This is not all about Christmas. However, it depicts the way "news" was provided in 1900 in a small rural town called Greenwood. It may explain why Greenwood continued this quaint custom well into the 1970s with Grace Young sharing visits and holiday gatherings in the Greenwood News. I find it entertaining. Maybe you will too.
Let's walk through a year in the life...
While this depicts a later 1910 nitroglycerin explosion in Fulmer Valley, Wellsville NY, this is the valley cited in the 1900 news.
February 6
"The shock from the explosion in Fulmer Valley was very plainly felt in Greenwood, Saturday evening."
"We have with all the other good things in our town, a new bakery. Mrs H Howe is preparing to furnish nearly all kinds of homemade baking in her store on Main St. This will supply a long felt need."
February 11
"M Shaw went rabbit hunting the first of last week. He bagged a fine lot of rabbits."
March 1
"Pink eye is all the go in Greenwood."
No date visible - if you know who this baby was, please add the birth date in the FB Comments.
"There is a ten pound boy at George Steven's."
September 29
"Decoration Day. Children will meet with soldiers and march to the cemetery with their flowers, after which dinner will be served at the GAR hall."
For those that are unfamiliar, the GAR stands for the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of veterans of the Union Army, Navy and Marines as well as the Revenue Cutter Service from the American Civil War.
July 5
"There have been two houses in the upper end of town that have been robbed of small amounts of money and other articles. The question is "who took them?""
July 6
"Seaver-Chapman Orchestra played at the Greenwood Pavilion on July 4th."
What Harland Knight described as a bandstand in his Cole Hollow Footprints in 1990 which stood where the Opera House (later the Masonic Hall) was built, "was moved to the Jason Weeks' residence. In that area, on the creek side of the road, was the Town Barn and the Town Stone Crusher."
August 7
"Farmers Pienie on August 18 - Business men of the town have subscribed a goodly sum of money to procure speakers, brass bands and ball teams. Will be highly entertaining."
In 1900, Greenwood had the Methodist Church and a Universalist Church. The Universalist Church was what is now referred to as the Cheeseman house on Church Hill. Esteemed members included the Kelloggs and the Costons. The church was later sold and became the residence of the Kellogg family.
If you have any details about the year 1900, or for that matter anytime during that decade, and any of the families mentioned here, please share with us.