Week of July 17
July 15, 1876 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal
AROUND HOME
☞ There is a fever breeder on the corner of Piermont and DePew Avenues. The fragrance emitted by the suds which run down from a place nearby is not very pleasant, nor is it very wholesome.
☞ The Tappan Zee Boat Club have been exercising with their oars this week, notwithstanding the excessively hot weather. The water has been in fine condition for sailing purposes, rind the river breeze delightful. The newest fans are about three feet in length, and it requires considerable muscle on the part of Nyack ladies to use them. Those ladies accustomed to "training" their husbands, however, find no difficulty in using them.
☞ Fred Owen was drunk and "mussy" last Saturday night, and was locked up in Hubbell's
“hotel-de-huckleberry." The next morning Justice Stephens placed the prisoner under bonds to keep the peace, and after paying costs he was discharged..
HANDSOME SPECIMENS OF ART
Our artist, Van Wagner, took a trip to Tappan on the Fourth and photographed the elegant mansion and grounds of Mr. Elisha Ruckman, while they were beautifully and patriotically dressed in their Centennial colors. The decorations on the premises of Mr. Ruckman were, without exception, the handsomest and most extensive in Rockland county, while the superb manner in which they were arranged gave evidence of a remarkably fine taste. Long lines of flags reached from point to point, while single colors floated from conspicuous places on the grounds.
The rich harmony produced by the bright tricolors of the flags, the deep emerald of the lawn, and the appropriate painting on the mansion itself, made an effect at once striking and beautiful. The large photographs taken by Van Wagner are as fine specimens of art as we have ever seen, being as true as life and finished with all the fineness that skill can give. Van knows how to do first-class work, and when he has n subject as handsome as the place of Mr. Ruckman's, he feels proud to do his very best on it.
July 17, 1926 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Times
LION CREATES EXCITEMENT UGLY PERFORMING BEAST MAKES GETAWAY — FRIGHTENED BY CROWD SEEKS SHELTER ON STALTER PORCH
One of the big performing lions in the Christy Brothers circus that exhibited on the Peck 40-acre lot Wednesday afternoon, at the concluding of the last animal act near the close of the performance, found a section of the iron runway through which the animals travel from their cages to the iron latticed arena went loose through the fence and, startled by its freedom, as the crowd began to surge out and seek places of safety, trekked across one big field and made directly for the porch of the home of Mr. Banghart Stalter, the former Marks residence on Samsondale Avenue which was enclosed with wire netting. The door happened to be open, and having reached, as it thought a place of safety the lion stretched itself on the floor.
Circus men and a crowd of 1,000 or more big and little children trekked after the cavalcade.
The porch was soon surrounded with sections of latticed frame work. Then one of the elephants trundled across the wagon cage carrying the other lions, there being a vacant section, a new runway made from the porch and men with big iron pongs drove the animal out and in the wagon, the big beast snarling and fighting as much as it does with the performers in the act.
While this episode in itself was enough to scare the big assemblage, one of the big baboons, used in an act, also worked loose and went roaming around the audience. Evidently, from the attitude of the two animals, the lion sneaking away from the crowd glad to be free while the baboon was real pugnacious. The lion was more frightened than the assemblage.
The show as a whole was much above the ordinary circus aggregation. It was a big outfit and the performance was real meritorious. The animals, of which there were many acts, gave some remarkable exhibitions of intelligence. One number, 36 horses, 12 in each of three rings, acting simultaneously, was a really high class number.
Mr. Bowman S. Robinson, the managing director of the show, was agreeably disappointed. The show, not usually exhibiting in towns of Haverstraw's size, was put in here as a fill in date, not expecting an almost capacity patronage, therefore, the pleasure was the more agreeable.
July 18, 1976 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News
STONY POINT REENACTS PAST
[Image: Koreen Schwartz comforts daughter Kathryn at the Stony Point Battlefield. Journal News Photo, July, 1976.]
Stony Point began its Bicentennial weekend celebrations Saturday with a fair and colonial exhibits in preparation for today's annual re-enactment of the Battle of Stony Point. Residents donned colonial dress for the events at Lowland Hill Park. Battle re-enactment today will portray meeting of British and Hessian troops with the Continental Army at Stony Point Battlefield at 2 p.m. A 12-mile march was held to coincide with opening of two historic trails in the Palisades Interstate Park system, as well.
This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan for the Historical Society of Rockland County. © 2026 by The Historical Society of Rockland County. #FBF Flashback Friday may be reprinted only with written permission from the HSRC. To learn about the HSRC’s mission, upcoming events or programs, visit www.RocklandHistory.org or call (845) 634-9629.
