By Mary Hoar, President Emerita Yonkers Historical Society and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, April 4th
April 4, 1928: Yonkers’ Homefield neighborhood had its own version of Arbor Day! They planted a beautiful Blue Norway Spruce, one registered in the American Tree Association’s National Hall of Fame for Trees, to serve as the annual Homefield Christmas tree. The ceremony, attended by hundreds of neighborhood residents, featured addresses by local clergy, with music and singing by area Campfire Girls, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. After a recitation of Joyce Kilmer’s poem “Trees,” the Girl Scouts attached a tablet inscribed, “This tree is dedicated to posterity. Be kind to it.” The Boy Scouts then poured water on the tree, christening it in honor of Charles Lathrop Pack, President of the American Tree Association.
April 4, 1937: George Corwin of Deshon Avenue launched a one-man campaign to control Yonkers’ stray cats! In his plea to the Common Council he requested all pets be registered, owners put a bell on their cats and fines be levied on negligent owners.
Tuesday, April 5th
April 5, 1936: Thirteen Roosevelt High School students, eleven boys and two girls, organized the Tuckahoe Post, Veterans of Future Wars and Auxiliary, the Home Fire Division. Headed by senior Robert Wronker, Editor of the Crimson Echo, its members believed it was “inevitable this country would be engaged in war in the next 30 years;” they asked the government immediately pay each future veteran a “bonus” of $1000.
April 5, 1936: Because so many children were injured by them, Police Chief Edward Quirk ordered his officers to mount a campaign against air rifles.
Wednesday, April 6th
April 6, 1756: The freeholders and inhabitants of the towns of Yonkers and Mile Square held a public town meeting at the home of Edward Stevenson in Yonkers; they elected James Corton as Supervisor and Pounder; Thomas Sherwood, Constable and collector; David Oakley and William Warner, assessors; Edward Weeks, William Crawford, Daniel Devoe, John Ryder, Isaac Odel Hendrick Post, highway masters; Andrew Nodine, Charles Warner, Moses Tailer and Isaac Odell, fence and damage views; and Benjamin Fowler was elected Town Clerk of Yonkers.
April 6, 1998: Three Yonkers police officers were injured while trying to control an early morning melee at Sarah Lawrence College; one suffered a fractured hand, another a sprained elbow and the third injured his knee. Four students and a visitor were charged with second-degree assault, resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration. The boys gave a college security guard a difficult time, claiming he threatened a female student and her friends at a campus party, so were taken to the campus security office. When Yonkers police officers arrived, the intoxicated boys pushed, tackled and punched the officers while being arrested.
Thursday, April 7th
April 7, 1955: As part of the local club’s celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Rotary International, Yonkers Rotary announced plans to not only provide Yonkers Workshop, Inc. with a building, but also equipment to train and organize jobs for people with arrested tuberculosis and cardiac issues!
April 7, 1960: Twenty-one year old Sarah Lawrence College senior Joannah Felicity Touchet Clapton was named the chief beneficiary in the will of Mrs. Arthur Whitney, inheriting an estate worth nearly $4,000,000. The Whitneys had brought Clapton to the United States during the WWII London blitz at the age of two; she became a US citizen before returning to England after the war. The Whitneys later brought Joannah back to the US for an American college education.
Friday April 8th:
April 8, 1935: Funeral services were held in Manhattan for former Yonkers saloon porter Edwin Arlington Robinson, a renowned poet who lived here at the turn of the 20th century. After Kermit Roosevelt discovered his poetry in 1905, he recommended it to his father, President Roosevelt. Roosevelt gave Robinson a sinecure at the NY Customs House, to help “American Letters.” Robinson soon became one of our best known and distinguished poets. Receiving the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded for poetry in 1922 for Collected Poems published in 1921, Robinson received two more Pulitzers, the American Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Poetry, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
April 8, 1960: Because of all the publicity resulting from Joannah Felicity Touchet Clapton inheriting millions, she signed herself out of Yonkers’ Sarah Lawrence College for the weekend… and did not return. Although the school did not know where she was, the School spokesman told the press she could be out for a few weeks and return without penalty.
Saturday, April 9th
April 9, 1911: Installation of furniture, floor coverings and file cabinets began in our new City Hall offices! Since the Police Chief’s new quarters was to be in City Hall, all Bertillon records, the Rogues Gallery and other paraphernalia were moved from the Wells Avenue station to the Chief’s private quarters.
April 9, 1947: The Exchange Club voted unanimously to sponsor an annual Spelling Bee for Yonkers students! It would be open to all public and private school students in Yonkers through eighth grade, with prizes would be awarded to the winners.
Sunday, April 10th
April 10, 1926: After receiving a letter asking one of the new high school buildings planned be named after the late Mayor Taussig, the Board of Education announced immediately after Gorton High School was named after former Schools head Charles Gorton, they would no longer name buildings after local people.
April 10, 1927: Alderman William McGeory charged that some of the Yonkers police officers on the night shift, who previously had worked in the building trades before entering YPD, were moonlighting during the day using those same construction skills.
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 info@yonkershistoricalsociety.org.
