The Dutchess County S.P.C.A. Do you have a “fur baby” of your own? That could be a dog, cat, hamster, or even something that doesn’t necessarily have fur like a fish or a bird. Perhaps you raise chickens or you have a horse or a goat that means the world to you? Many people found their fur babies at the Dutchess County S.P.C.A. shelter. Did you know that the Dutchess County S.P.C.A is one of the oldest in the United States? Some of the leading figures of Poughkeepsie were members of the society and worked tirelessly to end cruelty to animals throughout the county.  The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (or S.P.C.A. for short) was the idea of a diplomat from New York City named Henry Bergh. He had once witnessed a man beating his horse that had fallen in the street and pleaded with him to stop. He decided to do more, and created an organization that fought back against those who mistreated animals of all sorts. This was difficult work in 19th century America, where people relied on their animals for work more than companionship. In many places, people considered things like dog or chicken fights

Recent Acquisition: Poughkeepsie Bridge Building Photos This past week, we received a small collection of photographs that show the building of the Poughkeepsie Bridge, known as the Mid-Hudson Bridge. What's so interesting about these images is that not only can we see the bridge’s construction, but we also have some amazing views of the City of Poughkeepsie. When we drive on the bridge today, we don’t take the time to think about what the landscape might have looked like a century ago (probably because we are so busy trying not to get ourselves killed in traffic). There are large parts of the city that were simply wiped away to make room for new buildings and roads.  As the construction of the bridge was underway in the late 1920s, everyone watched with amazement as the caissons were lowered into the riverbed and the towers began to rise. These photographs, donated by the folks at the Town of Hyde Park Historical Society, show the bridge just as the cables were completed, which would have been in 1930, as well as the beginnings of the construction of the road bed. We mentioned in a blog post awhile back that the bridge cost just under

Murder on Main Street - Part Two Last week we covered the abrupt shooting of a rigger named Henry Gagnon. He was shot to death in broad daylight on Main Street, right here in Poughkeepsie. His killer just happened to be his married lover, Fela Palick, local proprietor of the Red Rose Lunch Room, which she operated alongside her husband. We left off with Fela sitting in jail awaiting trial, accompanied by the infant she had named for the man she was accused of murdering. In February of 1929, a cell in the Dutchess County Jail was converted into a temporary nursery for the newborn baby, so that Fela could nurse him. Photos of Fela and the child with cell bars in the background could be seen in newspapers across the country, as people wondered how someone so lovely could commit such a brutal crime.  In March, Fela’s attorney, William Mulvey, brought in Dr. Clarence O. Cheney from the Hudson River State Hospital, to examine the mind of his client. The goal was to determine if she had suffered from a fit of “emotional insanity,” causing her to kill her lover when he refused to acknowledge that he was the father

April Fool's Day in Poughkeepsie We can probably all agree that today is one of the most annoying days on the calendar. April Fool’s Day is actually older than you’d think. There are references to April 1st being a day of fools that go back to the 12th century. The main goal of the day has always been playing tricks on people and otherwise making them look like fools. Searching through the newspapers, one can easily find tales of interesting pranks over the years, though not all of them worked out quite as planned. On April Fool’s Day in 1894, someone had spread a rumor in the Little Italy district near Dutchess Avenue that workers were needed at the bridge, and within “less than half an hour there were sixty Italians up at the bridge depot looking for work.” That same day, a helpless man who had been walking down Main Street with a large package under his arm did not realize that someone had placed a note on the back of his coat which read, “This man is going on a fool’s errand; that box is empty.” In 1900, someone decided to prank the local fire departments (which is not