This Day in Bovina for April 2023

 

115 years ago today, on April 1, 1908, William Telford died.  The Andes Recorder provided the details: "William Telford, who lived on the Alex Johnson farm in upper Bovina, died suddenly Wednesday morning, April 1.  He was in the barn milking and had milked two cows when his wife noticed that he was very pale.  He sat down on his milking stool in the driveway and in a few minutes fell on his face on the floor and expired instantly.  He had been suffering with neuralgia and it is supposed that it went to the heart. Mr. Telford, who was a son of Rev. Walter Telford, was 48 years old and most of his life has been spent in Bovina.  He is survived by his wife who was Miss Ella Winter, of New Kingston.”  Ella survived her husband by 35 years, dying in 1943.

 

Eighty-one years ago today, the April 2, 1942 Delaware Republican reported in its Bovina column that "Mr. and Mrs. Dave Roberts of Sidney were here two days last week as guests of her aunt, Mrs. Kate Birdsall."

 

Seventy-four years ago today, on April 3, 1949, a small plane crashed in Bovina. A Beechcraft plane piloted by George P. Kingsley landed on Frank McPherson's flat at the lower end of Bovina Center. There was little damage to the airplane and none to the pilot, nor the dog that was traveling with him. The Catskill Mountain News reported the crash: 1949-04-08 CMN crash

130 years ago, the April 4, 1893 Stamford Mirror reported the following: "At a meeting of the village school district, Bovina Centre, it was voted to purchase, at a cost of $300, a site on the Hasting's farm, recently purchased by Wm. Hoy, upon which to erect a new district school house. A new street will be laid out. A one-story building with two departments, to be built after one of the most approved modern plans, to cost $1,500, will be erected as soon as possible." Construction took place later that year. The building still stands today and is now the Bovina Public Library.

 

The Andes Recorder reported that 122 years ago on April 5, 1901, “Mrs. G.J. Dickson went to New York City…to buy her stock of millinery goods.”

 

204 years ago today, April 6, 1819, a vote was taken in Stamford for annexing a part of the town, with a part of Delhi and Middletown, for the purpose of forming a new Town. Seventy-one voted in favor, sixty-four against. The town which was created the following February was Bovina.

 

143 years ago today, on April 7, 1880, Nancy Bailey Hoy died. Born in Ireland in 1795, she was the daughter of Alexander Bailey and Nancy Forsythe. She married Robert J. Hoy Sr and would have five children before she was widowed in 1865.

 

122 years ago, on April 8, 1901, Alex Hilson was headed to New York City to purchase new goods for his store.

 

Forty-two years ago today, on April 9, 1981, Edna Carter passed away at the age of 88. Born in 1892, she was the daughter of David Champ Worden and Harriett Boyd. Edna grew up in Bovina, attending school at what is now the Bovina library. Edna was married three times. Her first marriage was tragically brief. She married John Henderson in February 1914 in Pittsburgh, married by the pastor they knew when he was in New Kingston. Henderson caught the measles from one of the pastor's children. They came back to Delaware County just as he became ill. He went outdoors before he was completely recovered from the measles and caught a cold. He died about 10 weeks after the wedding. Edna came back to Bovina to teach but two years later, she married James Tolley in Colorado. That marriage ended in divorce in 1926 in Oklahoma. In 1927, she married George Carter in Bovina. They lived in Nebraska where their two children, Marquerite and Enid were born. She was widowed in 1945. She returned to Delaware County, living in Margaretville, where she taught elementary school. She came back to Bovina upon retirement.

 

127 years ago today, the Bovina correspondent for the Andes Recorder in its April 10, 1896, reported that "They are just whooping it up at Lake Delaware.  Nearly all the students who attended school there have the whooping cough."

 

141 years ago today, the April 11, 1882 issue of the Stamford Mirror reported in its Bovina column that "It is expected that a telegraph line to Brushland will be built within three weeks."

 

104 years ago today, on April 12, 1919, Helen Anderson Hastings died in Saranac Lake. The Delaware Republican reported that she had been in the Adirondacks eight or nine years "battling…to overcome the inroads of consumption."  She was the daughter of Andrew and Margaret Anderson and was 49 years old at her death. She, her husband Elmer and her daughters Lulu Jean and Pauline moved together to Saranac. The paper reported that "the change evidently prolonged her life, but the end came all too soon for those who loved her, and the number was legion."  She was buried in Bovina. Her husband survived her by over 20 years, dying in 1945.

 

106 years ago today, the April 13, 1917 issue of the Andes Recorder in its Bovina column reported that "Frank Miller has sold his farm on the hill above the old cemetery to a Norwegian named Jenson.  He retains 40 acres below the road. The farm was formerly the Andrew Thomson place and by him was called 'paradise.'" This is the old Reinertsen farm at the end of Reinertsen Hill Road.  It appears that this news item is reporting the purchase by Andrew Reinertsen and while they got the nationality right, they got the name wrong, though the actual purchase by Andrew didn’t happen until 1919.

 

112 years ago, the Andes Recorder in its April 14, 1911 issue, reported in the Bovina column news the following: “John Miller has secured a position as telegraph operator with the Union Pacific railroad, and has been ordered to report for duty at Omaha, Nebraska. It is not known to what place he will be assigned. He has just completed a special course at Cincinnati." This likely is John Clifford Miller, the son of David and Charlotte Miller.  Miller married Doris McIntyre and lived until the age of 96, dying in Schenectady in 1986.  He is buried in Bovina.

 

113 years ago today, on April 15, 1910, Mrs. John G. Thomson died at her home in Bovina from an aneurysm of the abdominal aorta at the age of 72.  As later reported in the Andes Recorder, "Her maiden name was Anna White and she was born and had always lived in Bovina." Her husband survived her by more than a decade, dying in 1921.

 

Eighty-one years ago today, the Andes column of the Delaware Republican for April 16, 1942 had this item about a Bovina resident: "Alen(sic) Johnson of Bovina, son of Mr. and Mrs. George Johnson, who has been in the aviation branch of the U.S.A. for over two years, made his first trip home last week for a very few days. He has been stationed at Panama and is now going to a field in Texas to become a flying cadet. We are not privileged to have only a few minutes interview with him but find him looking fine but very dark complexion from the sun and climate of Panama. Due to his short stay at home he was unable to give us a history of his past two years but promises to write from Texas and will then be able to perhaps give the readers more of a description of his past two years." Johnson later became even more newsworthy when he was shot down over France and managed to escape imprisonment.  See the Bovina NY History blog at http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/06/faces-of-bovina-adventures-of-allan.html for more about this story.

 

127 years ago today, April 17, 1896, as later reported in the Andes Recorder, "The thermometer registered over eighty in the shade…  How is that for April weather."

 

141 years ago today, the April 18, 1882 issue of the Stamford Mirror reported that "Jehiel Dibble, at the 'Hook' sent us last Saturday a pullet's egg that measured 7 x 8 1/2 inches, the weight of which was nearly 4 1/2 ounces."

 

Ninety-five years ago today, the April 19, 1928 Stamford Mirror-Recorder reported on elections held for the Bovina Center fire company. 

 

Seventy-nine years ago today, the Bovina column of the April 20, 1944 Delaware Republican-Express reported that "The 4-H held a bake sale last week with Miss Marian McPherson in charge of it." The same column reported that "Cpl. Leonard Archibald is enjoying a furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A.T. Archibald."

 

112 years ago today, the April 21, 1911 Andes Recorder's Bovina column reported that "for some time the machinery at the Dry Milk plant has been causing considerable trouble, and a machinist is now here from Philadelphia to put it in working order."

 

121 years ago, a musical entertainment was scheduled at Strangeway's Hall.  The Andes Recorder reported that on Tuesday eve., April 22[, 1902] there will be a musical and literary entertainment in Strangeway’s Hall, given by the Fortnightly Club and its friends.  There will be music by the children, Phonograph, quartets, choruses and by Zobo band.  There will be also recitations and a pantomime presentation of 'Hiawatha’s Wooing.'  This is the last entertainment of the season and a cordial invitation is given to all."

 

Eighty-three years ago today, on April 23, 1940, Elizabeth Fowler McNair died in Binghamton. The Catskill Mountain News reported that "she was 86 years of age, the widow of the late Peter McNair." The paper went on to note that "she has many friends here who extend to the family their sympathy to the loss of a good mother and friend."

 

151 years ago today, the April 24, 1872 Delaware Gazette carried this item: "We learn that Mr. Elliott, of Bovina, whose store and goods were consumed by fire on the night of the 9th inst., was in embarrassed circumstances, and has since absconded; and it has come to light that he has been using the names of some friends rather freely. Forgeries to the amount of $3,000 have been discovered. Alexander Kinmonth and Andrew Gladstone are the principal victims. It is now quite clear how the store came to burn. Mr. Elliott is a former Supervisor of Bovina." This is James Elliott, Jr. Interestingly, Alexander Kinmouth was his father-in-law. He does appear to have left the area, settling in Chicago, where he died in 1896.

 

148 years ago today, on April 25, 1875, Lester T. Hoy was born. The son of Thomas Hoy and Julia Tuttle Hoy, he would die in 1897 at the age of 22. When his brother William's wife had her third child, a son, in 1899, he would be named for his deceased uncle. This Lester lived in Bovina in what is now Tim and Tamara McIntosh's home. He died in 1978.  

 

Sixty years ago today, on April 26, 1963, Robert Russell Boggs 3rd was born in Georgia. When later reported in the Delaware Republic Express, the paper noted that his father "Robert is a former Bovina boy and has just been away from Bovina about two years."

 

Fifty years ago today, on April 27, 1973, I reported in my journal the delivery of my dad's new tractor. This likely was the tractor that was in the Bovina Bicentennial parade last summer.

 

112 years ago today, the April 28, 1911 Andes Recorder Bovina column reported that "The surveyors are at work making the survey for a State road from the Turnpike up to and thru the Center. The preliminary survey was made in 1909, and the present survey is for the setting of grade stakes and defining of limits of highway so that the contractors may submit bids."

 

125 years ago today, April 29, 1898, readers of the Bovina column of the Andes Recorder learned that "The United Presbyterian church is to be recarpeted. It takes 260 yards." The same column also reported that "Several of our farmers have their oats sown and a few have some potatoes in."

 

Sixty-eight years ago today, on April 30, 1955, the Bovina Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary held a bake sale and skating party. The Catskill Mountain News reported that thirty-five dollars was realized from the sale. The money was given to the Red Cross blood bank at Delhi.

 

 

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