Sifting Through the Sands of Time from the Courier Archives

100 Years Ago September 2 24, 1909

Patterson, Friday. This village is greatly excited over the most mysterious dissapearance of Miss. M. G. Callwell on Friday last, and theories of every sort are being put forth to solve the mystery.

Miss Callwell was the fiancé of Richard Stahl, son of the late Jacob Stahl. She came from her home at Newburgh on Thursday and went to the home of Mrs. Stahl. That night she spent with her cousin, Mrs. Albert I. Akin, leaving here about ten o’clock Friday morning. She first went to the American House to telephone to Mr. Stahl in the city but failed to reach him. Then she went to the depot and expressed her diamond engagement ring to her mother in Newburgh, and also sent a postal card telling Mrs. Callwell that the stone was loose.

The last seen of Miss Callwell was about 11 o’clock at Hayt’s private crossing across the Harlem track to a path through the swamp to a marble quarry in the woods beyond.

The swamp has been thorough tramped in vain and the woods willed with a dense undergrowth has been searched over until it would seem impossible that she should be lost in it.

As a last resort the quarry, about 45 feet deep, is being clear of water to see whether she is drowned in it. The expedience of dynamiting failed to bring the body to the surface.

The mystery of her disappearance is profound and if she is held for a ransom there has been no sign of it as yet. Mr. Stahl has been offered $500 reward for any information concerning her whereabouts making a total of $600 that awaits anyone bringing some definite clue to the unhappy girl.

Jacob Schneider of Brewster is positive that a young lady who tallies to the description sent out of Miss Callwell, came to his garage Sunday afternoon and wanted to hire an auto to take her to Tarrytown and as he was unable to accommodate her she took the train for White Plains.

140 Years Ago 2 September 25, 1869

Washing Day to Be Abolished

It seems almost impossible that the ingenuity of man or woman can devise a plan by which this blue day shall be effaced from the domestic calendar, but it is nevertheless true that an experiment is to be made by the residents of a town in Massachusetts which, it is believed, will completely redeem Monday from the odium which is attached to it, as the day of picked–up dinners, poorly dusted rooms and general household demoralization.

This innovation is to be accomplished by the joint ownership of some twenty families in a laundry which is to be erected in a lot contiguous to the residences of those who expect to enjoy the benefits which it will confer. It is thought that with the improved appliances for cleaning clothes, the movement will be an economical one, while the work which it will save, and the petty annoyances incident to soap suds and boiling water, thus obviated, will be very great.