Local girl model; Area Code 914 split; lightning
From the archives: Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024
From the archives: Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024
‘Local Girl Artist Model’; Marjorie Helen Baldwin daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. C. Baldwin, of Boston Corners, was the artist’s model for the illustrations of “Hired Hostess,” a story appearing in last week’s Liberty Magazine.[sic] Miss Baldwin is a former Millerton High School student.
The illustrations were by Harold Denison, of Boston Corners, one of America’s outstanding illustrators and etchers. Mr. Denison illustrates a number of stories for Liberty and other periodicals, and frequently employs residents of his community as models.
‘Radio Star Dedicates Song to Betty Strong’; Clayton McMichen, leader of the Georgia Wildcats, popular radio stars who recently appeared at the Paramount Theatre here, sang a special number dedicated to little Betty Jane Strong way down in Millerton during his broadcast from WGY at 10 o’clock Monday morning.
‘Absentee Voters Cast 219 Ballots, President And Mrs. Roosevelt Head List; 67 Applications Rejected’; President and Mrs. Roosevelt headed the list of 2019 Dutchess County residents who voted by absentee ballot Tuesday. In addition, several other absentee ballots were mailed to members of the President’s staff by Commissioners of Election William E. Leak and John A Flynn. There were absentee voters in practically every district in the country with the third district in the Town of Hyde Park, President Roosevelt’s home district, leading the list with a total of sixteen. Fifteen absentee ballots were cast in the third district of the town of Amenia, and the second district in the town of Milan was third with eleven absentee voters.
‘Webutuck Teachers Press for Rapid Settlement’; Close to 80 teachers, their families and friends turned out en masse Tuesday evening at the monthly meeting of the Webutuck Board of Education. The teachers called for the School Board to sit down with the Webutuck Teachers Association (WTA) to reach a contract settlement.
The demonstrators represented the WTA, and were supported by several members of the Pine Plains Teachers Association.
The teachers’ attendance at the Board meeting is yet another move by the WTA in pressing for a speedy contract settlement.
‘Train Return Date Uncertain Says DOT’; Lettie Carson of Millerton, president of the Harlem Valley Transportation Association (HVTA),said this week she is “very pleased” with passage of the $250-million rail bond issue by New York State voters in last week’s general elections.
State officials however, would not say this week exactly when passenger service would be restored to Millerton.
‘Bridge Delays Cause Headaches’; MILLERTON: For months, John and Jan Gilmor, who own and operate Gilmor Glassworks, have had to cope with lost business due to construction of the bridge over the Webatuck Creek on Route 44 in the village. Now they are fighting back, and it appears they are getting results.
“Our business has been directly affected,” said Jan Gilmor, whose business specializes in hand-blown glass. John Gilmor estimated the lost parking could have cost his business upwards of $40,000.
“We thought it would be over in July,” he said. “Work started May 15, but it was supposed to start May 1. They had a skeleton crew here the whole time. There was no overtime and no work on weekends. And for three weeks in August, nothing happened.”
Mr. Gilmor’s frustration continued even after repeated calls to Sen. Vincent Leibell’s office. According to Jan Gilmor, retail business had been growing at a 30-per-cent clip annually until the bridge project slowed things down.
According to Purdy Halstead, the assistant to the regional director of the DOT in Poughkeepsie, the bridge work is in its last phase. New beams are ready to be placed under the bridge’s superstructure. Concrete is being formed to allow beams to be placed on the abutment. New sidewalks are being constructed.
“We expect it will be completed by the end of the month,” he said.
The 1907 bridge is being renovated for the first time in its history. The 20-foot span will have a see-through parapet to observe the creek below. Once the work is done, it should last at least 50 years, according to Mr. Halstead.
‘Area Code 914 to Split, Is 518 Next?’; While Dutchess County residents learned last month that area code 914 will soon be split in two, the fate of neighboring 518 has remained largely a mystery — until now, that is.
“Area code 518 is scheduled to be exhausted by the third quarter of 2000,” said Rebecca Barnhart, a spokeswoman for the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA), which assigns area codes.
As was the case with 914, the proliferation of fax machines, pagers, wireless phones and computer data lines has proliferated to the point where many area codes nationwide have needed what NANPA and other agencies call “relief.”
With the exception of Pine Plains, Millerton and North East, all of Dutchess County currently falls within 914. The sprawling 518 area code stretches from northeastern Dutchess, westward to the Rome/Utica area and northward the Adirondacks, Plattsburg and the Canadian border.
Faced with the choice of a geographic split of 518 into 2 area codes and the so-called “overlay” method, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) chose the former.
The new code, which is not expected to take effect for several months, has not yet been determined. Because it contains more numbers, Westchester County is expected to retain the 914 code, while Ulster, Orange, Rockland and Dutchess must change.
‘Associated Lightning Rod Strikes a Move to Route 22’; NORTH EAST: With business booming, Associated Lightning Rod Company is moving its headquarters from Cooper Road to a convenient location on Route 22, just north of Flood’s Sanitation and across the street from the village highway garage.
Passers-by can plainly see the construction of wood framing for the new building as it is being erected. Siding will be installed next week.
Associated Lightning Rod is a family-run business owned by Robert Cooper, his wife Mary, son Robert and daughter Liz Cooper-Wendover, The business specializes in lightning protection for both residential and commercial buildings. The company was formed in 1985.
Protecting valuable electronic equipment and personal belongings is always a good investment, but especially at a time of increasingly powerful weather systems.
Considering the fact that lightning causes more than one-third of all fire losses, the elder Mr. Cooper said in a previous interview that the installation of a protection system is a good investment because it can also save lives.
Lightning is responsible for more deaths and property loss than tornadoes. hurricanes and floods combined.
The Stone Round Barn at Hancock Shaker Village.
My husband Tom, our friend Jim Jasper and I spent the day at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A cold, blustery wind shook the limbs of an ancient apple tree still clinging to golden fruit. Spitting sleet drove us inside for warmth, and the lusty smells of manure from the goats, sheep, pigs and chickens in the Stone Round Barn filled our senses. We traveled back in time down sparse hallways lined with endless peg racks. The winter light was slightly crooked through the panes of old glass. The quiet life of the Shakers is preserved simply.

Originally founded in England, the Shakers brought their communal religious society to the New World 250 years ago. They sought the perfection of heaven on earth through their values of equality and pacifism. They followed strict protocols of behavior and belief. They were celibate and never married, yet they loved singing and ecstatic dancing, or “shaking,” and often adopted orphans. To achieve their millennialist goal of transcendental rapture, we learned, even their bedclothes had to conform: One must sleep in a bed painted deep green with blue and white coverings.
Shakers believed in gender and racial equality and anointed their visionary founding leader, Mother Ann Lee, an illiterate yet wise woman, as the Second Coming. They embraced sustainability and created practical designs of great utility and beauty, such as the mail-order seed packet, the wood stove, the circular saw, the metal pen, the flat broom and wooden clothespins.
Burning coal smelled acrid as the blacksmith fired up his stove to heat the metal rod he was transforming into a hook. Hammer on anvil is an ancient sound. My husband has blacksmithing skills and once made the strap hinges and thumb latches for a friend’s home.
Shaker chairs and rockers are still made today in the woodworker’s shop. They are well made and functional, with woven cloth or rush seats. In the communal living space, or Brick Dwelling, chairs hang from the Shaker pegs that run the length of the hallways, which once housed more than 100 Shakers.

In 1826, the 95-foot Round Stone Barn was built of limestone quarried from the land of the 3,000-acre Hancock Shaker Village. Its unique design allowed a continuous workflow. Fifty cows could stand in a circle facing one another and be fed more easily. Manure could be shoveled into a pit below and removed by wagon and there was more light and better ventilation.
Shakers called us the “people of the world” and referred to their farm as the City of Peace. We take lessons away with us, yearning somehow for their simplicity and close relationship to nature. One Shaker said, “There’s as much reverence in pulling an onion as there is in singing hallelujah.”
A sense of calm came over me as I looked across the fields to the hills in the distance. A woman like me once stood between these long rows of herbs — summer savory, sage, sweet marjoram and thyme — leaned on her shovel brushing her hair back from her eyes, watching gray snow clouds roll down the Berkshires.
More information at hancockshakervillage.org

Exterior of Lakeville Books & Stationery in Great Barrington.
Fresh off the successful opening of Lakeville Books & Stationery in April 2025, Lakeville residents Darryl and Anne Peck have expanded their business by opening their second store in the former Bookloft space at 63 State St. (Route 7) in Great Barrington.
“We have been part of the community since 1990,” said Darryl Peck. “The addition of Great Barrington, a town I have been visiting since I was a kid, is special. And obviously we are thrilled to ensure that Great Barrington once again has a new bookstore.”
The second Lakeville Books & Stationery is slightly larger than the first store. It offers more than 10,000 books and follows the same model: a general-interest store with a curated mix of current bestsellers, children’s and young readers’ sections; and robust collections for adults ranging from arts and architecture, cooking and gardening, and home design to literature and memoirs. Anne reads more than 150 new titles every year (as many as a Booker Prize judge) and is a great resource to help customers find the perfect pick.
A real-time inventory system helps the store track what’s on hand, and staff can order items that aren’t currently available. There is also a selection of writing and paper goods, including notecards, journals, pens and notebooks, as well as art supplies, board games, jigsaw puzzles and more. The owners scour the stationery trade shows twice a year and, Darryl says, “like to tailor what we offer to suit the interest of our customers in each market.”
The Pecks know what it takes to run a successful local enterprise. Darryl has a 53-year background in retail and has launched several successful businesses. He and Anne owned and operated a bookstore on St. Simons Island, Georgia, from 2019 to 2025. They are tapping into their local roots with both stores. They raised their family in Sharon, and their daughter Alice, a native of the Northwest Corner, manages the Lakeville store.

The family values the role that a retail store plays as a supporting partner in the community, and they prioritize great management in both locations, hiring and training talent from local communities. Their 10 team members across both stores are from the area, and two of the Great Barrington employees previously worked at Bookloft.
Darryl and Anne’s attention to customer service is everywhere apparent and adds to the enjoyable and irreplaceable in-store shopping experience. The books are in pristine condition, eliminating the risk of damage that sometimes occurs during shipping. This is especially important for books that will live on people’s shelves and coffee tables for years.
Darryl says, “People love the in-store discovery — you find books you didn’t know existed, which is very difficult to do on a website. Also, many customers depend on our recommendations when visiting. There is a saying about bookstores versus online ordering: We may not have exactly what you were looking for, but we have what you want.”
Lakeville Books & Stationery’s Great Barrington store is open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking is available in the lot behind the building and in the parking lot behind the firehouse. The entrance to the store is accessible from the store parking lot.
For more information, go to lakevillebooks.com., and sign-up for the Lakeville Books newsletter.
Richard Feiner and Annette Stover have worked and taught in the arts, communications, and philanthropy in Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and New York. Passionate supporters of the arts, they live in Salisbury and Greenwich Village.