Post St. Blues-Fiona at the library

[fiona]

I wonder if these folks were even given 30 days notice - not that it matters now - if that law even applied in 1911. I often wonder, also, after having read each one of these posts, where these folks went and if they formed a new community. Also, as I read I am asking myself the following questions: where did the children go to school? was there a church? where did they shop for food? Obviously, they died, eventually. As far as I know there is no " African American cemetary" in Utica, though there was an old burial ground on Potter Street. There are always so many questions unanswered when research like this begins, that's what makes it so interesting.

[Dave]

Go here:

oneida.nygenweb.net/

Click Cemeteries Button on left.

Scroll down to Utica, and there is a listing of graves for Potter Street Cemetery (and many others.)

I can't be sure, but it looks like it was hit by "urban renewal" as early as 1916 with remains removed to Forest Hill Cemetery as well as other destinations. It was Utica's first cemetery.

Very interesting topic ... where blacks were welcome to shop, be sick (hospitals) and die and get buried 100 years ago.

[jon]

CARTER

Catharine Freeman, wife of J. Wesley Carter, died Wednesday morning at her home, 12 Post Avenue. She was born in that same house 53 years ago and had been an invalid there for the past five years. She was a member of Hope Chapel. Her survivors are her husband, three sisters, Miss Maggie Freeman of Geneva, Mrs. Jennie Williams of Tarrytown, Mrs. Phoebe Prinse of New York and a brother, Samuel Freeman of Utica.


UTICA SUNDAY JOURNAL - 1898

[jon]

"WHITE TRASH" WHIPPED

A miniature race war occurred at the corner of Burnet street and Post Avenue last night, when four colored men roundly thrashed a white man who had gotten into some trouble on the Avenue. From the was in which the "white trash" is summarily disposed of by the "colored brethren" at regular intervals, it would appear that Post Avenue is a good place for white people to avoid.


UTICA JOURNAL - JUNE 6, 1897

[Dave]

Aug 3, 2010 16:26:14 GMT -5 jon said:

From the was in which the "white trash" is summarily disposed of by the "colored brethren" at regular intervals, it would appear that Post Avenue is a good place for white people to avoid.
UTICA JOURNAL - JUNE 6, 1897

Or a good place to behave themselves!

[jon]

PENITENT PIERANDO
PLEADED IN VAIN
___________________________


BROKE HIS PROMISE TO THE COURT
___________________________


AND SO HE SUFFERED
___________________________


Threw One of His Fake Fits on Genesee Street and Was Dumped in Police Station - Cats, Dogs and Humans So Called

[jon]

Penitient Pierando pleaded in City Court this morning for his liberty, but a stern judge, whose mercy had been sadly outraged, said him nay, and he was sent to jail for 10 days in default of a fine of $10.

Martinus Pierando, the horse tout, was before Judge O'Connor yesterday morning on the charge of public intoxication, and agreeing to leave town as soon as he had temperately shackled his abiding thirst with a drink, and had raised some funds from among his friends to help him on his way. Instead of keeping his word Plerando went out and dallied with the cup that cheers until he was hoarse, and then he resorted to his old worn out trick of throwing a fit in the street for the purpose of gaining admission to a hospital . Frothing at the mouth he fell on the sidewalk in front of store of the Howarth-Ballard Drug Company, and sure enough somebody sent for the ambulance. As soon as it arrived and the officer in charge saw the patient he dumped him in the Police Station instead of taking him to the hospital.

Pierando is a chap of some talent which he has clouded with drugs and whiskey.

[jon]

Pat O'Shea, an habitus of Police Station and City Court, who was released from jail yesterday, got drunk last night and fell in with Emine Monroe, another R. B. (registered boceer). They drank as long as money and credit held good and then went to the house of Eli Atkins at the corner of Burnet street and Post Avenue, intending to pass the night there. Later they were arrested and taken to the Police Station, as was also Atkins, and a charge of public intoxication was lodged against them. At the time the house was raided there were three dogs, three cats and eleven beings that are called human there.

In court this morning Atkins was discharged. O'Shea was sent back to jail for 60 days, while the Monroe woman was sent to jail for six months. The latter left the court room threatening to blow, somebody's brains out when she she should regain her liberty.

George Campbell was sent to jail for 30 days for vagrancy, and Daniel Coyne took 15 days for the same, because he didn't have $5.


UTICA HERALD DISPATCH - APRIL 12, 1906

[fiona]

This may be an interesting adjunct to the Post St. thread. At some place in Utica there had to have been a central hay market where people brought food and other sundry items. I have never heard of anything, but people weren't shopping at " corner stores". It had to be somewhere near Bagg's Square or the canal. Let's see if we can find out something about it.

[Dave]

Well, unless you mean people wouldn't have been shopping at "corner stores" YET (I don't know when they came into existence) I would have expected that most people bought their groceries at a neighborhood store. With limited refrigeration and whatever the cost of ice for those with iceboxes, it would have been handy to shop daily at the store down at the corner, as many do today in Europe. The store down at our corner (Leah and Taylor) when I was quite young essentially fulfilled its role as a Store-age facility and many neighbors did just that in the late '40's. In a three block radius extending from hour house on Cornhill, I'll bet there were at least a half dozen corner groceries, many of them stocked with everything you could want (except the lower prices of the nouveau larger grocery stores, not yet called supermarkets.) (My father did the family shopping (a skill from his firehouse days, as well as cooking) and was an early devotee of the A&P, where he shopped weekly.)
Mr. Walter, as we called him, the man who ran the store down on Leah St., went each morning to a farmer's market and I believe a wholesale grocery company. I don't know where the latter was, but if I remember correctly, the farmers' market (for fresh vegetables) was at or near the railroad station.

[jon]

Aug 7, 2010 9:19:51 GMT -5 fiona said:

This may be an interesting adjunct to the Post St. thread. At some place in Utica there had to have been a central hay market where people brought food and other sundry items. I have never heard of anything, but people weren't shopping at " corner stores". It had to be somewhere near Bagg's Square or the canal. Let's see if we can find out something about it.

Possibly you are referring to the business that was conducted in the Crouse Building at the South-East corner of John and Broad streets, in which Firemen John O'Hanlon and Isaac Moore lost their lives on, October 1, 1897.

[jon]

The Crouse building is a four story brick structure standing at the north-east corner of Broad and John streets, It is an old building, constructed entirely of brick and wood, without steel supports or girders. Three of the four stores of the block are occupied by the wholesale grocery house of John M. Crouse & Son. The store on the east end of the building was occupied by the commission house of the N. E. White company, of which T. Harvey Ferris is president and N. Edward White id secretary and treasurer. The first floor was used as a store. The second, third and fourth floors, with the exception of an office room on the second, were used for the storage of baled hay and shavings, flour, feed, butter, eggs etc. The two upper floors were filled with hay and shavings in bales and sacks of feed. Fifteen tons of feed had just been stored away on the fourth floor. The bales were piled from floor to ceiling, with only narrow passageways left between. The weight of all this stock was high up in the tons. It was highly inflammable, and when soaked with water its weight was increased many fold.

PART OF AND ARTICLE - UTICA DAILY PRESS

[Dave]

Sounds like the old barn fire problem, where bales of hay would "spontaneously combust" when water got in (through leaky roofing) or if the hay was too moist when stored. Water would have a biological reaction with elements in the hay and produce heat. The bales being tightly packed would build up heat until combustion got started. And of course, it wasn't easily stopped. (Where is CountryGal when we need her?)

[jon]

Sure, that's what they taught us in school but then again the teachers never mentioned "the plumbers". However I'm sure they would have admitted that their torch or cigarette or cigar started the fire if it had, and burned down a city block and killed two firemen and injured several other firemen. Ooops.

The origin of the fire is unknown. It may have been caused by spontaneous combustion. Plumbers worked on the third floor of the building until noon. In their work they said no torch, engine or fire' of any kind was used. It is said that there was a fire in a stove on the second floor. Within thirty minutes after the alarm had been sounded the fire was under control.

[jon]

STABS HIMSELF WHILE
EN ROUTE TO FALLS
__________________________


Little Falls, January 24 - Barnard R. Schneider, 39, a mechanical engineer, claiming to reside at 138 Post Avenue, Lyndhurst, N. J., stabbed himself with a pen knife under the heart and in several other places about the body while en route to this city on train 53, due here at 1:07 p. m. Saturday afternoon. Her boarded a train at Michigan City Ind., Friday afternoon. His actions aboard the train caused the railroad officials to detail someone to guard him. On leaving Herkimer he went into the toilet room of the smoker and stabbed himself. He also broke a window out of the toilet room and his body was noticed protruding from the window by persons on a passing train.

Deputy Sheriff Charles Phillips was at the Central Station and assisted in guarding him and Railroad Surgeon, Vickers was summoned and gave him medical attention. Schnefder was then taken to the police station, where he was placed in charge of Chief Long and Officer Charles Colby. Drs. Harry W. Vickers and George S. Eveleth examined the man and ordered him committed to the State Hospital at Utica. While being held at police he talked with those president there and said that he had a wife and two sons at Lyndhurst, N. J. He requested Chief Long to send $50 to his wife. His request was compiled with. Later he was taken to the hospital at Utica by attendants.


UTICA DAILY PRESS - JANUARY 25, 1932