Week of May 16
May 15, 1875 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal
AROUND HOME
☞ Ice Cream and soda-water now tickle the palates of those who indulge in such delicacies. We mean to stick to our Winter bill of fare yet for a day or two, until we see what season is coming next or hear of the decease of the scalawag who still predicts another snow-storm.
☞ Cherry-blossoms began poking their little white noses out the first of the week to ascertain the state of the weather, and not smelling Jack Frost around, they have taken courage and brought their whole families out in the sunshine, and the trees are covered with them.
☞ The ladies’ hats this Spring look like traveling flower gardens, while they (the ladies) say that the gentlemen’s look like vegetable gardens; and when you ask them why, they say, because there are cabbages in them. Never mind; we’ll get square with them when the next season begins.
☞ Among the graduates of Columbia College Law School, at the Commencement exercises at the Academy of Music, New York, on Wednesday evening of this week, were Wm. H. Haeselbarth, of this village, and Charles Lexow, of Nanuet. Both graduated with the highest honors, and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws.
☞ It is said that several of our citizens have been stopped at night, in dark portions of our village, by highwaymen, within the last two or three weeks. If this is true, it would be well to organize a vigilance committee for the purpose of detecting and punishing the ruffians, whether they be strangers or natives of our place who are merely trying to “scare” somebody. Such fun is sometimes paid for dearly.
May 16, 1925 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Times
BOY ON BIKE KILLED — Brother Riding with Him Run Over by Truck
Charles and Edward Richards, brothers, 14 and 11 years old, respectively, riding tandem on a bicycle to West Nyack public school Tuesday morning, crashed into a motor truck in front of the schoolhouse and were run over.
Charles died soon after being taken to Nyack Hospital. Edward is in critical condition with numerous fractures and a crushed chest. Physicians believe his injuries will prove fatal.
The truck was owned by the Rockland Motor Haulage Company of Blauvelt and driven by Lester J. Lewis. Seventy-five children assembled in front of the school waiting for the bell saw the accident. Many of them became hysterical.
The Richards boys, whose mother is dead, lived with their grandmother, Mrs. John Newman of Greenbush Road, West Nyack. They had only one bicycle between them and Charles was riding on it with Edward on the handle bars when the accident occurred. Witnesses said the driver of the truck was not to blame.
May 15, 1975 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News
“COMIC BOOK CZAR” ARRESTED
[Image: Nicholas J. Pappas Jr. is booked at police headquarters. Journal News Staff Photograph by Al Witt.]
Nationally known comic book czar Nicholas J. Pappas Jr. faces possible life imprisonment following his arrest Wednesday night in Spring Valley for selling $20,000 worth of cocaine.
Pappas, 23, of 271 81st St., and Reinaldo Segui, 25, of 9302 Ridge Boulevard, both of Brooklyn, were ordered to the Rockland County Jail without bail by Stony Point justice Harry Fox.
They were charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance (about four ounces of cocaine), a class A-1 felony, according to Rockland District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz.
Pappas, who sells comic books professionally, has appeared on nationally broadcast TV shows and has been featured in articles by the New York press because of his occupation.
Pappas and Segui were arrested at the Master’s store parking lot on Route 59 in Spring Valley at 11 p.m. after the cocaine sale, the district attorney said. The drug’s street value was estimated at $20,000.
Undercover investigators from Gribetz’s office, the state police substation at Stony Point, and Spring Valley village police were involved in an intensive six-week probe that took them to parts of Brooklyn, New Jersey and back to Rockland County.
If convicted the Brooklyn pair faces a minimum sentence of from 15 [to] 25 years and a maximum of life in a state prison, Gribetz said.
COUNTY JAIL “PLOT” PROBED
An unidentified 19-year-old woman has been arrested on charge stemming from what Sheriff Raymond A. Lindemann believes to be an escape plot at the Rockland County Jail.
A package of smuggled hacksaw blades was seized by the sheriff’s men Wednesday, according to Lindemann, whose duties include jail security.
The seizure of the escape tools was made following a four-day surveillance of the jail which was initiated when escape plans were “intercepted,” he said.
Neither the names nor the number of inmates involved in the escape attempt have been released pending further investigation, they said. The name of the young woman, who was not an inmate, was withheld because of her age. She was charged with promoting prison contraband.
Other items which were to have been smuggled inside the jail bars were also seized.
The case is expected to go before a Rockland grand jury, according to Chief Assistant District Attorney William Frank.
Frank led the Major Felony Offender’s Bureau which had joined Lindemann’s force to conduct the intensive probe, Rockland District Attorney Kenneth Gribetz said.
During a press conference ant Gribetz’s office, Lindemann, in a lighter mood, wondered aloud why jail incidents always seem to occur when he is seeking re-election
This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan for the Historical Society of Rockland County. © 2025 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.
