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This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of July 26

July 25, 1874 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

A LITTLE SHOOTING
       On Monday last, police officer S. D. Hubbell served a warrant of arrest on a young man named James Johnson, who, on a former occasion, had committed some misdemeanor, but escaped justice. Mr. H. found his man at Folger’s saloon, Main Street, and immediately proceeded to ornament his wrists with a pair of bracelets. To this proceeding the young man objected, and he was sustained in his demurrer by several of the bystanders under the influence of the ardent, in the saloon. H. was getting ready to make matters red hot for some of the meddlers and the young man, when a stranger from New York advised Johnson to go away quietly with the officer. This piece of advice had the effect of concentrating the ire of the belligerents on the speaker, and accordingly they “went for” him en mass. Singular to relate, he didn’t scare worth a cent, for in a moment he displayed his star, produced a revolver and commenced to unload it as rapidly as possible. Fortunately for his assailants, he had the forethought to shoot into the air, or there would have been two or three cases that would have needed the services of a surgeon or a coroner. As it was, the edge of a bullet came in contact with a gyrating finger, and now the owner of it is a sadder and, let us hope, wiser man. Johnson went to the lockup and after sojoining [sic] there a short period, to get the hang of the thing, as it were, kicked his way out and now in some sequestered nook, rejoices in the freedom which is guaranteed by the Constitution to every high-strung American citizen.

July 24, 1924 – 100 YEARS AGO
Pearl River News

NEW YORK BOARDERS QUIT NANUET AFTER CROSS IS BURNED — ENEMIES’ GESTURE IS BELIEF OF MAN WHO WOULD SELL FARM
[Image: Four Corners and Parks, Nanuet, ca. 1900. The intersection is where Middletown Road crosses the present Route 59–Nyack Turnpike. Image courtesy of the Nyack Library via NYHeritage.org.]
       Burning of a fiery cross in a field bordered by the Rose road at Nanuet at 11 o’clock Sunday has so excited Benjamin Carbetz, who recently established a large chicken farm there, that today he wants to sell out and return to New York City.
       At the same time nine city boarders became so alarmed over the visit of alleged Ku Klux clansmen that they took the first train to their homes Monday morning.
       Deputy Sheriff Jersey was called to the scene by excited neighbors when the cross was set on fire and an angry crowd gathered. The cross was large and made of maple and bolted. Cotton and oakum, saturated with oil, was used in the burning of the cross.
       While many people attribute the burning of the cross to the white sheeted hosts, there are others who are of the opinion that enemies of [C]arbetz are responsible and who want to drive him out of the neighborhood.
       Several men, it is said, armed themselves with guns and started on a hunt for two men who were seen riding in an automobile and who parked an automobile along the Rose road a short time before the burning cross was discovered.

July 25, 1974 – 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

PALISADES INTERSECTION TO GET LIGHT
       The Palisades parents who urged the state to install a traffic light at Route 340 and Oak Tree Road because they feared for the safety of their children have won their fight.
       State Transportation Commissioner Raymond T. Schuler announced Tuesday that the state Transportation Department will replace the present blinker light at the intersection with a full traffic signal.
       Schuler said he expects the light to be in operation this fall.
       The intersection is heavily traveled since Route 340 leads to Rockleigh Industrial Park just over the state line in New Jersey. However, traffic engineers from the Transportation Department had until recently said their surveys showed the flow of cars was not heavy enough to warrant installation of a full traffic signal.
       But counts taken at peak hours by members of the Concerned Citizens of Palisades, a group of parents, showed that traffic was heavy. Mrs. Victor Nawoichyk, chairman of the committee, said that a count one day had shown 908 cars using the intersection between 4:25 and 5:25 p.m.
       Mrs. Nawoichyk’s home is at the corner of Horne Tooke and Oak Tree Roads, not far from the intersection. She said that a tally which she made of cars coming west on Oak Tree Road from Route 9W to Route 340 on May 21 had shown 139 cars between 8:15 and 8:50 a.m. and 817 between 3 and 5:30 p.m.
       She said that she was pleased with Schuler’s announcement.
       “It took a lot of phone calls, a lot of going door-to-door, and someone standing out and counting cars. I give State Sen. Donald Ackerson and Assemblyman Gene Levy an awful lot of credit. If it were not for them, we still would be fighting. They really deserve praise. You can have figures, but if you don’t have someone helping you, you don’t get anywhere,” Mrs. Nawoichyk said.
       Both she and Mrs. Ronald Olson, immediate past president of the Palisades Parent-Teacher Association, said that Orangetown police and the South Orangetown School Board had been “awfully cooperative, too.”
       The PTA, through its safety committee, had been working for a full traffic signal for a long time, Mrs. Olson said. In November, 25 mothers going house-to-house obtained 500 signatures on a petition demanding a light. The petition was presented to the Orangetown Town Board which in turn asked the state Transportation Department to take action.
       Palisades Postmaster Laura Ebmeyer said she also had been concerned for the postal employes [sic] who have had to use the intersection.
       She said that she had called Levy and told him of the serious automobile accidents which had occurred at the crossing and that he had “followed through.”
       Mrs. James Doyle of Route 340, who a number of years ago was one of the first to start working for a full traffic signal at the intersection, said: “They’re going to put it in! Marvelous! I still say people are more aware of a red light than a blinker light. It’s essential. This is very good news.”
       Palisades librarian Mildred Rippey said that during World War II, when Camp Shanks was in operation, there had been a traffic light at the intersection but that there were some “funny, garbled stories of why it had been taken away.” The light was very important since there had been a number of accidents at the intersection over the years, some of them “pretty horrendous.”
       “They do tear along Oak Tree Road, especially around 3 p.m. going home from the industries. I hope they do put in the in the light. It was a struggle to get it,” Mrs. Rippey said.
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