man without a moral compass, a man who acted like a buffoon and who had a terrible hairdo. I was a never Trumper, and I let people know on the radio show I had at the time what I thought of Trump. In the 2016 election, I couldn’t vote for Trump. Neither could I bring myself to vote for Clinton, so I voted libertarian. Now it is 2020, and I plan to vote for Trump. My journey from never Trump to voting for Trump was a lo ..read more