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General News: Village Celebrates 125 Years
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| Actors re-created the first village board meeting. |
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| Women discussed the affairs of the village while enjoying a cup of tea. |
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| Deputy mayor Barbara Gosda cut a piece of the village's birthday cake. |
February 23, 2010
A water system, taxes and a place to meet – these concerns figured among the issues faced by the first trustee meeting in the village of Cornwall-on-Hudson back in 1875. That’s the year that some of the village’s more “progressive” residents decided it was time for the municipality to incorporate and run its own affairs.
On Sunday, village historian Colette Fulton organized a celebration of the 125th anniversary of Cornwall-on-Hudson that featured a dramatic re-creation of the first board meetings that began in February 1875.
The group of leaders – Captain Thomas Taft, Charles Clark, Oren Cobb, Daniel Pope and William Fogartty – called for the hiring of a police constable at a salary of $300 a year and then approved a pair of handcuffs and a place to lock up the scoundrels, the basement of the library. A slew of ordinances for the village constable to enforce soon followed.
Members of the Stormy Weather Players, along with volunteers from the audience, read the parts of those early village leaders and their wives who talked about the issues at home. Mrs. Taft told the other women gathered in her parlor that she applauded the ordinances aimed at improved streets and sidewalks, as well as those aimed at dogs and pigs that run loose and crowds that gather in the square.
In the skit, the village trustees talked about the work that had to be done to reach their goal of making Cornwall-on-Hudson a model village. The trustees said they would like to be among the first community whose residents could enjoy electricity, along with water and water closets.
The wives meanwhile, sat at home, lamenting the amount of time their husbands spent at the meetings. “When the time comes for women to have the vote,” one of them said, “it won’t take so long to make these ordinances.”
Following the historic skit, deputy mayor Barbara Gosda cut a birthday cake for the village and the audience members celebrated 125 years of history.
Comments:
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Congratulations to all, and we're sorry we missed it.
But I sure hope it was a celebration of a meeting in 1885, not 1875, because otherwise the party was, by my arithmetic, 10 years late!
posted by Jon Chase on 02/24/10 at 8:37 PM
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Why do I feel so left out? I generally check the website for events fairly regularly but I missed this completely. Was notice given prior to the event? :-( Anything by the Stormy Weather Players is worthwhile. I am sorry I missed a great event (not to mention birthday cake...)
posted by Kate Benson on 02/27/10 at 7:27 PM
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