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by Abdon Pallasch Copyright ©2026 All rights reserved by the author The Noraid logo Amid all the big talkers haunting New York’s Irish pubs, belting out new ways to drive the Brits from Northern Ireland, Dave Rupert stood in a class of his own. His sheer size, for one thing. When you’re 6’7” and 300 lbs., stealthiness comes awkwardly. But Rupert pulled his cap on and sank into a chair at Molly Wee’s on 8th Avenue near Madison Square Garden, trying to look inconspicuous. You'd be surprised how well he does it. Rupert wasn’t Irish or Catholic. In his youth, far upstate on the Canadian border, Rupert’s dad would dress him in protestant orange for St. Patrick’s Day. Rupert, 48, came straight out of Central Casting as a mole infiltrating the Irish Republican Army, so the most head-scratching part of this story remains how many seasoned IRA leaders fell for his pitch. Martin Galvin, publicity director for Irish Northern Aid (“Noraid”), was one of the most recognizable faces of IRA support in the United States. The British banned him from Northern Ireland. And Galvin was completely on board with Rupert as he walked into Molly Wee’s that night in November of 1999. Taking the seat opposite Rupert at the pub, Galvin told Rupert it was great to see him again, and arrangements were all made for Rupert’s trip to Ireland the following Sunday. Just check into the Fairways Hotel in Dundalk, “Call them from the parking lot, and they’ll come collect you,” Galvin told Rupert. Rupert was playing a very dangerous game, working his way up to the leaders of the most violent IRA splinter groups who were fighting against an Irish peace process the militants saw as a sellout to the Brits. A chasm had widened within the IRA. Most of the fighters in the Provisional IRA, “The Provos,” followed Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness into the Peace Process to lay down their arms and pursue a political path to Irish empowerment through the Sinn Féin party. But the “hard men” who wanted to keep setting off bombs to drive out the Brits splintered off into groups like the “Continuity IRA” – which Rupert had been infiltrating for years – and the even more militant “Real IRA” led by Mickey McKevitt, which Rupert had recently crossed over to. Molly Wee’s owner, Angela Reilly, a Northern Ireland native, walked over and sat down next to Rupert. She urged him to meet with her brother, Colm Murphy, when he was in Ireland. Murphy was a top deputy to McKevitt in the Real IRA and would eventually be the only one convicted for setting off a deadly bomb in the small town of Omagh that killed 31, mostly women and children, in the most deadly single attack of the Northern Ireland conflict. That conviction was later thrown out, though Murphy served time in both the U.S. and Ireland for attempted gun-running and other charges. Rupert, Galvin, and Reilly talked about a recent police raid on an IRA training camp. Rupert asked Galvin how much damage the raid did to the cause. Galvin told him it was not too devastating, Rupert recalled. Rupert had learned over the years to be a good listener and to come across as very non-threatening. It was kind of a defense mechanism, given his size. He did not want to startle people or set off any alarms. He was a gifted schmoozer and salesman. It’s how he stumbled into the spy business to begin with. When the FBI came knocking at the door of his trucking business in Chicago, he worried they might be there for the $750,000 in unpaid taxes from his former business ventures. When they slapped down photos of him drinking with IRA-involved Irish pub-owners, he was actually relieved. Rupert knew he had only smiled politely when his drinking buddies told him of their efforts to drive the British from Northern Ireland. He never realized he’d become something of a local folk hero when he told them, “The problem is you’re not sending home enough body bags to England. That’s how the Vietnamese won the war – the body count, you know?” Talking about his upcoming trip to Ireland, Rupert told Galvin he wanted to carefully explain to Real IRA leader Mickie McKevitt the idiosyncrasies of Frank O’Neill, the patriarch of Chicago IRA supporters, whom Rupert had guided over to McKevitt’s side. Frank O’Neill was a beloved pub owner in Chicago who served time for IRA-related crimes in Ireland. He would bring most of the Chicago supporters with him from Continuity IRA to McKevitt’s new group. “I’ve got Frank 100 percent on board” for the switch to the Real IRA, Rupert assured Galvin, who Rupert said was happy to hear it. Rupert was traversing the Irish pubs of New York, Chicago, and Boston, trying to pull off “The Switch.” Do you remember the classic 1995 Seinfeld episode “The Switch,” in which Jerry Seinfeld tried to “trade up” from his ho-hum girlfriend, Sandy, to her sexier roommate, Laura, who had a lilting, feminine laugh? “The Switch? Can’t be done!” George Costanza chastised Jerry at their Upper West Side diner. “Do you realize in the entire history of Western civilization, no one has successfully accomplished the roommate switch?!” Just four years later, in 1999, Rupert, working undercover for the FBI and Britain’s MI5, was walking these same Manhattan streets, trying to pull off a very different switch – one he hoped could help cement his budding relationship with Mickie McKevitt, Britain’s top target in Ireland. The Irish, British, and U.S. governments believed money raised by IRA supporters in these Irish-American pubs financed bombs like the one McKevitt’s group set off in Omagh, Northern Ireland, two years earlier, killing 31 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. The British government is conducting a long-sought inquiry into whether officials ignored warnings about the Omagh bombing that could have prevented it. When Rupert first met McKevitt, the Real IRA leader told him that his group was 20% responsible for the Omagh bomb disaster – they stole the car and built the bomb – but that Continuity was 80% responsible because they drove the car into Omagh and parked it in the wrong spot, where police were pushing people to supposed safety. Rupert had first burrowed his way into Continuity IRA, a tad less militant than the Real IRA, run by aging IRA stalwarts. Rupert found that it was more talk than action. In the beginning, Rupert even convinced the FBI to use your tax money to lease him a pub on the Northern Ireland border for him to ingratiate himself with IRA supporters. Infiltrating the IRA is deadly serious business, but running a pub patronized by heaving-drinking IRA supporters was downright comical. Far from the suave image of James Bond, Rupert was the unglamorous spy mopping up vomit on the pub floor and breaking up fights. Hearing the rebel songs and his new friends’ stories of centuries of British treachery against the Irish, Rupert could not help going a bit native at times and telling his MI5 handlers one way to stop the violence would be for the Brits to leave Northern Ireland. “I probably don’t disagree with the [IRA supporters’] philosophy that the Brits probably shouldn’t be there,” Rupert said. Rupert’s crazy pub scheme worked. The locals in Tullaghan and the IRA supporters from Northern Ireland who summered there came to see The Big Yank running The Drowes Inn as a supporter. Continuity stalwart Joe O’Neill (no relation to Frank) came to trust Rupert and introduce him to even bigger fish in the IRA pond. Against all odds, Rupert succeeded in trading up from the Continuity IRA to McKevitt’s “Real IRA.” McKevitt was quite literally trying to blow up the fledgling Irish Peace Process. Now Rupert’s job was to flip these American IRA supporters to McKevitt’s more dangerous group. Few people outside of Rupert himself ever thought he could pull this all off. Not the Irish police, who thought little of Rupert and were mostly kept in the dark by the Brits and the Americans running this stealth operation on Irish soil. Rupert had no formal spy training. He was a 48-year-old trucker and a three-times-bankrupt wanna-be entrepreneur from far Upstate New York who left behind a string of failed businesses, angry creditors, and bitter ex-fathers-in-law. Rupert’s older sisters and brothers called him “Jobi,” short for “Joe Beef.” A big kid whose rollicking life had always fallen a bit short of his big ambitions. He was a protestant with no Irish ancestry – the kind of obvious mole that cunning IRA leaders like Mickey McKevitt spent their lives sniffing out. But Rupert was a good talker, practiced in the art of bluffing. Posing as a wealthy American businessman available to bring envelopes of American cash raised by American IRA supporters over to IRA support groups in Ireland, Rupert made himself popular on both sides of the Atlantic. “Everybody wants to know the bagman because you’ve got the money,” Rupert said. “So we bought our way into their organization with their own money.” Rupert was risking his life every day he posed as a true believer in the cause, on his own, being driven to secret Real IRA army council meetings without his handlers in the FBI and MI5 having any idea where he was. "Dave Rupert was extremely brave and courageous, and thank God he escaped alive,” said Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was one of the 31 killed by the Real IRA’s car bomb in Omagh. “If they had had even a clue that he was passing on information to anybody, he would have been dissected. His body would never have been found.” And yet somehow Rupert was pulling it off: “MI5 could not believe McKevitt was coming to see me. They've been chasing him for 25 years, and really never got anybody close to him, and here I walk in and, you know, ‘Hi, how ya doin’?’" MI5 had been so skeptical that McKevitt would trust Rupert that they actively discouraged him in meetings and their nightly emails to him from making the switch from the older, more established Continuity IRA on Ireland’s West Coast to McKevitt’s wilder organization near the border town of Dundalk. But Rupert persuaded them to let him roll the dice. Rupert had made switches before, including the kind of sex-driven “switches” Seinfeld focused on. Rupert divorced his second wife just to chase women. In a Florida Irish pub, Rupert met a beautiful redhead named Linda Vaughn. Vaughn was a powerhouse lobbyist, the reason you can’t smoke indoors in Florida. She brought Rupert to Ireland and introduced him to IRA-connected pub owners like Joe O’Neill, which led the FBI and MI5 to come knocking on the door of Rupert’s Chicago trucking operation. O’Neill and pub owner Vincie Murray in Sligo had taken a liking to Rupert because he walked in with their trusted friend Linda Vaughn on his arm. They schooled him on 800 years of British oppression of the Irish. They thought they had converted Rupert to their cause. But Rupert was just a survivor with a good poker face, and he took the FBI up on its offer to report back on what O’Neill and Murray were up to. Mirroring the split in Ireland between IRA members who followed Adams and McGuinness into the Sinn Fein political party and those who stayed with McKevitt and the others still taking up arms, there was a corresponding schism in this country: Members of Irish Northern Aid “Noraid” – the main group collecting money from Irish-Americans to support the families of IRA prisoners in Ireland – splintered between the Friends of Sinn Fein which supported the peace process – and the Irish Freedom Committee which supported the militants. Martin Galvin, a New York lawyer, was the public face of Noraid until the split. Galvin was the one who pinned down Bill Clinton in 1992 to promise that he would grant Gerry Adams a visa to the United States if elected president. That visa, issued over the objections of Britain and Clinton’s own State Department, is credited as a major impetus for jump-starting the Irish Peace Process, as recounted in the “NORAID: Irish America and the IRA” documentary released on the Irish television network RTE last year. Galvin recounted some of this history in the documentary, but he, the FBI, and MI5 all declined to comment for this story. As Rupert and Galvin sat there at Molly Wee’s that night, they discussed the real tough nut they both wanted to crack: John McDonagh, the Irish-American host of Radio Free Eireann on WBAI community radio in New York. McDonagh sent two of his friends to Chicago a few months earlier to collect the money at a fundraiser there and bring it back to New York to hand over to their group in Ireland, allied with Continuity IRA. Rupert blocked that attempt, putting his considerable frame between McDonagh’s guys and the $20,000 collected at the Abbey Pub in Chicago. “They thought they were going to pick up the money,” Rupert recalls. “We said, ‘No.’ We sent them back to New York empty-handed.” Rupert would bring that envelope of cash to McKevitt instead. Galvin told Rupert he was worried that McDonagh would blame Galvin for the Chicago crew’s switch to McKevitt and the Real IRA because of Galvin’s presence at the Chicago Abbey Pub event. “Well, I’m meeting with John McDonagh this evening, and I can tell him this doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Rupert assured Galvin. “I met McKevitt, and I liked what I saw, and he asked me to do a job and make all this happen, and so, if anything, this is my fault.” Rupert got up, said his goodbyes to Galvin and Reilly, and strolled a few blocks and a world away to the Kevin St. James Bar, further up 8th Avenue. Owner Kevin O’Lunney was the son of Hugh O’Lunney, whose Times Square pub was a regular gathering spot for Rupert and his pro-IRA targets. Kevin St. James bar catered to a younger clientele. But it was an old war horse Rupert met there that night. John McDonagh may have spent summers on the family farm in County Donegal on Ireland’s northwest coast. But he speaks with a New York accent so thick you could slice it. In recent years, McDonagh used that voice as a “cabdivist” taxi driver, railing against the surge pricing he says gouges his cab profits. But 25 years ago, McDonagh deployed his considerable voice to rail against the “sell-out” Irish willing to cut deals with the Brits - on his still-running weekly “Radio Free Eireann” show on WBAI. McDonagh was very suspicious of the towering protestant with no Irish blood who professed such deep concern about British oppression of the Irish and spoke so openly about acquiring arms for the struggle. “When he came to New York, he met with me at a couple of places, and he was telling me, ‘Yeah, I'm going to use the money to buy weapons,’” McDonagh recalls. “‘We have an army in the field.’ And I was like, looking at him. I didn't think he was FBI because I thought he was even too crazy. Now, I was in the American Army, right? This is crazy talk: ‘We're gonna arm an army in the field?!?’” The IRA supporters Rupert had been cozying up to in Ireland like Joe O’Neill would not even let the word “bomb” cross their lips, making a motion with their hands instead of saying the word – a caution against being caught on a mole’s tape. Rupert had no such inhibitions against loudly promising in these pubs to bring weapons to the IRA. It wasn’t like the FBI was going to arrest him. “I kept thinking: Who the fuck is this guy telling me that, ‘I need to get the money so I can buy equipment,’ and I'm looking at him, and I said: This guy is crazy,” McDonagh said. “I've been in the Republican movement most of my adult life. No one ever talked like he did.” There weren’t many patrons at the Kevin St. James Bar that night, and both men recalled their argument grew louder as Rupert made the case for The Switch, and McDonagh said, No way – he was not abandoning the Continuity IRA, Republican Sinn Fein leader Ruari O’Braidaigh, and Rupert’s old friend Joe O’Neill. McDonagh had watched enough schisms over the years between Irish rebels and die-hards refusing compromise. The British learned over centuries to get the Irish fighting each other about which faction hates the Brits more for centuries of oppression. “I've been involved with the movement long enough to know there's always a ton of splits,” McDonagh said. “There's always a new organization that's coming up. ‘Oh, you're not hardcore enough.’ ‘You don't kill enough.’ There's always somebody or some group that's going to do more than what you're doing because, whatever organization you're with, it's never doing enough. And I've seen it all before.” McDonagh loudly and forcefully told Rupert in no uncertain terms that night that he was not splitting with the guys who brought him to the dance. But at other pubs – at O’Lunney’s, Rocky Sullivan’s, Paddy Reilly’s, Rory Dolans, the Kinsale Club, McSorley's Old Ale House, Rupert met with and often closed the deal with American IRA dissident supporters. At a meeting at Connolly’s Pub on 47th Street, a compromise structure was approved for the Irish Freedom Committee, giving McDonagh a leadership position and naming Rupert’s Chicago colleague Deirdre Fennessey as secretary. Rupert helpfully volunteered to tape-record every IFC meeting so he could bring a copy back to Fennessy in Chicago, where she could type up the minutes. Rupert did not mention that he would be dropping a copy of the tape at the FBI’s Chicago office. Why the FBI’s sudden interest in Northern Ireland? In 1983, 241 American service members were killed by suicide bombers in Beirut. The U.S. sought intelligence from Britain, which had an established network in the Middle East. In return, British authorities asked for U.S. help in stopping the flow of money and support from Irish-Americans to the IRA. The FBI tasked agent Ed Buckley with infiltrating IRA support networks. After a few spectacular blunders – including a mole who blew his cover – Buckley recruited Rupert, who delivered beyond anyone’s expectations. Rupert’s chance encounter with Linda Vaughn and her IRA-involved friends had finally given him the opening to transform himself from an oversized underachiever to an actual international spy. Rupert worked his way up to becoming one of McKevitt’s most trusted right-hand men, taking McKevitt’s orders to bring money, weapons, and computer technology from the U.S. to Ireland. Rupert had to make excuses for the militants about why he couldn’t smuggle weapons on his flights from the U.S. to Ireland. Rupert got McKevitt to let his guard down. He told McKevitt he was a fellow smuggler, running truckloads of weed across the Mexican border. Rupert’s brother, Dale, was serving 10 months in a Florida prison for smuggling a ton of marijuana in a rig Rupert told McKevitt was his. McKevitt told Rupert he used to smuggle himself out of Ireland in the bed of a truck to get to Europe and Africa to buy weapons from former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Believing Rupert’s smuggling stories, McKevitt dispatched Rupert to El Paso, Texas, to scout options for smuggling weapons across the border through Mexico to Ireland – or smuggling McKevitt himself from Mexico into the U.S., even though McKevitt was on the State Department's suspected terrorist list. This was serious business with implications for both Ireland’s future and U.S. border security. Rupert succeeded in bringing the lion’s share of Irish-American dissident supporters over from Continuity IRA to the Real IRA, which won him even more admiration and trust from McKevitt. The envelopes of cash didn’t hurt either. McKevitt invited Rupert into secret army council meetings. He welcomed Rupert into his home to work on his computer, on which Rupert installed software supplied by MI5. Rupert and his wife, Maureen, went to dinner with McKevitt and his wife, Bernadette. “I liked him. He liked me. We'd probably be best of friends today had he not been a mass murderer and I not been a British agent,” Rupert quipped. The friendship came to an abrupt halt in 2001 when Irish police arrested McKevitt, charged him with directing terrorism, and announced Rupert would be the main witness against him. All those IRA supporters Rupert courted in Irish-American pubs turned on him. McDonagh blasted him as a “rat bastard” on his radio show. They hammered Rupert for all his bankruptcies, failed businesses, and divorces, and called him a criminal. During that time, my Chicago Sun-Times colleague Bob Herguth and I were meeting with Rupert in diners not unlike Monk’s on Seinfeld and recording Rupert’s recollections of his 7-year odyssey. The tapes nearly landed us in jail when we balked at handing them over to the FBI and McKevitt’s lawyers. Many of Rupert’s best stories from those tapes and interviews with some of the key players he interacted with can now be heard on our 12-episode podcast, The Rebel Kind, which won the Signal, Green Eyeshade, and Sunshine State journalism awards last year. When Rupert took the stand against McKevitt in Dublin, McKevitt’s lawyers tried to hammer him with all those stories Rupert told McKevitt about his alleged illegal activity. What about his brother’s arrest, they asked. Rupert laughed and testified he had nothing to do with ¨ “I was sorry he got caught,” Rupert said. “He was 55 years old and should have known better.” McKevitt’s lawyers found no arrest records for Rupert. What about all the bankruptcies and divorces? They hammered him. What about all the failed trucking companies? “You’ve been a failure your whole life, haven’t you?” McKevitt’s lawyer pressed him. “I guess you’re right,” Rupert said. “But I was pretty good at this.” Rupert’s closeness to McKevitt helped convince the judges of Ireland’s Special Criminal Court to convict McKevitt of directing terrorism based on Rupert’s very detailed testimony about McKevitt’s operations. They sentenced McKevitt to 20 years in prison. The “Real IRA” crumbled without McKevitt’s leadership. The fragile Irish Peace Process has staggered forward and has transformed life in Northern Ireland over the past 25 years. If a majority of voters decide they want to reunify, Britain will let go, and both parts of the island can be “A Nation Once Again.” A few final “switches:” Rupert switched up from lobbyist Linda Vaughn to his 4th and current wife of 30 years, Maureen, who proved a valuable asset in his spywork in Ireland. And he managed to transform himself from a sometimes-bankrupt trucker to a successful international spy who played a significant role in saving the Irish peace process. Rupert was quietly awarded the FBI’s highest civilian honor, the Louis E. Peters Award, in recognition of his success.McKevitt was released from prison after 15 years and died five years later of cancer. Most of the $10 million the American and British governments paid Rupert for his spy work over the years is gone. He lives a modest life somewhere in the United States, even driving an Uber for a while. He still looks over his shoulder for McKevitt sympathizers. Former Chicago Sun-Times reporter Abdon Pallasch is co-host of the 12-episode podcast The Rebel Kind and communications director for the Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza. About the author: Abdon Pallasch worked as a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Tampa Tribune, among other news outlets. He wrote the original stories that led to R. Kelly's federal convictions for exploiting young women. His podcast, Underbelly: The Rebel Kind, has won journalism awards around the country.

by Travis P. Wagner, Ph.D. and Peter Meyerhof, Ph.D. Copyright ©2026 All rights reserved by the authors After America declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, New York City politician Jonathan D. Stevenson proposed forming a volunteer regiment of New Yorkers. He contacted President James K. Polk to offer his services, and Polk accepted. In June, the 7th New York Regiment of Volunteers, also known as Stevenson’s Regiment, was officially recognized by the War Department. During New York City's difficult economic times, Stevenson primarily recruited soldiers in Lower Manhattan, particularly around Broadway and the Bowery. As a result, part-time and amateur actors and entertainers were among his recruits. The regiment, with 660 soldiers and officers, was ordered to the Mexican province of Alta California. In March 1847, Colonel Stevenson and his three transport ships arrived in San Francisco Bay. With ample free time and eagerness for entertainment, these soldiers brought New York City-style entertainment from the antebellum era to their posts across Alta California. Until the summer of 1847, California had not experienced the raucous, working-class theater popular in New York City, with its mix of melodrama, farce, comedy, music, and active audience participation. That is when the first American theater opened for its inaugural night of entertainment in Sonoma, California.[1] While the exact date of the first organized commercial American theatrical performance in Sonoma is uncertain, we know it occurred during the summer of 1847. As noted in the April 14, 1855, issue of The Golden Era, and based upon an interview with one of the former participants, “At Sonoma, Company C of the N. Y. Regiment, which was stationed there early in 1847, organized a dramatic club in the summer of that year, the object at first being the amusement of the actors and their comrades in arms.” From attainable accounts, Sonoma appears to have taken the lead in the early institution of theatrical amusements in Alta California. [2] Despite the frequently repeated claim that Monterey hosted “the First Theater in California,” the available evidence does not support this. Following Sonoma’s lead, Santa Barbara was the first to follow in August 1847. It was in the spring of 1848 when both Monterey and Los Angeles first organized theatrical performances.[3] The common denominator in these four early pioneer theaters was the soldiers of the New York Volunteers.[4] NEW YORK’S ANTEBELLUM THEATER In antebellum urban America, going to the theater was immensely popular, though it was a distinctly different experience from what it is today.[5] Prior to 1830, New York City theatrical performances generally focused on English dramas and comedies, often with English actors. They played at elite theaters designed for upper-class men; few women attended.[6] This began to change after 1830, with a purposeful shift to appeal to a wider audience, especially through productions of English melodramas that became enormously popular among the working class, and these productions began to feature American actors.[7] Melodramas were the most popular type of play during the antebellum period and throughout the 19th Century. The name comes from “music drama,” in which short musical passages were used throughout a play to increase the emotional impact. Melodramas were characterized by a simple moral story with clearly defined stereotypical good-versus-evil characters and always concluded happily. They appealed to working-class audiences who were highly engaged, applauding the heroes, booing the villains, and commiserating with the victims, while reacting boisterously to the actors' mistakes.[8] An important element in the success of melodramas was their visual spectacle and musical appeal, which transcended language barriers, thereby expanding their appeal to many new immigrants.[9] In 1830, New York City was already the nation’s most populous city, but by 1850 its population had increased by another 154 percent. It was the nation’s busiest port and entry point for most immigrants. In the 1840s and 1850s, two-thirds of all immigrants, 60 percent male, arrived in New York with between 200,000 and 400,000 arriving every year.[10] The vast majority of immigrants were Irish and German. The Irish were seeking refuge from the destitution caused by the potato famine. Germans were escaping political unrest and declining economic prospects.[11] Arriving penniless, or nearly so, the new immigrants were willing to work for low wages, thereby flooding the local labor market with unskilled and semi-skilled workers.[12] In New York City, the unprecedented population growth transformed and greatly expanded the nascent working class. The result was greater demand for working-class forms of amusement.[13] This was especially true in the Bowery area, which became New York City’s working-class entertainment center abounding with cheap theaters, dance halls, and burlesques. For a typical night’s entertainment, doors opened at 7:00, with the curtain up at 7:30, and the night’s performances, which typically included a farce, a two-act romantic drama, a melodrama, and a pantomime, concluding around midnight, with interludes between the performances filled with song and dance.[14] The Bowery Theatre, the renowned working-class theater, rebuilt multiple times after fires, reopened on August 4, 1845, with a capacity of 4,000.[15] The theater has now established its preeminence in making theater accessible to a broader spectrum of society.[16] The success of the Bowery Theatre inspired the Chatham Garden Theatre and Olympic Theatre to become working-class theaters.[17] Similarly, Niblo’s Garden pivoted toward a working-class audience. Women were not allowed unless accompanied by a male, thereby encouraging couples and discouraging bad behavior.[18] Minstrel acts, primarily short burlesques featuring white comics and musicians in blackface performing racial stereotypes of the day, were also becoming popular at theaters in the 1840s. The first minstrel show in New York appeared at the Chatham Theatre, soon followed by the Christy Minstrels, appearing regularly at Lower Manhattan’s Mechanics’ Hall.[19] The interior of Niblo’s Garden in New York City, circa 1852. Niblo’s was a typical working-class-focused theater. FORMATION OF THE NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS The 7th Regiment of New York Volunteers, later renamed the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers, was arguably the most unique army unit in American history.[20] During his 1844 presidential campaign, James K. Polk had clearly stated his intent to acquire Alta California (in addition to the Oregon Territory) for the United States. As President, Polk was unsuccessful in purchasing the Mexican provinces of Alta California and Nuevo Mexico, so he decided to take California by force. Following America’s declaration of war against Mexico on May 13, 1846, President Polk met with Jonathan D. Stevenson, a New York City politician and colonel in the New York State Militia. Their discussion focused on forming a volunteer regiment with a special mission: its citizen-soldiers would be recruited specifically to conquer, occupy, and colonize the Mexican Province of Alta California. To foster the regiment’s commitment and success in colonizing California, no transportation would be provided for their return after the war. The regiment’s creation became official on June 26, 1846.[21] It was to consist of 10 companies, with 77 in each. In July 1846, Stevenson opened seven recruiting offices in New York City and three offices in Albany and Chenango County, New York. For the New York City-based companies, recruitment offices were opened in Lower Manhattan, primarily on the Lower East Side. Company A’s office was at Stoneall's Hotel at 142 Fulton Street and Company B’s office was at Harmony Hall, 17 Centre Street. One of the recruiting offices for Company C was at 23 Ann Street, one-half block from Broadway. Company D had two offices in the Broadway area; one at Lafayette Hall, opposite Niblo's Garden on Broadway, and at the American Hall at the corner of Broadway and Grand. Recruiting for Company E was at the old Seventh Ward Democratic headquarters on Madison Street. Company F’s recruitment location was at the White Street Arsenal between White Street, Elm Place, and Center and Franklin Streets.[22] The majority of recruits were mustered into the regiment on August 1, 1846, at Governor’s Island, New York.[23] The original goal was to depart for San Francisco by August 1, which meant more than 770 men had to be quickly recruited, pass rudimentary medical examinations, mustered in, equipped, organized, and trained.[24] Because it was primarily a colonizing regiment, recruitment originally focused on unmarried men, including farmers, mechanics, carpenters, tailors, and other tradesmen with relevant skills critical to supporting and sustaining post-war American settlements. During the summer of 1846, New York City still faced volatile prices, deflation, and high unemployment as it attempted to recover from the economic turbulence initiated by the financial crisis of 1837 and the panic of 1839. Moreover, depressed wages and unemployment were exacerbated by the major influx of immigrants, resulting in increased competition for jobs.[25] For example, in 1836, cabinet makers made $15 per month; by 1846, the monthly wage had dropped to $8.00.[26] The increased urbanization, high unemployment, overcrowding, and discrimination against immigrants, especially Irish Catholics, provided a fertile recruiting opportunity for would-be adventurers and those seeking a new life. Free passage to California and steady pay appealed to those with wanderlust or hoping to gain a new start where there was less competition and, for some, less discrimination. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start anew was made even more attractive by recruiting offices that initially published notices stating that, after the war, veterans would receive 320 acres of land in California for settlement, though this proved erroneous.[27] However, given the regiment’s tight deadline and the exotic, unfamiliar destination of California, recruiting skilled and semi-skilled soldiers was only marginally successful. As a result, recruitment became open to just about any male over 18. Attracting men of good habits became a matter of chance.[28] Following the initial mustering in, many new recruits deserted as they realized what soldiering actually entailed. Others were discharged for a variety of health and legal reasons, such as being underage. The slowdown in recruitment and logistical demands delayed the scheduled departure until September 26. Because most of the recruiting occurred in Lower Manhattan, it was not surprising that part-time and amateur actors and entertainers were among those who enlisted.[29] A contributing factor in these men enlisting was that theaters went dark during the summer, and thus, no employment opportunities would be available again until winter.[30]The regiment was soon filled with men of all classes (except the highly wealthy), accompanied by a few wives who could serve as paid laundresses and hospital matrons.[31] THEATER AT SEA The bulk of the regiment departed New York Harbor for San Francisco Bay on September 25, 1846.[32] The army had leased three transport ships for the journey: Susan Drew, Thomas H. Perkins, and Loo Choo. Sailing an average of 165 days around Cape Horn with stops in Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso, the 15,000-mile trip was long and arduous. Each ship carried about 250 soldiers, the crew, and a few women.[33] The crowded ships were also packed with materiel and supplies to sustain the regiment for at least one year, as there were no military supply depots in Alta California. Given the crowded conditions and long days and nights for the soldiers on board, entertainment became an enjoyable diversion. The country’s first sea-based theaters were aboard the three transport ships as actors and musicians entertained their fellow passengers with theatrical and musical performances.[34] The Thomas H. Perkins transported Companies B, F, G, and part of Company E, as well as Col. Stevenson, the regimental staff, and the all-important regimental band that serenaded the other passengers with multiple band concerts.[35] As with the other ships, soldiers on board the Thomas H. Perkins soon organized a theatrical company. Pvt. William H. Maxwell of Company B, an amateur actor, had brought a box of playbooks and started the “Ocean Theater.”[36] Lt. E. Gold Buffam of Company B led the charge to perform the farce, “Raising the Wind,” along with fellow soldiers Pvt. Cornelius V. H. Lee, Stephen Carr, and Thomas Gannon of Company F, as well as Pvt. Thomas Carnes, and Pvt. Alfred A. Green of Company B. The actors also presented their shipboard version of “The Golden Farmer” that included Sgt. Jim Stayton of Company B. Because of its popularity among the enlisted soldiers, there were multiple performances of the farce, “Bombastes Furioso.”[37] Scenes from Shakespeare were also popular. As noted by Pvt. James Lynch, “like all amateur companies, they undertook Shakespeare’s greatest plays—and murdered them. The more the murder, the more the audience, who were all deadheads [non-paying audience members], enjoyed the sport.”[38] Also on board were a group of soldiers who performed as a minstrel troupe on the ship and on shore while in port at Rio de Janeiro.[39] The Loo Choo carried Companies A, C, K, and part of Company E, which was split up evenly among the three ships. On board the Loo Choo, in spite of widespread and constant sea sickness, amateur actors donned outlandish costumes to reenact parts of Shakespearean tragedies.[40] Given the challenges of Shakespeare, especially to amateur actors, the tragedies were more likely, unintentionally or not, amusing diversions. The Susan Drew brought Companies D, H, I, and also part of Company E. On Christmas Day 1846, just south of Cape Horn, some male actors gave a performance that included two female characters. Their clothing was borrowed from the soldiers’ wives. Because of intense swells, they had to stretch ropes across the deck during the performance to keep the actors from falling overboard.[41] On New Year's Eve 1846, there was a performance of “Bombastes Furioso,” subtitled "A Burlesque Tragic Opera.” This popular farce, written in 1810, contained comic songs and dialogue that satirized bombastic military posturing, thereby giving enlisted soldiers a coy chance to laugh at their officers, especially during the play’s final moments, when nearly all the main characters die as a result of each other’s vanity and stupidity.[42] And, on January 9, the curtain was raised on the crudely constructed stage as the ship was treated to a choral concert singing “A Nice Young Man,” “A Yankee Ship and a Yankee Crew,” and “Erin is My Home.”[43] CALIFORNIA HO! All three ships entered San Francisco Bay and disembarked at its recently renamed settlement, San Francisco, in March 1847. Within a week of arriving, the regiment’s ten companies dispersed to their respective postings.[44] Company C, commanded by Captain John E. Brackett with a complement of 67 soldiers, a few soldiers’ wives, and possibly a few children, departed San Francisco on April 3, 1847, and arrived by boat the following day at Sonoma’s embarcadero. After a three-mile march, they arrived at their new post.[45] Sonoma, founded in 1834 as a Mexican garrison town, was the northernmost pueblo of Alta California and home to a former mission, Mission San Francisco Solano, the last of the twenty-one missions built in California. Sonoma also contained the former Mexican Army barracks built in 1839-1841. The original Mexican garrison was intended to discourage the Russians at nearby Fort Ross and Bodega Bay from straying further into Mexican territory. Most of the unmarried troops of Company C were housed in the barracks, which the local former Mexican military commander, Mariano G. Vallejo, had offered the company free of charge.[46] When the New York Volunteers arrived in Sonoma, the town’s population was clustered primarily around the central public plaza. In addition to the small number of military, commercial, and religious buildings, there were an estimated 24 houses and only 260 residents in 1848.[47] There was a Catholic church in Sonoma, but as late as 1850, there was still no Protestant church. THEATER OPENS IN SONOMA Prior to the arrival of the New York Volunteers, the Treaty of Cahuenga had been signed on January 13, 1847, ending hostilities in Alta California. Unlike some of their fellow New York volunteer companies, which were engaged in military action in Baja California, Company C in Sonoma had little to do. Their daily routine was dull, consisting of seemingly never-ending roll calls, drills, dress parades, and occasional work duties.[48] Occasional threats of hostilities, real or perceived, from indigenous people maintained a minimal level of military excitement. While New York City had offered a multitude of entertainment opportunities, the small pueblo of Sonoma had little to offer the soldiers of Company C. There were one or two rooming houses and drinking establishments incorporating a billiard room. Occasionally, there was a fandango, but the acute shortage of single young women and general lack of entertainment dampened the soldiers’ mood. It soon became apparent to Company C that they had everything needed to rectify this situation and continue creating their own entertainment as they had done on their ocean voyage to California. A few of the actors organized a dramatic club in early 1847. The core theatrical troupe included Pvt. William Huefner, Pvt. David Norris, who would soon be elected 2nd lieutenant, and Pvt. Lysander Washburn.[49] In New York, William Huefner, 21, from Germany, had been an occasional actor, David Norris, 24, had been an amateur actor and printer, while Lysander Washburn, 19, from Massachusetts, was a newfound acting talent. A few area residents, including Alexander J. Cox, William Scott, W. E. Weaver, W. E. Taylor, J. Brown, and R. Rykeman, played male characters, while Johny Rowe and C. Cady specialized in impersonating female characters. Women were not part of the troupe as there were very few, and the Anglo women in the area were strongly discouraged by their husbands from performing with the young soldiers.[50] One of the soldiers had brought some plays published by Turner’s Dramatic Library of Acting Plays.[51]Turner’s publications noted that the “plays were correctly printed from the most approved acting copy with a description of the costume, cast of the characters, entrances and exits, relative positions and the whole of the stage business to which are added properties and directions as now performed in the principal theaters.”[52] Initially, the troupe sought to amuse themselves and their comrades, but as their entertainment became popular throughout the town, demand soon surfaced for a much broader audience. This was no doubt coupled with the realization of the economic potential to augment their meager salaries.[53] The troupe’s first location for their amusements was facetiously called “Jim Smith’s Dramatic Adobe,” described as an unused adobe storage building converted into a stage.[54] The source of the humorous moniker is unknown, as there was no Jim Smith stationed or living in Sonoma in 1847. However, there was a Pvt. James M. Smith, who was a member of Company K, on the same ship, the Loo Choo, as Company C, and stationed in nearby San Francisco, was in constant contact with the post at Sonoma. To identify the theater, a small lantern was hung over the entrance door. The troupe quickly comprehended the economic opportunity and charged admission: 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children with no free admissions. Given that the soldiers earned only $7 per month, minus 75 cents in obligatory monthly laundress fees, it was more than a day’s pay, a comparatively expensive night of entertainment. During opening night, a group of soldiers decried the new admission policy and, believing they were intimate friends of the acting troupe and deserved preferential treatment, they forced their way into the theater, ignoring the admission fee, and threatened to demolish the theater. Order was soon restored.[55] Jim Smith’s Dramatic Adobe very soon proved inadequate to accommodate the growing audience as the appeal of Sonoma’s embryonic theater quickly expanded beyond the pueblo’s small population. Demand was also fueled by theater-deprived San Francisco, which would not have its own theater until June 1849.[56] William A. Leidesdorff, who started a steamship operation to haul lumber from Bodega Bay to San Francisco, also ran steamship passenger service from San Francisco to Sonoma in 1847. San Franciscans were soon attending Sonoma’s theatrical productions.[57] The 37-foot Russian-built paddle-wheel steamer was soon joined by a competitor, the sloop Stockton, which also began carrying passengers between Sonoma and San Francisco in November 1847.[58] To accommodate the theater’s growing audience and capitalize on patrons’ willingness to pay, the troupe turned to Don Salvador Vallejo to convert a large room in his unfinished single-level adobe into a theater. This adobe was located on the southwest corner of First Street West and Spain Street. Salvador Vallejo, the brother of Mariano G. Vallejo, was a former Mexican Army Captain in Sonoma. Although construction of his building had begun sometime after 1843, the Bear Flag Revolt had halted progress. On June 14, 1846, Americans seized control of the town as part of the Bear Flag Revolt in an attempt to overthrow the government of Alta California. Salvador and Mariano Vallejo and two others were taken to Sutter’s Fort and imprisoned for six weeks. However, in 1847, Salvador Vallejo agreed to host the theater, offering the space rent-free and providing the lumber to construct it within his building.[59] The troupe needed to name their new theater and chose “The Colonnade,” inspired in part by the many columns on the building's exterior. They likely continued their penchant for ironic humor and hyperbole in name selection by recalling Colonnade Row, one of New York’s first luxury developments located at 428-34 Lafayette Street. Built in 1830-31, the opulent structure comprised nine dramatic marble rowhouses with prominent columns and housed notable residents such as the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Roosevelts. Sonoma, and its new theater, were decidedly not opulent. This circa 1877 photo shows Salvador Vallejo’s former adobe in Sonoma, which was home to the Colonnade Theater in 1847-48. The theater was in the two-story building to the left, recognizable by its prominent columns. When the theater was there, the adobe had only a single story; a second story was added later in 1850-51. With the new theater’s capacity greatly expanded, it could now accommodate 200 patrons. Sonoma’s troupe readied their new venue by installing rough-hewn benches for seating and adding a few box seats along the sides. The bare walls of the theater were decorated with tree branches and vines, and colorful blankets were used as the stage curtain.[60] Lilburn Boggs, the Sonoma district alcalde and former governor of Missouri, had a private box outfitted specifically for him and his guests.[61] Although the precise date of the Colonnade Theater’s inaugural performance has not been established, it occurred sometime in the summer of 1847.[62] Adopting the custom of the day, the Colonnade presented an evening full of entertainment with music provided by Andreas Hoeppner on piano and occasionally a few strolling fiddlers.[63]Hoeppner, a German immigrant, had been given several square miles of land in Sonoma Valley by Mariano G. Vallejo in exchange for teaching piano to his immediate family on a piano forte, one of the first brought to California back in March 1843.[64] Despite multiple printers among the soldiers, there were only two printing presses in California at the time, both in San Francisco. Considering the cost and time involved in printing, it was decided to write the notices by hand.[65] The playbills for the first performance were posted around town with the following announcement:[66] SONOMA THEATRE 1st. Dance ………………“Cachucha” 2nd. Drama………………“The Golden Farmer” 3rd. ……………………….Comic Song 4th. Farce …………………“The Omnibus” La Cachucha was a balletized Spanish dance first performed as a solo by Fanny Elssler at the Paris Opera in 1836.[67] She later popularized it in Rossini's opera La Donna del Lago. In the U.S., its popularity was cemented with a circa 1840 Currier & Ives lithograph of Fanny Elssler titled, “In the Favorite Dance La Cachucha.” The actor-soldiers most likely would have seen the dance performed in New York. It is not known who performed La Cachucha in Sonoma, but it was likely one of the male actors, likely for comic relief. A circa 1840 lithograph of Fanny Elssler and La Cachucha. The performance in Sonoma was a comedic interpretation by soldiers likely donning women’s clothing. The Golden Farmer; or the Last Crime, was a two-act domestic drama written in 1832 by Benjamin Webster with a version contained in Turner’s Dramatic Library of Acting Plays.[68] This was one of the most popular melodramas of its time. The plot is based on a true event involving the famous highwayman and robber William Davies, known as the “Golden Farmer” because he paid debts with gold coins to prevent his plunder from being traced. His Robin Hood-like status was cemented as some of his plunder was placed under the doors of the local poor. In Webster’s treatment, a highwayman and burglar became an honest and respected farmer through his ill-gotten gains. The farmer’s past catches up when avarice and blackmail tempt him to commit one more crime. In the last scene, he is tragically sentenced to hang. In Sonoma, the production included William Huefner, who played the farmer, William Scott, who played Jemmy Twitcher, and Lysander Washburn, who played Louisa, the farmer’s daughter, as he was reported to have “a smooth face.” Soldiers portrayed all three female roles: Elizabeth, the farmer’s wife; Louisa, the farmer’s daughter; and Mrs. Hammer.[69] The Omnibus, or A Convenient Distance, was a one-act farce written in the 1830s. As there are two versions of the play, it is unclear which version was performed in Sonoma. One version was issued as number 30 of Turner's Dramatic Library of Acting Plays, which lists Isaac Pocock as the author, based on an adaptation of Richard J. Raymond's farce Cherry Bounce, A Farsetta in One Act.[70] Another version is an adaptation by the famous Irish actor and playwright Tyrone Power.[71] The 40-minute-long production is about a family and their blundering, blockheaded servant on their farm. The theater was soon in full operation with weekly performances that included drama, farces, pantomimes, singing, dancing, and music.[72] The fame and reputation of Sonoma’s theater spread throughout the region, as noted in the April 19, 1848, issue of the Californian printed in San Francisco.[73] “THEATRE AT SONOMA.—An amateur Thespian club has been organized in the flourishing town of Sonoma, which performs weekly to crowded audiences. We understand good taste is displayed in the management, selection of plays, scenery, decorations, costumes, &c, and that their miniature theatre in the Colonnade building, on the public plaza, is not only a great source of amusement to the citizens, but an ornament to the town. They perform on Saturday evenings, and their acting is as bueno as could be expected. Any of our citizens visiting Sonoma will no doubt be amused if they give them a call.” SONOMA’S THEATER GOES DARK On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall found small gold nuggets in the tailrace of the sawmill on the American River that he was building for John Sutter. With this initial discovery, the extent of the gold was unclear, but the magnitude soon dramatically changed California and Sonoma. While rumors slowly trickled out about gold, the first public announcement of the discovery of gold was made on March 15, 1848, followed by a flood of articles about gold discoveries in California’s only two newspapers, the Californian and the California Star.[74] One of the earliest Sonomans to head for the goldfields in the spring of 1848 was Nicholas Carriger. He met with immediate success and was reputed to be the first individual to return to Sonoma with gold just 11 days later. He possessed several pounds of gold dust and nuggets worth $16 per ounce – enough to purchase over 1,000 acres of land in Sonoma Valley. To the soldiers of Company C and to the townspeople of Sonoma, this must have been a jaw-dropping moment.[75] On May 3, 1848, orders were issued for Company C to leave on the bark Anita for Monterey, where it would join two other companies and then sail to San Jose, near Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, for occupation duty.[76]While rumors of peace with Mexico were circulating as early as September 1847, such reports became more frequent in the spring of 1848.[77] As was to be expected, the order to head to Mexico was a devastating event for the soldiers. Because a peace treaty would end their enlistment, the last thing the soldiers wanted was to move far from the gold, as they were garrisoned on a favored land route to and from the gold fields, meaning they would be among the first Americans to access the gold. Instead, they were about to be shipped far away with no return date and the potential for military action. Predictably, prior to Company C’s departure on June 10, 1848, massive desertions occurred with 31 of the soldiers in Company C, nearly one-half, leaving for the gold fields between June 1 and June 9.[78] This included three members of the acting troupe, although one was caught and imprisoned in San Francisco along with nine fellow deserters. These mass desertions rendered the company militarily useless. Consequently, soon after reaching Monterey, they were ordered to return to Sonoma, arriving back on July 15, 1848. But just four days later, on July 19, they were ordered to replace Company H at the Presidio in San Francisco and arrived on August 5. That same day, Company H, led by Capt. John B. Frisbie arrived in Sonoma. These men had been recruited in Albany, New York, and had been stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco since March 1847.[79] Company C’s departure was sincerely regretted by the townspeople of Sonoma, not only because of the loss of the theater, but because the soldiers of Company C had provided them with a source of off-duty labor and because of “their gentlemanly and orderly deportment individually and collectively.” Sonoma was experiencing major changes. It was reported that, “Not a mechanic or laboring man can be obtained in town, and most of our male citizens have ‘gone up’ to the Sierra Nevada, and are now enjoying ‘golden moments’.”[80] On August 4, 1848, the 1st New York Volunteers received official news of the peace treaty, and on August 10, they were ordered to disband, and the soldiers mustered out.[81] Company C and its 46 remaining soldiers (some being recently apprehended deserters) mustered out of the service in San Francisco on August 15, 1848. They were followed by Company H, which left Sonoma to be mustered out in San Francisco ten days later.[82] With no actors, the theater officially went dark. As noted in the August 14, 1848, issue of the Californian:[83] “The Colonnade Theatre, at this place, has closed for the season." It was well attended, however, from the time the Thespians made their debut till they made their exit. The "Golden Farmer," the "Omnibus," and a Russian comedy called "Feodora,"[84] (translated from the German of Kotzbue, by Mr. F. Linz, of Sonoma,) were their last attractions.” THEATER RETURNS TO SONOMA California’s winter rains made traveling to and within the gold fields extremely difficult, and placer mining became dangerous due to high river levels. As there were few miners in the goldfields in 1848, miners could safely leave their claims and over-winter in California’s few towns. The return of some of the former soldiers, including their former commander, John E. Brackett, to Sonoma in late fall, meant that theater was possible again. Commencing on Thursday, November 30, 1848, Sonoma was once again blessed with the production of the Golden Farmer interspersed with dancing and an “Ethiopian Band” to conclude the evening.[85] The actors obviously felt quite confident performing their old standby, The Golden Farmer, with minimal rehearsal. The “Ethiopian Band” referred to a minstrel performance in black-face with banjo and fiddle music associated with African Americans in the South. The reassembled acting troupe found a new location in the 40 by 25 foot upstairs sala of Mariano G. Vallejo’s house, La Casa Grande, which had been the site of many fandangos in the past.83 Built in 1836, the house was the town’s most imposing building. It included a three-story observation tower that faced south across the Plaza and down the main street, Calle Principale, to the embarcadero on Sonoma Creek. This 1851 drawing depicts Mariano G. Vallejo’s La Casa Grande, the third location of Sonoma’s theater during the winter of 1848-49. The theater was on the second floor of the building to the right of the observation tower. To the right of La Casa Grande is the soldiers’ barracks, which still stands. With the town’s population reinforced by wintering miners, the theater became popular once again. Lilburn Boggs and Jacob Leese, Vallejo’s brother-in-law, became patrons of the theater. In mid-December, even the Californio visitors Antonio Franco Coronel and Juan Padilla enjoyed an evening at the Sonoma theater.[86] Performances continued through the spring of 1849 with productions of the Lady of Lyons, Robert Macaire, Othello, and other Shakespearean plays. The actors constituting the newest acting troupe included former soldiers of Company C (Alexander J. Cox, Edward McCarthy, William Scott, William E. Weaver, and Lysander Washburn), and were now enlarged by former soldiers from Companies E and F, previously stationed in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, respectively, as well as by a few volunteers from Sonoma’s civilian population. Even Col. Victor Prudhon, who was General Vallejo’s longtime secretary and once a prisoner of the Bear Flaggers, enthusiastically took lead roles in Shakespearean plays such as Othello. The primary instrumental accompaniment continued to be AndreasHoeppner on the piano and a few fiddlers. As the influx of gold was seemingly plentiful and costs inflated, the price of admission ballooned to $3.00. It was reported that, “As much amusement, perhaps, was derived from the blunders of many of those unskilled players, as from the real cleverness of others. A large amount of the shortcomings might be traced to the free use of the ardent[spirits], the dramatic taste then so prevalent among the volunteer soldiery never having conquered their spirituous proclivities.”[87] The theater in Sonoma diminished after 1849. Although Sonoma was on one of the two land routes to the goldfields, steamship service from San Francisco to Benicia and Sacramento began in October 1849, bypassing Sonoma and reducing its commercial importance, while San Francisco boomed in population and importance.[88] Sonomans had to travel farther to experience theater. There were at least seven theaters in San Francisco by 1856 staffed with professional actors. The largest and most opulent were the Metropolitan Theatre on Montgomery Street and the fashionable Maguire’s Opera House on Washington Street. Female actresses were now becoming more acceptable. And playbills were posted in Sonoma that advertised plays in San Francisco. The performers of Sonoma’s first theater moved on, too. Most of the core troupe initially moved back to the mines or to more exciting communities with greater economic opportunities. Johny Rowe, who had specialized in female roles in Sonoma, became famous a few years later in Hawaii, where he was known for his imitation of Lola Montez and her risqué spider dance. William Huefner moved to Sacramento to continue acting.[89] David Norris moved to San Francisco to become the printer for the Alta California. Alexander J. Cox returned to Sonoma but focused on newspapers, publishing Sonoma’s first newspaper, the Sonoma Bulletin, in 1852, with his newspaper office in the Sonoma Barracks, where he had been stationed just a few years before. Cox moved away to publish the Napa Register in 1856, the Healdsburg Review in 1860, and the Mendocino Beacon in 1883. Lysander Washburn remained at Mokelumne Hill to mine while Edward McCarthy moved to Santa Barbara. The other former soldier-actors relocated to various places unknown. CONCLUSION In antebellum America, theater, especially working-class theater, became an important form of entertainment in the country’s urban centers. In 1846, a unique set of circumstances created an opportunity to bring predominantly amateur actors and entertainers to the California frontier, where they provided a mini version of New York City-style theater. The catalyst for this transcontinental theatrical experience was the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers recruited to serve as colonizers of Alta California. The formation of the regiment's bulk in Lower Manhattan during difficult economic times created an opportunity for actors and entertainers to enlist. Following their arrival in Alta California in April 1847, the soldiers settled into comparatively quiet pueblos, formed thespian clubs, and sought out usable spaces for their performances. While the first English-speaking theatrical performance was most likely in Sonoma, the New York soldiers also established a pioneer theater in Santa Barbara, followed by theaters in Los Angeles and Monterey. Following a short closure during the initial stages of the 1848 “internal” gold rush, the actors returned to Sonoma to restart the theater, but most of the actors returned to the gold fields or to California’s new commercial centers. This initial phase preceded the construction of commercially driven theaters in Sacramento and San Francisco, which employed professional actors. These artistically inclined pioneer settlers provided an important function in sustaining their brothers-in-arms, as well as others, with critical entertainment. Through the theater, these performers injected American, and especially New York culture, into California. In 1847, this “new” Yankee culture had a significant impact on the dominant social customs, norms, and perspectives of Alta California. However, their initial cultural influence was short-lived, as the impending massive gold-rush-fueled migration introduced a litany of new cultures, customs, and norms. About the authors: TRAVIS P. WAGNER, PhD, is a professor emeritus of the University of Southern Maine. He earned his Ph.D. at the George Washington University. He recently finished writing a book, Military Honor on Trial: The Saga of Joseph Hooker and George H. Derby, and is now working on the history of the 1st New York Volunteers. PETER MEYERHOF, PhD, is an independent historian who has researched many aspects of Northern California history. He is currently researching the history of the early Chinese in Sonoma Valley and completing a biography of Robert Semple, a Bear Flagger, newspaper publisher, and President of the 1849 California Constitutional Convention. Bibliography: [1] “The First Theater,” San Jose Pioneer, September 15, 1877, 2. [2] Guy J. Giffen, California Expedition: Stevenson’s Regiment of First New York Volunteers (Biobooks, 1951), 20-21. Stephen Ralph Buss, “The Military Theatre: Soldier-Actor Theatrical on the Frontier Plains” (PhD diss., Washington State University, 1982), 24-25. Charles Vernard Hume, “The Sacramento Theater 1849-1885” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1955), 37. (Hume erroneously states that the first performance was held in Vallejo, but the town was not established until 1850 by Gen. Mariano G. Vallejo, the founder, most prominent citizen, and largest landowner in the Sonoma District. Oral Sumner Coad and Edwin Mims, Pageant of America: A Pictorial History of the United States, ed. Ralph Henry Gabriel (Yale University Press, 1929), 175-185. [3] For Santa Barbara’s first performance, see Smith, History of the Theatre, 14-18. For Monterey, the dates of the first Anglo performance vary, ranging from 1848 to 1850. In 1846, a Spanish troupe performed “Adam and Eve” at the home of Rafael Gonzales. See Joseph E. Lawrence, “Drama on the Pacific–The First Theatricals in California,” The Golden Era, May 13, 1855. In September 1847, there was a Mexican performance of the Spanish play, Morayma. See the Californian, October 6, 1847. In F. Smith’s diary, a primary source, he describes the opening date of an Anglo performance in Monterey in the spring of 1848. See C. Adkins transcription of “F. Smith’s Diary,” 1970, Monterey State Historic Park Archives, Folder 36. Other sources for the dates at these respective locations include Lawrence, The Golden Era, May 13, 1855. John McHenry Hollingsworth, The Journal of Lieutenant John McHenry Hollingsworth: Of the First New York Volunteers (Stevenson's Regiment), September, 1846-August, 1849: Being a Recital of the Voyage of the Susan Drew to California; the Arrival of the Regiment in 1847; Its Military Movements and Adventures During 1847-1848-1849; Incidents of Daily Life, and Adventures of the Author in the Gold Mines, (California Historical Society, 1923). Andrew Gibb, "Wartime Collaboration: Theatrical Space and Power in Conquered Los Angeles," Theatre Symposium, vol. 24, no. 1 (2016): 64-75. George Rupert MacMinn, “Bijoux” and "Histrionic Temples.” The Theater of the Golden Era in California (The Caxon Printers, 1941). For Los Angeles, see Joseph E. Lawrence, “Drama on the Pacific–The First Theatricals in California,” The Golden Era, April 29, 1855. Sue Wolfer Earnest, “An Historical Study of the Growth of the Theatre in Southern California, 1848-1894” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1947), 7-8. [4] Two additional pioneer theaters were started in California, but did not involve the 1st New York Volunteers. In San Francisco, soldiers of the New York Volunteers held some minstrel performances, but no actual plays were recorded prior to 1849, when the Eagle Olympic Club was formed in May 1848 to raise funds to find a building for a theatre. Its first performance was in June 1849. See the Californian, May 10, 1848. Constance Rourke, Troupers of Gold or the Rise of Lotta Crabtree (Harcourt Brace, 1928). Edmond M. Gagey, The San Francisco Stage: A History (Columbia University Press, 1950). In Sacramento, the Eagle Theatre held its first informal performance on September 29, 1849, followed by its first official, professional performance on October 18. See Hubert H. Bancroft, “The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft”, vol. XXIII, The History of California, Vol. VI, 1848-1859 (The History Company, 1888), 461. [5] William Knight Northall, Before and Behind the Curtain: Or, Fifteen Years' Observations Among the Theatres of New York (W. F. Burgess, 1851), 6. [6] Richard B. Stott, Workers in the Metropolis: Class, Ethnicity, and Youth in Antebellum New York City (Cornell University Press, 1990), 222. Katherine G. Hambridge and Jonathan Hicks, The Melodramatic Moment: Music and Theatrical Culture, 1790–1820 (University of Chicago Press, 2018), 8. [7] Stott, Workers in Metropolis, 222. [8] Bruce A. McConachie. Melodramatic Formations: American Theatre and Society, 1820–1870 (University of Iowa Press, 1992). [9] Sara Marian and Clio Admin, "The Bowery Theatre, 1826-1929." Clio: Your Guide to History. December 3, 2017. Accessed July 10, 2025. https://theclio.com/entry/21656 [10] Stott, Workers in Metropolis, 71. [11] Robert Ernst, “Economic Nativism in New York City During the 1840’s.” New York History 29, (1948): 170–86. [12] Ernst, “Economic Nativism,” 170–86. [13] Zoe Detsi-Diamanti, “Staging Working-Class Culture: George A. Baker’s ‘A Glance at New York’ (1848).” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS) 15, no. 1, (2009): 11–26. [14] Burnham, Charles, and Mary Ann Jensen. “New York’s Vanished Theatres.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 44, no. 2 (1983): 85–114. [15] George G. Foster, New York by Gas-Light with Here and There a Streak of Sunshine (Dewitt & Davenport, 1850), 87. [16] Theodore J. Shank, "Theatre for the Majority: Its Influence on a Nineteenth Century American Theatre." Educational Theatre Journal (1959): 188-199. [17] Detsi-Diamanti, “Staging Working-Class Culture,” 11–26. [18] Foster, New York by Gas-Light, 87. [19] Alexander Saxton, “Blackface Minstrelsy.” In Inside The Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, ed. Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara Watkins (Wesleyan University Press, 1996). 69. [20] Officially, Stevenson’s Regiment was formed as the 7th Regiment of New York Volunteers because it was supposed to be the 7th regiment raised from New York for the Mexican War. However, it was the first regiment raised and fielded. On February 28, 1848, while in California, the 7th New York Volunteers was redesignated as the 1st New York Volunteers by the War Department. In New York, the regiment was also referred to as the New York Legion, Stevenson's New York Legion, Stevenson’s Battalion, Stevenson's New York Volunteers, Stevenson’s California Expedition, the California Guard, and the California Regiment. [21] Report of the Secretary of War. Senate Document, 29th Congress, 1st Session, Executive Document 439, pp. 5-6, July 17, 1846. [22] Francis D. Clark, The First Regiment of New York Volunteers (GS Evans & Company, 1882). Donald C. Biggs, “Stevenson’s Regiment in California: An Experiment in Social Action” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1962), 51. The New York Herald. July 11, 1846. [23] Clark, The First Regiment, 55. [24] Stevenson, J. D. "Volunteers for the War." Atlas, July 2, 1846. [25] Ernst, Economic Nativism, 170–86. [26] Douglas T. Miller, "Immigration and Social Stratification in Pre-Civil War New York." New York History 49, no. 2 (1968): 157. [27]The New York Herald, July 13, 1846, 2. [28] Biggs, “Stevenson’s Regiment,” 51. [29] The Boston Atlas, Thursday Morning, July 2, 1846, 1. [30] McConachie, Melodramatic Formations. [31] Walter Murray, “Walter Murray Reminiscences, 1826-1875,” Chapter II, Manuscript C058565. Courtesy of The Society of California Pioneers, San Francisco, CA. [32] There were 599 men aboard the three ships. Due to an earlier-than-scheduled departure, 49 soldiers were temporarily left in New York. Additional recruiting meant that a total of 841 soldiers ultimately served in the 1st New York Volunteers. Biggs, Stevenson’s Regiment, 218. [33] "The California Expedition." Atlas, July 25, 1846. [34] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [35] Clark, The First Regiment, 1882. [36] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [37] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [38] James Lynch, “With Stevenson to California,” The New York Volunteers in California (The Rio Grande Press, 1970), 16. [39]Lawrence, The Golden Era, May 13, 1855. [40] Richard Reinhardt, "To a Distant and Perilous Service," American Heritage 30 (1979): 64-77. [41] Jospeh Evans, “Around Cape Horn with Colonel Stevenson's Regiment in 1846,” Quarterly of the Society of California Pioneers, 7 (1930): 244-254. [42] Gibb, "Wartime Collaboration,” 64-75. [43] Joshua S. Vincent, The Joshua S. Vincent Diary. Transcribed by Chris D’Amando. Courtesy of Phillips Exeter Academy (1951). [44] Upon their arrival in California, Companies A and B were initially posted to Santa Barbara, but three months later, both companies were sent to La Paz, Baja California, Mexico. Company C was posted to Sonoma. Company D was posted to Monterey for only one month and was then sent to La Paz, Mexico. Company E was posted to Los Angeles. Company F was posted to Santa Barbara and remained there throughout the war. Company G was sent to Los Angeles. Company H remained in San Francisco except for a few weeks in Sonoma prior to mustering out. Company I was posted to Monterey until January 1848, when they transferred to San Diego. (There was no company J, which was common for the antebellum army as a means to eliminate confusion with a company I because the old cursive "J" looked too much like the cursive "I".) Company K remained in San Francisco. The regimental staff made its headquarters in Los Angeles. [45] Clark, First Regiment. [46] The California Star, March 13, 1847 [47] Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Volume XXIII. History of California.: Vol. 6, 1848 to 1859 (The History Company, 1888), 5. Carlagaye Olson, “Sonoma: Three Perspectives on the Past,” Interpretive Study Series, California History (1973). Interpretive Planning Unit Design and Construction Division, State of California Department of Parks and Recreation, 35. [48] Mariano G. Vallejo vs. The United States Court of Claims, Northern District of California, Case 566, February 24, 1855. [49]Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [50] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [51] Tempe E Allison, “The Theater in Early California,” The California Chronicle 30 (1928): 76. [52] Benjamin Webster, The Golden Farmer; Or, Vell, Vot Ov It? A domestic Drama, in Two Acts (Turner & Fisher, 1836). [53] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [54] The building’s location has not been determined. Thomas A. Bogar, Theater on the American Frontier (Louisiana State University Press, 2023), 220. [55] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [56] Rourke, Troupers of Gold. George Tays, “First Theatre in California. Registered Landmark #136,” (1936), State of California, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks. Works Progress Administration Project No. 65-3-3218. [57] “The First Theatre.” San Jose Pioneer, Sept. 15, 1877, 2. William A. Custis, “First Theater in California.” Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, June 1908, 479-482. [58] George Emanuels, Schools & Scows in Early Sonoma, (Sonoma Valley Historical Society, 1998), 60-61. [59] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [60] Allison, “Theater in Early California,” 76. [61] Allison, “Theater in Early California,” 75-79. Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. “The First Theatre,” San Jose Pioneer, 2. [62] Bancroft, “Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft,” 243. “First Theatre,” 2. Coad and Mims, The Pageant of America, 180. [63] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [64] Erastus D. Holden, “California’s First Pianos,” California Historical Society Quarterly 13, (1934): 34–37. [65] Donald C. Biggs, “The Printers in Stevenson’s Regiment,” The Book Club of California, Quarterly Newsletter, (1956), 30. [66] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [67] Lisa C. Arkin, “The Context of Exoticism in Fanny Elssler’s ‘Cachucha.’” Dance Chronicle 17, (1994): 303–25. [68] Webster, “The Golden Farmer.” [69] Allison, “Theater in Early California,” 76-77. [70] I. Pocock and R. J. Raymond. The Omnibus: A Laughable Farce, in One Act: Correctly Printed from the Most Approved Acting Copy, with a Description of the Costume, Cast of the Characters, Entrances and Exits, Relative Positions, and the Whole of the Stage Business: To Which Are Added Properties and Directions, as Now Performed in the London and American Theatres: Embellished with a Fine Wood Engraving. (Turner & Fisher, 1837). [71] “The Omnibus. A Farce in One Act.” Dewitt’s Acting Plays, No. 227. Clinton T. De Witt, Publisher, New York, ND. [72] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [73] Californian, April 19, 1848, 2. [74] Californian, March 15, 1848, 2. [75] History of Sonoma County (Alley, Bowen, & Co., 1879). Biography of Nicholas Carriger (Pacific Press). Nicholas Carriger Autobiography, recorded by Henry Cerruti in Sonoma on May 3, 1874. Microfilm in Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. [76] Kimball Hale Dimmick Diary, 1848. Manuscript HM 4014. The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. [77] California Star, September 11, 1847, 2. Californian, September 22, 1847, 2. [78] It is unclear how many soldiers were at Sonoma in June 1849, as the army’s post returns for June, July, and August are missing. In May, there were 45 soldiers posted in Sonoma, not including some soldiers on extended duty in San Francisco. See Returns From U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916; Microfilm Publication M617, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1762-1984, Record Group 94, The National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. [79] William T. Sherman, Headquarters, 10th Military Department, Monterey, CA, Orders No. 45, July 19, 1848. Records of the 10th Military Department, 1846-51. File No. M210, Roll No. 7. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. [80] Californian, August 14, 1848, 3. [81] Kimball Hale Dimmick Diary. [82] Clark, First Regiment, 43. [83] Californian, August 14, 1848, 3. [84] Feodora (Feodore: ein Singspiel in einem Akt), was a one-act musical comedy premiering in 1812. The German librettist, August von Kotzebue, was a prolific playwright who also served as a consul for Russia. [85] California Star & Californian, December 2, 1848, 2. [86] Antonio Franco Coronel, Tales of Mexican California: Cosas de California, (Bellerophon Books, 1994), 57. [87] Lawrence, The Golden Era, April 15, 1855. [88] Weekly Alta California, October 18, 1849, 2. [89] Giffen, California Expedition, 56.

By David Rosen Copyright ©2026. All rights reserved by the author. Self-portrait of photographer Carl Van Vechten, courtesy of Wikipedia One warm night in June 1925, an invited group of celebrated New Yorkers gathered at the fashionable apartment of the socially prominent couple, Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff, at 150 West 55th Street. Van Vechten was a popular figure in the Gotham literary scene, a novelist, former critic at The New York Times and New York Press, and a well-known man-about-town. Marinoff, a Russian immigrant ballerina, was an accomplished actress who appeared in many Broadway plays and early films. Their regular soirées were the gathering place for the cultural elite, redefining America’s artistic sensibility. This night was special because it featured George Gershwin playing show tunes at the piano, followed by Paul Robeson singing Negro spirituals and ending with James Weldon Johnson Fania Marinoff by Arnold Genthe, 1913, courtesy of Wikipedia reciting "Go Down, Death," a funeral sermon that reads in part: And Death heard the summons, And he leaped on his fastest horse, Pale as a sheet in the moonlight. Up the golden street Death galloped, And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold, But they didn't make no sound. Up Death rode to the Great White Throne, And waited for God's command. At this and most other soirées hosted by Van Vechten, his regular bootlegger, Jack Harper, supplied the illegal alcohol.[1] (This incident is not in Van Vechten’s “Daybook” for June 1925; see Kellner, ed., pp. 87-90.) During the late 1910s and early ‘20s, bohemian New York began to rival Paris as the center of Western cultural innovation. The Great War devastated Europe but fueled a wave of postwar American optimism, a creative excitement unprecedented in the nation’s history. Many American artists had visited Paris, Berlin, and other European hotspots during the prewar era and continued to do so throughout the ‘20s. They came back emboldened with new forms of creative expression. In the ‘20s, the new world of postwar America flexed its creative muscle. New voices in all the arts found expression, invigorating literature, music, dance, theatre, and painting. New York was the locus of this creativity; the new technologies of radio, records, and movies reverberated throughout the country and the world. This creativity was facilitated by the festivities at local speakeasies, which were lubricated by illegal alcohol. The speak was New York’s literati’s second home, like that for gangsters, call-girls, upscale slummers, and anyone who wanted to socialize and have a drink. The New York literary scene during the ‘20s was divided along a variety of distinct, and sometimes overlapping, groupings – including the literati, the smart set, the New Negro, and the theatre arts. The first scene included popular novelists like F. Scott Fitzgerald and John O’Hara; the second included the Algonquin Round Table gang and gossip journalists like Walter Winchell; the third group consisted of those who gave voice to the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Wallace Thurman; and the fourth ranged from Eugene O’Neill to Mae West. Van Vechten was at the center of this convergent literary vortex. In 1914, Van Vechten married Marinoff, his second wife, and they remained together until his death in 1964; she died in 1971. Their marriage can only be called a “modern” accommodation: in their spacious mid-town apartment, each had their own bedroom. He took male lovers, both white and black, often in his Harlem pied-à-terre; she went on extended trips, for both professional and personal reasons. According to the music journalist Chris Albertson, “Carlo,” as many knew him, “had a weakness for [Harlem’s] strapping young men.” Van Vechten’s Harlem apartment was painted black, with silver stars decorating the ceiling and red lights giving it a distinct pink glow. Jimmy Daniels, a famous African American song stylist who had a long-term affair with the architect Philip Johnson, once visited Van Vechten’s Harlem lair. "It was a seductive place," he fondly recalled, "there were no chairs or tables, just red velvet cushions, and some of them were more like beds — well, I guess they were beds. It was a decorator’s nightmare, and Carlo acted quite differently when he was there. I don’t think Fania even knew about the place."[2] Among his reported male lovers were the playwright Avery Hopwood, the actor and designer Donald Angus, and the literary publicist Mark Lutz, with whom he had a ten-year affair. He once described himself as “unpredictable, undependable, and inefficient, an atheistic opportunist with a hankering for liquor and a variety of odd ideas about sex.”[3] Tiring of the grind of a newspaper critic, Van Vechten became a freelance writer in the mid-10s. By the mid-20s, he had established himself as a major New York literary and social figure. During the ‘20s, he published Lords of the Housetops (1921), Peter Whiffle: His Life & Works (1922), The Blind Bow-Boy (1923), The Tattooed Countess (1924), Firecrackers, A Realistic Novel (1925), and Nigger Heaven (1926), his most successful – and controversial – work. Sadly, as his literary biographer Edward Lueders points out, “with the publication of Parties [1930], Van Vechten recognized that his vogue was over.”[4] While in vogue during the ‘20s, Van Vechten played an unprecedented role in the city’s cultural life. He was an indefatigable schmoozer who knew everyone who was in the know, from Salvador Dali to Theodore Dreiser to Helena Rubenstein. He was also an equally indefatigable drinker, making the rounds of wet-zone and uptown speaks (speakeasies) almost every night. In mid-town, he regularly dropped in at Texas Guinan’s clubs as well as Tony’s, popular with the Algonquin Round Table gang. However, it was in Harlem that he found his rhythm. He was a regular at Connie’s Inn, the Cotton Club, the Lennox Avenue Club, Smalls’ Paradise, and the Sugar Cane Club. He also visited less celebrated establishments like the Catagonia Club (aka Pod’s and Jerry’s), the Nest, Chez Florence, Club Ebony, Sheik Club, Leroy’s, the Log Cabin, Lulu Belle’s, Smalls’ New World, and the Clam House, where he enjoyed the performances of the legendary 300-lb transvestite, Gladys Bentley. Van Vechten was known for being outlandish, openly breaking social conventions. He partied with equal fervor with his bootlegger, Harper, as with the Prince of Wales, George Gershwin, and Zora Neale Hurston. Privately, he engaged in numerous ostensibly secret sexual liaisons with black and white men. Publicly, he maintained deeply personal friendships with leading African American intellectuals, most especially Johnson and Hughes. He became famous hosting mixed-race, mixed-ethnic, and mixed-arts salons that were the talk of the ‘20s. The snide Time magazine reported in 1925, “sullen-mouthed, silky-haired author Van Vechten has been playing with Negroes lately, writing prefaces for their poems, having them around the house, going to Harlem.”[5] Carl Van Vechten’s famous soirées were inspired by the legendary “Evenings” hosted by Mabel Dodge (her full name was Mabel Ganson Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan; during her stay in New York, she was known as Dodge) at her townhouse at 23 Fifth Avenue, which he had attended a decade earlier. As he fondly reflected, "While I drank whiskey and soda -- I suffered with a bad cold – Mabel [Dodge] walked up and down, smoking a cigarette, and it was much easier for her to advise me to take a Turkish bath than it was for her to talk about Gertrude Stein.”[6] He first met Dodge when visiting her palatial villa in Florence. She moved back to New York in 1912 with her son, leaving her second husband behind, and quickly plunged into the city’s rapidly growing upper-crust bohemian scene. Dodge was a classic “poor little rich girl,” a spoiled dilettante and libertine who, until she found her calling, attached herself to the latest fad and male celebrity. Through keen instincts and wealth, she became a cultural tastemaker. Born in Buffalo, NY, to prosperous parents, she attended a Manhattan boarding school as a teen and, at 21-years, married her first husband, the heir to a steamship line; he died shortly thereafter in a hunting accident. The well-healed young widow followed the path of others in society and moved to Europe, where, in Paris, she became friends with Gertrude Stein. Stein later penned, “Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia,” in admiration, but her partner, Alice B. Toklas, apparently jealous of their friendship, kept them at an arms-length distance. In Paris, Dodge was exposed to the grand salons hosted by some of the most controversial women of the fin de siècle era, including expatriates Stein, Natalie Barney (who ran a salon for half a century), and Sylvia Beach (who, with her life-partner, Adrienne Monnier, ran the bookstore, Shakespeare & Company). In 1905, Mabel settled in Florence with her second husband, Edward Dodge, and hosted regular gatherings that welcomed notables such as Henri Matisse, Bernard Berenson, and Isadora Duncan. Returning to Gotham in 1912, Dodge quickly affiliated with the Association of Artists and Sculptors and helped organize the controversial 1913 International Show of Modern Art, popularly known as the Armory Show, which launched modern art in America. At the same time, she joined John Reed, “Big Bill” Hayward, and Emma Goldman in support of the IWW-backed silk workers strike in Paterson, NJ, playing a leading role in organizing the controversial “Pageant of the Paterson Strike,” held at Madison Square Garden in June 1913. She also wrote critical articles for publications as diverse as the Arts and Decoration and The Masses, edited by Max Eastman, and eventually wrote a nationally syndicated weekly column for the Hearst newspaper chain.[7] Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking author of The Shame of the Cities, apparently suggested to Dodge that she turn her occasional get-together discussions of new ideas she hosted at her comfortable Village residence into more formal gatherings. As Steven Watson observed, “Dodge’s Evenings were a combination of town meeting, bohemia Chautauqua, and cocktail party.”[8] During 1913 and 1914, Dodge hosted between one and three salons a week, where notables, ranging from Frances Perkins to Alfred Stieglitz, presented cutting-edge theories, and sometimes as many as 100 invited guests attended. Dodge’s salons were organized along the lines of the traditional discussion-group format known as a General Conversation. An appointed leader, normally a specialist in an artistic, academic, or political subject, offered a brief introductory commentary to focus the discussion and then invited those in attendance to join the discussion. Salon leaders ranged from A. A. Brill on Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to Reed on Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution to Margaret Sanger on birth control and women’s rights. One night Van Vechten invited two African American entertainers to perform: “A woman in high-button boots and white stockings danced a jig while her male partner sang a popular song and strummed a banjo.”[9] The performance profoundly threatened Dodge: While an appalling Negress danced before us in white stockings and buttoned shoes, the man strummed a banjo and sang an embarrassing song. They both leered and rolled their suggestive eyes and made me feel first hot and then cold, for I had never been so near this kind of thing before; but Carl rocked with laughter and little shrieks escaped him as he clapped his pretty hands.[10] For better or worse, as Andrea Barnet reminds us, “Dodge’s salon was where black Harlem first met Greenwich Village bohemia and, conversely, where white bohemia got its first taste of a parallel black culture that it would soon not only glorify but actively try to emulate.”[11] Helping create the right mood, Dodge’s attentive butler, Viittorio, who she brought from Florence, graciously offered Pinch Scotch and Gorgonzola cheese and ham sandwiches. During the ‘10s, New York was home to a number of salons, gatherings facilitated by the wealth, connections, good food, and drink of some of the city’s more adventurous grandees. Dodge’s Evenings were the most celebrated, but the daughters of the prominent Stettheimer banking family, Florine, Carrie, and Ettie, held evening get-togethers at their lavish apartment at 102 West 76th Street. Their salons, which lasted until the mid-30s, catered to a more genteel European artistic set that included Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, and Charles Demuth. Walter and Louise Arensbergs, heirs to a steel fortune, hosted a much more downtown, bohemian crowd at their duplex at 33 West 67th Street; it welcomed Duchamp, the artists Man Ray and Joseph Stella, as well as the poets William Carlos Williams, Allen Norton, and Mina Loy.[12] After the Great War and the Palmer Raids, a campaign that targeted the city’s most radical residents like Emma Goldman for deportation, a new generation of sophisticated salons emerged. While the earlier salons were hosted by and welcomed a nearly exclusive white following, those of the Roaring ‘20s were far more radical.* (In his comprehensive history of New York’s pre-WWI bohemian scene, Strange Bedfellows, Steven Watson mentions only one salon in which African Americans participated, the one Van Vechten organized as part of Dodge’s Evenings.) For example, Dorothy Peterson, a black teacher and novelist associated with the “New Negro” movement, hosted regular salons at her father's Brooklyn home.[13] Alexander Gumby, a postal clerk, hosted a salon for African American homosexual artists and their friends in his large studio apartment on Fifth Avenue between 131st and 132nd Streets. According to one source, Gumby “played an early and significant role in preserving and disseminating African-American history.”[14] A’Lelia Walker hosted the most celebrated African American salon of the Prohibition era at her townhouse on West 136th Street. Langston Hughes vividly recalled Walker’s salon scene, noting “unless you went early, there was no possible way of getting in.” He knew that “her parties were as crowded as the New York subway at rush hour – entrance, lobby, steps, hallway, and apartment a milling crush of guests, with everybody seeming to enjoy the crowding.” As only Hughes could sing, “A’Lelia Walker was the joy-goddess of Harlem’s ‘20s[15] Many within Harlem’s more established “Black Bourgeoisie” denigrated Walker as the “Mahogany Millionaires.” Van Vechten chronicled Walker’s exploits in Nigger Heaven as the cabaret diva, Adora Boniface. Grace Nail Johnson, the wife of James Weldon Johnson and one of the grand doyens of black society, boasted that she never attended one of Walker’s salons. Nevertheless, encouraged by Hughes and others, in 1927, Walker transformed a floor of her Harlem townhouse into a salon that she christened “the Dark Tower.” While lasting about a year, it was a venue where uptown and downtown artists, writers, and musicians gathered to socialize and exchange ideas. She wrote afterward, “Having no talent or gift, but a love and keen appreciation for art, The Dark Tower was my contribution.”[16] However, the best of intentions sometimes went awry amid the clash of cultures between downtown white society and uptown black folk. The most revealing took place on the night of April 12, 1928, at a Van Vechten soirée. After many attempts to lure Bessie Smith to his get-togethers, she gave in due to the prompting of one of her band members, Porter Grainger. According to her biographer, Chris Albertson, Smith “exquisitely sang ‘six or seven numbers’ taking a strong drink between each number”; according to Van Vechten, she sang three songs. Having to quickly leave in order to make a performance uptown at the Lafayette Theater, Smith and her group were making their way out of the apartment when Van Vechten’s wife, Marinoff, put her arms around her neck and declared, "Miss Smith, you're not leaving without kissing me goodbye." Smith, who had no problems with homoerotic encounters and was (in Van Vechten’s word) “soused,” screamed, "Get the fuck away from me.” Pushing past Marinoff and knocking her down in the process, she shouted, "I ain't never heard of such shit!" Attempting to rescue a major social catastrophe, Van Vechten whispered, "It's all right, Miss Smith, you were magnificent tonight." According to biographer Bruce Kellner, “the incident, laced with verbal obscenities, was elaborated on and passed around in Harlem until it took on mythic proportions, thereafter, reported inaccurately.”[17] About the author: David Rosen has an MA from Rutgers University and is the author of six nonfiction books and numerous articles. I have written for Church & State, CounterPunch, Logos, Monthly Review, New Politics, The Progressive, Salon, Sexuality & Culture, SGP (Sexuality, Gender & Policy), and Truthout, among others. Check out: www.davidrosenwrites.com Endnotes [1] Wilfred D. Samuels, A Gift of Story/Encyclopedia of African-American Literature. web.utah.edu/20thCenturyAfricanAmericanWriters/vanvechten.htm James Weldon Johnson, "Go Down, Death” https://poets.org/poem/go-down-death [2] Chris Albertson, Bessie (New York: Stein & Day, 1972). [3] Caroline Marks and Diana Edkins, The Power of Pride: Stylemakers and Rulebreakers of the Harlem Renaissance (Crown, 1999), p. 204 [4] Edward Lueders, Carl Van Vechten and the Twenties (University of New Mexico Press, 1955), p. 120. [5] Marks, op. cit., q-p. 205. [6] Kellner, Iowa, op, cit. [7] Steven Watson, Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Guard (New York: Abbeville Press, 1991), p. 178; see also Andrea Barnet, All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930 (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Book, 2004). [8] Watson, op. cit., p. 136. [9] Watson, op. cit., pp. 137-38. [10] Andrew Hamilton, “The Black (& White) Predicament: Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967),” Counter-Currents, January 27, 2012; https://counter-currents.com/2012/01/harold-cruses-the-crisis-of-the-negro-intellectual/ [11] Barnet, op. cit., pp. 143-44. [12] Watson, op. cit., pp, 252-55, 278-81. [13] Andrea Geyer, “Constellations”; https://andreageyer.info/projects/constellations/constellations_06.html [14] “Gumby Book Studio,” NYC LGBTQ Historical Sites; https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/gumby-book-studio/ [15] Langston Hughes, The Big Sea, An Autobiography (New York; Hill & Wang, 1993), pp. 243-44. [16] Marks, op. cit., pp. 69, 71. [17] David Levering Lewis, When Harlem was in Vogue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 183-84; Chris Albertson, Bessie (New York: Stein & Day, 1972), pp. 143-45; CVV-Kellner, p. 204.

PART TWO (back to Part One) By Jeff Blanchard, Town Historian of Verona, NY Copyright ©2026. All rights reserved by the author. Lutheran Rose and Cross By 2015, meetings of the church Council ensured that all viewpoints of the congregation were given the opportunity to be expressed and acknowledged, even if only one course of action could be taken in a situation.[1] Pastor Yahns also recommended that conflicts among church members be resolved directly through engaged conversations.[2] The church Council further expanded communication by releasing its first annual report to the congregation in 2018, which explained what occurred at meetings, the purpose of the council, identified the members of the council, and outlined the terms of council members.[3] The most prominent intra-congregation communication method included the routine release of letters and annual reports authored by Pastor Yahns, the church Council, and various committees. These documents served to disseminate information, the vision of church leadership, and to record historical events.[4] An example of how intra-congregation letters aided communication was the Church Chatter newsletter of September 2019. In this letter, Pastor Yahns informed the congregation of a decision to designate the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a “sanctuary church body.”[5] Through this letter, Pastor Yahns was able to inform the congregation that the “sanctuary church body” was a concept in which walking alongside immigrants and refugees was a matter of faith and not politics, with the biblical precedent to welcome foreigners and the history of immigrants and refugees being present in the Lutheran Church serving to anchor the concept.[6] Pastor Yahns invited Saint Peter’s congregants to further discuss the concept and examine resources to further inform their understanding of what a “sanctuary church body” was.[7] Such communication and conflict-resolution methods were aimed at fostering cohesiveness within the congregation and opening dialogue on prominent church topics. The emphasis on open communication between Saint Peter’s different hierarchies enhanced community outreach. Saint Peter’s outreach to the Verona-area community took on various forms in the 2010s. The church’s previously established Facebook presence was further expanded in 2012.[8] Saint Peter’s took further advantage of its Facebook presence by live-streaming various portions of church services beginning in September 2017, eventually deciding to live-stream only sermons.[9] Creative and unconventional community outreach initiatives occurred, such as outdoor, ‘drive-thru’ style Ash Wednesday services in the church parking lot offered to motorists.[10] In a remark regarding the reason for conducting the unconventional Ash Wednesday service, Pastor Yahns stated: “That reminder of need, humility, and healing shouldn’t be confined to a church building or worship service.” [11] Groups within the church, such as the Church Mice and Special Projects Teams, raised funds to support charitable donations for missionary work, disaster relief, and seminary student expenses.[12] These groups provided school supplies for local children, Christmas gifts to nursing home residents, and provided meals to the homeless in shelters.[13] The community relations team, established in 2015, promoted Saint Peter’s annually by engaging members of the community at local events, such as the VVS Community Day and Trunk-or-Treat.[14] Such outreach efforts reveal that the church was willing to engage the community openly in a manner that supported Saint Peter’s evangelistic goals. The congregation’s community-oriented outreach expanded to include engagement with and cooperation among other church bodies. In the summer of 2013, the congregants of Saint Peter’s began attending worship services at the Verona United Methodist Church.[15] This participation expanded in 2014, as the Verona United Methodists and Saint Peter’s hosted one another’s congregants that summer.[16] Saint Peter’s also celebrated the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017 in cooperation with other churches, with congregants attending reformation-themed lectures and a symphoria event co-sponsored by other congregations.[17] In particular, though, the exchange between Saint Peter’s and the Verona United Methodists not only fostered a relationship between the two churches, but it also had the effect of forcing Saint Peter’s “Council to sit down and honestly examine [Saint Peter’s]own concerns and conflicts when making an important decision.”[18] The Council’s self-examination after its encounter with the Verona United Methodists would prepare it for coming challenges and conflicts. Saint Peter’s congregation and leaders experienced challenges and conflicts in the 2010s, just as they had in previous decades. Minor conflicts and polarities among congregants had become more frequent and visible throughout 2012, with Pastor Yahns, who had taken notice, having to remind the congregation that such conflict was normal but had to be dealt with in a healthy manner.[19] Compounding these interpersonal conflicts in 2012 was a series of cash thefts that required the church Council to examine options and overcome differences of opinion before taking the first step to address the issue.[20] Different contentious viewpoints within the congregation coexisted. In 2015, members of Saint Peter’s celebrated the graduation and ordination of a seminarian, Pastor Fritz Fowler, who had earlier that year shared his faith story that included his self-identification as being homosexual.[21] Not all members of Saint Peter’s agreed that homosexuals should be allowed to be ordained, but members who held that view did not impede other members from supporting and congratulating Pastor Fritz. While conflict was highlighted in the first half of the decade, declining weekly attendance presented itself as a more chronic issue in the second half of the 2010s. At the beginning of the 2010s, average weekly attendance had risen from 96 in 2012[22] to 68 by the end of 2019.[23] Various theories were presented over the years to account for the decline in attendance. The first theories for declining attendance were revealed in 2016, a year in which the weekly average attendance was 77,[24] representing a decrease of 19 congregants compared to 2012. The theories in 2016 included decreased participation among older congregants with health challenges, increased prevalence of weekend work schedules, and the fact that the Christmas holiday in 2016 fell on a Sunday.[25] By 2017, Pastor Yahns acknowledged that the nature of the church’s role in people's lives had been changing, as families experienced increasingly busy schedules, shifting the standard of committed, regular church attendance from every week to once or twice a month.[26] Additionally, Pastor Yahns noted that the way individuals and families developed communal relationships began to include ways that did not involve physically meeting with one another,[27] as society found increased connection on social media.[28] Further acknowledgment was given that both traditional in-person and online interactions had begun to coexist at Saint Peter’s.[29] This development revealed that the church had begun to contend with declining church attendance and the ever-changing twenty-first-century methods of socialization by both accepting and incorporating new societal trends into the conduct of church life, despite a preference for traditional in-person relationship-building.[30] Such developments were evidenced as numerous congregants had attended services at Saint Peter’s either in person or via Facebook Live by 2019.[31] As the church grappled with declining attendance, a financial crisis also developed. By the end of 2015, four years of monetary comfort for Saint Peter’s congregation came to an end, precipitating a period of financial stress. In the early part of 2015, the church's cash flow decreased, with various theories proposed to explain the decline.[32] One theory was that a budget surplus developed because Pastor Yahns’ annual salary started low in 2011, had disappeared due to increased operational costs, and decreased cash intake.[33] A more isolated factor in the decrease in cash flow was the prevalence of adverse weather, which prevented church members from attending services and making their usual monetary donations during the church offering.[34] Financial woes continued into 2016, forcing Saint Peter’s to implement cost-cutting measures to contend with a decline in church income.[35] As the financial crisis continued into 2017, further analysis of what had caused a decline in church income was pursued. Pastor Yahns, in her 2017 annual report at the Annual Meeting, believed that differences in how congregants from older generations donated money compared to younger generations played a role in church income issues.[36] More specifically, it had been felt that older congregants viewed the committed giving of planned amounts of money at every Sunday church service as their duty, while younger congregants gave money as they were motivated to or when they were able to do so, reflecting that younger people were as generous as older ones but possessed varied levels of disposable income.[37] Furthermore, it was felt that the younger generation of congregants preferred to give directly to needs rather than to institutions such as the church, forcing Saint Peter’s to come to grips with the fact that its revenue would become less predictable.[38] As the church leadership faced the reality of a revenue stream that could not be predicted, the financial crisis persisted throughout 2018[39] and carried on into 2019. The financial challenges in 2019 were characterized by budget shortfalls in certain months, though the church was able to recover.[40] Once again, in 2019, Saint Peter’s leaders acknowledged that the costs of maintaining the church and carrying out its mission were increasing while monetary contributions from congregants were steadily declining, forcing the Council to review the budget to determine where costs needed to be cut.[41] It is plausible that decreased church attendance contributed to Saint Peter’s revenue decline, with fewer congregants available to give, most likely placing a burden on those attending and making financial contributions. This concept had not been lost on Pastor Yahns after the drop in attendance in early 2015 related to adverse weather, prompting the pursuit of methods to give monetary donations that did not rely solely on weekly church attendance.[42] As the 2010s drew to a close, with finances and attendance still unstable, Saint Peter’s faced even greater challenges in the opening years of the 2020s. When the World Stood Still. . .The COVID-19 Pandemic and Transition to a New Normal, 2020 to 2022 In December 2019, a new virus, the novel human coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was first reported in Wuhan, China, before spreading rapidly around the world. [43] The number of reported COVID-19 cases globally had reached 100,000, prompting the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020.[44] After the first COVID-19-related death in the United States in February 2020, and in response to the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, American authorities declared a state of emergency in the United States.[45] This declared state of emergency in the country brought about a series of restrictions and changes to how Americans conducted their daily lives to limit the spread of COVID-19. Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church did not go unaffected by these restrictions and changes, which forced the congregation to adapt its worship and fellowship in order to meet the challenges posed by the peculiar and unprecedented crisis that was COVID-19. 2020 The first two months of 2020 went by as usual at Saint Peter’s, with in-person worship services held until March 8.[46] After the week of March 8, the church, following discussions between the leadership of Saint Peter’s and Bishop John Malcolz, and in consideration of local school closures due to the spread of COVID-19, suspended all in-person worship services, initiated online only services, and closed the church building.[47] This period of utilizing online worship only lasted until the summer of 2020, when, on July 12, in-person services were slowly reintroduced, beginning with a single modified worship service.[48] Restrictions, following guidance from Lutheran denominational leadership, were implemented during in-person services to limit the spread and risk of COVID-19 exposure and included the following: congregants were asked to RSVP for worship, assigned seats spread six feet apart was utilized, wearing of masks was mandated, services were kept short and simplified, singing was not allowed, sharing of peace could not involve physical contact between congregants, and communion utilized sealed, pre-filled cups.[49]Socialization after services was permitted only in the church parking lot in the summer and fall of 2020, with the serving of food and drinks being disallowed.[50] Confirmation classes, baptisms, First Communion events, and inductions of new church members were halted throughout 2020.[51] Congregants were asked by the Prayer Ministry to communicate their prayer requests verbally during in-person services to avoid touching the shared pens typically used to write prayer requests on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard.[52] More in-person gatherings, such as Bible studies and council meetings, were slowly introduced in the fall of 2020, with such meetings adhering to mask-wearing and social distancing guidelines.[53] By Thanksgiving Day of 2020, though, all in-person gatherings were once again halted due to the predicted rise of COVID-19 cases. [54] Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the congregants of Saint Peter’s adapted creatively, greatly aided by technology. The use of various forms of technology in 2020 enabled the leadership and congregants of Saint Peter’s not only to stay connected but also to stay engaged in ministry work throughout the pandemic. Electronic and digital forms of technology, such as communication by phone calls, text messages, emails, and social media, made it possible for Pastor Yahns to provide pastoral care and to maintain connection and communication with her congregants when in-person visits, especially to hospitals, care facilities, and private residences, were difficult or impossible.[55] The online video communications software Zoom, in conjunction with Facebook Live streaming, enabled regular visual contact between Pastor Yahns and congregants during Wednesday evening prayer, casual conversations, and live Facebook posts on Fridays.[56] Among the most visible and publicly accessible uses of technology at Saint Peter’s were online worship services that used video.[57] These online worship services made it possible for people who had never previously attended worship at Saint Peter’s to not only participate in the experience of worship but also have their spiritual needs met.[58] This reflected a unique opportunity for Saint Peter’s to engage and evangelize the public. Musicians within the congregation also used online streaming technology to provide music during online services, in addition to in-person services, which presented challenges.[59]Another unique use of technology during the pandemic included the use of FM radio transmitters to broadcast services to congregants’ vehicle radios as they gathered in the parking lot of Saint Peter’s during three major parking lot services.[60]One of the most innovative and enduring uses of technology was the Sunday School to Go program. With traditional programs such as Food, Faith, and Fun Friday and Vacation Bible School suspended due to COVID-19 exposure restrictions, the children of Saint Peter’s did not have a means of connecting as usual.[61] Pastor Yahns, in conjunction with a volunteer congregant of Saint Peter’s, devised a Virtual Vacation Bible School in which she created at-home activities placed in bags that were distributed to all children participating in Vacation Bible School, with Pastor Yahns recording Bible story videos played on YouTube or Facebook that went along with the bagged activities for the children.[62] After positive feedback from the Virtual Vacation Bible School, Pastor Yahns and the volunteer congregant devised the Sunday School to Go program in which participating children, thirty-six in all, received bagged activities and viewed two Bible story videos that coincided with the bagged activities each month.[63] Lastly, congregants and non-congregants participating in online worship services were able to provide significant financial support to Saint Peter’s by donating via the PayPal website.[64] Through various electronic and digital technologies, the congregation adapted, stayed connected, and engaged the community alongside more traditional methods. While technology enhanced the ability of Saint Peter’s congregants to stay connected and engage the community, more tangible, traditional means were also impactful in 2020. Some members of the congregation did not have computers or internet access, prompting the church to mail out readings, prayers, and sermons from the previous Sunday each week, in addition to conducting regular check-ups via phone calls and mailed-out cards.[65] Perhaps the most visible traditional efforts by Saint Peter’s congregants involved caring for the needs of the local community, which had been equally impacted by the pandemic.[66] The church parking lot and grounds were effectively used for community outreach efforts, including food drives for the Verona Food Pantry, a curbside trick-or-treat in October, and a curbside spaghetti dinner in November.[67] Missions of the Month, previously oriented towards national or international efforts, have become focused on supporting local feeding ministries such as the Verona Food Pantry, Rome Rescue Mission, and Oneida Karing Kitchen.[68] These traditional efforts, as well as those using technological means, reflected how the COVID-19 pandemic fostered creativity and resilience among congregants, which allowed the church to adapt to pandemic-related challenges in 2021 as well. 2021 2021 at Saint Peter’s was a year in which patterns established in 2020 were continued, while also being punctuated by increased change as the COVID pandemic waxed and waned. Some of the patterns that continued were mask wearing, social distancing, periods of online-only worship as COVID cases soared, parking-lot services, and on-again, off-again in-person services. The changes that did occur, little by little, served to bring about a boost in the morale of congregants and a sense of a return to ‘normalcy.’ Small-group in-person gatherings, such as the Tuesday morning Bible study, occurred once again, but without food or coffee served.[69]Following the resumption of in-person gatherings during the Easter season of 2021 after a surge of COVID cases, small groups were able to share food and coffee as long as all in attendance had received the recently introduced COVID-19 vaccination.[70] Congregants who were senior citizens began meeting again, and coffee hour took place every week outdoors in a tent with tables.[71] The most significant changes occurred in August of 2021, as social distancing was relaxed, assigned seating during worship was eliminated, fully vaccinated congregants were allowed to remove their masks in the church building, temperature checks were ceased, and reservations for services were no longer required.[72] Worship services witnessed significant changes as limited singing was reintroduced in July of 2021, with more singing gradually being incorporated by the winter of 2021.[73] The online portion of worship services experienced significant change as pre-recorded services were phased out and replaced by live-streamed services by August of 2021, with plans to offer live-streamed services in the future and technology updates to enhance the online worship experience.[74] Pastoral care in 2021 reintroduced in-person visits to congregants, which required consulting visitation guidelines for those congregants in hospitals and nursing home facilities; in-person pastoral care visits occurred with time between visits to limit the transmission of COVID.[75] In-person Confirmation classes were introduced in the summer of 2021 to complete unfinished classes from spring 2020 and were held again in the fall with mandatory mask-wearing.[76] While most of the changes introduced in 2021 were positive, one change was particularly somber: numerous memorial services had been held for congregants who had passed away in 2020, with July 2021 seeing memorial services almost every weekend.[77] The changes in 2021 prepared Saint Peter’s to introduce further, more permanent changes as normalcy began to return in 2022. 2022 The year 2022 was a jubilee year of sorts for Saint Peter’s regarding the restoration of ‘normalcy.’ Starting in March 2022, mandatory mask-wearing in the church building was discontinued after Saint Peter’s leadership considered the guidelines used by local schools regarding mask use.[78] The presence of COVID-19 remained in the background as information on the level of COVID cases in Oneida County, as determined by the Centers for Disease Control, was posted on doors at the church to aid families and individuals in making choices about actions to limit exposure risk to COVID.[79] Additionally, congregants were encouraged to sign attendance pads in church pews so as to notify those attending services of COVID exposures.[80] As the existence of the COVID virus became permanently rooted in everyday life, the congregation experienced many moments of joy, including the addition of twelve new church members (who had started attending Saint Peter’s either just before or after the start of the pandemic), and, after a few years of non-occurrence, baptisms took place for the first time in 2022, with five children undergoing baptism.[81] Furthermore, the youth group at Saint Peter’s began meeting again, with youth congregants attending the Lake Chautauqua Lutheran Center in the summer of 2022 for the first time since the start of the pandemic.[82] While joy had been felt because of these developments, congregants mourned the loss of those who had died between 2020 and 2021 (and had not received a funeral service or dinner) during a memorial prayer service.[83] Worship services experienced a significant change: the 10:00 AM service, which had continued to be live-streamed (a feature that had brought in new members to Saint Peter’s congregation), was officially designated the only worship service offered on Sundays at the church.[84] Turbulent events within the United States and in Europe changed the focus of Saint Peter’s community outreach efforts. As the United States economy struggled and inflation rose in 2022, congregants held a garage sale and donated all proceeds to the Verona Food Pantry to aid those affected by economic hardship.[85] In response to the overt large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Saint Peter’s congregants held a pancake dinner to raise funds for Lutheran World Relief Work to assist the people of Ukraine and those Ukrainians who had become refugees.[86] As Saint Peter’s began to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind it and adapt to the ‘new normal,’ it could do nothing but reflect on what it had gone through. The COVID-19 pandemic had a tremendous impact on the congregants of Saint Peter’s, halting or restricting many cherished activities and moments of fellowship that members had cherished prior to the pandemic’s start. Unlike in the past, when members of Saint Peter’s had to contend with the course of changes within society and culture at large, congregants had to adapt to the conditions of a global crisis. In the course of contending with the crisis, Saint Peter’s underwent a transformation, with many aspects of life within the church permanently altered once Saint Peter’s and the world around it emerged on the other side of the pandemic. A succinct expression of the transformation Saint Peter’s had undergone during this time is perhaps found in the 2021 Annual Report as Pastor Katie Yahns remarked that “Making decisions based on expectations or desires that are contrary to who we are as a church, or who God has called us to be is not a healthy pattern, which means sometimes we have to make decisions that don’t make everyone happy. That’s not pleasant, but that’s exactly why it’s important to be clear who we are and what our values are.”[87] As the historical episode of the COVID-19 pandemic ended, the congregation of Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church could add another book of lessons and reflections to its archives. A Great Cloud of Witnesses. . .Overview of the Pastorates of Saint Peter’s Although individual pastors have been covered in some detail, an overview of the breadth of pastors who have served Saint Peter’s reveals the changing tides of the world that each one lived in. In total, forty-seven pastors served at Saint Peter’s from 1830 to the 2010s, with six serving in an interim capacity before permanent pastors were called.[88] Three pastors ended their service to Saint Peter’s in death, with two back-to-back pastorates ending in this manner (Reverend Waldo Murray and Reverend Henry Stelljes both died in 1922).[89] Five female pastors have served at Saint Peter’s, with Ruth Snyder becoming the first in 1982.[90] Pastor Katie Yahns, serving throughout most of the 2010s, became the first, and so far only, pastor to have gotten married during a pastorate.[91] Interestingly, one pastor, Reverend John C. Schaertel, originally a Chaplain in the 389th Training Regiment of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 98th Division, ended his pastorate in June 1965 after being called to serve in the 86th Engineer Battalion of the Active Duty U.S. Army.[92] It is not known if Reverend Schaertel served as a Chaplain or a different occupational specialty with the 86th Engineer Battalion. These pastorates reflected changing trends in society and in the traditions of the church itself. Large numbers of pastors in the Nineteenth Century consistently had German or Scandinavian surnames, with other ethnic surnames beginning to appear intermittently in the mid-Twentieth Century. This suggests the changing nature of Saint Peter’s identity from a church with a homogenous German and Scandinavian ethnic makeup to one reflecting a multi-ethnic makeup. Reverend Schaertel’s call to active-duty military service reflected that even clergy could be subject to the needs of the authorities and were not totally bound to their individual congregations. Finally, the introduction of female pastors in the 1980s revealed that Saint Peter’s views on women in the ministry had changed to the point where there was acceptance of women serving in pastoral roles. The history of Saint Peter’s pastorates, along with its significant episodes, reflected the societal and institutional changes it had to contend with and the ways it handled them. Historical Themes of Saint Peter’s Past: Contending with Changing Times Historical themes have existed throughout Saint Peter’s past regarding how the church body contended with changing times in society and the culture at large. At times, the congregation had to contend with the conflict between change and continuity: whether to continue or discontinue certain preexisting church practices that clashed with societal norms. At other times, Saint Peter’s members had to come to grips with whether to introduce entirely new practices that were foreign to the church but were becoming the mainstays of society and culture. The past reveals that Saint Peter’s contended with changing times in society, either by making decisions corporately through the exercise of Council authority, receiving direction from the pastor, following the lead of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, or a combination of these approaches. Two unique examples from Saint Peter’s history highlight these themes... Change Versus Continuity and Corporate Consensus. . .The German Language Debate Prior to 1881, all services conducted at Saint Peter’s were conducted using the German language.[93] Beginning in 1881, English was introduced as the language used during evening services, with Sunday School instruction delivered in English that same year, as only 16 of 125 Sunday School pupils were German speakers at the time, reflecting the predominance of English-speaking congregants.[94] In October 1886, a decision had been made to deliver confirmation class instruction in English as well.[95] The decision to introduce the English language was driven by the congregation's belief that German immigration to the United States had diminished. This had meant that the number of English-speaking congregants had increased to the point that English speakers were to eventually make up the majority of Saint Peter’s membership.[96] This historical development represented a conflict between change and continuity: whether to continue a traditional practice or reject it and implement change. The church had to come to grips with the fact that English had been firmly established as the dominant language in the United States and that its use was outpacing German within the congregation. Additionally, a decision had to be made about whether the use of German, as well as accommodations for German speakers, would continue in light of declining German immigration to America. Saint Peter’s congregation contended with these societal trends, presumably in a corporate manner, as the general consensus had been to reject tradition and embrace change to keep pace with a changing world. A Difficult Conversation and the Guiding Authority of the Council . . .Same-Sex Wedding Discussion of 2018 In certain instances, the members of Saint Peter’s contended with changing times not by taking immediate action to implement change, but by engaging a new trend through methodical church-wide conversation. One trend that required church-wide conversation was that of same-sex marriage. The traditional notion that marriage was between a man and a woman was challenged in the 2010s, particularly in New York. On July 24, 2011, the New York State Senate passed the Marriage Equality Act, which permitted homosexual couples to apply for marriage licenses, thereby legalizing same-sex marriage.[97] Although the implications of the New York Senate’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage had not been immediately felt by Saint Peter’s, the church eventually had to contend with this new trend being introduced into society. When the question of adopting or rejecting this new practice came about, which had no historical precedent within Saint Peter’s, the authority and guidance of the Council came into sharp focus as the matter was engaged. In the spring of 201,8 the Mutual Ministry Team of Saint Peter’s brought a unique matter to the attention of the church Council.[98] Mutual Ministry Team members reported to the Council that two women, in a homosexual relationship, had inquired of Pastor Yahns if she would officiate their wedding and provide pastoral care.[99] Pastor Yahns agreed to officiate at their wedding and granted permission for the ceremony to take place in the sanctuary of Saint Peter’s.[100] The Mutual Ministry Team had advised Pastor Yahns that her decision to officiate the wedding did not violate the policies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and that, additionally, the pastor’s decision to have the ceremony take place at Saint Peter’s was supported.[101] After discussing the topic, the Council and Mutual Ministry Team agreed to allow the wedding to take place at the church, with the understanding that the matter would be further examined to consider adopting guidelines to inform future decisions regarding same-sex weddings.[102] The Council did not inform the congregation right away that the wedding ceremony of the two women would be taking place, with congregants being made aware of the wedding several months after it had occurred.[103] This decision was made because the topic of same-sex marriage was considered sensitive, which, according to the Council, required further study before the rest of the congregation could engage in a corporate discussion.[104] Prior to engaging the congregation in open discussion about the matter, the Council President wrote a letter to members of Saint Peter’s in October 2018 to make them aware of all that had transpired among church leaders over the previous six months.[105] In the letter, the Council President reported that, after consultation with the Dean of the conference, the Council had engaged in “deep conversation, prayer, and Bible study of relevant passages”[106]regarding the topic of same-sex weddings.[107] The Council President further stated that the Council had concluded“that God is calling us to adopt guidelines that allow for same-sex weddings to take place at St. Peter’s.”[108] The Council expressed belief that welcoming others regardless of gender or sexuality was a part of Saint Peters’ mission in addition to the belief that the pastor retained “the right to officiate any weddings that are between two loving, committed, monogamous, consenting adults.”[109] It was also the belief of the Council that homosexual couples should be afforded the opportunity to receive premarital counseling.[110] Not all members of the Council held the same views regarding same-sex weddings, but a mutual agreement had been reached that such weddings would not be prevented because of different viewpoints.[111] Furthermore, the Council expressed that it was their “hope that this does not need to cause a division in the congregation.”[112] Once the council's views had been established, the Council President invited church members to participate in a moderated open forum in October of 2018 to share their thoughts on the matter before any votes were held to establish guidelines for same-sex weddings at Saint Peter’s.[113] This historical episode reveals that, under the guidance and authority of the Council, different levels of Saint Peter’s ministry and governing bodies had to come together in deep conversation before change could be implemented, either to accept or reject what society had come to embrace. Conclusion Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Verona, NY, has existed through many eras and forms. The church began with humble services in private homes, then established a dedicated church structure, and finally had to build an entirely new home for its congregants, all the while attempting to engage the community at large with the Gospel. Saint Peter’s experienced many challenges and conflicts. Some of these challenges and conflicts were internal, but many were external, as the society at large changed around the church. The church had to grapple with external challenges posed by ever-changing societal trends, as these trends affected how the congregation lived out its church life. Saint Peter’s dealt with these external challenges by adopting a general consensus among congregants, conforming to the authority of its governing bodies, following the Evangelical Lutheran Church's authority, following its pastors' lead, or a combination of all. The way in which Saint Peter’s contended with changing societal trends was not always perfect, but each episode would add yet another layer to its rich history. Each layer of Saint Peter’s history provides current and future congregants, as well as outside observers, with opportunities to be inspired or draw valuable lessons, as society and the world do not cease to change. About the author: Jeff Blanchard has been the Historian for the Town of Verona, NY, since June 2025, and has been vigorously pursuing projects related to Verona’s rich history. Jeff earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Liberty University and is interested in local history, post-World War II military history, and American military history. Sources [1] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting: Reflecting on 2015 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona, NY,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2015 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2015), 7. [2] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 7. [3] The Church Council, “Introduction from the Council,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2018 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2018), 3. [4] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2012,” 6. [5] Pastor Katie Yahns, “From the Pastor: Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary,” The Church Chatter (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2019), 3. [6] Yahns, “From the Pastor,” 3. [7] Yahns, “From the Pastor,” 4. [8] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2012,” 7. [9] Julie Steele, “2017 Music and Worship Team Report,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2017 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2017), 22. [10] Author Unknown, “Drive-Thru Ashes,” Rome Daily Sentinel, March 1, 2017, Page Unknown. [11] Author Unknown, “Drive-Thru Ashes,” Page Unknown. [12] Cheri Schmalz, “Church Mice Annual Report,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 11. [13] Special Project Team, “Special Project Team Annual Report for 2012,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 16. [14] Marie Sayles, “Community Relations Team,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2015 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2015), 11. [15] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2013 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona, NY,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2013 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2013), 5. [16] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2014 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona, NY,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2014 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2014), 7. [17] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2017 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2017 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2017), 7. [18] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 7. [19] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2012,” 6. [20] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2012,” 7. [21] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 7. [22] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Weekly Worship Attendance for 2012,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 9. [23] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Weekly Worship Attendance for 2019,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2019 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2019), 13. [24] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Weekly Worship Attendance for 2016,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2016 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2016), 8. [25] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2016 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2016 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2016), 6. [26] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 5. [27] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 5. [28] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2018 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2018 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2018), 10. [29] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2018,” 10. [30] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2018,” 10. [31] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2019 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2019 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2019), 10. [32] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 7. [33] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 7. [34] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 8. [35] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2016,” 6. [36] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 5. [37] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 6. [38] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2017,” 6. [39]Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2018,” 11. [40] The Church Council, “Introduction from the Council,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2019 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2019), 3. [41] The Church Council, “Introduction from the Council,” 3. [42] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2015,” 8. [43] Sarah Moore, “History of COVID-19,” News Medical Life Sciences, Last Updated September 28, 2021, https://www.news-medical.net/health/History-of-COVID-19.aspx. [44] Moore, “COVID-19.” [45] Moore, “COVID-19.” [46] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2020 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2020 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2020), 10. [47] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [48] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [49] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [50] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [51] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10-11. [52] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Prayer Ministry Annual Report,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2020 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2020), 20. [53] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [54] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10. [55] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 10-11. [56] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11. [57] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11. [58] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11. [59] Julie Steele, “2020 Worship & Music Report to the Congregation,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2020 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2020), 22. [60] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11. [61] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Children’s Ministry Annual Report 2020,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2020 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2020), 15. [62] Yahns, “Children’s Ministry 2020,” 15. [63] Yahns, “Children’s Ministry 2020,” 15. [64] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11-12. [65] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11-12. [66] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 12. [67] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2020,” 11. [68] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “2020 Missions of the Month,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2020 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2020), 16. [69] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2021 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2021 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2021), 7. [70] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 7. [71] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 7. [72] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 7. [73] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 7. [74] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 7. [75] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 8. [76] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 8. [77] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 8. [78] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2022 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2022 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2022), 8. [79] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2022,” 8. [80] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2022,” 8. [81] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2022,” 8-9. [82] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2022,” 9. [83] Yahns, “Pastor’s 2022,” 9. [84] Yahns, “Pastor’s 2022,” 8. [85] Yahns, “Pastor’s 2022,” 8. [86] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Global Mission Team Report,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2022 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2022), 16. [87] Yahns, “Pastor’s Report 2021,” 9. [88] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [89] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [90] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [91] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [92] Author Unknown, “Army Calls Area Pastor,” Rome Daily Sentinel, June 18, 1965, 9. [93] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [94] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [95] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [96] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [97] “New York Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage,” SIECUS, No Date, https://siecus.org/new-york-legalizes-same-sex-marriage-2/. [98] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, October 4, 2018 (Verona, NY: Council President, 2018), 1. [99] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [100] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [101] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [102] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [103] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [104] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [105] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [106] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [107] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [108] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [109] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [110] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [111] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [112] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 1. [113] Council President to St. Peter’s Congregation, 2.

PART ONE By Jeff Blanchard, Town Historian of Verona, NY Copyright ©2026. All rights reserved by the author. Lutheran Rose and Cross Introduction A motorist traveling northbound on State Route 365 in the Town of Verona, NY, will notice various sights. One sight in particular stands out among the rest. Not too far north of where Oneida Road intersects Route 365 is a massive structure. This structure, situated near the east-facing shoulder of Route 365’s northbound lane, appears to stand more than two stories tall. Ornately colored stained-glass windows adorn the west-facing side of the structure, which is clad in beige siding. The roof slopes downward at an extreme pitch, giving the structure a triangular appearance. Brown-colored shingles cover the roof, complementing the beige siding and brick façade of the south and west-facing walls. A lit sign greets north and southbound motorists with words of encouragement drawn from Christian thought and scripture. An ornate garden made of black mulch features flowers and a white decorative cross. A tower composed of four individual columns, forming a frame that appears to stretch from the ground to the sky, bears a massive bell. Of all the sights on Route 365, this one seems to capture the attention of passersby, drawing out a curious desire to investigate this peculiar structure further. It could be said that this is the purpose of the structure: to draw those from the outside into its vast interior to meet with those who occupy it. This structure is not an unnamed private dwelling but a named house dedicated to the worship of the divine: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church. Saint Peter’s, both as a church structure and congregation of Lutheran worshippers, has a long and lively history. Although the history of the church structure, being the most visible aspect of Saint Peter’s, is important, the history of the people who have gathered in it for generations is the main focus of this story. The story of Saint Peter’s congregants is one of a people focused on carrying the message contained within the Christian Bible to the community at large. In carrying out this task, congregants, pastors, and lay people have faced numerous internal and external challenges. The strongest of these challenges were those that revolved around how Saint Peter’s would contend with the ever-changing patterns of culture and society at large. One of the most prominent cultural and societal changes that Saint Peter’s contended with was whether to cease using German in church services and adopt the dominant English spoken by most Americans at the time. A second cultural and societal trend that Saint Peter’s had to come to grips with was whether or not the congregation would permit same-sex marriages to occur within the church when such marriages were made legally permissible by secular government authorities. Additional challenges included how Saint Peter’s would respond to the institutional changes of the Lutheran Church. A global crisis also affected how the congregation of Saint Peter’s would adapt to the dramatically altered conduct of church life it created. These challenges coexisted with Saint Peter’s efforts to engage the local community with the message of the Gospel. These changing patterns caused conflict to erupt at times, while at other times drawing the church body together in embrace or with quiet tension in the background. The worshippers of Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church were able to contend with most challenges and conflicts posed by changing times by engaging in corporate debate, following the example set by pastoral leaders and seeking out the consensus of the Lutheran Church. Such actions led to changes in church practices, a pattern that continues to the present.[1] General History Just as an onion is composed of numerous layers, one formed over another, the history of Saint Peter’s is multilayered, with each historical episode and period built on the one before. Additionally, as an onion itself starts out as a small seed that grows into a sizeable, complex plant, Saint Peter’s developed from a humble beginning into the firmly established local institution it is today. As such, an overarching historical overview of Saint Peter’s needs to be examined in order to understand how each layer of the church body’s history, as well as its growth from a small, humble group into a large, visible institution, reveals how the congregation contended with the changing patterns of the society and culture around them. In the Beginning. . .1830 to 1845 What was to become Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Verona began in a humble, well-intentioned manner. In 1830, Alsatians, from the historical Alsace region of France,[2] settled in the Town of Verona, NY, bringing with them a zeal to see the Gospel of the Christian faith preached in their new homeland.[3] During the summer of 1830, Pastor P.W. Domeier from Canajoharie, NY, started a small Lutheran congregation in Verona, preaching to its members in private homes and schoolhouses.[4] It could be presumed that the members of the initial congregation were Alsatian settlers. Pastor Domeier may have used the nearby Erie Canal to travel to the various places his congregation met, with his work effectively ceasing in winter due to travel difficulties posed by winter conditions and the seasonal inability to travel by boat on the canal's frozen waters.[5] Pastor Domeier carried on his itinerant preaching until 1831, at which time the congregation entered a new chapter.[6] In 1831, Pastor Andreas Wetzel, from Wurttemberg, Germany, had been traveling to Ohio on a mission tour when he first arrived in Verona.[7] It was during Pastor Wetzel’s stay in Verona that he first encountered Pastor Domeier's congregation, seeing much potential in the parish as a vehicle for his personal ministerial endeavors.[8] For that reason, Pastor Wetzel elected to discontinue his journey to Ohio and to stay in Verona, eventually purchasing a home in the area where the first church structure would be built.[9] With the mantle of leadership transferred to Pastor Wetzel, the once loosely organized Lutheran congregation took on form and established a new identity in 1831 as the Evangelical-Lutheran and German Reformed Saint Peter’s Congregation of Verona, Oneida County, NY.[10] Saint Peter’s establishment in 1831 marks it as the oldest Lutheran Church in Oneida County, NY.[11] After the provisional organization of Saint Peter’s, Pastor Wetzel established mission stations, which were places of missionary residence from which missionary activities were to be carried out.[12] The first of these mission stations was established in West Leyden and Coonrod Settlement in 1831, followed by Greens Corners (in 1834), Rome (in 1834), and finally in Utica (in 1835).[13] Pastor Wetzel engaged in his ministry work at the mission stations in alternating turns, with his preaching taking place in private homes, barns, and even outdoor venues.[14] In comparison to Pastor Domeier’s travels on the Erie Canal, Pastor Wetzel journeyed to each of the mission stations on foot on a thirty-five-mile circuit through the wilderness.[15] Pastor Wetzel’s complex treks through the wilderness would eventually be supplanted as Saint Peter’s presence in Verona grew firmer. Saint Peter’s entered a new phase in 1836 when a man named Peter Hauck cleared and donated land to the congregation for the construction of a dedicated church.[16] The structure was built off of Verona Mills Road[17] in the four corners area of Verona known as Churchville, a location that was well-suited to enabling congregants to travel more easily to the church for services in an era when transportation across any distance was more challenging.[18] By 1840, construction of the church was complete, with a ceremony dedicating the new permanent home of Saint Peter’s on June 15 of that year.[19] In 1841, a year after the new church structure was dedicated, Saint Peter’s reached a new milestone: the congregation was formally organized and incorporated, ten years after its original founding.[20] Pastor Wetzel continued to serve as the minister of Saint Peter’s in the years after its incorporation while also serving a congregation in Utica.[21] The pastorate of Andreas Wetzel at Saint Peter’s came to an end in 1845, when he accepted a call to serve as the primary minister of the Lutheran congregation in Utica.[22] As the numerous years of Pastor Wetzel’s familiar leadership came to an end, the church embarked on yet another new chapter in its history. Revolving Leadership and Growing Pains. . .1846 to 1899 The departure of Pastor Wetzel ushered in a new era for Saint Peter’s, one that was characterized by a dizzying number of pastorates. In 1846, a year after Pastor Wetzel left, Pastor Johann Bernhard Porner received a call to become Saint Peter’s pastor, as he was the only reformed minister in Verona at the time.[23] Pastor Bernhard Porner’s service lasted only one year, ending in 1847.[24] The church then experienced a brief period of revolving pastorates, with two pastors arriving and departing between 1848 and 1851, with this period reaching a hiatus in 1852 as a semblance of pastoral permanency arrived.[25] Philipp Krug, president of Saint Peter’s congregation at that time, received the unanimous call to become the next pastor in 1852.[26] Pastor Krug had a positive influence on the church, introducing Christian education opportunities to the congregation during his eleven-year pastorate.[27] Among the educational opportunities introduced by Pastor Krug were the organization of a Sunday School program, which lasted for many years, and the establishment of a Lutheran parochial school that operated until 1878.[28] Although evidence of the parochial school’s establishment is lacking, a 1852 map revealed the existence of a schoolhouse distinct from other district schoolhouses near Saint Peter’s church, suggesting it may have been the parochial school established by Pastor Krug.[29] Saint Peter’s also acquired a parsonage near the church in 1852, with an addition built later for choir practice and confirmation instruction.[30] It is notable that the recorded achievements of other Saint Peter’s ministers in later years were those that improved the physical church building, whereas Pastor Krug’s achievements were those that improved the impartation of Christian beliefs and doctrine to multiple generations of congregants. After the departure of Pastor Krug in 1863, the church was in its “most flourishing condition.”[31] Many years after his pastorate, Philipp Krug was remembered as “the faithful old pastor [that] still lives in the hearts of the people.”[32] Despite the condition Pastor Krug left Saint Peter’s in, the remainder of the Nineteenth Century witnessed turnover and turmoil in the church. From 1864 to 1899, Saint Peter’s once again experienced a steady stream of pastors coming and going. In a span of twenty-one years alone, from 1864 to 1885, nine pastors served at Saint Peter’s.[33] Reasons for such a high turnover rate were not readily revealed in the historical records and sources of Saint Peter’s. The high turnover of pastors in the last half of the Nineteenth Century was not as controversial, though, as the conflict of 1870. Saint Peter’s experienced a divisive congregational split in 1870 over differences regarding the conduct of church services in German.[34] A group of congregants felt so strongly about this debate that they left Saint Peter’s and started a church of their own, known as Zion Lutheran Church, erecting their own church structure across the road from Saint Peter’s.[35] According to Saint Peter’s records, Zion Lutheran Church did not flourish, with its members later choosing to reconcile and reintegrate with Saint Peter’s congregation.[36] As the church split ended, along with the Nineteenth Century, Saint Peter’s entered the Twentieth Century as a unified body, able to bring about significant improvements to its church structure. An Era of Improvement and Milestone. . .1907 to 1941 The first half of the Twentieth Century primarily involved physical improvements to Saint Peter’s church structure. Many of these physical improvements stand as recorded achievements during the pastorates of particular Reverends. Additionally, some improvements reflect Saint Peter’s transition into the modern era, including new technologies. Examples of major physical improvements include the construction of a Sunday School room in 1907 (during Reverend Conrad Wilker’s pastorate), the construction of a parsonage (during Reverend J.C. Reichert’s pastorate), the installation of electric lights and running water in 1922 (during Reverend H. J. Stellejes pastorate), the installation of a new pipe organ in 1931 (during Reverend Erwin L. Tucker’s pastorate) and the installation of an updated heating plant and complete kitchen in 1936.[37] By 1938, the church's property value had doubled, from approximately $10,000.00 to $20,000.00.[38] The physical improvements did not, however, overshadow the commencement of an important milestone anniversary for Saint Peter’s. On September 14, 1941, Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church celebrated the 110th Anniversary of its founding as a congregation.[39] The congregation marked the occasion with a special pamphlet that highlighted the church's history up to 1941 and memorialized various pastors who had served the congregation. The most enduring memorialization of the church’s milestone anniversary was the donation of the first and only church bell that Saint Peter’s ever had.[40] By the time of its 110th Anniversary, Saint Peter’s had changed dramatically from a loosely organized congregation that met in various locations to a firmly organized, visible, and enduring institution that had withstood various internal and external trials. The post-World War II era the church entered was just as ever-changing as the previous era. Going back to the Past and Institutional Changes. . .1952 to 1982 Saint Peter’s entered the Cold War era as a large, flourishing church, boasting a membership of four hundred people by 1952, making it the largest Lutheran congregation in the Central Conference of the United Lutheran Synod of New York.[41] As in the first half of the Twentieth Century, Saint Peter’s parishioners embarked on physical changes to the church structure, including a new vestibule (in 1958), the addition of parking facilities (in 1961), and improvements to the parsonage (between 1970 and 1972).[42] This era was also characterized by pursuits that harkened back to some of Saint Peter’s nineteenth-century endeavors. In a repeat of Pastor Wetzel’s mission station planting, Saint Peter’s, through the efforts of Pastor George Kenyon, established a mission congregation at the Lake Delta Fire House in 1959.[43] The mission congregation at Lake Delta eventually incorporated as the Ascension Lutheran Church and called its own pastor.[44] In another move, comparable to Pastor Krug’s establishment of a parochial school, Saint Peter’s started a community nursery school in 1982.[45] The most significant changes of the last half of the Twentieth Century pertained to Saint Peter’s membership in Lutheran Church denominational organizations. Saint Peter’s had originally been a member of the United Lutheran Church in America, but this organization, along with other Lutheran Church organizations, consolidated to form the Lutheran Church in America in 1962, and Saint Peter’s subsequently transferred its affiliation to the Lutheran Church in America that same year.[46] Further changes in Lutheran Church organizational affiliation occurred in 1966, when the New York Synod split into two synods, the Metropolitan Synod and the Upper New York Synod, with Saint Peter’s becoming a member congregation of the Upper New York Synod.[47] Saint Peter’s willingness in the 1960s to conform with changes in Lutheran Church denominational organizations would influence how the congregation and its leadership would contend with changing cultural and societal patterns in the Twenty-first Century. As the Cold War era came to a close, Saint Peter’s faced new challenges that would test the congregation's ability to maintain cohesion. Building a new Home. . .1988 to 1996 In 1988, towards the end of the Cold War, the condition of Saint Peter’s physical church structure was in crisis. The foundation of the building was crumbling, utilities were outdated, and handicapped-accessible features mandated by law were nonexistent.[48] A study comparing the cost of renovating the building versus building a new structure was conducted, revealing that constructing a new building at $350,000.00 would be far more economical than renovating at $500,000.00.[49] Additionally, weekly attendance was at a low of forty-five to fifty people a week,[50] possibly due to a lack of the church’s prominence in Verona because the church structure was in an out-of-the-way location, which raised concerns as to whether or not Saint Peter’s would exist as a church body after ten years' time.[51] After being presented with the figures from the cost study, the congregation elected to build a new house of worship, embarking on a three-year process to relocate the church.[52] The faith of Saint Peters’ congregants played an important role in their decision to construct a new building as Deacon Dick Warner commented that “God led our decision. . .We insisted that the entire project would start with prayer. We figured if God’s not for it, then it won’t happen.”[53] A building committee was assembled to organize fundraising for the project and to determine the design and location of the new church structure.[54] After a year of searching, which included rejecting several locations considered just as “landlocked” as the previous church site, a site was chosen on Old Oneida Road.[55] The site was selected for its prominence and visibility from nearby State Route 365, a factor that building committee members believed would attract passers-by and local residents, thereby increasing both congregation membership and weekly attendance.[56] Saint Peter’s members also believed that the new church structure, with increased building space and in an ideal location, would facilitate community outreach.[57] The congregation’s feelings over the decision to relocate were mixed at best. Some members understood the reason for the decision but were conflicted by it, as congregant Marion Tallman expressed, “We’re doing this for reasons not out of heart but of mind, and it's hard.”[58] Other members, such as Kathy Haldenwang, accepted the decision as she reported that “it is just a building. We will be taking all of our memories and our whole church family with us, and that’s what’s important.”[59] Still other members were staunch in their opposition to the decision as member Beverly Gerwig railed that “This church has been in existence since 1831. . .People move out, and people move in. You can’t depend on people coming from the base or the casino. They’re not the ones who are going to be here forever.”[60] Despite mixed feelings among some congregants, the groundbreaking at the Old Oneida Road site commenced on July 19, 1995, with Reverend Jack Wilder leading the ceremony by turning over the first spade of dirt.[61] The new church structure was completed in 1996 after 10 months of construction, facing issues along the way, such as the stained-glass windows, which were not in sufficient condition to be installed, and the church bell, which was too heavy to be hung in the building’s tower.[62] The church bell was eventually installed in a dedicated outdoor bell tower in 2012.[63] The transfer from the original Verona Mills Road church to the Old Oneida Road church was conducted cautiously, as church leaders were concerned that congregants would either withdraw their membership or be offended because of the changes brought on by the transfer.[64] With those concerns in mind, Saint Peter’s leaders ensured that all items from the old church, such as pews, the altar, the pulpit, and the lectern, were restored in the new building to foster a sense of continuity among congregants.[65] Once the transfer was completed, a dedication ceremony at the new church structure was held on May 5, 1996, to recognize the significance of the event.[66]As members of Saint Peter’s gathered in their new house of worship, the church body embarked on a new chapter characterized by a flourishing congregation and increased involvement in the Verona community. A Season of Plenty and Change. . .1997 to 2003 The remainder of the 1990s and the first years of the Twenty-first Century represented a new chapter for Saint Peter’s congregation. The reason for this was not only the transfer to the new church structure but also due to a change in pastoral leadership that oriented the church body towards further community outreach. Starting in 1996, Saint Peter’s awaited the call of a new permanent pastor while being served by an interim pastor.[67] The call for a new pastor was answered in 1997 by Reverend Bradley “Pastor Brad” Hales.[68] Pastor Hales, originally from Delta, OH, had felt a strong conviction in his youth to pursue ministerial work, expressing in an interview for a newspaper article that “God had called upon him to teach the words of the Gospel.”[69] After receiving his higher education in comprehensive social studies and divinity, Pastor Hales was ordained at Providence Lutheran Church in Holland, OH, and then served as pastor at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Phoenix, MD.[70] Similar to the conviction he felt in his youth, Pastor Hales felt called to relocate to a rural area near his wife’s family, with the call of Saint Peter’s fulfilling both desires.[71] Pastor Hales expressed excitement about taking on the pastorate of Saint Peter’s because of the programs and study groups that were developing at the time.[72] In addition to expressing confidence that the new church building would facilitate community outreach, Pastor Hales’ goals for his pastorate at Saint Peter’s were to deliver services that would “be exciting, simple, and sermons.”[73] Pastor Hales further reported that he was “ready to preach the goodness of Jesus Christ!”[74] With Pastor Hales’ zeal for evangelistic community outreach, Saint Peter’s and its pastor would seek to make their presence more widely known in Verona. Several years after Pastor Hales assumed leadership of Saint Peter’s, his evangelistic outreach was put on display. On May 4, 2000, Pastor Hales led a ceremony outside the Verona Town Offices in recognition of the National Day of Prayer, inviting community members present to join together in prayer for the state, county, local governments, and schools.[75] Furthermore, Pastor Hales recited scripture from the Bible and held a moment of silence before asking community members to offer their own prayers.[76] Pastor Hales offered prayers for elected officials at the state, county, and local levels, as well as saying a prayer that threats of violence would be taken away from schools in order for children to have safe places of learning.[77] The essence and meaning of the ceremony were summed up by Pastor Hales himself, who remarked to those gathered that prayer “brings us into an intimate relationship with God and being in the presence of the Lord, we know the Lord hears our prayers-we are not alone, he is always with us.”[78] In the years to come, Saint Peter’s congregants and subsequent pastors would follow the example of Pastor Hales by engaging the community with an evangelistic emphasis, albeit in ways different than that of Pastor Hales. Overall, Saint Peter’s experienced positive changes in the 2000s under Pastor Hales’ leadership, erasing the concerns raised during the 1990s. By 2003, the congregation of Saint Peter’s was thriving in a manner that it had not experienced in the previous decade. The weekly attendance at services had increased, going from between forty-five and fifty, which was experienced before the new church structure’s construction, to approximately two hundred and thirty after the transition to the new church structure.[79] Additionally, the church officially paid off its $225,000 twenty-year mortgage in seven years’ time.[80] The leadership of Saint Peter’s acknowledged that the feat of paying off the mortgage in seven years would not have been possible “without a caring congregation.”[81] As the 2000s ended, Saint Peter’s congregation and leaders would face new challenges and contend with the changing patterns of society and culture as the 2010s began. Facing Challenges in a Changing World. . .2012 to 2019 Saint Peter’s experienced a brief period of revolving pastors after Pastor Hales departed in 2005, with three pastors serving from 2005 to 2011.[82] A semblance of permanency in pastoral leadership was established in 2011 with the arrival of Pastor Katie Yahns, reminiscent of Pastor Krug's arrival in 1852 after the period of revolving pastorates in the late 1840s to early 1850s.[83] The 2010s came to be characterized by challenge, innovation, and initiative as the congregation and leadership of Saint Peter’s embarked on a new chapter. Many innovations and initiatives in the 2010s enhanced how the different hierarchies of Saint Peter’s communicated and resolved differences among themselves. In 2012, the mutual ministry team was established to deal with concerns that arose among the congregation, pastor, and staff.[84]The mutual ministry team would facilitate confidential discussions on how to address concerns raised.[85] Furthermore, in 2012, Saint Peter’s announced its commitment to becoming a safe haven for members of the congregation and newcomers, particularly those in the categories of young, vulnerable, and elderly, to keep them safe from all harm and abuse.[86]The “Keep in Touch with Seniors” program, created in 2014, provided monthly over-the-phone welfare checks of senior citizen congregants unable to attend services in person, ensuring that seniors knew that the main church body still cared about them.[87] >> Continue to Part 2 Sources [1] The vast majority of primary and secondary sources related to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church are original works produced by members of the church, including Annual Reports, pamphlets related to anniversary events, etc. Other primary sources include the Rome Daily Sentinel and the Oneida Daily Dispatch. With the exception of Annual Reports from 2020, 2021, and 2022 (which were provided by Pastor Katie Yahns of St. Peter’s), all sources written by members of St. Peter’s and newspapers utilized by the author are held as records within the files of the Town Historian for the Town of Verona, NY. These sources can be accessed by visiting or sending a written correspondence to the Verona Town Historian at 6600 German Road, Durhamville, NY 13054. Electronic correspondence via email with the Verona Town Historian can be sent to historian@veronany.gov. [2] Britannica Editors, “Alsace, historical region and former region, France,” Britannica, November 6, 2025, accessed December 18, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/place/Alsace. [3] W.G. Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection, The Past, The History of St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church,” The Twelfth Annual Old Home Sunday and the 110th Anniversary of the Congregation 1831-1841 St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Churchville, New York (Verona, NY: Saint Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1941), 1. [4] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1. [5] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1. [6] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1. [7] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1. [8] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1. [9] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 1-2. [10] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [11] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Church History,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Pictorial Church Directory (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Date Unknown), 2. [12] “Mission Station,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, no date, accessed December 18, 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mission%20station. [13] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [14] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [15] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [16] Sheila Hoffman, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church (Verona, NY: Sheila Hoffman, Date Unknown), 3. [17] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 1. [18] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 3. [19] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [20] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [21] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [22] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [23] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [24] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [25] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [26] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [27] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [28] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [29] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 4. [30] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [31] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [32] Dressler, “By Way of Retrospection,” 2. [33] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [34] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 4. [35] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 4. [36] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “By Way of Retrospection, The Past, The History of St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church,” The Twelfth Annual Old Home Sunday and the 110th Anniversary of the Congregation 1831-1841 St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Churchville, New York (Verona, NY: Saint Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1941), 3. [37] St. Peter’s, “By Way of Retrospection,” 3. [38] St. Peter’s, “By Way of Retrospection,” 3. [39] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 5. [40] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 5. [41] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 6. [42] St. Peter’s, “Church History,” 3. [43] St. Peter’s, “Church History,” 3. [44] St. Peter’s, “Church History,” 3. [45] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 7. [46] St. Peter’s, “Church History,” 3. [47] St. Peter’s, “Church History,” 3. [48] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 7. [49] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 8. [50] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 8. [51] Nicole A. Hawley, “Caring congregation thrives in Verona: St. Peter’s will burn mortgage Sunday,” Rome Daily Sentinel, June 20, 2003, Page Unknown. [52] Tracy Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares to build new church,” Oneida Daily Dispatch, June 16, 1995, Religion News, 5. [53] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [54] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [55] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [56] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [57] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [58] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [59] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [60] Vogel, “St. Peter’s prepares,” 5. [61] Author Unknown, “Church breaks ground on new site,” Oneida Daily Dispatch, July 21, 1995, Page Unknown. [62] Author Unknown, “St. Peter’s to dedicate its new church Sunday,” Oneida Daily Dispatch, May 3, 1996, Religion News, Page Unknown. [63] Pastor Katie Yahns, “Pastor’s Report to the Annual Meeting Reflecting on 2012 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Verona, NY,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 6. [64] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [65] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [66] Author Unknown, “St. Peter’s to dedicate,” Page Unknown. [67] Author Unknown, “St. Peter’s to dedicate,” Page Unknown. [68] D.M. Batchelor, “Pastor Brad feels at home in rural Verona,” Oneida Daily Dispatch, August 29, 1997, Page Unknown. [69] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [70] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [71] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [72] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [73] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [74] Batchelor, “Pastor Brad,” Page Unknown. [75] Kristen Buske, “Verona community comes together in prayer,” Oneida Daily Dispatch, May 5, 2000, Religion News, Page Unknown. [76] Buske, “Verona community,” Page Unknown. [77] Buske, “Verona community,” Page Unknown. [78] Buske, “Verona community,” Page Unknown. [79] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [80] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [81] Hawley, “Caring congregation,” Page Unknown. [82] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [83] Hoffman, St. Peter’s, 9. [84] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Mutual Ministry Team,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 12. [85] St. Peter’s, “Mutual Ministry Team,” 12. [86] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “The 'why' of Safe Haven,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2012 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2012), 14. [87] St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, “Mutual Ministry Team,” St. Peter’s Lutheran Church 2014 Annual Report (Verona, NY: St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, 2014), 15.

A U.S. Air Force Lockheed P-80A-1-LO Shooting Star (s/n 44-85004) in flight. This aircraft was later upgraded to an F-80C-11-LO. From Wikipedia. By Jeff Blanchard Introduction The average person in the world has learned at some point in their life that what goes up into the air must come back down to the ground. In addition, the average person has learned that certain things, such as birds and aircraft, return to Earth’s surface in either a controlled or uncontrolled manner. U.S. Air Force fighter jet pilot First Lieutenant Donald Wieland had the misfortune of experiencing an uncontrolled return to the ground while flying his F-80 Shooting Star fighter jet in the skies above the Town of Verona, New York. This incident was a significant episode in both the history of the Town of Verona and the service record of the F-80 aircraft itself. First Lieutenant Wieland’s eventful return to the Earth’s surface represented a rare instance of an aircraft accident in the Town of Verona and one that involved a military aircraft. The incident, though, despite being rare in the Town of Verona, was a reflection of the F-80’s troubled safety record, which will be examined further. Background The main historical figure of this episode, F-80 fighter jet pilot First Lieutenant Wieland, was originally assigned to the 132 nd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the 4711 th Air Defense Wing, based at Dow Air Force Base in Maine. [1] First Lieutenant Wieland, along with several other pilots and aircraft from Dow Air Force Base, had been temporarily assigned to Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY, in the summer of 1952 to perform air defense duties for the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command. [2] During the Cold War, U.S. Air Force fighter-interceptor pilots were tasked with defending the United States against potential bomber attacks launched by the Soviet Union, with interceptor pilots standing ready to get their aircraft airborne within minutes and guided by Air Force radar stations to intercept any Soviet bomber aircraft. [3]   First Lieutenant Wieland, in particular, was performing this air defense duty with the 27th Fighter Squadron of Griffiss Air Force Base, having arrived at the base for temporary duty two weeks prior to his eventful flight. [4] Events Leading Up to the Incident On September 5, 1952, First Lieutenant Wieland and his Wing Leader, Captain Herbert Brennan, were on five-minute strip alert,[5] ready to get their aircraft aloft in a five-minute time frame to intercept potential airborne intruders. At approximately 3:17 PM, Captain Brennan and First Lieutenant Wieland were alerted to take off for an interception mission by a U.S. Air Force radar unit known as Cuttlery Control. [6] Captain Brennan and First Lieutenant Wieland, at the controls of their F-80 Shooting Star fighter jets, were in the air by 3:20 PM and had brought their aircraft to an altitude of 15,000 feet. [7] At around 3:40 PM, Captain Brennan and First Lieutenant Wieland were approximately seventy miles northeast of Griffiss Air Force Base when they made contact with the ‘intruder,’ a U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber. [8] Available source accounts do not reveal whether this interception mission was a surprise training event or a false alarm, but Captain Brennan made the best of the situation by contacting the B-29 crew to request permission to conduct simulated gunnery passes to notionally ‘shoot down’ the bomber. [9] The two F-80 pilots conducted simulated gunnery passes on the B-29 for approximately fifteen minutes, with the interception mission taking place approximately one-hundred and twenty miles from Griffiss Air Force Base in the skies just north of Albany, NY. [10] Once the interception mission had been completed, Cuttlery Control directed Captain Brennan and First Lieutenant Wieland to direct their aircraft back to Griffiss Air Force Base. [11] Upon reaching the vicinity of Griffiss Air Force Base, Cuttlery Control directed the two F-80 pilots to fly around the perimeter of nearby Oneida Lake at 15,000 feet in order for Cuttlery Control to track the aircraft on radar to remedy a technical issue involving ground radar equipment. [12] Once Cuttlery Control had remedied the technical issue of its radar, the two F-80s were released to return to Griffiss Air Force Base at around 4:20 PM. [13] With each of the two F-80s still having approximately 290 gallons of fuel remaining, Captain Brennan took the opportunity to conduct additional training, instructing First Lieutenant Wieland to form his aircraft with Captain Brennan’s in a ‘loose string’ formation to practice aerobatic maneuvers. [14] Unbeknownst to both pilots, their impromptu training session would soon be struck by disaster. The Incident: First Lieutenant Wieland’s Uncontrolled Return to the Ground Over the course of a five-minute time frame, First Lieutenant Wieland and Captain Brennan performed multiple aerobatic maneuvers ranging from loops, rolls, and ‘lazy eights,’ with forces exerted on the F-80 jets kept within safe limits. [15] The two aircraft then proceeded to execute a turning maneuver, with both of the jets pulling up and simultaneously turning to the left in an arc-type pattern, with First Lieutenant Wieland staying to the left of Captain Brennan’s F-80 while maintaining some distance away. [16] It was at this point that things had gone awry. While executing the left turn maneuver, First Lieutenant Wieland heard a loud “clunk” sound originate from the rear of his aircraft and felt the controls of the F-80 go ‘loose.’ [17] A fraction of a second after the controls for First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 went loose, his aircraft violently rolled to the right, went upside down, and started to spin horizontally. [18] First Lieutenant Weiland knew at that point something was extremely wrong with his aircraft and that he needed to initiate procedures to eject from the stricken F-80. [19] The effort that First Lieutenant Wieland had to put forth to eject from his aircraft was made all the worse by the fact that the extreme gravitational forces caused by the rotation and positioning of the F-80 as it fell through the sky had the desperate pilot’s body pinned against the canopy over the cockpit. [20] From this awkward upside-down position, First Lieutenant Wieland attempted to reach a handle positioned close to the floor of the cockpit that would jettison the canopy in order for the ejection to take place. [21] After making three unsuccessful attempts to reach the jettison handle, [22] First Lieutenant Wieland felt time was passing by and his aircraft was getting close to the ground, prompting him to attempt to activate his ejection seat and break through the canopy. [23] After operating all the necessary controls to activate his ejection seat, First Lieutenant Wieland’s attempt to eject straight through the canopy failed, for the ejection had not activated. [24] In desperation, First Lieutenant Wieland made a fourth attempt to reach the jettison handle, achieving success during this attempt, thereby allowing him to eject a fraction of a second after the canopy separated from his F-80. [25] At the time of the ejection, First Lieutenant Wieland’s aircraft was 9,000 feet above the ground, and his parachute did not pop open until he had free-fallen through the air for 4,000 feet. [26] Meanwhile, Captain Brennan, unaware of what had transpired, looked over his left shoulder to check on First Lieutenant Wieland, only to see the tail section of an F-80 tumbling through the air. [27] After attempting a radio check with First Lieutenant Wieland and not receiving an answer, Captain Brennan notified the Air Traffic Control Tower at Griffiss Air Force Base that an aircraft accident had occurred. [28] While attempting to figure out what had happened to his wingman, Captain Brennan witnessed the tail section of the stricken F-80 strike the ground, followed by a sighting of a red and white parachute with First Lieutenant Wieland attached to it. [29] First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 crashed into a bean field of the Leo Mooney farm, a half-mile off of Irish Ridge Road, southeast of the Hamlet of Stacy Basin, between the Hamlets of Durhamville and Verona in the Town of Verona. [30] Shortly after his parachute opened, First Lieutenant Wieland witnessed his F-80 strike the ground and explode below him as he descended to the ground while Captain Brennan flew his F-80 around him. [31] Concerned that he was going to descend into the flames of his F-80’s wreckage, First Lieutenant Wieland slipped out of his parachute [32] and landed approximately five hundred yards from the wreckage of his destroyed aircraft. [33] After he witnessed First Lieutenant Wieland land on the ground, Captain Brennan, in his F-80, along with a B-29 bomber, circled the crash site until civilians on the ground reached First Lieutenant Wieland. [34] Upon his eventful return to the Earth’s surface, First Lieutenant Wieland’s crash incident entered a new phase on the ground. Eyewitness Accounts from the Ground While First Lieutenant Wieland and Captain Brennan had been practicing aerobatic maneuvers in their fighter jets, Warren Seibel, a civilian on the ground, watched the incident unfold, witnessing First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 break apart during the turning maneuver he had been performing. [35] As the F-80 became stricken, Mr. Seibel witnessed the canopy jettison, First Lieutenant Wieland eject, and the tail section of the aircraft tear off from the rest of the fuselage. [36] The remainder of the descending F-80’s fuselage, making erratic type spins, went out of Mr. Seibel’s view at approximately two hundred feet from the ground. [37] As Mr. Seibel witnessed the incident unfold, Lula Orr, a migrant farm worker who lived five hundred yards from the crash site, first sighted the stricken F-80 as it was five hundred feet from the ground and saw the crash occur, feeling her house shake as the fighter jet burst into smoke and flames. [38] After the impact had occurred, hundreds of civilians, who had heard about the incident from radio news bulletins, flocked to the scene and navigated through thick brush to reach the crash site. [39] Firefighters from the Fire Departments of Durhamville and Griffiss Air Force Base arrived at the crash scene and used firefighting foam equipment to bring the fire in the aircraft wreckage under control. [40] As flames from the wreckage were being suppressed, bystanders were not allowed into part of the scene due to the danger of exploding ammunition from the crashed F-80’s fully loaded .50-caliber machine guns, with law enforcement officers from Griffiss Air Force Base and civilian police agencies eventually restricting the entire scene. [41] Amidst this controlled chaos, First Lieutenant Wieland, having sprained the right side of his neck and sustained a contusion of his buttocks, [42] required transport from the scene by a Griffiss Air Force Base ambulance, later being reported as in good condition. [43] A short time after the crash had occurred, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Packard of Griffiss Air Force Base’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Board arrived at the scene to conduct the initial accident investigation. [44] The subsequent investigation revealed concerning safety issues in the wake of the crash incident. The Accident Investigation and Its Recommendations  The accident investigation, beyond what Lieutenant Colonel Packard had initially conducted on the scene, revealed serious safety concerns that were to have consequences for the F-80 fleet throughout the U.S. Air Force. Maintenance records revealed that, for unknown reasons, the tail section of Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 had been switched out with the tail section of a different F-80. [45] During the process of switching out the tail sections, certain brackets attaching the tail section of Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 had been reinforced, while others had not, an action that was not in compliance with U.S. Air Force technical procedures for aircraft maintenance. [46] These actions by maintenance personnel during tail section attachment resulted in the section with unreinforced bolts being slightly flexible, while the section with reinforced bolts was rigid. [47] Thus, the movement of the flexible portion of the tail placed stress on the rigid section, which, when coupled with possible additional stress placed on First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80 encountering turbulence coming off of Captain Brennan’s aircraft during close formation flying, caused the reinforced brackets to fail during flight. [48] The failure of the brackets most likely accounted for the dull clunk sound that First  Lieutenant heard, and most likely had a negative effect on the control flaps of the destabilized tail section, which caused the perilous, violent roll and spinning of First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80. [49] Once the cause of the accident had been determined, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board at Griffiss Air Force Base made several recommendations at the time. The first recommendation was to ensure that all aircraft maintenance personnel complied with technical procedures when performing repairs on interchangeable parts of the F-80, such as the tail section. [50] The second recommendation had even more far-reaching consequences, as it suggested imposing flight restrictions on all F-80s in the U.S. Air Force until it could be determined that the technical procedures for their maintenance had been complied with and the tail sections of each aircraft were verified as not exhibiting abnormal movement. [51] The last recommendation, made in light of First Lieutenant Wieland’s monumental struggle to eject during the incident, advocated for the placement of canopy jettison controls that could be easily reached by a pilot regardless of how an aircraft was positioned during an emergency. [52] The results of the accident investigation represented yet another bad mark on the safety record of the F-80, despite the respected service history of the classic early Cold War fighter jet. The F-80: A History-Making Airplane with a Troubled Safety Record In the early years of the Second World War, the United States acquired its first-ever fighter jet, the Bell P-59 Airacomet, an aircraft that could only reach a speed of 410 miles per hour, making it slower than the propeller-driven P-51 Mustang. [53] Due to the dismal performance of the P-59 and Allied intelligence in 1943, when it was learned that the German Me-262 fighter jet would soon enter service, the aviation design and manufacturing company, Lockheed, was tasked with producing a better fighter jet in just six months. [54] Lockheed’s famous aviation designer, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, drew up the initial designs of what would be known as the XP-80, with the first prototype being built one hundred and forty-three days after the first designs had been drawn up. [55] After the prototype stage, the first P-80 was delivered into service with the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1945, [56] but only four YP-80A’s made it to Europe in 1945 just before the end of the Second World War, with these aircraft not engaging in any combat actions. [57] Despite not seeing any combat, the P-80, of which 1,700 were built in the years following the Second World War, went on to set significant post-war records. [58] In 1946, a P-80 became the first jet-propelled aircraft that flew from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States, and a modified P-80R ‘Racer’ broke a previous flight speed record by achieving six hundred and twenty-three miles per hour. [59] Upon establishment of the U.S. Air Force, the P-80 was redesignated the F-80 in 1948, with a detachment of F-80s going on to serve in Europe in response to the Berlin Crisis of 1948. [60] It was in the Korean War, though, that the F-80 cut its teeth in combat, as large numbers of the aircraft were present in U.S. Air Force Fighter Squadrons in the Far East. [61] Pressed into service in Korea in 1950, almost immediately after the outbreak of war, the F-80 was able to outmatch the propeller-driven fighters of North Korea in combat, but was soon outmatched itself by the arrival of the Soviet built MiG-15 fighter jet. [62] Despite being outmatched in the areas of speed, acceleration, maneuverability, and firepower by the MiG-15, several F-80s participated in the first recorded aerial combat engagement between fighter jets in history on November 8, 1950, engaging four MiG-15s, one of which was shot down by F-80 jet fighter pilot Lieutenant Russell J. Brown. [63] F-80s would go on to shoot down 17 enemy aircraft during aerial engagements in Korea, but were soon relegated to the ground-attack role, a role for which they were never intended, after the U.S. Air Force introduced the superior F-86 Saber Jet in Korea to counter the MiG-15. [64] Despite its impressive history of service, the F-80's achievements did not overshadow its troubled safety record. The F-80's safety record did not get off to a good start, even in its prototype stage. Lockheed’s chief test pilot died during the crash of an XP-80 during a test flight as a result of a fuel pump issue. [65] When two P-80s were deployed to England in 1945, one of the aircraft was involved in a fatal crash incident, marking the second such incident involving the P-80. [66] As P-80s became operational in Fighter units, accidents started to mount, caused by engine problems, pilot errors, and, just like with First Lieutenant Wieland’s F-80, structural failures. [67] One accident involving a P-80 in particular claimed the life of Richard Bong, an American fighter ace of the Second World War, subsequently resulting in the grounding of the entire P-80 fleet. [68] Due to the prevalence of accidents, in addition to the end of the Second World War, doubt was cast upon the P-80 as a safe and effective fighter in the U.S. fighter aircraft inventory. [69] Even during the Cold War, accidents such as the one involving First Lieutenant Wieland over the Town of Verona reflected that safety issues still plagued even upgraded models of the F-80 and could be fatal. If the safety issues had been rectified in the later models of the F-80, to include compliance with standard technical procedures, September 5, 1952, would have been an uneventful day in history for the Town of Verona and in the life of First Lieutenant Donald Wieland.       About the author: Jeff Blanchard has been the Historian for the Town of Verona, NY, since June 2025, and has been vigorously pursuing projects related to Verona’s rich history. Jeff earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Liberty University and is interested in local history, post-World War II military history, and American military history.                             Bibliography Alex, Dan. “Lockheed P-80/F-80 Shooting Star Single-seat, Jet-Powered Fighter/Fighter-Bomber Aircraft United States 1945.” Military Factory. Last Updated May 8, 2024, https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.php?aircraft_id=86 . Author Unknown. “Griffiss Jet Crashes Into Bean Field, Pilot Parachutes to Safety.” Rome Daily Sentinel , September 6, 1952, Saturday Evening. Author Unknown. “Recommendations.” Report of Proceedings of Aircraft Accident Board. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 9, 1952. Bonders, James L. Major USAF (MD). “Section B-PERSONAL FACTORS.” Medical Report of An Individual Involved in AF Aircraft Accident. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Airforce, September 15, 1952. Bonders, James L. Major USAF (MD). “Section D-Diagnosis.” Medical Report Of An Individual Involved in AF Aircraft Accident. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 15, 1952. Brennan, Herbert Captain USAF. “Statement made by Captain Herbert O. Brennan to Captain Joseph J. Walsh USAF.” Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952. Bright, Christopher J. “The Heyday of Nuclear Air Defense.” Air and Space Forces Magazine, July 1, 2012. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0712nuclear/ . Roblin, Sebastien. “Meet the F-80 Shooting Star: The First U.S. Jet Fighter That Went to War Against North Korea.” The National Interest, January 3, 2019. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-f-80-shooting-star-first-us-jet-fighter-went-war-against-north-korea-40417 . Seibel, Warren F. “Statement made by Warren F. Seibel to Major Joseph J. Walsh USAF.” Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 5, 1952. U.S. Air Force. “Section D-PERSONNEL INVOLVED.” Report of AF Aircraft Accident. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952. U.S. Air Force. “Section O-DESCRIPTION OF ACCIDENT.” Report of AF Aircraft Accident. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952. U.S. Air Force. “Untitled Investigation Report.” Date Unknown. U.S. Air Force. Report of Proceedings of Aircraft Accident Board. Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952. Wieland, Donald First Lieutenant USAF. “Statement made by First Lieutenant Donald Wieland to Captain Joseph J. Walsh USAF.” Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952.               [1] U.S. Air Force, “Section D-PERSONNEL INVOLVED,” Report of AF Aircraft Accident (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952), 1.  [2] U.S. Air Force, “Section O-DESCRIPTION OF ACCIDENT,” Report of AF Aircraft Accident (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952), 4. [3] Christopher J. Bright, “The Heyday of Nuclear Air Defense,” Air and Space Forces Magazine, July 1, 2012, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0712nuclear/ . [4] Major James L. Bonders USAF (MD), “Section B-PERSONAL FACTORS,” Medical Report of An Individual Involved in AF Aircraft Accident (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Airforce, September 15, 1952), 1. [5] Captain Herbert Brennan USAF, “Statement made by Captain Herbert O. Brennan to Captain Joseph J. Walsh USAF,” (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952), 1. [6] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [7] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [8] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [9] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [10] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [11] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [12] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [13] Brennan, “Statement made by Captain Brennan,” 1. [14] First Lieutenant Donald Wieland USAF, “Statement made by First Lieutenant Donald Wieland to Captain Joseph J. Walsh USAF,” (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952), 1. [15] Wieland, “Statement made by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [16] Wieland, “Statement by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [17] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings of Aircraft Accident Board (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, 1952), 2. [18] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [19] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [20] Wieland, “Statement by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [21] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [22] Wieland, “Statement by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [23] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [24] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [25] Wieland, “Statement by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [26] Wieland, “Statement by First Lieutenant Wieland,” 1. [27] Brennan, “Statement by Captain Brennan,” 1. [28] Brennan, “Statement by Captain Brennan,” 1. [29] Brennan, “Statement by Captain Brennan,” 1. [30] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes Into Bean Field, Pilot Parachutes to Safety,” Rome Daily Sentinel , September 6, 1952, Saturday Evening. [31] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [32] U.S. Air Force, Report of Proceedings , 2. [33] Warren F. Seibel, “Statement made by Warren F. Seibel to Major Joseph J. Walsh USAF,” (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 5, 1952), 1. [34] Brennan, “Statement by Captain Brennan,” 1. [35] Seibel, “Statement by Warren Seibel,” 1. [36] Seibel, “Statement by Warren Seibel,” 1. [37] Seibel, “Statement by Warren Seibel,” 1. [38] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.” [39] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.”   [40] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.” [41] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.” [42] Major James L. Bonders USAF (MD), “Section D-Diagnosis,” Medical Report Of An Individual Involved in AF Aircraft Accident (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 15, 1952), 3. [43] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.” [44] Author Unknown, “Griffiss Jet Crashes.” [45] U.S. Air Force, “Untitled Investigation Report,” Date Unknown, 1. [46] U.S. Air Force, “Untitled Investigation Report,” 1. [47] U.S. Air Force, “Untitled Investigation Report,” 1. [48] U.S. Air Force, “Untitled Investigation Report,” 1. [49] U.S. Air Force, “Untitled Investigation Report,” 1. [50]   Author Unknown, “Recommendations,” Report of Proceedings of Aircraft Accident Board (Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY: U.S. Air Force, September 9, 1952), 12. [51] Author Unknown, “Recommendations,” 13. [52] Author Unknown, “Recommendations,” 13. [53] Sebastien Roblin, “Meet the F-80 Shooting Star: The First U.S. Jet Fighter That Went to War Against North Korea,” The National Interest, January 3, 2019, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-f-80-shooting-star-first-us-jet-fighter-went-war-against-north-korea-40417 . [54] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [55] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [56] Dan Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80 Shooting Star Single-seat, Jet-Powered Fighter/Fighter-Bomber Aircraft United States 1945,” Military Factory, Last Updated May 8, 2024, https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.php?aircraft_id=86 . [57] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [58] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [59] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [60] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [61] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [62] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [63] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [64] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [65] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [66] Roblin, “Meet the F-80.” [67] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [68] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.” [69] Alex, “Lockheed P-80/F-80.”

By Richard White Copyright © 2026 All rights reserved by the author. Cover of a 1922 edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald 's book Tales of the Jazz Age , painted by John Held, Jr. “I don’t think jazz should be called music.  It has no harmony.   It’s harsh and lacks dignity and beauty… It tears a piano to pieces and is suited only to a cheap instrument.”  This was the 1927 observation, and stern opinion, of Attica’s  Philetus Sheridan Tyler, nicknamed Leet, as quoted in the Buffalo Evening News on March 16.  For over 50 years, he tuned pianos in Western New York, especially in Buffalo, and across the Great Lakes region.  But just as jazz tore a piano “to pieces,” it started to tear Leet apart as well.  The Jazz Age and its associated Roaring Twenties, with its flamboyance and excesses in the name of hedonism. Tyler was a sensitive, proud, small-town American who recently served in the military in Europe.   The end of the war brought him to Boston, where he learned the piano business and provided him time to develop his thoughts on jazz.  At some juncture, he countenanced what he regarded as cultural damage, decay, and destruction that jazz created, and would continue to destroy our cultural landscape.  Opponents of jazz wished that it would vaporize. There was a mild, low-key stance in his resistance to jazz.   Leet never staged a rally or addressed a crowd, and he was a guest on a radio show only once.   Nothing has been found about him accosting a jazz fan, or even picketing a movie such as “The Jazz Singer," which was released in 1927.  And he definitely did not define himself as a hero.  But for the juggernaut of avant-garde jazz performers and artists, there was a cultural stockade defended by a diverse but like-minded defenders, such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, to foil or silence the Jazz-ers.  It would be a misjudgment to contend that Leet was weak because he operated by himself almost universally.  He stood for and exhibited hardcore, country individualism.          On occasion, though, the Tyler family journeyed beyond Buffalo not only to find a new market for piano tuning and instrument repair, but also to hold nighttime assemblies for discussion in a rented hall, exposing neighbors and friends to the dangers of jazz.  In addition, Leet often pointed out the names of three traditional songs, the type of which were necessary to preserve our national make-up. They were classic pre-jazz songs.  First was “Annie Laurie,” a romantic song likely written by William Douglas.  Second was “Old Kentucky Home,” whose lyrics were written by Stephen Foster with the never-to-forgotten passage, “The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home.” Leet always included “Sweet and Low,” scribed by Stephen Foster, which calls upon singers to remember “the wind of the Western Sea.” He continued using them when he tuned a piano or sold one in his later years. In the Twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writings on the Jazz Era depict a rebellion against traditional values.  Philetus Sheridan Tyler from Attica fought the rebellion. About the author: Richard White's articles have appeared in  Civil War History, The Journal of Negro History , and other publications.

By Paul Lubienecki, PhD Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author. Portrait of George Fox, courtesy of Wikipedia The religious history of the United States is one of persecution and yet tolerance. Differences in theological perspectives, politics, and loyalties existed among all denominations and religious communities. This aspect of life was also prevalent among the Society of Friends. Their spiritual life and journey to western New York reflected their civil and religious values as they established themselves in local society. Origins The Society of Friends originated from the aftermath of the English Civil War in the 1650s. Religious persecution and corruption that plagued England during the Civil War provoked many people to desire religious freedom and toleration away from the Anglican Church and other orthodox denominations. The Society of Friends emerged in the midst of chaos under George Fox, a dissenting preacher and the son of a wealthy weaver from Leicestershire, England. [1]  Fox looked down upon those who claimed to be professors of God’s truth and developed radical social views for the seventeenth century. George Fox turned away from most forms of religious authority by rejecting ordained ministers or clergy as interpreters of God’s word and looked with disgust at many forms of corruption in those church positions. Fox developed his own belief, which became the foundation of the Society of Friends. He focused his confidence in the direct revelation of Christ through the Inner Light to the individual believer.  Soon, people who believed in the Inner Light, like Fox, met at a “meeting house” without a designated priest and reflected during a quiet time interspersed with many testimonies that gave glory to God. [2] Other non-typical norms of seventeenth-century people that Friends implemented included neither swearing oaths to the state nor paying tithes to church leaders who functioned as part of the State. Those practices led early Quakers to be persecuted.  Unlike other orthodox religious groups, such as the Anglicans or Presbyterians, Friends did not believe in sacraments at their meetings. Communion is derived from a silent meditation with God, not an outward show of taking bread and wine like other denominations. Friends also disregarded both infant and adult baptisms, believing that a relationship with God is an inward connection; consequently, it was not necessary to represent it on the outside through water baptism. [3] There are two fundamental aspects to Quaker faith. First, Friends believe that all people are capable of directly experiencing the divine nature of the universe, which is known by many names, such as God, the Holy Spirit, or simply Spirit, and is among the most common. They believe that you do not need a priest or any other kind of spiritual intercessor and do not need to perform any kind of ritual. Quakers profess that when you need to hear from God, you will. When the Spirit has a message for you to share, you should share it. The second key principle is belief in continued revelation. In the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, there are many stories of God communicating directly with people. Friends believe God’s revelations have never stopped, and that God might reach out to anyone at any time. When Quakers come together to meet for silent worship, they participate in a shared space in which all strive to recognize such divine messages. The Religious Society of Friends does not have an unshakable system of religious dogma. There is no specific belief about the “right” way to experience contact with the divine. It is a relationship with divinity and ultimately unique to each person. Many scholars today consider Quakers radical Puritans because the Quakers carried many Puritan convictions to extremes. [4]  They stretched the sober deportment of the Puritans into a glorification of "plainness." Theologically, they expanded the Puritan concept of a church of individuals regenerated by the Holy Spirit to include the indwelling of the Spirit, or the "Light of Christ," in every person. Such teaching struck many of the Quakers' contemporaries as dangerous heresy. Quakers were severely persecuted in England for daring to deviate so far from orthodox Christianity. By 1680, 10,000 Quakers had been imprisoned in England, and 243 had died of torture and mistreatment in the King's jails. This Reign of Terror impelled Friends to seek refuge in New Jersey in the 1670s, where they soon became well-established. In 1681, when Quaker leader William Penn (1644-1718) parlayed a debt owed by Charles II to his father into a charter for the province of Pennsylvania, numerous Quakers were eager to seize the opportunity to live in a land where they might worship freely. By 1685, as many as 8,000 Quakers had come to Pennsylvania. Although the Quakers may have resembled the Puritans in some religious beliefs and practices, they differed from them over the necessity of compelling religious uniformity in society. Quakers were pacifists, an ideology that also developed from the turmoil of the English Civil War, and carries through into the present day.  This viewpoint separated Quakers from most other religious groups in England and made them outcasts, considered as traitors to the established Church and to the State in times of war.  Friends' refusal to take up arms stemmed from their pacifist views, belief in religious tolerance, and a need for separation between Church and State domination. Equality was another area where Friends set themselves apart, as women and men were viewed in society as equal in the eyes of God. Belief in equality also led some Quakers to advocate for the abolition of slavery in the eighteenth century and, more forcefully, in the years leading up to the Civil War. It became an issue that led to disagreements among Quakers throughout the Antebellum period in America. Due to the chaos in England following the English Civil War and the Friends’ desire to spread their beliefs in the Inner Light far and wide, Quakers began the first of many migrations of their faith to the American colonies and the Caribbean. Upon arrival in the New World in the seventeenth century, Quakers settled alongside other religious groups in the New England colonies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. In the mid-Atlantic region, the colony of Pennsylvania became a refuge for Quakers and many other diverse populations. Pennsylvania: The Quaker Colony Pennsylvania was founded through a grant from the King by wealthy Quaker William Penn, a businessman and a philosopher in his own right. King Charles II of England owed a debt to Penn’s father, an admiral and a politician who sat in the House of Commons. To repay his debt, King Charles II gave Penn the land now known as Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania became a haven for Quakers from England under the guidance of William Penn’s “holy experiment” to establish the colony, almost autonomous from the others in the Delaware Valley, based on the Quaker political and social belief systems. [5] Pennsylvania, and especially Philadelphia, became the center for American Friends, and the Philadelphia Meeting served as a model for other Yearly Meetings as they were established throughout the colonies during the eighteenth century. Quakers dominated Pennsylvania’s government and provided models for the Society for almost seventy years. As the diversity of the Quaker population grew in the middle colonies, it inevitably led to disagreements between Friends.  Arguments and disagreements were tied to where Friends lived, whether Friends were urban or rural. Urban dwellers, according to the rural Friends, believed that Quakers living in Philadelphia had become too worldly or “church-like.” [6] Deviance from Quaker tenets led to Quakers becoming disowned. The politics of who ruled the meetings became too intertwined in the society, so many Friends attempted to maintain their pure society by migrating south and west. Subsequently, many Quakers moved away from the Delaware Valley, Maryland, and Virginia. Settling in Western New York: Orchard Park Members of the Society of Friends began settling in the Niagara region in 1783. They were part of a larger migration “from the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, particularly the county of Sussex, in the latter state.” [7]  Many incoming settlers, including some Friends, had stood loyally by “King and country” during the American Revolution and could be counted as refugees from the United States. Nearly all Quakers who came to the Niagara region had taken no active part in the war and did not claim to be Loyalists. They had nevertheless suffered from double taxation and the loss of civil rights for their refusal to bear arms or to pledge to defend the new nation. These penalties continued after the war.  Settling around present-day Fort Erie, Ontario, these new immigrants crossed the rugged terrain of Pennsylvania with a caravan of handcrafted furniture, cattle, and religious zeal. Permanent settlements on the American side of the Niagara River were practically non-existent at this time, as the area was primarily under the control of Native Americans.  In 1791, Seneca Chief Cornplanter visited the nation’s capital in Philadelphia and met with the Quaker community. Impressed with their qualifications, he sent two Seneca Nation boys to be educated by them.  This was followed in 1794 with Chief Sacarese of the Tuscarora Nation meeting Quakers from Philadelphia at Canandaigua, New York, during treaty negotiations. The Quakers were appointed to assist the Native American tribes in education and “European style” of agriculture, supplying them with “ploughs, axes, and hoes,” being “liberally” supplied to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. [8]   These Quakers, at the request of Chiefs Cornplanter and Sacarese, established missions in Allegheny and Cattaraugus counties, as well as on Tuscarora lands. The Holland Land Company, a syndicate of land developers, surveyed and purchased large tracts of land bordering the Genesee River in the east to the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario in 1792.  This was within Native American territory, and multiple disputes arose over ownership and use.  This area of western New York remained unsettled and primitive. The Philadelphia Committee on Indian Concerns visited the area as needed, supplying the Native Americans with materials required for construction and industry. [9] Yet a prevalent problem remained: alcoholism among the native population.  The Quakers, in conjunction with tribal elders, moved to ban the sale of alcohol. The area around Buffalo was slowly growing with the emergence of new settlements surrounded by farms, grist mills, saw mills, and other businesses. In 1804, Quaker Amos Colvin and Baptist Deacon Ezekiel Smith purchased substantial acreage from the Holland Land Company in the southwest of present-day Orchard Park, New York. The acquisition was for his family for farming and development. [10]   News of land opening up in western New York for purchase and development spurred settlers and speculators to migrate there. These new Quaker pioneers came from various parts of New York State, Pennsylvania, and New England.  In 1805, Quaker Gideon Dudley purchased 200 acres in the Town of Hamburg, New York, and David Eddy acquired sizable acreage in Orchard Park. The Society of Friends in this area south of Buffalo was growing, but no formal Meeting House had yet been established. The nearest recognized meeting was in Bertie, Ontario (Ft. Erie), some twenty miles away.  With the influx of settlers, Orchard Park was rapidly evolving into a predominantly Quaker district.  A prominent Friend was Obadiah Baker. He relocated his family from Vermont in 1807, purchasing 100 acres for farming, and constructed a log cabin on the site. Before his arrival, the small but growing Quaker population sought a “proper” local meeting house for worship.  This group of Friends was under the jurisdictional control of the Pelham Monthly Meeting (Canada), and the Quakers in “the district of Erie near Buffalo” petitioned for their own meeting house. [11]  In 1807, a Meeting House for Worship was approved in the district of Erie near Buffalo (Orchard Park) under the care of Pelham Friends Meeting (New Welland, Ontario). Friends first met in the home of Obadiah Baker in 1807 on East Quaker Road, and continued to meet there until a log Meeting House was completed in 1812 near the corner of East Quaker Road and Buffalo Road. David Eddy, the first settler of the Village of Orchard Park, who built and operated an inn and tavern in the village, sold the land to the Quakers.  By this time, there were 25 Quaker families in the community, and the number was growing.   In 1817, the Meeting purchased three acres of land at the corner of East Quaker Road and Freeman Road from Aldrich Arnold and obtained the approval of Farmington Quarterly Meeting to build a larger, more suitable meeting house.  This meeting house served them until the early 1820s, when they built and occupied the current structure. Additionally, the first lending library was established by the Quakers in February 1823 with an assortment of books donated to the Meeting, with the charge that their curators “lend them to such families as they shall find to be most in need, having a particular regard to women Friends.”  [12]                                                  The Southtowns Region As Quakers settled in the Orchard Park area, others relocated to lands further south, closer to Lake Erie and the Native American reservations. The plight of the Native Americans was a constant concern for the Philadelphia Committee on Indian Concerns. Jacob Taylor, representing the Committee, opened a mission in 1809 in Collins, New York, near the Cattaraugus Reservation of the Seneca Nation. While the Quaker missionaries worked with the Native population, they did not try to convert them; their purpose was to educate. [13]    The following year, Quaker families settled in Gowanda, New York.  These new families: Tucker, Sission, Haight, Barker, and others established homesteads for farming, fishing, commercial enterprises such as grist mills, lumber mills, carpentry, woodworking, and furniture production, and most importantly, missionary work with the Senecas.  During the following years, Quakers continued to migrate to the lands south of Buffalo and Erie County.  These settlers came from Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other parts of New York State.  Their settlements became the present-day towns of Eden, Evans, Boston, and Collins. [14] Quaker pioneers were no different from others who settled the land. They sought fertile farm land, raised cattle, cleared forests, and operated small business ventures. The Quaker population continued to swell and move further out.  While worship services were held, they became somewhat sporadic, and the potential for lax practices existed. However, a review of the matter by the Pelham Monthly Meeting group found that the worship services were “reputably kept up.” [15]   Although Friends were established there by 1820, Collins and Concord had no formal meeting house. Schools were established as early as 1815, but the first Quaker meeting house in Collins was finally built in 1888. [16] Imminent Conflict Political tensions began to percolate as early as 1811 between the United States and Great Britain. With the apparent eruption of hostilities, the Farmington (New York) Monthly Meeting noted the situation and the potential for a great divide between the Pelham (Canada) Friends and those in New York State.  The Farmington Friends sent a delegation to Pelham to ascertain the conditions between the two national groups. They reported that at that time, no animosity existed between the Canadians and Americans. When the War of 1812 commenced, the British controlled Lake Erie, blocking access to Canada and the Pelham Quakers. As a pacifist group, the Friends endeavored to remain politically neutral and openly refused military service. Their theology commanded that Christians were to be obedient to the law. Still, when governments interfere with the “religious rights or bind the consciences of their subjects, then Christians are to endure sufferings rather than comply with the laws of men which violate their higher and supreme obligation to God.” [17]   After the American Revolution, many Friends settled in Canada, leaving extended families in the newly formed United States. This ultimately meant compulsory military service for Quaker men living in Canada. During the War of 1812, young Quaker Aaron Hambleton was forced to join the Canadian military. He refused and was jailed, where he subsequently died. The family was then compelled to leave their property near present-day Toronto and relocate to Orchard Park. [18] Just a few years later, Aaron’s father, Moses, plagued by the tragedy, drank heavily and was disowned by the Society of Friends; he died soon afterwards. [19] When British troops destroyed Buffalo and Black Rock, the Quakers of Orchard Park and the Southtowns feared that this same devastation would happen to them. Fortunately, the British army saw no consequential value in marching south of Buffalo. But communication between the Orchard Park group and Pelham was now “interrupted.” The Orchard Park Friends soon separated from the Pelham community and were now under the care of the Farmington Friends Monthly Meeting. Commerce, Growth, Expansion With the conclusion of the war, commerce on Lake Erie restarted. Western New York became the gateway to the Midwest as grains, furniture, clothing, produce, cattle, and other goods passed through the area on their way west. This created multiple business opportunities for the area’s Quakers. As an independent and self-sufficient group, they disliked government intrusion, taxes, and regulations on their work but complied as necessary. The initial Quaker pioneers cleared the land for farms, cattle, swine, and orchards. As more skilled craftsmen and artisans arrived, their entrepreneurial character evolved. Obadiah Baker farmed the land and built houses. Dry goods stores opened, selling groceries, clothing, window glass, nails, and other household necessities.  The barter system was the common method of transaction. [20] David Eddy, an intermittent member of the Society of Friends, built an inn at Orchard Park’s Four Corners area. Still, controversy surrounded this enterprise as it was believed he also owned an adjacent tavern. Eddy also operated a saw mill on Smokes Creek in the town, and his business partner, James Reynolds, managed a dry goods store. Just west of the village, Obadiah Griffin founded a grist mill, and Daniel Nichols and Seth McKay established a wool works and fulling mill for cloth. [21] In nearby Colden Benoni, Sprague operated a tannery. The majority of the men in this Quaker colony were farmers, while others had skills necessary for frontier life. Carpenters, furniture makers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, coopers, cheese makers, and potters comprised the additional work.  Quaker women benefitted from mostly equitable roles in both religious and familial life. Women were responsible for the household, which required working a loom, sewing and tailoring clothes, baking and cooking, canning produce, and knowledge of medicinal remedies and animal husbandry.  Education was a cooperative endeavor, but women were the primary instructors in children's schooling. The growth of Quaker communities in Erie County, New York, in the years after the War of 1812 was dynamic. In 1813, the Concord and, later, Collins Friends Meeting were recognized, and the following year, the Eden Monthly Meeting was separated from Farmington. The Eden Monthly Meeting was further divided into three local groups, and in 1817, three log meetinghouses were built in the present-day Eden, Collins, and Boston, New York. Quakers also established a Meeting in a private home south of Orchard Park in Holland, New York. Within twenty-five years of the first Quakers settling in western New York, a quarter of the land was cleared for farming and housing, six townships, with Quaker roots, were formed, and five meetinghouses were built. [22]   The Great Separation As the nation expanded westward away from the eastern seaboard, a spirit of adventure and the desire to cultivate a new society motivated these pioneers.  This hope-filled attitude was prevalent among men and women of all faiths and creeds.  The new nation’s economic prosperity gradually created social classes and friction between urban and agrarian populations and between the wealthy and the poor.  This was evident for America’s Society of Friends as these socio-economic divisions birthed a theological split. In 1827, America’s Quakers experienced a tragic split among the Society of Friends. The Orthodox-Hicksite Separation, also known as the Great Separation, began over a theological dispute about the role of the Bible and Jesus Christ in the individual faith of believers. The Hicksites, led by Elias Hicks, emphasized the importance of the Inward Light in guiding the individual believer in matters of faith and conscience. The Orthodox Quakers, influenced by the Second Great Awakening, which occurred at this time, adopted a more Protestant emphasis on Biblical authority.  This split resulted in two distinct groups. There was a mid-twentieth-century reunification of the Society of Friends and the development of a more inclusive and diverse membership. [23] The implications for the Quakers on the Niagara Frontier were substantial.  At Orchard Park, two-thirds of the members aligned themselves with Hicks, and the Orthodox group relocated to another site in the village. This scenario was repeated throughout the area, and new meeting houses were constructed in Evans and Collins to accommodate the new Orthodox members. The Hicksite Separation created four new meetings, many of them weak and lacking leadership or deep spiritual motivation. In later years, a few additional meetings were set up. Orthodox Friends started a meeting in Buffalo about 1840. [24]   It maintained some degree of activity for a quarter of a century.  Both groups shared similar characteristics: members becoming increasingly influenced by worldly concerns rather than spiritual concerns; a lack of strong leadership; a lack of spiritual leadership; and many Quakers moving out of the area in search of opportunities in other Midwest locations. Consequently, both factions disowned each other, creating friction, and the theological and organizational divisions continued throughout the 19th century. This led some to leave the Society of Friends and join various spiritualist communities that formed in the area during the 1830s and 1840s.  Further controversy and divisions continued in the mid-1800s.  Following the Hicksite/Orthodox separation of 1828, Orthodox Friends were further divided by a Wilburite separation in 1847-1848, and the Wilburites were subdivided into Kingite and Otisite branches in 1859.  During the 1860s and 1870s, there were four different bodies called Scipio Monthly Meeting: Hicksite, Orthodox, Kingite, and Otisite.  The Wilburites later reunited and affiliated with the Canada Yearly Meeting (Conservative).  Finally, in 1955, the separate groups in New York State united. Social Advocacy and the Civil War Since they arrived in western New York, the Quakers have been involved with the local Native American tribes.  This consisted of education and support of their legal rights and a fight against the appropriation of their traditional ancestral lands. Prior to the Civil War, the local Society of Friends was involved in the anti-slavery movement and in the Underground Railroad. They established two “stations” in the area, calling themselves the “Liberty League.” [25]   In November 1846, Quakers in Collins organized the Western New York Free Produce Association. Their purpose was to restrict the sale and purchase of goods produced by slaves, especially the very necessary items of sugar and cotton cloth. The following year, this same group sent “94 bushels of corn and $25 in cash” to assist with Irish famine relief. The Civil War created a dilemma for the Quakers. As a group opposed to slavery, they were not prepared to participate in an armed conflict that would ultimately decide the fate of the nation. The many Friends' anti-slavery organizations were concerned about being too politicized or affiliated with clergy who disagreed with Quaker theology.  Many were hesitant to mix with non-Quakers, and apprehension was apparent. Meetinghouses in Eden and Collins were available for rallies, but local Quakers concentrated their efforts on shuttling runaway slaves to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Military service in this war was a contentious matter for eligible men. Draft riots and paying commutation to avoid fighting in the war were common.  Quakers wrestled with how best to serve the country and be a good Christian. At the New York Yearly Meeting of 1863, the issue was addressed. The Society of Friends reissued their Peace Testimony, stating: “We love our country and we are grateful for its many blessings,” and had no sympathy for the rebel cause. Quakers were not to profit from the business of war, and they were only to be warriors for Christ. [26] However, several Quaker men from western New York served with the Union forces. The exact number is unknown. Those who did serve from other areas of New York State were disowned for not adhering to Quaker doctrine. Equality and Idealism From the outset, Quaker women enjoyed near-equal status with men in worship services and were permitted to openly voice their testimony. Some were even leaders at the meetinghouse. Yet in matters of business, women occupied a subordinate place.  As America became more progressive, women's roles in society advanced. Quakers, especially women, occupied an important role in prison reform, women’s rights, and the suffrage movements of the nineteenth century.  The tradition and values of the Friends centered on a belief in women’s God-given rights, responsibilities, and equality, which the men supported. This was at the core of their activist activities. Additionally, since the early 1800s, Quakers were concerned about the social impact of alcoholism.  Temperance societies and anti-salon leagues, organized by women, appeared throughout the state. Batavia, Rochester, and Utica became headquarters for these movements. The Women’s Crusade of 1874 organized protests in the state and nation, closing hundreds of salons and taverns. [27] Quaker women occupied a prominent place in these campaigns, and the most renowned was Susan B. Anthony.  Born in Massachusetts and raised as a Quaker, her family relocated to Rochester, New York in 1845. It was in this faith tradition that she was immersed in the values of morality and zeal for the betterment of others through progressive causes. [28]   Her crusades in the temperance movement and political engagement led to much-needed reforms that altered the roles of women and society. Testimony of Peace A core value of the Society of Friends is that of a pacifist. This trait was predominant during the twentieth century. The Quaker response to the events of World War 1 posed a dilemma for Quakers as a matter of faith and patriotism. During World War 1 Quakers could not escape the difficulties of holding fast to a pacifist testimony.  This experience for Western New York Quakers was awkward, as the area was mostly settled by Germans, and their language dominated work and life, particularly in Niagara County. American Quakers in Erie County and New York State were caught off guard by World War 1. The scope of the conflict and the astonishing violence were unprecedented.  American Quakers were not only ill-prepared on how to respond to being drafted but also lacked religious unity. Guided by the Inner Light, each person had to weigh their spiritual values against loyalty to their country. The additional problem was the draft and the consequences of not serving in the military. The statistics for western New York Quaker men who served are imprecise, but most who were drafted served in combat positions during World War I. Overall, of those who objected on religious grounds, only a small portion took the absolutist position and refused to participate in the war effort in any capacity. Figures from the War Department show that “3,989 out of 2,810,296 inducted men made any claim in camp for exemption from any form of military service.” [29] Quaker bravery during battle was admired: “Unarmed and essentially non-combatant, the members of our American unit were many times under fire and showed bravery in its highest sense. They performed construction work while the enemy bombarded, and they risked life repeatedly to aid in the rescue of wounded soldiers.” [30]   Local Quakers worked closely with the Red Cross, preparing medical equipment, supplies, and food packages for the front lines. Protests against the war were practically non-existent as the Friends’ patriotic response was to serve those in need and not necessarily take up weapons. The American Quaker response to this war was the formation of the American Friends Service Committee. Founded in Philadelphia in 1917, it was established to assist civilians and war refugees through various relief efforts. As the first war ended, tensions arose in Europe during the 1930s, and the AFSC assisted German Jews in leaving Nazi Germany. [31] As new wars and conflicts continued into the twentieth century, Western New York’s Society of Friends sought a unified response. Unlike the First World War the reaction to Second World War was somewhat different. A direct attack on the United States aroused a more patriotic response.  Many served in the military, but some continued to refuse to carry weapons. Buffalo was a major manufacturing source for the military.  Some women labored in local factories in support of the war effort. Others objected to this direct work of violence but contributed to relief efforts through the Red Cross or the AFSC. Social Justice Practiced Western New York’s Friends were active participants in the social justice issues of the 1960s. They were ardent advocates for Civil Rights and prison reform. Historically, campaigns for prison reform were always a primary effort, but prison reform legislation did not achieve the successes hoped for in the state. However, some Quakers worked with both the victims of crime and those newly released from incarceration. The Vietnam War protests demonstrated the Quakers’ resolve to promote non-violence and also relief efforts.  On Easter Sunday, 1967, friends gathered at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo to march into Canada, taking medical supplies for both North and South Vietnam.  It was uncertain whether the governments of Canada and the United States would permit such an endeavor, and the possibility of arrests loomed. There was significant publicity about the event, and protestors heckled the Quakers at the bridge. Ultimately, both governments agreed to allow the Quakers to march into Canada with their medical supplies. [32]  The Society of Friends continued non-violent protests and relief efforts for both sides throughout the war.   As the Quaker communities progressed into a new century, their social justice attention focused on immigration reforms and assisting those migrating into the area. Additionally, their works include housing, environmental concerns, relief to third-world peoples, and advocacy for the poor and marginalized.  The meetinghouses throughout New York State are vibrant and continue to flourish. The primary mission of the Society of Friends is that of a spiritual community seeking to hear that still small voice , following the inner Light, and respond in ways that spread peace and love to the wider community. This was evident from the establishment of the first meetinghouses on the Niagara frontier and continues to this day. About the author: Paul Lubienecki obtained his Ph.D. in History from Case Western Reserve University and has taught courses in American history, theology, spirituality, and museum studies. He is a contributing editor to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. He has been a Special Studies Instructor at the Chautauqua Institution. He is the founding director of the Boland Center for the Study of Labor and Religion, where he teaches, publishes, and lectures on the integration of history at the intersection of religion and the labor movement. Sources: [1] Rufus M. Jones, ed., the Journal of George Fox (New York: Capricorn Books, 1963), 81. They called themselves 'Friends' because of the words of Jesus recorded in John 15:14, 'You are my friends, if you do what I command you.'  [2] Jones, 93-102. Also see: George Fox, “The First Years of Ministry 1648-49,” [3] Hiram Hilty, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery” (PhD diss., Durham: Duke University, 1969), 2. [4] Quakers are officially called "The Society of Friends". The word "Quaker" was originally a derogatory term used by King George to William Penn, who would not take his hat off in deference to his majesty. Penn told the King that instead of worrying about a silly thing like hats, he should be "Quaking before the Lord." The King then responded "Get this  quaker  out of here!" So at first, "Quaker" was actually a slur. To counter this the Society of Friends adopted the term in reference to themselves. Melvin Endy, William Penn and Early Quakerism, (Princeton University Press, 2015), 10. [5] Samuel M. Janney, The Life of William Penn (Philadelphia: Friends’ Book Association, 1878), 163. [6] Frederick Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682-1763 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1948), 230-41. [7] Robert W. Ramsey, Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Frontier, 1747-1762 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1964), 10. [8] Karim Tiro,  ""We Wish to Do You Good": The Quaker Mission to the Oneida Nation, 1790-1840".  Journal of the Early Republic . 26, 2006, 353–376. [9] “Rev. David Bacon’s Visits to Buffalo in 1800 and 1801.” Erie County Historical Society Journal, Vol.6, 185-186. [10] Frank Sererance , Quakers Among the Senecas , Buffalo Historical Society publication, Vol. 6, 167. [11] Suzanne Schultz Kelp, Our Quaker Legacy. A Documented History of the Early Quakers, Their Migration and Settlement in Western New York, (Orchard Park Historical Society, Orchard Park, NY, 2019), 65-67. [12] Ibid, 68. [13] Lorna Spencer, History of Collins, (Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, 1971), 4. [14] Perry Smith, History of the City of Buffalo and Erie County, (D. Mason & Co., 1884), 116-120. [15] Kelp, Our Quaker Legacy, 71. [16] Spencer, History of Collins, 2. [17] Hugh Barbour, ed., Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends in the New York Yearly Meetings, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 63-64. [18] Kelp, Our Quaker Legacy, 73. [19] Farmington Monthly Meeting minutes, May 1821. [20] Advertisements in the Buffalo Gazette announced the opening of a new store by Mr. Shepherd in Orchard Park in 1815 accepting “most kinds of country produce will be taken in payment.” Buffalo Gazette November 23, 1813. [21] Buffalo Gazette , November 9, 1813.  Fulling is a process of cleaning and processing wool. [22] Levinus Painter, “Quaker Settlements in Erie County, New York,” Quaker History , Vol. 55, No. 1 (Spring 1966), 28. [23] Hugh Barbour, ed., Quaker Crosscurrents, 100-110. [24] Painter, “Quaker Settlements in Erie County, New York”, 29. [25] Ibid., 31. [26] Hugh Barbour, ed., Quaker Crosscurrents, 190-193. [27] Sabron Reynolds Newton “New York Friends and the Concern about Alcohol” based on New York Yearly Meeting minutes, various years, 1992. [28] Emily Morry, Susan B. Anthony’s Rochester , Rochester Beacon, February 6, 2020. [29] Lester M. Jones , Quakers in Action: Recent Humanitarian and Reform Activities of the American Quakers (New York: The Macmillan Company,1929), 206. [30] No author listed, Advocate of Peace, journal, 1919, 245. [31] AFSC staff  writer,  "Love in action: A brief history of AFSC's work in the past 100 years" .  American Friends Service Committee Bulletin, 2024. [32] Hugh Barbour, ed., Quaker Crosscurrents, 304.

by Jonathan Woolley Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author. Gerald Ford's presidential portrait Just in case you're not feeling old, I'd like to remind you that there are hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are adults today who were not yet born when New York City nearly went bankrupt in 1975. And of those who had been born, many of them were still small children or, at the very least, teenagers at the time this occurred. So, for those of you who were adults back in 1975 and are reading this now, I commend you: you have managed to survive an unintentional dig at your age without throwing the computer you're reading this on against the wall. But all joking aside, New York City's financial crisis in 1975 was significant. It left a lasting legacy on the city to this day in terms of concerns about city budgets and state oversight of municipal finances here in New York State. So for that reason alone, it deserves to be remembered, at least in the history of municipal finance and government finance. This year, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of that fiscal crisis. And so while many of the players who were involved in it at the time are no longer in government (and some are now deceased), the decisions they made and the effects of those decisions shape municipal finance and municipal government-state government relations not just between New York City and the state government in Albany but between all communities in New York state and the state government in Albany to this day.   October 30th, 2025, marked the fiftieth anniversary of what is perhaps the most famous - or perhaps one should say the most infamous - moment of the entire fiscal crisis: the moment when the Daily News , in response to a speech given by President Ford at the National Press Club, ran the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” followed by the sub-headline “Vows He’ll Veto Any Bail-Out” [of the city government]. The headline became a symbol, not only of the financial crisis itself, but eventually of all the malaise that was affecting New York City's government and society in the mid-1970’s, whether it be financial issues, rising crime, reasons for the middle class to decamp from the city, widespread protest movements, strikes, or just general graffiti, dirt, and a sense of lawlessness and urban blight that pervaded certain parts of the city. As a result, I decided to look at some of the newspaper coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of that headline.   Background The root cause of the financial crisis that afflicted New York City’s municipal government in 1975 is simple. For several preceding years, the city government had spent liberally on various programs while the government’s revenues had not kept pace. Indeed, the tax base, the most critical source of city government revenue, had actually declined somewhat. This policy, which had occurred under both Republican and Democratic mayors [i] and council members, had by 1975 resulted in a structural deficit of significant proportions. (Democrats had always retained control of the Comptroller’s office, which also oversaw city finances). The city government used loans, in the form of issuing municipal bonds, to finance this deficit, ultimately issuing bonds - supposedly backed by anticipated revenues that were not guaranteed to ever actually be received - to finance current expenses. In 1975, the lending institutions stopped indulging this “financial flimflam” [ii] (as critics would later call it). This created the crisis because the city no longer had adequate financial resources to meet its current obligations.      The Mayor and Comptroller (Beame and Goldin, respectively) went to the state government in Albany to ask for help, and the state government did provide it. That help was crucial, but, on its own, insufficient: New York City’s obligations were so huge, and its deficit so pronounced, that solving the problem was too herculean a task for the state government to solve all by itself. After coming within hours - really, minutes - of bankruptcy in the early Fall, city and state officials felt only federal government assistance could stave off a default by the city on its next round of bond payments (which were due in a few weeks). “[C] ity officials were,” quite literally, “again running out of options ” [iii] .   When approached, however, the federal administration of Gerald Ford had reservations about supporting the city government financially, fearing both that it would be rewarding a municipal government with poor financial management at the expense of those with good management and that supporting the city financially would encourage other local governments around the nation to expect the federal government to subsidize them too. Consequently, in a speech on October 29, 1975, President Ford said the federal government was not in favor of financially assisting New York City’s government, “ deliberately assail[ing] the leadership of New York City for 35 minutes” [iv] - many felt - in the process (although he did not actually say the words “drop dead”) .   The next morning, the Daily News , then perhaps the most widely-read newspaper in the city, covered the speech by running the headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead." The headline, which was written by William J. Brink (a managing editor at the Daily News ) as a preface to an article covering the speech entitled “Ford to New York: Drop Dead” by the reporter Frank Van Riper, immediately caught the public’s attention. The speech made civic and business leaders, city and state government officials, and the city’s population at large realize that the city government would have to fend for itself and take the tough decisions necessary to do that. The Daily News headline served as a sort of symbolic flag for this view: five words that said we [the city’s stakeholders] must do it ourselves; nobody else cares enough to help us. Although Ford would later reverse course and although the financial crisis went on for months, to this day, no other words or image is as associated in the public consciousness with the ‘75 economic crisis as that headline. As Rohatyn and Yost note, “The Daily News published a headline that, in five words, helped turn the tide on a financial crisis that had held New York City in its grip for months. Landing with a thud on newsstands, it was an instant classic and remains one of the most famous headlines in history” [v] .     It is for this reason, and also because the headline has “ endure[d] in the national consciousness” all these years, becoming “a universal front-page stand-in for No Way, No Chance” [vi] , that I decided to look at the articles in the New York City press commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of its original publication.           Articles Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead” My research method was to read every article printed in the mass-circulation popular press within a range of several days before and after the actual anniversary date (October 30, 2025). In fact, not every publication in New York City marked this event. There was little or no remark on it in the New York Post (except for one Opinion piece by the columnist M. Goodwin endorsing A. Cuomo for mayor in an upcoming election) , the Staten Island Advance , or Newsday . Or New York Magazine’s print edition. Nor did either The New Yorker’s online edition or many of the political commentary shows on television remark on the event . However, the Daily News , which had of course published the original headline of “Ford to City: Drop Dead," did run an editorial on the 50th anniversary of that headline, and the New York Times posted a few articles that week commemorating or remarking upon the anniversary.    The Daily News marked the anniversary of its famous headline by running an editorial accompanied by a picture of the original October 30, 1975, front page banner headline. However, the editorial, while describing the 1975 fiscal problems as the city’s “deepest financial crisis” [vii] and very briefly summarizing what happened and how the city recovered, used the editorial to promote the candidacy of former governor Andrew Cuomo, who was running against (the eventually victorious) Zohran Mamdani for mayor in the election scheduled for a few days hence. The 1975 crisis, therefore, was simply ammunition in the paper’s endorsement of a 2025 mayoral candidate. While the editorial’s headline “Not dead” and text acknowledged the fiscal crisis had not destroyed the city but rather that the city had, over time, bounced back very well, the editorial did not (as I had expected it to) spend a great deal of time discussing either the fiscal crisis itself or the impact that famous headline had once made, either for the paper itself or in the broader public and on the events in question.    This failure to discuss the original’s front page’s impact - or, more importantly, the crisis’s long-term impact further is both surprising and regrettable. The Daily News ’ headline and the speech it referred to became not just a symbol for all that was wrong with both Ford’s opposition to a federal bailout of the city’s finances and with the city’s dire financial situation, but also part of the story itself. It created an easily graspable catalyst for opposing the laissez-faire attitude the Republican administration was taking toward an ideologically liberal, politically Democratic city (and, to a lesser extent, state) polity and government. Thus, there was a lot of scope for the newspaper to do a retrospective reflection on what was perhaps its most impactful headline ever. Such a retrospective reflection could have taken the form of an editorial, a reflection by an on-staff columnist, an outsider perspective through either an Op-Ed or a Guest Columnist, or simply a spot of regular reporting that interviewed people who either participated in or simply remembered the events and headline in question. But, at least in the print edition, there was nothing other than that one editorial, either on October 30 or on the surrounding days before or after.      To be fair to the Daily News , however, the newspaper did make an additional acknowledgement of that day’s anniversary on its website. Two postings, listed as articles on the newspaper’s web index, were added early that morning. One, from the Associated Press wire service, was a brief few lines of copy acknowledging this day was the anniversary, accompanied by a 1976 photograph of then-candidate Jimmy Carter using a copy of the headline as an anti-Ford prop at a campaign rally in Queens. (Many, including Ford himself, concluded after the election that Ford’s lack of interest in helping New York during the crisis helped convince swing voters to support Carter). The other posting, written by the News’ real estate reporter Téa Kvetenadze, was also designed as a brief historical review. It consisted of two paragraphs of copy, along with photographic reproductions of three pages from the original October 30, 1975 paper and one paragraph from a critical-of-Ford editorial that was published that 1975 morning. The two paragraphs of copy by Kvetenadze, like the Associated Press story, briefly stated that October 30, 2025, was the anniversary of the newspaper running a headline about Ford’s speech the previous day. However, unlike the Associated Press-derived posting, this posting – perhaps because an in-house reporter wrote it – did acknowledge not only that it was “perhaps its most iconic front page” [viii] but also why the headline lodged in the public consciousness: because it so strongly implied Ford’s opinion was in the wrong (“[it] hit out at President Ford for saying he would veto any bill calling for a federal bailout of New York”).        The New York Times ran an Op-Ed - a guest essay - comparing the political situation in 1975 regarding federal funding for New York to today’s political situation. This piece, which was written by the documentary filmmakers Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost (who had co-directed a documentary on the 1975 financial crisis) and posted online on October 27, claimed that New York City’s ability to unify its disparate groups and make the hard decisions necessary to solve the crisis ultimately proved that urban communities of 2025 are capable of standing up to the federal government when required. Their message that Republicans “Mess with cities like New York at your own peril” [ix] is perhaps more directed at Republican officials and activists, as well as New York City’s residents, political activists, and civic boosters, rather than at senior federal officials or historical scholars. This makes some sense, since, not only is President Trump constitutionally limited to two terms, but unlike many other U.S. Presidents and other senior Republican officials (and unspoken by Rohatyn and Yost), President Trump was a New York City resident and real estate executive in 1975. He, more than anyone, ought to be able to appreciate how much the city’s near-bankruptcy affected real estate values, home sales, and other economic indicators. Rohatyn and Yost’s essay, therefore, structurally parallels the Daily News editorial but aims its message at a regional and national, as much as at a city, audience.    However, the Times also ran two articles on the fiftieth anniversary. One, written by Tim Balk and posted on its website on the anniversary day (it was published in the National section of the print edition the next morning), was entitled “New York Didn’t Drop Dead in 1975, but Trump Poses a New Challenge” and followed the same vein as the Daily News ’ editorial. Subtitled “City is Fiscally Healthier Now, but Faces a White House More Hostile Than Ford’s, it both summarizes the crisis of 1975 and compares the city’s financial health in 1975 to its health in 2025. However, the article concludes with a warning that then-candidate (now Mayor-Elect) Mamdani’s spending plans could be a proverbial straw that breaks the back of the city’s budgetary health. “Things move very fast,” the article quotes one lawyer as warning, “When the financial community loses faith in city leadership, it can turn with breathtaking speed” [x] . Overall, it’s a good article for someone who wants to know a brief background on the 1975 financial crisis and how it compares to today’s municipal financial condition in the city (it states today’s is much better), and therefore it made for an appropriate article for the fiftieth anniversary of Ford’s speech (and the Daily News headline). Still, Balk’s focus is clearly to tie it in to the mayoral election campaign that was reaching its crescendo at the time it was published.       The other story I read in the Times was the most interesting of all the pieces I read. Authored by Bill Brink and opening with the words “My father dropped dead. His headline lives on; the article, titled “My Father Wrote a Headline That Refuses to Die,” is both a retrospective on the author’s father (who coined the headline) and a discussion of its importance. The first part of the article deals with the importance of the headline. It states that the headline is used both in discussions of municipal finance and municipal-federal government relations, on the one hand, and, more generally, to indicate that one person or entity has no interest in helping another. It then goes on to cite examples of these, both from several years ago and this year, ranging from coverage of the Trump Administration’s views on possible future bailouts to the federal government’s deployment of National Guard personnel to urban areas to more mundane matters such as baseball team rivalries. The author believes what made the headline so memorable was its concision, simplicity, directness, and the searing phrase. He contrasts it to the New York Times ’ own headline on the same subject that 1975 morning, which was about three lines long and is nowadays remembered by nobody.    The second part of the article is about the life of the headline’s author, William J. Brink. He was a no-nonsense man born over a hundred years ago who served in World War II. But he was also a career newspaper reporter who cared for his fellow reporters - hence, his onetime firing for apparently attempting to get a trade union more involved in the paper he worked for. He was also somebody who wanted to make sure he did things correctly and, perhaps more importantly for a managing editor of the catering-to-the-everyman Daily News , someone who understood what the proverbial average Joe wanted to know: the article recounts how he once measured the roughness of unrepaired potholes during the 1975 crisis by driving a car over them and measuring the size of the bumps. No wonder he was able to think up such an iconic headline.   Thus, this article is both the most interesting and the most commemorative of all those that appeared at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the original 1975 Daily News headline. (It was posted online on the actual fiftieth anniversary, October 30, 2025, and published in the print edition the following Sunday). It provides an intimate portrait of the writer while also offering an analytical perspective on the headline itself. The analytical perspective is the most useful to either a historian or a journalism researcher. It makes a good argument for what would have made a good headline that would catch the attention of a 1975 audience and would also catch the attention of an audience today.   Conclusion There was a lot less published commemorating that famous headline on its fiftieth anniversary than I had expected. (And most of what there was wasn’t really focusing on the anniversary , as it was using the anniversary as part of a piece about the upcoming mayoral election. This relative lack of published commemoration material surprised me, particularly about the Daily News . While I had expected all the publications to publish something regarding the fiftieth anniversary of Ford’s apparent dismissal of the city, I had especially expected the Daily News to want to get more proverbial mileage out of the anniversary, given that it was the newspaper whose coverage of Ford’s speech had so seared itself into the public’s mind. After all, not only was the headline “ an instant classic [that] remains one of the most famous headlines in history” [xi] but “Implicit in ‘Drop Dead’ was not only that Ford had rebuffed New York, but that he had made a big mistake in doing so” [xii] . Furthermore, the headline has, over the years, become almost a symbol of the Daily News’ brand. Thus, the writers and editors at the Daily News had plenty of potential fodder to capitalize upon for articles, particularly retrospective ones. But, while the New York Times seems to have made an effort to do this, the Daily News seemed less eager. Perhaps newsroom staffing issues forced management to focus the paper’s coverage on other topics. I can't say precisely why other news outlets did not wish to publish anything remarking upon the 50th anniversary of the famous headline. Still, there are a few likely reasons why [xiii] . One is that a heavy rainstorm, which caused severe flooding, occurred in the days surrounding it, perhaps not only taking up space in both the print and online editions but also dominating news reporters’ and editorial directors’ attention. Thus, they may have felt an understandable journalistic impulse to shift their focus away from the fiftieth anniversary to more pressing immediate news issues. The then-ongoing federal budget shutdown and related events in Washington also clearly (and understandably, given their possible effect on people) took up significant news time and space. Most likely, however, it was because, unlike in 1975, October 2025 preceded a mayoral and city council election. So public attention – and thus news outlets’ attention – was on more immediate issues regarding New York City’s government. And, of course, there had been some coverage of the fiftieth anniversary of the crisis earlier in the year, when both a documentary movie and a book were released on the subject. In particular, when the film in question, “Drop Dead City”, came to be shown in New York in April, several news outlets had discussed the anniversary and/or what happened in 1975 while covering the film’s showing in New York City. Nonetheless, the lack of coverage in these newspapers [xiv] , or in other outlets such as New York One News, at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of the famous headline, was somewhat surprising.   Of course, there were items published that discussed (or referenced) the fiscal crisis and its famous headline, but they were published outside the date range I examined. The New York Post , for instance, published several pieces during the mayoral election campaign, as well as an editorial nearly a month after the anniversary, that either directly or indirectly referenced the fiscal crisis and its famous headline as part of the paper’s coverage and editorial criticism of the mayoral election campaign of Mamdani. There have also been occasional articles about the fiscal crisis in various mass-circulation media publications over the intervening years since 1975; for instance, the New York Times ran one in 2006 [xv] .  Some publications, therefore, may perhaps be excused for not publishing more on the fiftieth anniversary of the “Ford to City: Drop Dead” headline; those publications may perhaps have felt they had printed enough on the subject at other times.   The main lesson from the 1975 financial crisis itself is that, to borrow a quote from one newspaper article, “A shortfall has real repercussions” [xvi] . Yet the city government spent the months leading up to the crisis pretending everything was all right, engaging in the “financial flimflam” [xvii] of poor accounting and substandard financial reporting to assure everyone, inside and outside of government, the business community, and the public, that the city government was solvent and fully able to pay its bills. This wasn’t just a case of “ the choice of what is presented has implications for what oversight is possible. ” [xviii] (a criticism that some made about the MTA (the Metropolitan Transportation Authority) years later), it was also a case of not having sufficient information to present in the first place. Thus, in addition to the main lesson that budgetary shortfalls can have dire consequences if left unremedied, a secondary lesson is the importance of good financial reporting. (Fortunately, some significant strides regarding these lessons have been made at both the state and the city level since 1975).   As mentioned previously, there was less written than expected on the anniversary, and much of what was written related to 1975’s issues with Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s fiscal plans. A lesson of the commemoration articles, therefore, is that media attention both follows public attention and is easily drawn to where the media thinks the public’s attention is. There was a high-profile mayoral election campaign, as well as severe inclement weather and disputes over the enforcement of federal law in other cities, around October 30, 2025. The media seemed to prefer focusing on those issues rather than on the commemoration of the city’s fiscal crisis – perhaps because the immediacy of those events was felt to trump the importance of the city’s one-time near bankruptcy in the media’s view of the public’s attention. This is an understandable position for the media organizations to take when viewed through the lens of their need to sell newspapers (or otherwise gain public viewership as a means of earning revenue), However, it leaves a historian – particularly a financial historian – somewhat hanging, wanting more information on the importance of the fiscal crisis (and the famous headline it generated) both in terms of how it was received at the time and in terms of its effects on state and municipal government. It also leaves students of history and journalism wondering how the headline affected later journalistic practices.   Much of the information on the effects of the fiscal crisis on New York’s state and municipal governments is available, although not all in one place. However, future researchers may wish to investigate further the effect of the Daily News ’ famous headline on subsequent journalistic practices, particularly its impact on the tabloid wars fought in New York’s newspapers and newsstands over the next four or five decades. For now, though, I will venture the opinion that the headline became something of a gold standard that later headline writers would aspire to match or exceed with their own headlines.       About the author: Jonathan Woolley is an independent analyst and researcher. He did his undergraduate studies at Manhattanville College and his graduate studies at Rutgers University. He has previously published reviews of exhibits on the history of New York City's zoning laws and the Federal Reserve.   Endnotes   [i] John Lindsay was elected as both a Republican and an independent. [ii] Mark Lieberman and Bruce Drake. “How big guys burned the little guys.” New York Daily News , August 28, 1977. [iii] Tim Balk. “New York Didn’t Drop Dead in 1975, but Trump Poses a New Challenge.” New York Times , October 31, 2025. A23. [iv] Ibid. [v] Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost. “Trump Should Remember When New York Had the Last Laugh“. New York Times . Op-Ed, October 27, 2025. [vi] Bill Brink.  “My Father Wrote a Headline That Refuses to Die.” New York Times , November 2, 2025. MB4. [vii] “Not dead”. New York Daily News . Editorial, October 30, 2025. 20. [viii] Téa Kvetenadze . “New York Daily News Flashback: ‘Ford to City: Drop Dead’.” New York Daily News . October 30, 2025. Accessed December 2, 2025. https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/30/new-york-daily-news-flashback-ford-to-city-drop-dead/ [ix] Op. Cit. Rohatyn and Yost. [x] Op. Cit. Balk. [xi] Op. Cit. Rohatyn and Yost. [xii] Op. Cit. Brink. [xiii] These reasons might also explain why the Daily News did not publish more on the subject. [xiv] Such as the New York Post , The New Yorker , Newsday , the Staten Island Advance , and New York Magazine , etc. [xv] Sam Roberts. “Infamous ‘Drop Dead’ Was Never Said by Ford.” New York Times , December 28, 2006. Accessed November 27, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/nyregion/28veto.html [xvi] Maddie Hanna, Kasturi Pananjady, and Jasen Lo. “A look at funding for Pa. school districts.” Philadelphia Inquirer , September 10, 2023. A14. [xvii] Op. Cit. Lieberman and Drake. [xviii] Gerald J. Miller and Jonathan B. Justice. “Managing Principals and Interests at New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, Washington D.C., January 2002. Accessed November 28, 2025. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=bc0a5976c2c9f875fc327d03f0bf51e0403bdaa1             References   Associated Press. "Today in History: October 30, Gerald Ford tells New York City ‘Drop Dead’." New York Daily News , October 30, 2025. Accessed December 2, 2025. https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/30/today-in-history-october-30-gerald-ford-tells-new-york-city-drop-dead/   Balk, Tim. “New York Didn’t Drop Dead in 1975, but Trump Poses a New Challenge.” New York Times , October 31, 2025. A23.    Callahan, Richard and Mark Pisano. “Bankruptcy: The Divergent Cases of the City and the County of San Bernardino.” Public Finance and Management 14, no. 1 (2014). 84-105.    Cebula, Richard., Richard McGrath, and Michael Toma. “Impact of the Primary Budget Deficit on the Nominal Long Term Interest Rate Yield on Tax Free Municipal Bonds.” Review of Business Research 6, no. 1 (September 2006). 84-92.   Dickey, Robert J. “Municipal Governments’ Fiscal Distress and Potential Default: Is it an Expense Problem or a Revenue Problem? –Considering the US Experience.” Proceedings from the Korean Association for Local Government Studies Summer Conference, Pusan, South Korea, August 2014. 261-279.   “Eric Adams delivers some harsh budget reality for duped Zohran Mamdani backers.” New York Post . Editorial, November 23, 2025. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/11/23/opinion/eric-adams-delivers-some-harsh-budget-reality-for-duped-zohran-mamdani-backers/   Goodwin, Michael. “A Zohran Mamdani mayoralty would mean a long, sour decline for NYC.” New York Post . Opinion, November 1, 2025. Accessed December 3, 2025. https://nypost.com/2025/11/01/opinion/mamdani-being-elected-nyc-mayor-could-risk-the-city-of-gotham-returning-to-dark-times/   Gramlich, Edward M. “The New York City Fiscal Crisis: What Happened and What is to be Done?” American Economic Review 66, no. 2 (May 1976): 415-29. Hanna, Maddie., Kasturi Pananjady, and Jasen Lo. “A look at funding for Pa. school districts.” Philadelphia Inquirer , September 10, 2023. A1, A14.   Hildreth, W. Bartley, and Gerald J. Miller. “Debt and the Local Economy: Problems in Benchmarking Local Government Debt Affordability.” Public Budgeting and Finance 22, no. 4 (2002): 99-113.   Helfand, Zach. “Survivors.” New Yorker , April 28, 2025. 8-9. Justice, Jonathan B. and Gerald J. Miller. “Accountability and Debt Management: The Case of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.” American Review of Public Administration 41, no. 3 (2011). 313-28.   Kvetenadze , Téa. “New York Daily News Flashback: ‘Ford to City: Drop Dead’.” New York Daily News, October 30, 2025. Accessed December 2, 2025. https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/30/new-york-daily-news-flashback-ford-to-city-drop-dead/       Lieberman, Mark and Bruce Drake. “How big guys burned the little guys.” New York Daily News, August 28, 1977. Accessed November 27, 2025. http://www.nydailynews.com/features/bronxisburning/battle-for-the-city/How-Big-Guys-Burned-the-Little-Guys.html   Miller, Gerald J. “Debt Management Networks.” Public Administration Review 53, no. 1 (1993): 50-58.   Miller, Gerald J. and Jonathan B. Justice. “Managing Principals and Interests at New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.” Presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, Washington D.C., January 2002. Accessed November 28, 2025. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=bc0a5976c2c9f875fc327d03f0bf51e0403bdaa1   “Not dead”. New York Daily News . Editorial, October 30, 2025. 20.   Roberts, Sam. “Infamous ‘Drop Dead’ Was Never Said by Ford.” New York Times , December 28, 2006. Accessed November 27, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/nyregion/28veto.html     Roberts, Sam. “The fiscal crisis: Forgive, but don’t forget.” New York Daily News , August 22, 1977. Accessed November 27, 2025. http://www.nydailynews.com/features/bronxisburning/battle-for-the-city/The-Fiscal-Crisis-Forgive-but-Dont-Forget.html   Rohatyn, Michael and Peter Yost. “Trump Should Remember When New York Had the Last Laugh“. New York Times . Op-Ed, October 27, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/opinion/trump-cities-drop-dead.html .   Rohatyn, Michael and Peter Yost, dir. Drop Dead City . 2024; New York: Pangloss Films. Multiple viewings.   Shalala, Donna E. and Carol Bellamy. "A State Saves a City: The New York Case." Duke Law Journal 1976 (1977): 1119-32. Multiple downloads. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2598&context=dlj .   “Simply Incredible.” New York Daily News . Editorial, August 19, 1977. Accessed November 27, 2025. http://www.nydailynews.com/features/bronxisburning/battle-for-the-city/Editorial-Simple-Incredible.html     Uth, Bernadette., Helena Stehle, Claudia Wilhelm, Hanne Detel, Nicole Podschuweit . “The Journalism-Audience Relationship in the Digital Age: A Theoretical Literature Review.” Journalism 26, no. 1 (2025): 45-64.   Van Krieken, Kobie and Jose Sanders. “What is Narrative Journalism? A Systematic Review and an Empirical Agenda.” Journalism 22, no. 6 (2021): 1393-1412.   Van Riper, Frank. “Ford to New York: Drop Dead.” New York Daily News , October 30, 1975. Accessed November 27, 2025.  http://www.nydailynews.com/features/bronxisburning/battle-for-the-city/Ford-to-New-York-Drop-Dead.html   Woolley, Jonathan. “New York City’s Fiscal Crisis of 1975 and the Film “Drop Dead City’”. New York History Review (2025). Multiple downloads. https://www.nyhrarticles.blog/post/new-york-city-s-fiscal-crisis-of-1975-and-the-film-drop-dead-city

By Jeff Blanchard , Town of Verona Historian Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author. If one were to drive through the Town of Verona, NY, on State Route 46 in this current century, a few things are hard to miss, while others are seemingly unremarkable and not hard to miss at all. One of those hard-to-miss sights is an unusually wide ditch-like body of water clinging to the edge of Route 46, brimming with cattails, fallen trees, and other vegetation. Road signs are abundant on Verona’s stretch of Route 46, denoting hamlets and areas with unique, and at times peculiar, names such as Durhamville, State Bridge, Stacy Basin, Higginsville, and New London. Clusters of homes, the occasional business, and large tracts of farm land dot either side of Route 46, with some stretches presenting the driver with nothing but wilderness.  If one were driving a bit too fast, it would be easy to miss a yellow and blue sign titled ‘Stark’s Landing’ or the signs for a crossroad known as Jug Point Road. Now, if the clock were to be turned back to say the mid-Nineteenth Century, the sights would change dramatically. The wide ditch-like body of water (known more famously as the Erie Canal) would not be full of vegetation. Still, it would present packet boats leisurely traveling along, full of either cargo or passengers, destined for a stop somewhere along the canal’s endless miles. In Durhamville, immigrants from Europe, many of them Irish, would have been busy building and launching the next canal boat at Doran Dry Dock. State Bridge would have boasted businesses and a hotel. A booth to collect tolls for the State of New York on the Erie would have been found in Higginsville. Stark’s Landing would not have been hard to miss, with its grouping of a hotel, store, and a shop just a stone’s throw from the great canal. At Jug Point, canal boats would have been at a halt, the boat captains handing off empty water jugs to get topped off by the child workers of the nearby hotels. New London would have been a hub of entrepreneurial activity, with hotels, stores, dry docks, and charming homes clinging to either side of the Erie Canal. The tracts of farmland would still be in this mid-Nineteenth Century scene, except that the farmers would have been placing their processed crops on canal boats bound for distant markets. Now, one must be shocked that the sights and scenes from two centuries ago included a bit more hustle and bustle than the sights and scenes of the Twenty-first Century. The hustle and bustle of mid-Nineteenth Century Verona, including the economic activities of local businesses, hotels, industry, and the built-up nature of local communities, was the result of God’s gift to the Town of Verona: the Erie Canal. To fully understand the wondrous prosperity the Erie Canal brought to Verona, as well as its eventual demise, the story of how the canal came into being is essential. During the United States’ colonial and post-Revolutionary period, the Appalachian Mountains proved to be a formidable barrier between the original colonies and the eventual states and the lucrative lands west of the mountains. [1] Pioneers had a rough go through the treacherous wilderness trails in order to settle in the lands beyond the Appalachians. The challenge of getting past the Appalachians was not just an issue for pioneers but also a geopolitical challenge for the young American republic. George Washington, in 1775, just prior to the American Revolution, expressed concern that if a way past the imposing mountain range could not be found, the lands west of the Appalachians would be lost to the great powers of either France or British Canada, leaving the U.S. as a minor power consigned to the Atlantic coast. [2] Thus was born the concept of utilizing canals to traverse the Appalachians, and so began the quest to build a pathway to the west. In 1777, Gouverneur Morris, a Congressman of the First Continental Congress, made the first proposal for a navigable waterway that “... would extend from the Hudson (River), through the valley of the Mohawk, all the way to Lake Erie.” [3] Morris’ proposal was both forward-thinking and advanced for its time, with Morris himself proving to be an inspiration many years later. Energetic and ambitious men such as George Washington and General Philip Schuyler set out to breach the Appalachian range with a navigable waterway through private ventures after the War of Independence, such as Washington’s Patowmack Company (attempting to ‘canalize’ the Potomac River in Virginia) [4] and Schuyler’s Western Inland Lock Company (an attempt to convert the Mohawk River into a ‘canal’ to allow boats to navigate from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario). [5] Both of these ventures failed due to a lack of finances, but the idea for a navigable waterway spanning the length of Upstate New York from the Hudson to the Erie did not die. Gouverneur Morris continued to advocate for the creation of a canal across New York despite the failures of other canal ventures. Morris highlighted the many advantages and benefits that such a canal would create, not only for New York but for the fledgling United States, with two members of the New York State Legislature sharing in Morris’ sentiment in 1805 by advocating for the construction of a canal. [6] Enthusiasm for a trans-New York canal grew, but many pessimists doubted that such a project would succeed. In 1809, two members of the New York State Legislature traveled to Washington, D.C. to present the Erie Canal project to President Thomas Jefferson in order to secure Federal funds for the venture, but Jefferson proved to be a doubter stating the project was “. . .little short of madness to think of it at this day!” regarding the great challenge and difficulty that it would have taken to create such a canal. [7] Despite the rejection of the Erie Canal project by the Federal Government, a champion for the canal, and one who would see to its creation, was found in an unlikely character of a man. DeWitt Clinton was a politician of many shades. He had been the Mayor of New York City, a New York State Legislator, a U.S. Senator, and he would be just the man needed to champion the Erie Canal. Clinton had no interest in the Erie Canal project. Still, his chief political opponent, Jonas Platt, himself a proponent of the canal, knew Clinton was the right caliber of politician to support it. [8] Although Platt could have allowed his political ambitions to steer Clinton away from the Erie Canal project, Platt knew that the canal project would not be successful without Clinton’s support, leading Platt to encourage Clinton to take the lead in supporting advocacy for the Erie Canal. [9] Clinton, after realizing the political advantages that throwing his support to the canal project would bring, became a member of the Erie Canal Commission in 1810 to explore plans for building the canal. [10] Several years passed after the Erie Canal Commission was established in 1810, with various plans and proposals for the canal's route and design. The biggest break for the canal project and its commission came in 1817. In that year, the champion of the Erie Canal project, DeWitt Clinton, was elected Governor of New York State, placing him in a position to advocate for and win support for using state government funds to finance the canal project after it became apparent that Federal funding would not materialize. [11] The chances of the Erie Canal building project moving forward were much higher with state funding in place, as previous private ventures had failed due to inadequate financial resources. Construction on the sought-after Erie Canal would finally start. It was fitting that the groundbreaking of the Erie Canal began on a patriotic holiday such as July 4th. In the Village of Rome, NY on July 4 th , 1817, the official ground breaking ceremony commenced, with many local and state political dignitaries in attendance as well as the man who would break the earth for the great canal project, Magistrate John Richardson who won the bid to begin digging the first section of the canal. [12] From Rome, an eight-year-long engineering project unlike any other at the time began. Construction of the Erie Canal was fraught with challenges, as engineers and surveyors were inexperienced, many hundreds of miles of forest had to be cleared by hand, and countless tons of dirt and rock had to be removed. Additionally, features necessary for canal building, such as locks, aqueducts, and feeder canals (to supply water to the canal), had to be devised for the project to be completed. By 1825, after eight years of laborious work carried out by a varied workforce, construction of the Erie Canal had been completed. The canal was officially opened on October 26, 1825, with a grand parade of canal boats led by Governor DeWitt Clinton on the Seneca Chief , going from Buffalo to New York City. [13] With the Erie Canal finally constructed and open for operation, prosperity and development, the likes of which had never been seen, were about to be lavished upon New York State in the coming years. The Erie Canal’s official opening in the fall of 1825 ushered in a new era of prosperity, economic growth, and industrial development, as well as the build-up of urban centers in New York State. Boat traffic on the canal provided for the transportation of goods and people from Buffalo all the way to the harbor of New York City. The sheer volume of boat traffic on the Erie Canal was such that between 1825 and 1836, enough revenue had been produced through boat tolls that the costs incurred to build the canal had been paid off entirely. [14] Various developments related to technology (such as the transition from mule-drawn canal boats to those propelled by steam) [15] and the reach of the Erie Canal (lateral canal branches were built off of or connected to the canal in the 1840s to allow for access to new territory and economic markets) [16] enhanced the impact that the canal had on New York. Communities along the Erie Canal route, such as Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, went from seemingly insignificant to sprawling urban centers, each with its own unique specialized industrial manufacturing base. Overall, New York State witnessed growth in its population, the unprecedented development of population centers of all sizes, and the transformation of manufacturing and farming from subsistence activities to large-scale commercial profit-making ventures. [17] Not only did New York share in the benefits and transformation brought about by the Erie Canal, but so did the young American nation. The Erie Canal had overcome the age-old challenge to the westward expansion of the United States that was posed by the Appalachian Mountains. In doing so, the canal transformed the country in more ways than one. The Erie Canal linked the Eastern Seaboard of the United States to the country's vast interior, allowing Americans, particularly New Englanders, to migrate to the Old Northwest to settle and develop the land. [18] George Washington’s nightmare scenario of western lands being settled by great European powers had been averted. With the process of settlement and development in the West came economic growth and development for the country, as the prosperity of Eastern markets spread West and the bounty of western settlers, chiefly agricultural goods, flowed back to the Eastern markets. [19] The Erie Canal stands in early American history as a dividing line between the “Frontier without the Factory” and the “Frontier with the Factory,” as it facilitated the growth and development of industry and technology. [20] As the industrialized frontier developed, new territories in the West formed and eventually became states. These new states, with industrial economies, quickly established the sectional boundary line between the industrial “North” void of slavery and the agricultural “South” with widespread slavery, shaping the identity of the young United States. [21] Lastly, the Erie Canal developed the religious and moral character of the American nation in the 1830s, as the ideology and core tenants of Christian revivals spread along the canal corridor of Upstate New York and beyond New York’s borders, influencing the rise of moralistic thinking amongst Americans, such as the belief that the institution of slavery was evil and needed to be abolished. [22] The monumental transformation and bounty brought about by the Erie Canal to the nation and New York State would eventually reach the rural Town of Verona, NY. In 1820, three years after construction began, the Erie Canal opened for operation in the Town of Verona, cutting across the town in a diagonal line following the present-day State Route 46 corridor. [23] The canal was a physical dividing line in the town, splitting Verona into east and west. [24] With the opening of the canal, preexisting local industries, such as farming and logging, began to take advantage of its ability to ship products to more distant markets. New industries, such as manufacturing, developed as a result of the canal’s establishment. An abundance of timber in the town also fostered the lucrative (and prolific) boat-building and repair industry in the hamlet communities of Durhamville, Higginsville, Stacy Basin, and New London; the boat-related industry lasted in the town from the 1830s to the early 1900s. [25] Factories creating a variety of products developed alongside the banks of the Erie Canal, such as cheese factories, canning, and glassmaking. The glass-making industry, in particular, was prominent (partly due to an abundant supply of local lumber and sand), lasting from the 1840s to 1890, with factories in the communities of Durhamville and Dunbarton shipping glass products, such as windows, to New York City via the canal. [26] Additionally, many smaller, but still important businesses developed to serve the needs of the canal in Verona, such as general stores, hotels, provision stores, and others. Perhaps the most significant change the Erie Canal brought to the town was the establishment of new communities and the accelerated development of preexisting ones, topics that require individual examination. Durhamville, the southern-most ‘canal community’ in the Town of Verona, was the site of much prosperous activity related to the Erie Canal. Durhamville was first inhabited in the early 1810s (between 1811 and 1813) and was named after Eber Durham, who, after settling in 1826, prospered from the Erie Canal by leasing surplus water to operate local mills and factories. [27] Many businesses related to the canal were established in the Hamlet of Durhamville, including dry goods and provision stores, warehouses, taverns, grist and feed mills, foundries, and tanneries. [28] The most significant industry to arise, though, was boat building, the Doran Dry Dock being the most prominent. The twenty-two-acre Doran Dry Dock, established in 1863, built and repaired canal boats, the likes of which traveled from the Great Lakes region all the way to New York City. [29] The Doran Dry Dock churned out numerous canal boats, employing large numbers of European immigrants who settled in Durhamville and established roots. Changing times led to the demise of the Doran Dry Dock: the ever-expanding railroad system created competition for the Erie Canal, reducing demand for canal boats and prompting the dry dock’s closure in 1924. [30] As previously mentioned, the glass making industry, in the form of the Durhamville Glass Factory, established in 1845 (originally owned by DeWitt Clinton Stephens and later sold to Fox, Gregory and Son) [31] utilized the canal as means of sending glass products to market. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Erie Canal in the Town of Verona was the Oneida Creek Aqueduct in Durhamville. The Oneida Creek Aqueduct, constructed between 1845 and 1855, carried the waters of the Erie Canal over Oneida Creek and was originally a sixty-foot-long double-arched stone structure before being replaced by a more adequate steel aqueduct in 1907. [32] The development and prosperity brought to Durhamville by the Erie Canal traveled further north along the canal’s path to the communities of State Bridge and Dunbarton. North of the hamlet of Durhamville are the curious hamlets of State Bridge and Dunbarton. State Bridge, named for a bridge carrying a section of a New York State-maintained highway, [33] was once a small but bustling community with many canal-related enterprises. In addition to numerous homes, State Bridge boasted a hotel, provision stores, a blacksmith shop, and a post office, [34] with many of these businesses located within close proximity to the Erie Canal (such as “Rollie” Potter's General Store, Feed Mill, and Post Office), serving the needs of canal travelers and Verona residents. [35] Just north of State Bridge was the community of Dunbarton. Dunbarton’s main focal point was the Dunbarton Glass Factory, located conveniently near the Erie Canal, allowing for glass products to be shipped to distant markets. The Dunbarton Glass Factory was a self-contained community, boasting its own post office. In this factory store, workers used a special form of currency known as shin plasters to buy provisions and housing for some workers. [36] Although the level of industry and enterprise were on a small scale in Sate Bridge and Dunbarton, these developments were nevertheless impressive for communities of their size due in part to the benefits the Erie Canal provided in both creating businesses to serve the canal or to enhance the profitability of businesses (such as the Dunbarton Glass Factory) through transportation of locally made products to distant consumers. As impressive as the development and prosperity were in State Bridge and Dunbarton, more prosperous development could be found further north in the hamlet of Higginsville. Higginsville, located in the central portion of the Town of Verona, was named after Christopher Higgins, originally a native of Connecticut. [37] Prior to the establishment of the Erie Canal, Higginsville’s main economic activity was farming, with canal-focused industry arising once the canal had been established. [38] As was typical in many canal communities in the town, canal-related businesses and activities included a hotel, post office, a New York State canal toll collector’s office, stores, a dry dock, a boat supply yard, in addition to businesses that benefited from the canal, such as a cheese factory, blacksmith shops, and a cigar store. [39] The Erie Canal not only transformed activity in Higginsville but also established various points of interest. Stark’s Landing was a focal point of social gathering in Higginsville, located near the Erie Canal, consisting of a hotel, store, and a blacksmith shop. Established by Jabez Stark, who moved to Higginsville from Seneca Falls in 1820. [40] Other points of interest were very canal related such as Lawton’s Bridge, a docking point for canal boats and Jug Point, an area where the sloping banks of the Erie Canal prevented canallers from getting off their boats, earning its name in the 1860s due the frequent activities of boys employed by the local hotel securing empty water jugs from canal boatmen using poles; the water jugs were then brought to the local hotel to be filled with fresh water and were handed back down to the canal boatmen by pole. [41] The most striking point of interest in Higginsville related to the Erie Canal was the Old Oneida Lake Canal. Similar to other lateral canal developments found throughout New York, the Old Oneida Lake Canal served as both a shortcut and a means of access to nearby Oneida Lake for canal boats. [42] The Old Oneida Lake Canal extended four and a half miles through Higginsville from the Erie Canal, then met Wood Creek, which brought canal boats another two miles to Oneida Lake; this allowed boats from the lake to enter the Erie Canal without having to travel further south to Durhamville. [43] The Old Oneida Lake Canal, opened for operation in 1835, utilized a system of seven locks and a guard lock made out of wood, which proved to be vulnerable to rot due to harsh winter conditions, with the canal experiencing the additional issues of sand bar build up at the mouth of the Fish Creek and troubles with the towpath by Wood Creek, which led to the closure of the Old Oneida Lake Canal in 1863 due to high maintenance costs. [44] The short-lived successor to the Old Oneida Lake Canal, the New Oneida Lake Canal, was constructed from 1869 to 1877 and intended to connect the Erie Canal to Oneida Lake at Durhamville, thereby allowing boats access to Lake Ontario via the Oswego River. The canal was abandoned in 1877. [45] The New Oneida Lake Canal was abandoned in 1878 after only a year of operation due to water leakage through the canal banks, as the canal was constructed on unstable ground. [46] Higginsville proved to be an example of how the Erie Canal’s establishment radically altered the landscape and the community development trends of a preexisting hamlet in Verona. But the trend of the growth of new communities after the canal’s establishment continued, as was seen in Stacy Basin. North of Higginsville, located approximately midway along the Erie Canal’s “long level,” [47] is the community of Stacy Basin. Stacy Basin, like many canal communities in Verona, was a bustling hub of varied commercial activities clinging to the banks of the Erie Canal. Located within Stacy Basin were six stores, boatbuilding yards, dry docks, and three blacksmith shops. Many of the commercial activities in Stacy Basin were geared towards serving the needs and demands of the canal, in particular, provision and general stores that ensured canal travelers had the commodities they needed on long journeys. As was common in Verona at the time, timber was a plentiful natural resource in Stacy Basin and provided the basis for the primary commercial enterprise of the community: timber harvesting; chord wood was used in the local glass making industry, used in home construction and was also being shipped by way of the Erie Canal to Syracuse to be used in the salt industry of that community. [48] Additionally, the town's primary staple industry, agriculture, benefited from the Empire State Canning Company, located near the banks of the Erie Canal. The Empire State Canning Company, organized in 1895 by Joseph H. Warren, employed approximately 175 local residents on a seasonal basis, canning locally grown produce with hundreds of thousands of canned products being churned out in the early Twentieth Century before the demise of the Erie Canal. [49] Stacy Basin was an excellent example of a community within the Town of Verona that developed new talents after the arrival of the canal, while preexisting commercial activities benefited from the canal as well. Stacy Basin was not alone in this example, as the nearby community of New London also developed in much the same way. New London would have been the last stop in the Town of Verona for a ‘canaller’ traveling on the Erie from south to north in the Nineteenth or early Twentieth Centuries. Located north of Stacy Basin, near the outer limits of Verona, New London was first settled in 1824, a year before the Erie Canal’s completion by a man named Ambrose Jones, [50] naming the community after his original hometown of New London, Connecticut. [51] The Erie Canal provided New London with the opportunity to capitalize on its local resources and establish new enterprises as the town's prosperity and population swelled in the mid-Nineteenth Century.  As was the case in Stacy Basin, New London had an abundance of timber, with trees thirty feet in diameter harvested and used not only for lumber (shipped out of the community in millions of board feet) but also for the extensive boat-building industry in five boat yards. [52] The New London boat-building industry was so industrious that lore circulated that the New London boat builders would construct boats a mile long, sawing them into barge-length sections that were finished as completed boats, producing a fleet of instant canal barges. [53] The establishment of the Erie Canal also allowed New London’s local agricultural and cheese making industries to ship their well cultivated grain, vegetables, flowers and cheese products to markets as far as New York City. [54] Not only did the Erie Canal allow New London to ‘export’ its products, but it also allowed New London to become a ‘port,’ with canal barges unloading products, such as sugar and manufactured goods, to be loaded onto wagon trains bound for Oswego and Jefferson Counties. [55] As was familiar in just about every other canal community in the Town of Verona, hospitality made for good business, with three hotels offering opportunities for canal travelers to rest on their long journeys. [56] The Erie Canal shaped New London into a bustling and prosperous community, as it did for numerous communities across New York State. As time and progress marched on, though, it became apparent that the days of the canal were numbered across the state.  As time went by for the Erie Canal, progress in transportation technology and engineering feats kept pace. The Erie Canal generated much public revenue through boat tolls starting after its official opening in 1825. The revenue generated was so profitable that the government of New York State began experiencing a surplus. In a cruel twist of irony, the New York State government began utilizing the surplus canal toll money for projects related to improving coach roads and constructing railroads throughout the state; this action had the unfortunate effect of creating significant competition for passenger traffic on the Erie Canal, driving many canal packet boat services out of business. [57] By the 1880s, demand for passenger travel and commercial shipping on the Erie Canal was greatly reduced, as transport by rail was considerably faster and cheaper than the leisurely pace of travel on the canal. [58] Despite previous efforts to widen and deepen the Erie Canal in the mid-Nineteenth Century to accommodate larger canal boats, canal transport was still fading, necessitating efforts to preserve its relevance and value. Starting in the early Twentieth Century, plans for a canal system that would utilize a combination of preexisting natural and man-made features along new travel routes were hatched. The New York State Barge Canal, as it was known, was built in the 1910s (just prior to the United States’ entry into World War I) and utilized natural and manmade waterways such as the Mohawk River, sections of the Erie Canal, and the Champlain, Oswego and Seneca Canals in order to accommodate considerably larger cargo boats to compete more effectively with rail and road transport. [59] For a time, the Barge Canal was profitable because of its ability to accommodate larger canal barges capable of transporting significantly greater amounts of goods more cheaply than by rail. Progress took its toll on the Barge Canal, as it did with the Old Erie Canal, with the arrival of improved rail and truck transport that proved faster and more efficient than canal transport; the final death blow arrived in 1959 with the completion of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in Northern New York, a waterway that was able to accommodate ocean-going vessels. [60] The Barge Canal still exists and is used by boat traffic. The glory days of the ‘canallers’ were over, with the Town of Verona’s section of the Old Erie facing the same fate. The Erie Canal in Verona faced the same challenges as sections in other communities, as rail, road, and alternative canal transportation began to develop. The greatest challenger of the Old Erie Canal in Verona, and the one that put it out of existence, was the New York State Barge Canal. Between 1918 and 1919, the Barge Canal opened for commercial transport, cutting across the northern section of the town, [61] with the new canal system taking a more direct route to Rome by traveling from Oneida Lake through New London. [62] With a more efficient canal transport system in operation, the Old Erie Canal was completely abandoned, [63] with the former canal system being repurposed as a feeder canal for the Barge Canal. [64] The abandonment of the Old Erie Canal in the Town of Verona had a devastating impact on the town. For many decades, the numerous canal communities oriented their economic activity towards serving the needs of the canal and using it to ship locally made goods to distant markets. With the arrival of the Barge Canal, which was less accessible to the community than the Old Erie, businesses and, eventually, the population of Verona declined, especially in New London and Durhamville. [65] Hotels no longer provided beds for weary canal travelers. Provision, General, and grocery stores no longer sold food and supplies to boatmen. Factories and farmers no longer had an easily accessible transport artery from which their rich products could flow to distant markets. Boat yards no longer had any demand for their sturdy vessels. Of the communities struck by this crisis of progress, New London was hit hardest by a combination of misfortunes. Not only did the opening of the Barge Canal take business away from New London in 1918, but previous competition from the Black River canal and two major fiery conflagrations through New London’s canal business district also devastated the small community. [66] The glory days of ‘canalling’ were over in the Town of Verona, but the memories of those days could still be cherished by those who lived them and can still be cherished by those who learn about them in the present. The Erie Canal, born out of a desire to penetrate the imposing Appalachian Mountains, was a blessing both to the State of New York and the Town of Verona, NY. The canal was conceived and brought to fruition through a difficult process involving the optimism of its proponents, such as Gouverneur Morris and DeWitt Clinton, who faced down pessimistic naysayers. Over eight years of hard, backbreaking labor, the Erie Canal was carved out of the soil and rock of Upstate New York by immigrants seeking opportunity and local community residents anticipating prosperity. Prosperity eventually arrived, and a new chapter was written in U.S. history as the way to the West was opened and industry began taking root in the American economy, with the Erie Canal allowing the movement of people and goods to far-off places. The Town of Verona took part in the bountiful ‘harvest’ of the Erie Canal, with communities such as Durhamville, State Bridge, Dunbarton, Higginsville, Stacy Basin, and New London becoming bustling, active, thriving hubs of civilization in the farmland of the town. The good times lasted for many decades, but would not last forever as the railroads, highways, and Barge Canal proved to be the way forward. Communities across the state, and within Verona, declined as the downward spiral set in, with business and trade stripped away by the new means of transport. Although the days of the ‘canallers’ are now preserved in history books, they can still be cherished by those living in the here and now, as the Erie Canal shaped New York and Verona into what they are today. If nothing else, the preserved memories of the canal across the state and town, eliciting images of packet boats leisurely streaming past refreshing countryside scenes while being pulled by plodding mules, provide a temporary escape for the postmodern mind existing in a fast-paced Twenty-First Century that refuses to travel at the leisurely speed of mule as in a cherished bygone era.     About the author: Jeff Blanchard has been the Historian for the Town of Verona, NY, since June 2025, and has vigorously pursued projects related to Verona’s rich history. Jeff earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Liberty University and is interested in local history, post-World War II military history, and American military history.              Sources Bernstein, Peter L. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the making of a great nation . New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. Author Unknown. Erie Canal Timeline . Publisher Unknown, Date Unknown. Andrist, Ralph K. The Erie Canal . New York, NY: American Heritage Publishing, 1964. Cmaylo, Dorothy et al. Images of America: Verona. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010. Cmaylo, Dorothy. “Verona.” Exploring 200 Years of Oneida County History . ed.Donal F. White. Utica, NY: Oneida County Historical Society, 1998. Ernenwein, Raymond. Verona Town History. Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970. Hoffman, Sheila. Waterways in the Town of Verona, NY. Verona, NY: Sheila Hoffman, Date Unknown. Hopkins Adams, Samuel. The Erie Canal . New York, NY: Random House, 1953. Jones, Pomroy. Annals and Recollections of Oneida County. Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851. Kelly, Jack. Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal . New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2016.      Bibliography         [1] Peter L. Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the making of a great nation , (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005), 22. [2] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters , 22-23. [3] Ralph K. Andrist, The Erie Canal , (New York, NY: American Heritage Publishing, 1964), 10 and 12. [4] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters , 23. [5] Andrist, The Erie Canal , 16. [6] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters , 24. [7] Andrist, The Erie Canal , 19. [8] Ibid, 20. [9] Ibid. [10] Ibid. [11] Author Unknown, Erie Canal Timeline , Publisher Unknown, Date Unknown, 1. [12] Jack Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal , (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 40 and 41. [13] Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal , (New York, NY: Random House, 1953), 128 and 129. [14] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal , 174. [15] Ibid. [16] Ibid, 174-175. [17] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters , 357-358. [18] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch , 260-261. [19] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal , 177. [20] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters , 358. [21] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch , 261. [22] Ibid. [23] Dorothy Cmaylo, “Verona,” Exploring 200 Years of Oneida County History , ed.Donal F. White (Utica, NY: Oneida County Historical Society, 1998), 224. [24] Pomroy Jones, Annals and Recollections of Oneida County (Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851), 676. [25] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years , 224. [26] Ibid. [27] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years , 227. [28] Dorothy Cmaylo, et al., Images of America: Verona (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 9. [29] Cmaylo et al., Images of America , 10. [30] Ibid, 10 and 12. [31] Ibid, 9. [32] Sheila Hoffman, Waterways in the Town of Verona, NY (Verona, NY: Sheila Hoffman, Date Unknown), 5. [33] Cmaylo et al., Images of America , 35. [34] Cmaylo et al., Images of America , 35. [35] Ibid, 36. [36] Ibid, 38. [37] Ibid, 35. [38] Ibid. [39]  Raymond Ernenwein, Verona Town History (Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970), 61. [40] Cmaylo, Images of America , 35. [41] Ernenwein, Verona Town History , 62-63. [42] Hoffman, Waterways , 9. [43] Ibid, 9. [44] Hoffman, Waterways , 9. [45] Ibid, 9. [46] Ibid, 9. [47] Cmaylo et al., Images of America , 59. [48] Ibid, 59. [49] Ibid, 61. [50] Ibid, 59. [51] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years , 228. [52] Ibid. [53] Ibid. [54] Ibid. [55] Ibid. [56] Ibid. [57] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal , 177. [58] Hoffman, Waterways , 8. [59] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal , 177-178. [60] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch , 263. [61] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years , 224. [62] Hoffman, Waterways , 11. [63] Ibid. [64] Cmaylo , Exploring 200 Years , 224. [65] Hoffman, Waterways , 6. [66] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years , 228.

By Jeff Blanchard , Town Historian, Town of Verona, NY Two hundred-twenty years ago, in the early nineteenth century, a feverish young woman rode atop her trusty horse in the Mohawk Valley region of Upstate New York. This young lady was returning to her parents’ residence in the Town of Verona, Oneida County. The young lady in question did not make her homeward-bound journey alone, for she had been accompanied by death-quite literally. The starting point of this historical tale was the summer of 1805. During that hot summer, Verona Town resident Miss Elizabeth Day had been residing with her friends in the Herkimer County community of Litchfield, which was experiencing an outbreak of Typhus Fever. [1]   Typhus Fever, common in new settlements such as Verona, [2] was a bacterial disease spread by various insects, including lice that bit their victims. The signs and symptoms most associated with Typhus were a high fever and a rash over large parts of the body, along with other symptoms ranging from nausea and aches to seizures and coma. [3] This disease was not considered contagious, but could be spread in unsanitary, crowded conditions by insects and was often fatal if left untreated. [4] Miss Day undoubtedly had encountered this deadly disease during her stay in Litchfield, with consequences that would deeply affect Verona. By the month of August in 1805, Miss Day wrapped up her stay in Litchfield and set off back home to Verona as scheduled. The start of Miss Day’s homeward journey was foreboding. Miss Day was anxious to return home and began her long journey on horseback despite feeling indisposed. [5] Miss Day’s journey was made strenuous by the searing August heat, but her difficulty was compounded when she spiked a high fever. Miss Day, bound and determined to make it back to her parents’ home, only allowed herself a brief rest break at a nearby relative’s home. By the time Miss Day made it home, she lay herself down onto her sick bed with the hope of recovering from her illness. Fate proved cruel, for Miss Day never arose, dying on her sickbed that August of 1805.             Elizabeth Day became the first victim in a Typhus Fever epidemic in Verona that would last from August 1805 to well into 1806. The disease had a tremendous impact on the residents of the Town of Verona. Approximately one hundred cases of Typhus occurred in the town, mostly amongst those who were young and unmarried, or those who were young and the head of their family. [6] The Typhus outbreak was particularly unforgiving and took a tremendous toll on the small population of Verona to the point that the town came close to being wiped out. Explanations for why the disease spread in the way it did varied. Nineteenth-century historian Pomroy Jones believed that “The cutting away of the timber letting in the rays of the sun might possibly have increased the malaria of the wetlands. . .” [7] Additionally, Jones believed that “... the rapid decay of the log houses as a likely cause, or at least that it contributed to the spread.” [8] Jones was personally affected by the 1805 Typhus outbreak, for the disease claimed his uncle, Captain Oliver Pomroy. Despite the ferocity of the Typhus outbreak, the Town of Verona lived on.             The Town of Verona’s dance with death from 1805 to 1806 is a stark reminder of the frailty of human beings in the face of disease. Even into the twenty-first century, with all the advancements made in disease prevention and treatment, the residents of Verona have still had to face the realities of disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as those nineteenth-century town settlers moved on from Typhus after 1806, the town residents in the twenty-first century moved on from COVID-19 with the same hearty spirit of their settler ancestors.   About the author: Jeff Blanchard has been the Historian for the Town of Verona, NY, since June 2025, and has been vigorously pursuing projects related to Verona’s rich history. Jeff earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Liberty University and has an interest in local history, post-World War II military history, and American military history                  Sources:   Cleveland Clinic. “Typhus.” Typhus: Fever, Causes, Symptoms, Treatment & Prevention. Last reviewed July 24 th , 2024. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/typhus .   Ernenwein, Raymond P. Verona Town History . Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970.   Jones, Pomroy. Annals and Recollections of Oneida County . Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851.   Karol-Chik, Shellie. “Diseases and Epidemics of Colonial New England – Handout.” The Mayflower Society, 2022. https://themayflowersociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Diseases-and-Epidemics-in-Colonial-New-England-Handout.pdf . Bibliography [1] Pomroy Jones, Annals and Recollections of Oneida County (Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851), 674. [2] Raymond P. Ernenwein, Verona Town History , (Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970), 12. [3] “Typhus,” Typhus: Fever, Causes, Symptoms, Treatment and Prevention, Cleveland Clinic, last reviewed July 24, 2024,  https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/typhus . [4] Shellie Karol-Chik, “Diseases and Epidemics of Colonial New England – Handout,” The Mayflower Society, 2022, https://themayflowersociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Diseases-and-Epidemics-in-Colonial-New-England-Handout.pdf . [5] Jones, Annals and Recollections, 674. [6] Ibid., 675. [7] Ibid, 675. [8] Ernenwein, Verona Town History , 12.

By J.N. Cheney Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author.     Strikers outside of Slovak Hall during the 1912–1913 Little Falls textile strike. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Unbeknownst to many, the Mohawk Valley has a rich history of radical politics and organized labor. Some of these events, such as the Little Falls Textile Strike of 1912-1913, were torrid affairs in which strikers engaged in lengthy battles for better pay, working conditions, and other related provisions. Other times, though, these strikes end up as a blip on the radar. Some strikes are remembered as short but powerful displays of the strength of an organized working class. Such is the story of the 1950 Bertelle Manufacturing Company Strike.   The Bertelle Manufacturing Company (BMC) was a dressmaking company founded in 1937 and based in Herkimer, New York. [1] On July 21 st , 1950, upwards of 100 Bertelle employees initiated a strike. Seemingly, all of these employees were women. Members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) went on strike mainly because Bertelle management failed to respond to a request to have their union formally recognized and to establish a union contract with the company. [2] Some sources, such as the Herkimer Evening Telegram, also indicate that the strikers fought for benefits such as pay raises, paid holidays, vacation and sick time, and other such improvements alongside their bid for union recognition. [3]   No reports indicate that there was any major unrest during the strike; thus, it can be inferred that this was a very calm, neat, and orderly affair. That said, there still remained some contention between the ILGWU and the BMC. It took five days for any sort of meeting between the two parties to discuss these problems to come to fruition, and even then, it had to be rescheduled to a different part of the day. [4] This could be chalked up to the fact that the manager of the Bertelle plant, one Jack Gordon, was reportedly out of town when this strike began. [5] Other newspapers reported that one Jacob Gordon, cited as the plant's owner, outright rejected the idea of recognizing the ILGWU. The website “Herkimer County, NY GenWeb” mentions a Jack Gordon in its Bertelle section, but there’s no mention of any Jacob. These may have been the same person, and a discrepancy in names may have been an error on the part of the different outlets reporting on this. Regardless of who was in charge, the BMC showed no interest in the union. Nonetheless, after five days of struggling to schedule negotiations, a meeting finally took place on July 26 th . [6] It was hoped that this would be the only meeting necessary and that the dispute would end early.   All accounts point to this meeting as the only one needed, as papers such as the Ilion Sentinel and the Syracuse Herald-Journal reported that the strike concluded the following day after extensive negotiations involving numerous figures in both the union sphere and Bertelle, including union representative Anthony Blasting. Through these negotiations, the striking women secured official union recognition, culminating in a collective bargaining agreement and a return to work. With this new contract, Bertelle employees earned a flat 10-cent per hour raise, a minimum starting wage of 85 cents per hour, three paid holidays, a one-week paid vacation, a health fund, and a death payment of $500 to go to the family of anyone who was a member of the union for at least two years. [7]   Although it was a small dispute compared to others that have occurred in the region throughout the twentieth century, lasting less than a week, the Bertelle Manufacturing Company strike provides an interesting glimpse into the vastly untouched history of the Mohawk Valley’s hidden radical kernels. This strike additionally serves as an example and lesson of what is possible through working-class power and organized labor, even in small doses. About the author: J.N. Cheney is an aspiring historian with a BA in History focusing on the labor movement, radical politics, and community action in New York’s Mohawk Valley. His work has been featured in Cosmonaut Magazine, Z Network, and The Bias, among other online and print publications. His forthcoming book with Algora Publishing is Women, Immigrants, and the Working-Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913. Bibliography [1] “Landmark Buildings of Herkimer County: The Mark Mill and the Gem Building,” Herkimer NY GenWeb, n.d., https://herkimer.nygenweb.net/herktown/morrismark.html . [2] “Herkimer Workers Strike For Union,” The Daily Messenger (Canandaigua, NY), July 21, 1950. https://www.newspapers.com/image/21639595/ .; “100 Women Strike at Herkimer Plant,” The Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), July 22, 1950. https://www.newspapers.com/image/136017203/ . [3] “Negotiations Started to End Dress Strike,” The Evening Telegram (Herkimer, NY), July 26, 1950.; “Strike Continues At Herkimer,” The Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY), July 26, 1950. [4] “Negotiations Started to End Dress Strike.” [5] “Herkimer Workers Strike For Union.” [6] Ibid, The Evening Telegram. [7] “Herkimer Strike Is Settled By Union, Company,” The Sentinel (Ilion, NY), July 27, 1950.; “Agreement Ends Strike In Herkimer,” The Syracuse Herald-Journal , July 27, 1950. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1086549486/ .