Week of December 6

December 5, 1874 – 150 YEARS AGO

Rockland County Journal

AROUND HOME

   ☞  A boy named Peter Riley in ascending in an elevator at the Print Works, Garnerville, on Saturday, projected his head over the side, and it coming in contact with a beam, broke his neck.

     ☞  It is said that a young lawyer would be likely to do well at Rockland Lake, on account of the many little unpleasantnesses that occur among the male inhabitants now that they have nothing to do.

     ☞  Surprise parties are going “where the woodbine twineth.” At one given this week in our village there were present six girls, three “boys,” and one “ebony-hued gentleman” with a fiddle.

     ☞  Hugh Burn ran across Hubbell last week, and the former had an introduction to Judge Meeker. Barn was let off with a reprimand on condition that he must not burn with whiskey on this side of the river again.

     ☞  On Tuesday James Russell and John N. Ballwag broke through the ice on a pond, at Haverstraw, and were drowned. It is said that men who were standing near the pond might have saved them, but made no effort to do so.

     ☞  During the thunder storm which occurred on the 20th ult., it is said that a young married woman, of Haverstraw, aged twenty years, became so alarmed by the violence of the elements, that spasms ensued, followed by death at an early hour next morning.

December 4, 1924 – 100 YEARS AGO

Pearl River News

SAVES LIFE OF WOMAN WHO SOUGHT DEATH — A. S. Tompkins, Jr., Son of Justice, Keeps Her Afloat Twenty Minutes

       Arthur S. Tompkins, Jr., qualified for a Carnegie medal last Saturday when he jumped from the stern of the ferryboat Rockland into the icy water of the Hudson River and rescued Anna Foley, 50 years old, who had thrown herself overboard in an effort to commit suicide.

       The craft was in midstream when the woman plunged into the river. She was returning from Tarrytown accompanied by another woman, who, it is said, prevented her companion from ending her life with a knife a short time before the plunge. Miss Foley is said to be mentally unbalanced.

       When the cry went up that there was a woman overboard Tompkins ran to the stern and saw her coat in the water. He dived off the fantail and swam toward the garment. Finding it empty he went beneath it and got hold of Miss Foley’s hand. In the struggle in the water, Tompkins was forced to knock Miss Foley unconscious with a blow on the jaw to keep her from drowning both.

       Holding her head above water, Tompkins trod water about 20 minutes before the ferryboat could be brought to a stop and a boat lowered. Arriving at the slip, Miss Foley was taken to the Nyack Hospital where it was found her condition was not serious, and that she was suffering from shock and exposure.

December 2,  1974 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

THREE DIE IN ROCKLAND JET CRASH

[Image: Flight 6231 Historical Marker. Photograph by Alexandra Wren.]

       A Northwest-Orient 727 charter jet en route from New York City to Buffalo crashed in Harriman State Park in Haverstraw Sunday night, killing all three crew members aboard.

       The airline identified two of the crewmen as Capt. John B. Lagario, 35, of Edina, Minn., and the flight engineer, James F. Cox Jr., of Seattle, Wash. The identity of the third crewman, the co-pilot, was withheld pending notification of relatives.

       The Boeing airliner, which had left Kennedy Airport to pick up the Baltimore Colts football team, wasn’t carrying passengers.

       Troopers from the Stony Point substation of the New York State Police discovered the wreckage nearly four hours after the jet was officially reported down. It was found about a mile southwest of Lake Welch.

       State Police in Stony Point were notified of the possibility of a crash at 7:45 p.m., when they received word from Stewart Air Force Base near Newburgh that the Northwest 727 had been lost on radar screens.

       A Northwest spokesman in Minneapolis said the last radio communication from the plane came at 7:25 p.m. The plane was being tracked on radar by controllers at the Westchester County Airport who reported that it disappeared from their screen at 7:40 p.m.

       Officials said the pilot issued a Mayday message monitored at the Westchester County Airport. He said he was in a spin.

       More than 100 police and rescue officials and some 200 volunteers conducted a search of the heavily-wooded Palisades Interstate Park region during a freezing rain storm with winds gusting to more than 70 miles per hour.

       The park region where the plane crashed is fairly isolated. Stony Point State Police said residents in a several mile radius around the site heard the crash.           

       Sgt. Edward VanKluyve said troopers called area residents to determine how loud the plane’s impact sounded to them and that this method aided in pinpointing the crash site.

       State Police were directed to the site after Trooper Charles Killelea of the Hawthorne substation in Westchester County smelled jet fuel near his home.

       He informed troopers at the Stony Point station and, at 11:48 p.m., Trooper John Carraher, one of nine in a search party, discovered the wreckage.

       Until the discovery and shortly after, search and rescue efforts were directed in the area between Lake Welch and Tiorati Brook Road as far as two miles northeast of the crash site.

       Many of the several hundred persons at search headquarters at Lake Tiorati drove to the area where the plane went down.

       By the time, however, Palisades Interstate Park Police blocked both approaches to the Lake Welch Parkway where an access road leads about a mile and a half to the wreckage.

       The crash area was restricted to police and federal officials. Reporters were not allowed access to the site.

       VanKluyve said there were only sizeable portions of the jetliner scattered among the 100 yard square area of debris.

       He said there was a piece of the fuselage approximately 30 feet long and a smaller piece which comprised the tail assembly.

       The bodies of the three crew members were not immediately discovered because they were so severely mutilated, Van Kluyve said.

       “They’ll (Federal Aviation Administration officials) need a shovel to find the recording box,” he said. The recording box, also known as a black box, records in-flight communications between an airliner and ground control.

       Van Kluyve said the plane crashed at an angle of about 60 to 75 degrees. One trooper in the search party said about a dozen trees were sheared at the top from the plane’s impact.

       The officer said there was no sign of fire or that anything had been burned as a result of the crash.

       The area of the wreckage is expected to be closed off until at least noon today as Federal Aviation Administration officials continue their investigation.

       Dr. Frederick Zugibe, Rockland medical examiner, was at the scene Sunday night and is continuing his investigation today.

This Week in Rockland (#FBF Flashback Friday) is prepared by Clare Sheridan on behalf of the Historical Society of Rockland County. © 2024 by The Historical Society of Rockland County. #FBF Flashback Friday may be reprinted only with written permission from the HSRC. To learn about the HSRC’s mission, upcoming events or programs, visit www.RocklandHistory.org or call (845) 634-9629.