Tag Archives: Jamestown

2019 is Crammed With Anniversaries

This year of 2019 turns out to be crammed with anniversaries!

*This year we Americans have three important quadricentennials (had to look that one up, and the spell check still doesn’t like it), all centered around Jamestown (founded 1607) in Virginia. This is the four-hundredth anniversary of the first elected representative assembly in America – the House of Burgesses, chosen by vote of the free men of Virginia, to make laws for the young colony.

*That same year saw the first labor strike in America, as Polish immigrants refused to work unless they were granted voting rights, which at first had been restricted to the English-born and their offspring. In three weeks the burgesses caved in, and the newly-enfranchised former Poles went back to work.

*The year 1619 also saw the first boatload of African slaves delivered for sale, starting English-speaking America down a centuries-long trail of crime and brutality.

*The first Steuben County Fair took place in Bath in 1819, making this the bicentennial year! Our fair has weathered world wars, the Civil War, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, and numerous severe floods, and kept on going. Hooray!

*Over in Schuyler County, the village of Burdett got its start in the same year.

*Bath’s Library opened its doors in 1869 – this is its sesquicentennial year! The library’s first location was in the county courthouse. When it got a permanent home it was named the Davenport Library, after the donor.

*Also in Bath, St. Thomas Episcopal Church laid the cornerstone for the monumental Liberty Street edifice that we all know today. (It’s the oldest church building in the Village.) The Methodist church building was dedicated in Campbell, and First Baptist Church was organized in Addison. Corning Flint Glass Works was in its first full year in Corning.

*As far as centennials are concerned, Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance (originally the Finger Lakes Association) has been bringing visitors to our 14-county region since 1919. Also still with us is the American Legion, formed in Paris a hundred years ago.

*There are 20th anniversaries too! In 1999 Davenport Library celebrated its 130th birthday by moving to new facilities next door… helped out by schoolchildren and others passing books from the old place to the new. The NEW library was named Dormann, for the family that donated funds for construction. Gerald Ford and Walter Cronkite came for the opening festivities, as did Defense Secretary William Cohen. Every living President donated an autographed book.

*Lieutenant-Colonel Eileen Collins of Elmira became the first woman to command and pilot the Space Shuttle. As a teenager she had cadged flying lessons at the Harris Hill gliderport by voluntarily helping out with scut work around the hangar. She went on to Corning Community College, Syracuse University, a master’s degree, the Air Force, and the Astronaut’s Corps. In 1999 she became the highest-flying American woman ever.

*Steuben County Historical Society and Steuben County Historian moved into the old Davenport Library, then renamed Magee House after its 1831 builder.

*U.S. Representative Amo Houghton defied, disdained, or ignored his party by voting against the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The Republican-controlled senate agreed with Houghton, and Clinton stayed in the White House.

*Anyway, this year marks quite a few anniversaries. Find a few to celebrate!

Two Cartoonists From Western New York

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*Western New York is home to two popular syndicated cartoonists.

*Back in 1954, Brad Anderson started drawing single-panel cartoons about a family that was overwhelmed by its own huge dog. What he wanted to eat, he ate. Wherever he wanted to sleep, he slept. When he wanted to take off running, no leash ever made could hold him. His name was Marmaduke.

*The early Marmaduke was foreboding, even frightening, with his constant glare and his coiled muscular stance. Over time Anderson learned to soften him, in part just to open opportunities for more gags, but also to make him more likable. Nowadays great dane Marmaduke rules the roost just by virtue of his vast size and vaster enthusiasm, rather than dominating through intimidation and the hint of danger.

*Brad Anderson was from Jamestown, and he freely reported that his home region often entered into Marmaduke’s world. An early cartoon includes a road sign for the old U.S. Route 17. “It wasn’t easy to make up characters and names for people in the cartoon, so I decided to use real people I knew in western New York. I could relate to them and it helped to establish the characters.” Even the original for Marmaduke lived in Jamestown, with Brad’s mother.

*The cartoon started syndicating in 1954. Brad Anderson continued it until his death 61 years later, and since then his son Paul has taken over, and it’s still going strong. During Brad’s lifetime his work brought him a Reuben Award (from the National Cartoonists Society), the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement award (also from the cartoonists), and the George Arents Pioneer Medal from alma mater Syracuse University. Besides a daily panel and a Sunday strip, Marmaduke has also been in TV cartoons, and in a live-action movie. On his 50th anniversary, 660 papers were carrying Marmaduke.

*John McPherson, who now lives in Saratoga Springs, came from Corning originally, and went to Corning Community College before heading on, like Brad Anderson, to S.U. (and later Bucknell). Also like Brad, McPherson does a panel cartoon that appears in well over 600 newspapers. It’s called “Close to Home.”

*People either like it a lot, or dislike it intensely. Personally it ain’t my style, said Casey, but I laughed right out loud at the shocked farmer’s wife reading “Fifty Shades of Hay.” That alone has to make up for a multitude of sins.

*Apparently they love it in Norway, judging by John’s listings for art credits in the Grand Comics Database (www.comics.org). The GCD only lists one U.S. collection, and I put that one in myself: “McPherson’s Sports and Fitness Manual,” a 1993 book of sports cartoons. One on-line source says he’s done 20 books, which I think must be true. His Facebook page shows that he also does calendars and the like.

*Many people make comparisons between “Close to Home” (debuted 1992) and “The Far Side” (ended 1995). Both are panel cartoons, both employ a deceptively slapdash look in the art, both emphasize weird or goofy humor. But while “The Far Side” often took flights of wild fancy, “Close to Home” pretty much stays where its title proclaims it… with people, and people at that who are… well, certainly not ordinary, but not at all high-flying.

*Unlike “Marmaduke,” John McPherson’s panel does not feature a recurring character, and so has never developed the warm following that the great dane and his exhausted family enjoy. But “Close to Home,” in a day of collapsing print media, still appears in almost 700 papers. Not too many can top that!