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Flashback Friday Archive 2021-22: Flashback Friday: Week of February 12

Smith's Shipyard, Nyack, 1875.

February 11, 1871 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

DEATH OF THE LADY WHO MADE THE FIRST TRIP UP THE HUDSON IN A STEAMBOAT
       Mrs. Jane Leonard Martin, aged ninety-one year[s], the oldest woman native resident of New York city, was buried at Greenwood Cemetery on Tuesday. Mrs. Martin was one of the first to come to this city in a steamboat. Her husband, a well-known optician, was taken ill in Albany, and as the symptoms were serious, [s]he was desirous of reaching him as soon as possible. In those days, passage was made in small sloops, and was consequently a work of time; the anxious wife hearing that a ship with wheels propelled by steam was about to make its trial trip up the river with the corporation of New York on board and that it was to make the passage in a marvelously short time, she made known to that body the circumstances in which she was placed, and asked permission to accompany them. It was at once granted.

COASTING ACCIDENTS
       We hear of several accidents, some of them quite serious, resulting from coasting down hill. On Monday evening of this week, at Clarksville, a lad named —— Wortendyke, about 17 years of age, had his breast-bone broken by a collision while coasting down the turnpike hill; a woman, Mrs. Wood, had one of her legs seriously injured and Peter Garrabrandt had four of his front teeth knocked out.

February 11, 1921 – 100 YEARS AGO
Rockland News

TELEPHONE BOXES GATHERED $20,000,000 IN NICKELS
       Twenty million dollars in nickels were dropped in the slots of pay station telephones throughout the United States during the first ten months of 1920, according to an estimate by A. E. Berry, president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Telephone Company. This is an increase of $2,700,000 over the corresponding period of the past year.  Long distance telephone business increased $20,000,000 during the same ten-months' period, Mr. Berry says.

February 9, 1971 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

LAMPHEAR SUES COUNTY FOR $ MILLION
       William Lamphear of the Bronx, exonerated here last November 18 of a charge he caused the death of his fiancee, has filed a claim of $1,012,654 against the county.
       Lamphear, 21, is asking $1 million in compensatory damages, plus $6,000 for loss of earnings.
       He was indicted here Feb. 4, 1970, on a charge of manslaughter and freed nine months later, when an investigation spearheaded by New York City Police implicated another man in the strangulation death of the fiancee, 20-year-old Patricia Reilly, also of the Bronx.
       Miss Reilly’s body was found Jan. 31, 1970, in the backseat of a car which had gone down an embankment off Route 9W, Upper Grand View.
       Lamphear had maintained from the beginning that he and Miss Reilly were abducted from a lover’s lane in Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx, and that he had been locked in the car trunk.
       Lamphear managed to free himself from the trunk after the car was abandoned here. Miss Reilly was murdered after she was abducted in the Bronx.
       County Attorney Arthur Prindle confirmed that the claim was filed yesterday by Arthur Spring, Lamphear’s counsel, who was a former Westchester County district attorney.
       Lamphear also is seeking attorney’s fees of $5,424, miscellaneous expenses of $750, and bail bond fees of $480.
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Image: Smith's Shipyard, Nyack, 1875. The Hudson River is frozen, and trapped in the ice are several sloops, their masts rising above the horizon. Photo made from a John Scott slide. Smith's Shipyard was at the foot of Fourth Avenue in Nyack. Copy by John Scott. Courtesy Nyack Library Local History Room via NYHeritage.
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This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan on behalf of the Historical Society of Rockland County. To learn about the HSRC’s mission, upcoming events or programs, visit www.RocklandHistory.org or call (845) 634-9629.

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