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This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of June 23

June 21, 1873 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

AROUND HOME
   ☞ A favorite cow, belonging to John J. Lawrence, of Piermont, exhibited symptoms of madness last week, and upon water being thrown in her face, almost immediately died.
   ☞ The Nyack Board of Trustees will meet at their rooms, Commercial Building at 10 A.M. to-day (Saturday), to hear objections of land-holders respecting the widening of Broadway.
   ☞ Base-ball playing in our streets is not as epidemic this year as formerly. Whether it is owing to our village ordinances or the good judgment of the players, we do not know. It is a blessing, nevertheless.

A NEW THING
[Image: Patent 125,184; 1872; John Eckerson.Image courtesy of the US Patent Office.]
       It is safe to affirm that when Solomon wrote that lugubrious chapter in Proverbs wherein he affirms “there is nothing new under the sun,” he could not have lived in the days of washing machines. Since these labor-saving machines have been invented, the improvements on them are almost endless, and we look for the time to come when the tidy housewife can sit in the parlor and entertain her visitors while the machine in the laundry all alone is purifying the household linen.
       The nearest approach to this desirable state of things is a machine recently patented by John Eckerson, of Spring Valley, N.Y., and for which John T. Boyd is the agent. This machine is called the “Knuckle” washer, and it is claimed for it that it will wash ordinary clothes in from five to ten minutes as well as they can be done by hand in an hour. That it will do the washing for a family of eight to ten persons in an hour and a half, and that it will not injure the finest fabric as much as the ordinary washboard. And finally, that it is durable, economical and simple.
       We have not seen the machine, but if it accomplishes half that is claimed for it, the machines that are now before the public might as well be split up for kindling wood. A sample machine can be seen, we believe, at the stores of A. D. Onderdonk and J. N. Perry, Nyack.

June 23, 1923 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Times

AFTER ANIMAL ABUSERS
       President John W. Miller of Suffern, who is the new head of the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals[,] is making a thorough inspection and investigation of conditions where working horses are alleged to be abused.
       In a recent statement, Mr. Miller claims to have found twenty-four horses in the brick yard district with sores under their saddles and collars that were ordered sent to their owners’ stables. 
       Two places in Stony Point were found where similar conditions prevailed.
       At Johnsontown two horses were found with no shoes and in an emaciated condition.
       At Rockland Lake three horses were sent to their owner’s stables as they were unfit for use.
       At Nyack four horses were sent to their stables as being unfit for use.
       There are cases other than those mentioned in the Times last week where several owners were arrested and fined for cruelty to animals.

CONGERS
       The Sylvan Grove on Rockland Lake will be formally opened for its fourth consecutive year by the Friendly House Camp Society of Brooklyn, N.Y.[,] July 4th. The grounds have been cut of high grass and cleared of considerable rubbish, thus giving the appearance of the old days. A water system installed by the State has just been completed. The campers will use water from Rockland Lake.
       The grand radio set to be raffled off by the firemen on Fourth of July and other highly prized articles are on display in the window of the Dickenman store. The articles are very attractively displayed and look well enough for every one to take many chances on.

June 21, 1973 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

HIGH-RISES PLANNED IN NYACK
       William Eli Kohn, Nyack’s urban renewal sponsor, has submitted to the Nyack building department preliminary plans for a 14-story apartment house and a 12-story residential hotel-commercial building.
       The hotel will rise on a site facing Main Street. It will stand between the Chemical Bank of New York building and another commercial building which also houses the Nyack Cinema.
       The first floor of the building will be given over to stores. Plans also allow for a pedestrian mall.
       The apartment building, to be located off Cedar Street, will be constructed between the Nyack Cinema building and DePew Manor, the senior citizens housing complex on De Pew Avenue.
       Architectural style for the buildings will be relatively simple, with tiers of terraces forming the ornamentation.
       Plans call for reinforced concrete construction which Nyack Building Inspector James Cicaloni called “the most fireproof construction.”

JUNE HONORS BLACK ARTISTS
       The works of America’s black writers and artists are being commemorated during the month of June, and the Rockland County Commission on Human Rights is reminding Rocklanders of the celebration.
       In a statement issued Tuesday, Noel J. MacCarry, commission executive director, cited poetess Gwendolyn Brooks, artists Charles Dawson and painter Henry Tanner as being among those receiving recognition.
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