Category: Miscellany

This is not local to any of our localities of interest, but looking for something else, we ran across this wonderful nugget from the Catalog of Copyright Entries of 1930. The Pyramid Card Co. of Chicago registered four greeting cards. Surely, the 1930s were a simpler, less cynical time, which would explain why one…

At some point, Marcia O. Dunham, born in Grafton but decamped to Washington, D.C., received an envelope. In that envelope was a set of certificates noting the school accomplishments of her mother and other family members, and her mother’s teaching certificate. It’s impossible to know what she felt, receiving the mementos of a mother…

Amazing what you can find at the Library of Congress. For instance, a whole envelope of certificates marking the accomplishments of Fannie Hayner, from her own school days to when she became a school teacher. Fannie Orintha Hayner appears to have been born around 1850, and lived in the Town of Grafton in 1860.…

As you may know, Hoxsie is on the move. His personal history is all in boxes. Fear not, daily nonsense will return very soon. In the meantime, enjoy this little artifact from very near our new home, from a simpler time when hospitals gave out matches. So you could smoke.

He’s just very, very busy. Consider this a week off.

In 1948, the Altamont Enterprise, listed in the New York State Vacation Guide as “a source of information,” was besieged – besieged, I tell you! – with cards and letters from New York, Brooklyn, perhap even as far away as Staten Island, beseeching them to provide information on guest farms, boarding houses and other…

So, apparently the rooster that Hoxsie used for its logo wasn’t the only bird it ever used. And honestly, if this alternate Hoxsie had been the first image I had seen, this site would have an entirely different name. Now, here’s the Hoxsie I love:

Afraid that Hoxsie has no time to come up with anything new, possibly for the entire week. It’s just that kind of week. So instead of something new, enjoy something you never read before anyway: some historical thoughts on time. Which I’m out of. And while you’re at it, how about a little Twitter…

Historians of comedy, please take note. Hoxsie has found an important moment in the evolution of The Joke. The Altamont (N.Y.) Enterprise of July 21, 1888, featured on its front page what is clearly an early evolutionary form of one of the most important jokes of the 20th century (and beyond). Like most predecessors,…

Sadly, there’s no Albany connection to this one, but I just thought it worthy of note that in 1919, “Boot and Shoe Recorder” saw fit to inform us that W.H. Cleary was the oldest rubber salesman in active service. On his mustache, they had no comment.