By Mary Hoar, President Emerita, Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday June 21st
June 21, 1913: Alexander Smith Cochran, who recently had purchased the colt “His Majesty” for $20,000, purchased $12,000 “Early Rose” from John Madden to add to his stable. Cochran had watched the two-year-old chestnut filly run several fast trials at Belmont before deciding to buy her.
June 21, 1916: By a two vote margin, Directors of the Park Hill Country Club, voted to allow Sunday tennis on the club’s courts.
June 21, 1937: For the first time since 1931, the City of Yonkers was able to pay teachers and other Board of Education employees their full “vacation pay;” nearly 1,000 employees were paid $708,000 according to Comptroller James Hushion.
Tuesday, June 22nd
June 22, 1899: Class President “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell graduated from Yonkers High School.
June 22, 1907: Mrs. Alexander Smith formally laid the cornerstone of the new Sprain Ridge Hospital Administration Building. The hospital, founded by Alexander Smith Cochran, was created to treat incipient tuberculosis. Other speakers were family member Thomas Ewing, Cochran’s friend Dr. Sherman, and Mayor Coyne, who expressed the gratitude of the citizens of Yonkers.
June 22, 1944: Captain Lee Haas of Berkeley Avenue reported to The Herald Statesman the jubilation of the Italians when Americans entered Rome; he likened it to a parade on Fifth Avenue.
Wednesday, June 23rd
June 23, 1780: Grenadier and English regiments pitched camp at the Philipse house in Yonkers.
June 23, 1928: The first full-length film feature with words presented in Westchester County opened at the Strand Theater matinee. The Vitaphone movie, “Tenderloin,” starred Conrad Nagle and Dolores Costello in a swift-moving crime drama. Directed by Michael Curtiz, it was produced and released by Warner Brothers and was considered One of Curtiz’s most daring films. No prints are known to exist.
June 23, 1943: Dorothy Dunbar Bromley’s interview with Yonkers resident Anita Brenner was published in the New York Herald Tribune. Brenner, the author of The Wind That Swept Mexico on the history of the Mexican Revolution, discussed the roots of the “Zoot Suit Riots” in Los Angeles a few weeks earlier; she said many of the three million Mexican residents in our Western states were discriminated against in courts, schools, land ownership and medical facilities. Her solution? Americans must dissolve racial prejudice by appealing to our patriotism and religion.
Thursday, June 24th
June 24, 1928: Although asked to changed the name of the park to the original Tippets Brook, the County Park Commission announced it would keep the name Tibbetts Brook Park. The name had become “established thorough long its long usage.” The family name, Tippets, was found on the official map of the City of Yonkers from 1700s. The Tippets family purchased the land from Elias Doughty, Adriaen Van der Donck’s brother-in-law, and later lost it because they were loyalists.
June 24, 1943: After meeting with a representative of a large American tobacco company, Mayor Benjamin Barnes suggested the Common Council create a “City Hall Cigaret Fund,” to buy cigarettes at discounted prices for overseas soldiers. The War Department had stopped sending overseas packages b civilians, and asked tobacco companies to come up with their own schemes to send cigarettes to our servicemen. Each pack of cigarettes was to cost five cents and would be labeled as being a gift from the people of Yonkers. They then would be sent to ports of embarkation and shipped by convoy to the men overseas.
Friday, June 25th
June 25, 1927: A former Yonkers dump in Tibbetts Brook Valley opened to the public as a new $3,000,000 Westchester County Park at ceremonies emceed by V. Everit Macy, president of the Commission, with more than a thousand people participating. Approximately 12,000 attended. Tibbetts Valley was chosen by Native Americans for their councils because of its secluded location and was the scene of many stirring encounters in the Revolution, as the British Headquarters were in Kingsbridge and Americans advanced and retreated through this valley. After forfeiture, it remained in its natural state until Leonard Jerome purchased most of the property, some 1,025 acres he called “Valley Farms.
Over the years people acquired property, including the Westchester Parks Commission. The area of it near Yonkers Avenue became a dumping ground for Yonkers DOW. For many years a branch of Tibbetts Brook flowed through a creed bed of tin cans and trash, a discolored and polluted stream.
Saturday, June 26th
June 26, 1877: Aldermen Shonnard, Murphy and Morse opened an investigation into charges of “official corruption” against First Ward Alderman Joseph Riley. Riley, accused of attempting to extort City Treasurer George Cobb, allegedly “tried to induce” Cobb to pay $750 to ensure he would stay in his position, with the guarantee any candidate nominated by Mayor Gibson would not be confirmed. Riley was questioned by the committee, strongly denied the charges, and stated he had neither received a bribe nor asked for one. Apparently he was not believed as the committee brought him before the entire Common Council a few weeks later.
June 26, 1922: Main Street proprietors Frank Knepfer and William Breslaw opened their stores for Yonkers residents to hear a championship match between Welterweight Champion Jack Britton of Yonkers and Benny Leonard, the first use of a radiophone in Yonkers. Benny was disqualified because he hit Britton when down in the thirteenth round. Several audience members, including news reporter Ernest Hemmingway, suspected Leonard had thrown the match.
Sunday, June 27th
June 27, 1931: After forty years of service as an engineer, Yonkers resident Daniel Lawson made his last run on the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad, bringing his locomotive to the Bronx Roundhouse at 167th Street for the last time. Lawson and his specially decorated locomotive were met by company officials, fellow workers and friends to celebrate his unique records of never being absent, never being late and never striking anyone while at the throttle of his engine.
June 27, 1944: Yonkers Marine and Quartermaster Sergeant Hubert Lloyd of Caryl Avenue received cigarettes supplied by the “Yonkers Cigaret Fund” while stationed in the South Pacific; he promptly write a letter to City Clerk Francis Heafy, chairman of the fund, who happened to be a neighbor on Caryl Avenue. He wrote, “It might interest you to know that the fine record shown by labor and industry there (Yonkers), a record which tops the entire Country, is greatly appreciated out here… it is, indeed, heartening to know that your home town is in there pitching.”
Questions or comments? Email YonkersHistory1646@gmail.com.
For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.
