150 Years Ago
October 7, 1868 — A gentleman from this village was on an express train, going east, on the Central, yesterday, and between Chittenango and Rome a vote was taken, with the following result: Grant 165, Seymour 62.
125 Years Ago
October 5, 1893 — Rather contrary to public expectation, the hotel men have carried into execution their threat to close up their houses, in retaliation for the prosecution for illegal liquor selling. Every public house in town was closed Tuesday night between dark and daylight; the hotel barns are also, with one exception; closed and boarded up. The exception is the Lincklaen House barn, which is not run in connection with the hotel. It may also be in order to state that there is no place in town where the bibulous may find the wherewithal to slake their thirst. Cazenovia is now in fact as well as in name, a dry town.
Yesterday morning the Lincklaen House was boarded up so tightly that it would have taken a battering ram to have affected an entrance. The west door was barricaded with old boards, nailed across the pillars each side of the doorway, and crossed and recrossed until they formed a most effectual barricade. The west bar entrance was also closed in a similar manner, and the south stoop, was barricaded with hemlock slabs. An old door served to keep the public off the west end of the stoop. Hotel Finch was well decorated. The doors and windows were covered with boards nailed across and the entire front looked like a well-used billboard, covered as it was with the legacy of lithographs and posters bequeathed the house by visiting theatrical companies. The railing of the second story balcony bore a row of flaming lithographs along its entire length, and the appropriate sign, “For sale or to rent” occupied a conspicuous place near the door.
The Cazenovia House was closed early in the night by nailing a single slat over each door and window. The barn was similarly closed, and a fence from the corner of it to the corner of Niver’s livery barn prevents all access to the sheds.
The Grotto House is also tightly boarded up.
This movement on the part of the hotel keepers will cause considerable inconvenience to the townspeople, but infinitely more to the traveling public, which will be seriously put to it for accommodations. Doubtless numerous private boarding houses will be opened for transient business, however, and the public will be able to get along without the hotels quite as well as the hotels will be able to deal without the public.
The most flagrant case of rowdyism that has disgraced the fair name of Cazenovia for years occurred Tuesday evening.
After the hotels had been nailed up, unknown persons secured a pot of black paint and daubed the windows of the business places of every person who is supposed to have voted for no license, or who is known to be a temperance man. Either the rowdies were not posted on the question, or else were too drunk to know who their friends and enemies were, for several places were daubed where the proprietors are known to have been in sympathy with the hotel men. In most cases the daubing was simply a rough cross, but in three places the perpetrators descended to deface the windows with the worst obscenity that a depraved human mind can invent. Such an instance of rank, unpublishable filth has never before been seen in this village, and the perpetrators of it have stamped themselves as creatures too low to associate with civilized human beings. The act is universally condemned by all classes of people, the hotel men with the rest, for they well know that it is a powerful temperance argument and cannot have helped making votes against them. Probably the outrage was the work of the irresponsible and exceedingly tough young element of the village, and the fact that the perpetrators were probably drunk is little palliation for them. The village should offer a reward for their apprehension, and if caught the full extent of the law should be meted out to them.
100 Years Ago
October 10, 1918 — Public Gatherings Prohibited- Because of the extent and severity of the Influenza Epidemic in our village (150 cases to date), and in order to prevent the spread of the disease as much as possible in our midst it is hereby ordered that no gatherings of a public nature such as church meetings, schools, dances, etc., be held in the village of Cazenovia until further notice. It is also suggested that people refrain from calling on neighbors and visiting in houses in which there are cases of the Influenza.
Board of Health, F.C. Watson, Village Health Officer
50 Years Ago
October 9, 1968 — Letter to the Editor: Dear Mr. Bogardus: I want to express my appreciation for your generous comments regarding my acceptance speech, as written in The Republican editorial of August 14.
The Republican’s analysis of the issues confronting the American public this critical election year was most interesting. You may be sure that I shall continue to dedicate my energies to support those values fundamental to our heritage, and essential to the goal of providing new leadership for our country.
With many thanks and best regards,
Sincerely,
Richard Nixon
Years Ago is compiled by Erica Barnes. She is a contributing writer for The Cazenovia Republican with a degree in history and communications from Flagler College. She compiles the column from the archives of the Cazenovia Public Library. It is written in the style of the time.
