CROTON HISTORIAN'S END OF THE YEAR REPORT FOR 2014

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Village Historian Pezanowski’s End of the Year Report for 2014 

During the past year we (both the Historian and the Croton Historical Society) have acquired several pieces of art either by local artists or by others about Croton residents.  We now have a nice portrait of Max Eastman, an illustrious former resident of Mount Airy, a painting of lower Grand Street by local artist and author Winifred Lubell.  Robert Minor drew some rather interesting gentlemen’s pictures as he sat in a courtroom during his trial and we were able to purchase them as a set.  The Society was also given a framed map of the Hudson River showing the chain across the Hudson River at West Point and also a cannon ball which was found on property along the Hudson in Oscawana.  The widow of Lloyd Moss, resident and well known radio personality donated an album of her husband’s political cartoons published in the Croton-Cortlandt Newspapers from 1961 – 1988.  Another treasure which we refer to all the time is old telephone books and we received a donation of twenty from a former resident.  Just in time for our next exhibit we were able to purchase a Ma’s soda bottle made by Twinco on North Riverside Avenue and some great cobalt blue glass beverage stirrers from Masterson’s Inn in Harmon.

I again was contacted by a gentleman in Arizona who builds model railroads, specifically the New York Central era in and around Croton.  I was able to provide him with copies of various railroad buildings and also some of the surrounding territory.  As before he very kindly acknowledged us in the on line magazine for model railroaders which is a branch of the New York Central Historical Society (click on the image to the right)

Now that we have so many of the old Croton newspapers on hard drive we have been able to extract years of obituaries of local residents for our files.  Previously the files started in the 1970’s when the Historical Society was formed and even those were “hit and miss”.  These files are used extensively by both the society and by the public who are researching their roots.

I continue to research and write the Croton Historian, a seven page publication which we distribute quarterly.  This paper is distributed to our membership which as of this writing is 454 strong and growing.  Our readership covers almost every state, plus England, Nova Scotia and the Virgin Islands.

Our exhibits in the first floor hallway continue to attract many people and the video portion is a big hit especially because there is a seating area for people to enjoy the display in a leisurely fashion.

We are constantly going through our existing files to relocate misfiled pieces, and generally straighten out file folders, etc.

We also have many drop-ins, people doing research on their homes, family or just something of interest around the village.  There are folks who stop by with bits of memorabilia we might want such as old menus, pictures, programs from various events and we treasure them all.

A new exhibit on Fay Bainter, the academy award winning actress who lived in the village during the 1930’s has been mounted.  Work is almost completed on a multi-media version of our former show on “Croton Point. 400 Years of History”.  In a short period of time our new display and multi-media exhibition on the building of Route 9 will be ready.

We peruse E-Bay on a regular basis and often bid on Croton related postcards and other memorabilia such as Vera scarves, and books by Croton authors.