The Historians

Tuba player struck up the band By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder       Amsterdam tuba player Herbert S. Breen was married twice.  His first wife, Maude Mosher, died in 1927, the year the Mohawk Mills Band was formed.  Two years later he married Carrie Wilbur. Breen said he met both women when he was playing in a b

Helping Sam Stratton get elected By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History          On one of Samuel Stratton’s early trips to Amsterdam as part of his first Congressional campaign there he luckily ran into an 11-year old entrepreneur. East End native John Naple wrote, “If I was 12 years old I could get my working papers and then have my own paper route,

The woman who was was the queen of Fonda By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder  People called her Queen Libby         A formidable woman from Italy, Queen Libby literally stopped a train, saved a man from the electric chair and became a major property owner in Fonda. Elizabeth Luciano was born in Pietremalara near Naples,

Mary Anne Krupsak’s roots By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder       Long before Polish-American John Gomulka was elected mayor of Amsterdam in 1967, Michael J. Wytrwal, who never held elected office, was widely known as the city’s unofficial Polish mayor. Wytrwal was born near Krakow, Poland in 1882 and immigrated to S

Amsterdam sparkled in 1925 expoBy Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder        America was prospering in 1925, one hundred years ago, and local businesses staged.Amsterdam’s Progress Exposition and Auto Show that year to show off that prosperity. “In the 1920s, that was the heyday here,” said anthropologist Susa

Highlights of Focus on History columns in 2024 By Bob Cudmore        The movie "South of Tahiti" was playing at the Strand Theatre on East Main Street in Amsterdam, when interrupted as the news broke that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Radio coverage was piped into the theater and dazed patrons left the building. A soldier who grew up on Northampton Road

Christmas in Amsterdam through the years By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for Daily Gazette, Amsterdam Recorder           Amsterdam retail sales records were broken in the 1902 Christmas shopping season.The post office, then at the corner of East Main and Church streets, was extremely busy. So many packages and letters crowded the postal facility that emplo

Family fun with the Recordio By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette and Recorder       In the late 1940s my family had a machine called the Recordio to make 78 rpm records for our own amusement. We often sent these homemade records to my Aunt Winifred and Uncle Albert Gulloni who, with Albert’s daughter Sylvia, had moved to Inverness, Florida after Wor

Amsterdam goes to war By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History for Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder      The movie "South of Tahiti" was playing at the Strand Theatre on East Main Street in Amsterdam, when interrupted as the news broke that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Radio coverage was piped into the theater and dazed patrons left the building. A soldier from

Two Amsterdam cowboys By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder      Amsterdam country music performer and radio host Dusty Miller, whose real name was Elmer Rossi, Sr, had a band called the Colorado Wranglers. Miller's brother-in-law Barry Frank performed with Miller's band. Frank was a radio engineer well known in the Capital District.