Week of June 19
June 19, 1876 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal
GEORGIA JUBILEE SINGERS —This charming band of singers will give their programme of sacred song in the Presbyterian Church on next Wednesday evening, June 21st. They are all ex-slaves and their performances are marked with all the simplicity, quaintness, enthusiasm and natural power which are so characteristic of the music of the plantation. No one should miss the opportunity of hearing this band of Nature’s gifted ones. Your heart will be warmed, your spirit will be cheered, and you will carry away an indelible memory of precious harmonies. These singers attract houses wherever they go. Lately they crowded even the Academy of Music in Brooklyn. One half of the proceeds will be for the benefit of the church. Do not fail to give yourself a rare treat by hearing this soul moving music. Doors open at 7, performance to begin at 8 o’clock. Admittance 25 cents and reserved seats 50 cents.
AROUND HOME
☞ Eugene E. Conklin, who has been so long connected with and has grown wealthy in the Knickerbocker Ice Company, will occupy his summer residence at Rockland Lake next week.
☞ Drunken men now hold high carnival in our village Sundays, because we cannot afford to pay $156 per year to preserve the sanctity of the day. What a poverty-stricken set of mortals we are!
☞ A parasite to the potato bug, said to be destructive to it, has been found in this county. It is very small, and hundreds collect on one bug. J. C. Wood, at Spring Valley, has some on exhibition.
☞ Making a concert garden of one’s backyard on Sunday afternoon, and disturbing a whole neighborhood by the singing of ribald songs, is not exactly the thing for a civilized and Christian community.
June 18, 1926 – 100 YEARS AGO
Nanuet Life
SAYS COUNTY IS BADLY IN NEED OF NEW BUILDING
[Image: Colored postcard, Rockland County Courthouse, 1873. Image courtesy of the Historical Society of the New York Courts.]
We print the following article which appeared in the Nyack Journal this week:
Antiquated and dilapidated, and building that has outlived its usefulness for the purpose intended.
This is the summary reached by a representative after a personal investigation at the Rockland County Court House.
Because of the earnestness of the men working on the advisory committee who have already recommended the erection of a new county court house and laced with the contrasting view of subscribers and taxpayers, the Journal determined upon making its own inspection and arriving at its own opinion.
This opinion, stated briefly, is that Rockland County is in serious danger of having all of its records, of inestimable value, wiped out should fire attack the county court house; Rockland county faces the possibility of seeing the yard of its county court stacked high with books and files, there being no more room inside; Rockland County faces the disgrace of having the State of New York issue a drastic order that a new building be erected.
Conditions in the Court House are beyond the belief of the ordinary citizen, who makes perhaps one trip a year to get a license of some sort. Then he enters, gets his business done and departs. To the lawyer, juror or court official the building stands as a daily reminder of the “black eye” Rockland is wearing.
The different departments can find a room for just one more year’s files. After that there will be absolutely no room for anything. Even now everything is in a fearfully congested state, despite the fact that the different officials do their utmost and work far beyond their regular hours in overcoming the handicap.
Without a doubt, Rockland Court must have a new county Court House. regardless of whether it costs $700,000 as at present estimated, or whether the cost runs up to $1,500,000 as feared by readers of this paper.
June 17, 1976 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News
BIRD PROTECTS NEST
Progress, it appears, is not too powerful a force to be stopped by something as fragile as a bird’s egg.
At least this is the case in Pomona where the development plans of a sizable shopping center are being altered while a mother bird protects four of her unhatched young.
The developers of the Pacesetter Shopping Center on Route 202 were about to drive massive iron piles into the ground two weeks ago until the panic-stricken squawks of a female killdeer stopped them.
“We’re rerouting our whole schedule until she has her babies,” said William Loftus, owner of William F. Loftus Associates of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., the engineering firm behind the project.
Loftus is also a birdwatcher, and he has struck a compromise between his business and ornithological interests.
While tons of machinery and brawny tradesmen lay the foundations for a 20-store complex, the killdeer and her eggs remain untouched in a little island of safety.
“It’s strange to see all these big. burly guys walking around and saying, ‘Look out for the bird,’” said Loftus.
Loftus, a Valley Cottage resident, will try to wait out the births of the young killdeer before steel and concrete cover the nesting area.
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.
