Miscellaneous News Items

The New Town, Afton [Chenango Co. NY]

Oxford Times, Oxford, NY, December 2, 1857

Some of our County papers are indulging in a spirit of criticism over the name of the new town lately erected from Bainbridge by the Board of Supervisors.  They can see neither beauty nor appropriateness in the name "Afton".  While we contend for the right of the new township to take such name as they may see fit, a matter pre-eminently their own, we at the same time cannot agree with out contemporaries in their criticism.  It is often asked what's in a name?  We say much.  Much of taste, of beauty and of historic reminiscence.  We doubt whether the alphabet can be successfully employed in framing a name more euphonious and sweetly harmonious in sound than Afton.  It has no hissings, no hoarse aspirates to grate upon the ear.  It rolls from the tongue like a gentle rill from the hillside.  Applied to the quiet and pictuesque village that is washed by the Susquehanna, begirt with hills, with meadows stretching beneath and around, clad in the bright verdue of midsummer, or swept by the shadows of clouds trooping across alternate hill and glade, and river, it is daguerreotyped on our memory as among the most enchanting scenery on the road to that famed summer watering place, Valonia.  Afton has been immortalized among the sweet songs of Bob Burns, those sweet Scottish songs which reflect the real soul of the poet, as the clear waters of the Susquehanna, the white-winged clouds that float in the midsummer sky above.  In such a place an American Poet might find his Mary and respond in song to those verses so well remembered by many a rural songster:

"How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighboring hills, / Far mark'd by the courses of clear, winding rills; / There daily I wander, as noon rises high, / My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye."

"Flow gently, sweet Afton among they green braes, / Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; / My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream; / Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream."

Bainbridge Woman Killed instantly by D.&H. Train 

(April 21, 1941)

One Bainbridge [Chenango Co. NY] woman, mother of two children, was dead last night and another near death after the car in which they were riding was struck by a southbound D.&H. freight train on a private crossing between Bainbridge and Afton.

Dead was Mrs. Robert Burdick, 23, of Bainbridge, whose neck was broken. Recovery of Mrs. Percy Wallace, 26, of Bainbridge, R.D. was considered doubtful by authorities at the Bainbridge Hospital, where she was removed suffering from a bad skull fracture.  Also seriously injured in the crash was Mrs. Burdick's husband, who is given a "fighting chance" to recover.  He suffered a fractured skull, crushed chest and internal injuries.

The accident occurred at 2:20 p.m. Monday, according to Inspector Ernest Maynard and Trooper James Fleming of Sidney Barracks, who investigated.  They said that the crossing is on a dirt road running from the Partridge farm to Route 7.  It is necessary to drive up a steep incline to go over the tracks, and then it is necessary to make a sharp left turn into the road.

W.J. Hinkleman of 14 Woodruff Avenue, Binghamton, engineer of the train, was proceeding south at between 25 and 30 miles an hour, the troopers say, when the accident occurred.  Sitting on the south side of the cab, Mr. Hinkleman did not see the Burdick car until the train was upon it.  At first, he thought that it had gotten off the tracks, but when he realized that it had been struck, he applied the brakes and brought the train to a stop.

Mrs. Burdick is the mother of two small children, who are staying with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Martin Jensen of Bainbridge.  Mrs. Wallace has no children.

Murder Victims Rites to be Held on Saturday

(March 9, 1940)

Last rites for Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Teed and their daughter, Miss Ruth, gun victims of James Fink, 22-year-old Trout Creek farmhand now serving 70 years in Attica prison, will be held from the Carr-Hare Funeral Chapel in Sidney [Delaware Co. NY], Saturday afternoon, 9th inst. at 2:30 o'clock.  Reverend Alfred J. Miller, rector of Saint James Episcopal church, Oneonta, will officiate.  Interment in the family plot at Masonville cemetery in the spring.

Ashes of the victims in three separate urns, were released only Monday by state police laboratories at Schenectady where they had been the subject of study since removed from the ruins of the Teed farm home January 15th.  Mr. and Mrs. Teed and their daughter were shot and killed by Fink in their farm home the afternoon of January 14th.

That night, after attending a moving picture show, Fink, who had been joined by Aubrey Scrum, also of Trout Creek, returned to the scene and set fire to the house to destroy the evidence of his ghastly deed.  After fleeing to Reading, Penna., where they surrendered, Fink pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, second degree and one of arson at a special term of Supreme court in Delaware county last week.

The Teed family slaying, Fink's confession said, came after he struck down his employer, Mr. Teed, with a hammer in a fit of anger at being taunted about losing a Sunday afternoon pinochle game.  Fear stricken, he shot the other members of the family then fired a blast at Mr. Teed, who recovering consciousness from the hammer blow, returned to the house to protect his family.

State police had been studying the pitiful, charred remnants of the three bodies preparatory to presenting evidence in case Fink went to trial for first degree murder.  However, alienists' [i.e. psychiatrists] examinations revealed that he had the mentality of a 10-year-old child, was moronic and of defective personality and his plea of guilty to the lesser charge saved him from probable death in the electric chair.  Scrum was sentenced to a year in Elmira reformatory.

Among relatives of Mr. Teed are, Elizabeth Mahoney of Port Crane, and Mrs. Ruth Hitchcock of Binghamton.  Among relatives of Mrs. Teed are Adeline Field Stewart of Unadilla, Franklin Road, Mrs. George Wohlleben, Mrs. Ina P. Thorne, and Miss Maude Field, all of Oneonta; Fenner Field of Masonville.

Early History of Bainbridge, Chenango County, NY (continued)

This town was shorn of its fair proportions in 1857 by taking off more than half its territory and nearly half its inhabitants and forming the Town of Afton.  It is bounded on the north by Guilford, on the east by Unadilla and Sidney, on the south by Afton and on the west by Afton and Coventry.  It is about eight miles long, east and west, and about six miles wide, north and south.  The Susquehanna River divides it nearly diagonally from northeast to southwest, and the Albany and Susquehanna railroad, which was built (or the portion of it in this town) in 1866-1867, traverses it in the same direction.

Its principal Village is Bainbridge, on the Albany and Susquehanna railroad, 108 miles southwest of Albany, which was incorporated in 1829, and has nearly 900 inhabitants, five meeting houses, a flourishing academy, a bank, 18 stores, five law offices, five doctors, a machine shop, planing and sawmill and foundry, three blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, two harness shops, two gristmills, two tailor shops, two taverns and twice the improvement of the public morals.

Bennettsville is a small village on the southern borders of the town and took its name from tits founders.  It has two meetinghouses, a store, a gristmill and sawmill, a wagon shop, blacksmith shop, etc. There is also a meeting house at Union Valley and at West Bainbridge.

To return for a moment to thoughts more particularly applicable to this centennial anniversary, Gilles, the celebrated historian, presumes that men "in the infancy of society were occupied with the business of the present hour, forgetful of the past, and regardless of the future," and it is scarcely to be expected that any of those hardy frontiersmen who enriched this valley with their toil, looked forward to the time when the century clock should strike one - when the wilderness which surrounded them should be converted into near and well tilled farms - roads should diverge in every direction - villages spring up - railroads wind through the valleys - beautiful bridge span the rivers - manufactories flourish, and churches and academies meet the eye from nearly every hilltop.

But sure it is that they toiled not alone for themselves, but their children, for posterity.  They were the greatest benefactors of mankind, nature's true noblemen.  We cherish their memory with grateful recollections, and many are the sons born in this fair land who piously linger around the loved and hallowed graves of their fathers.  

In conclusion, I heartily thank you for your patient listening to this narration of events, many of which, especially those which have happened within the last 50 years, although I cannot say in classic language magna pars fui, yet I can truly say I was a humble witness and participant.  As I cast my eyes over this assembly, I can recognize but few of the actors in the scenes above described.  They are:  "Parted and sundered by mountain and wave / And some in the cold, silent womb of the grave."