19th century Fort Edward — Checking out the school

William A. Holley, new editor and publisher of The Fort Edward Ledger, was impressed with the local school system.

“We passed a few hours in the Fort Edward Union School this week. We found on the register of the present term 221 names. The school buildings are admirably located away from the business part of the village, and some distance back from the street,” Holley reported on May 25, 1860. ”Prof. Montgomery has been Principal for seven or eight years and sustains a high reputation as a sound teacher.”

In other 19th century Fort Edward news collected from historic newspapers of the region:

1860

• “Turner & Willard have recently become associated in the tailoring business. They are both good workmen and have two first-class sewing machines,” The Fort Edward Ledger reported on Aug. 31.
• “Jim Cray was in town from Hampton this week. He has cut his whiskers off and had a job of handbills printed. He means to do business,” The Fort Edward Ledger reported on June 15.

1881

• “The well-known trotter Flora Lee, recently owned by Ed Flanagan of Fort Edward, will hereafter trot on English soil — having been shipped to England,” The Commercial Advertiser reported on March 9.

1895

• “Verry little interest is taken in baseball this season as compared with previous years,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on July 25. “One of Edison’s phonographs is attracting considerable attention in the office of Hotel Hudson.”
• “Our local telephone company has thirty telephones in working order here now,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star of Glens Falls on June 22, 1895.
• “Under the new timetable, we now have twenty passenger trains each day, ten each way,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on June 26, 1895.
• “Newman Davis has had a telephone placed in his store in the post office building,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on June 29, 1895. “This will be very convenient for other telephone subscribers who will only have to call the urbane newsdealer over the wire to ascertain whether there is any mail for them, and, if so, have it sent to their home.”
• “Our town has been sorely afflicted with hand organs for the past two weeks,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on July 3, 1895.
• “The old Methodist parsonage was moved to Washington Street yesterday, and travel on Broadway was stopped for some hours. Work on the new parsonage will soon be commenced,” the Fort Edward correspondent reported in The Morning Star on July 12.

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