Miscellaneous Items

Bainbridge Academy - A Promising Academy

Bainbridge Republican, February 10, 1877

A Promising Academy--Among the enterprising educational institutions which have sprung up in different villages throughout the country with the passage of the free school law, is an Academy and Union School at Bainbridge [Chenango Co., NY], which is already taking a high rank and exerting a wide-spread and wholesome influence throughout that section of Chenango county and which indeed reaches to other parts of the State.  It is under the supervision of A.G. Kilmer, Professor of English Literature at one time in the Delaware literary Institute at Franklin, N.Y., and at different times connected with other prominent schools.  The writer of this article, and several other residents of this city, were students under Mr. Kilmer at Franklin, and know the thorough painstaking, lucid manner in which he imparted instruction to his classes, and won their hearty esteem.  The faculty of the school numbers five teachers and the course of study embraces not only an Academic course of three years, but a thorough preparatory course in the classics, preparing the pupil to enter the first or second year in college, as he may see fit.  The normal class is also a feature of the school.  The last term it numbered twenty persons, eighteen of whom have since been licensed as qualified teachers.  The number of pupils in the school in 180--Binghamton Times.

 

St. Peter's Church Bell

Bainbridge Republican, April 5, 1877

 

A writer in the Elmira Advertiser speaking of the tolling of Church bells at the death of a well-known citizen, the number of strokes being the number of years of the person's life, made him think of a peculiar incident in the life of a State Senator from this county in 1832-5, and who was prominent for his many peculiarities.  Among other things he was quite given to the flowing bowl, and being at his hotel in Albany one winter during the session of the Legislature, he heard some men from Bainbridge, Chenango Co., talking about buying a bell for their church.  They had come up to Troy to the famous bell manufactory there, but had not provided themselves with sufficient funds to purchase the bell, and having no authority to run their society in debt, were returning home without having obtained what they had come for.  The Senator listened to them for some time, and at length made himself known to them, saying that under certain circumstances he would make up the difference for them. These circumstances were an agreement on the part of the officers of the church that when his death should be announced to them, the bell should be rung all day. The contract was made, the money handed over, the bell bought and swung in the belfry,  It was over thirty years afterwards that the death of the Senator occurred, yet, on the day of his funeral the bell, grown somewhat old and wheezy, was rung from sunrise to sunset.  Few remembered what the clanging was for, and during its ringing and for some days afterwards, it was the subject of general conversation in and about the village.

 

St. Peter's Church Threatened by Fire

Bainbridge News & Republican, February 10, 1944

 

St. Peter's Church was threatened by fire Saturday afternoon when flames were discovered by the sexton, Marvin Dixon, at about 11:08, caused by an overheated stove pipe.  The sexton was in the basement when he discovered the blaze and was attempting to extinguish it with pails of water upon the arrival of the Bainbridge Fire Department.  Marvin suffered burns on both hands in trying to put out the fire.  Fearing a serious fire, all of the altar brass and other movable valuables were removed to safety.  The fire was extinguished with little damage and services were held in the church Sunday.