150 years ago
November 6, 1873
NOTICE Is hereby given to all parties having friends or relations buried in the ground of the American Presbyterian church, Huntingdon, to remove the same immediately as the time agreed on with the present proprietors of that property for such purpose expires this Fall. James Caldwell, Trustee.
125 years ago
November 3, 1898
DUNDEE: A Mr. Farland of New York City gave a banjo entertainment in Fort Covington on the evening of Monday, under the auspices of the academy pupils, for piano purposes. A good many attended and the performer rendered much pleasing music, but the greater part was beyond the comprehension of a majority of the audience. Variations on My Old Kentucky Home and on Auld Lang Syne were within their understanding, but when selections from Mendelssohn, Chopin, Verdi, Rossini, etc., were given they were not nearly so interesting.
100 years ago
November 8, 1923
“LEST WE FORGET” is only a term, but it is a clarion call to duty of the Dominion. It is not for us to forget that the men who died in France and Belgium fell hating the war and not the enemy. They did not forget Canada. They, dreaming across the seas, saw Canada and Canadian life as on a pinnacle. Are we sustaining it there? Would these sons of the counties be content with Canadian life today, its racial controversies, its petty jealousies, its cancerous spreaders of lack of faith? “Lest We Forget” means not so much the remembrance of the Glorious Dead, but that for which they fought and died – a truer Canada.
HEATING HOUSES BY THE SUN: By the use of a system of mirrors called a luxostat, the rays of the sun can be utilized to heat houses, so Dr. W.J. Harvey of [Toronto] and Percival Bysche, engineer, claim. The sun’s rays are reflected to the mirrors and then concentrated on crude oil, which is contained in a tank and can be heated to 600 degrees, and in which the heat can be preserved. The heated oil can be used to heat coils of any hot water system, just as now they are heated from the furnace, it is asserted. Dr. Harvey is reported to have boiled eggs, toasted bread and burned a hole through a plank in a demonstration of the heating system on the roof of his residence.
75 years ago
November 3, 1948
BUTTER MAY STILL BE SCARCE Despite Efforts Made – Production Down, Stocks Down, Price Up From Year Ago: Just when most people were thinking the government had made the butter situation secure by the import of butter from other countries, the report comes that there still may be a scarcity. It is rumoured that the 20,000,000 pounds that the government has secured will not be enough and that a shortage is likely to occur quite early.
50 years ago
November 7, 1973
HALLOWEEN IN ATHELSTAN: … With November’s first dawn, residents could look out at the village crossroads and know that the tradition lives on. As usual the crossroads was piled high with debris. It was carefully done with lots of room for traffic to go around the junk. But in the dark of night it surely couldn’t have been done easily. … To begin with there was a 35-foot tree trunk. Mrs. Hazel Hutchings said she was glad to see that disappear from in front of her house near the corner. “Now it will get taken away,” said the white-haired Mrs. Hutchings who has been around this corner for 80 years. … Somebody must have put a fair amount of planning for the annual crossroads junk heap… To begin with there was a burned-out automobile, topped by a crossroads sign from the First Concession Road. And in no particular chronological order there was a part of an old plow, the wheel assembly of an old hay rake, a battered table, a bicycle frame, buggy wheels, a hay rake wheel, a beat-up drum trailer, a stop sign, empty gas containers, a chair, old tires and, as they say in the auction advertisements, other articles too numerous to mention. … Of Athelstan the police report said: “Usual Festivities.”
