Cleanup of Pelham Town Hall Basement Leads to Discoveries

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The Town of Pelham is in the process of making some improvements to the basement of Town Hall located at 34 Fifth Avenue. Representatives of the Town asked The Office of The Historian to review materials that had been stored in the basement for decades since the material needs to be removed from the basement while the improvements are made.

I and Mimi Buckley spent most of the day on Saturday, January 28 moving, organizing, reviewing and sorting many, many boxes of dusty material as we determined what should be moved to the Historian's Office, what should be moved to a storage area that holds less frequently accessed Historian's Office materials, what should be sent to long term storage and what should be thrown away.

Since some of the records dated as far back as the 1870s, it should come as no surprise that during our review we located some interesting and significant items relating to the history of the Town. Today's Historic Pelham Blog Posting provides an image and a transcription of one such item -- a poster prepared as notice of a special election of the residents of the First Fire District of the Town of Pelham held on February 15, 1897. More of the materials will be highlighted in postings later this week.

Among the many materials located during our review of items from the basement of Town Hall were small containers containing hundreds and hundreds of "files" kept as papers stuffed into ordinary letter envelopes. Of course, the material stored in the envelopes was folded and packets of the envelopes were bundled by string. A large number of the records related to the fire units that served residents of the Villages of North Pelham, Pelham and Pelham Manor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Inside one of the envelopes was the folded poster that appears immediately below. The mere act of unfolding the poster was tedious and difficult given its age. It has been placed within mylar and stored in the steel flat files of The Office of The Town of Pelham. A transcription of the poster appears immediately below its image to facilitate searching.

"TO THE

TAXABLE INHABITANTS

OF THE FIRST FIRE DISTRICT OF THE

TOWN OF PELHAM

______________________________

Whereas, a Request of the Board of FIRE COMMISSIONERS,

OF THE FIRST FIRE DISTRICT of the TOWN of PELHAM,

Has been Presented to me, Requiring a

Special Election

OF THE

Taxable -

Inhabitants

of said District, Now, therefore, Notice is herby given that said Election

will be held at the

TOWN HALL, PELHAM, N. Y.

MONDAY, FEB'Y 15th, 1897

Between the Hours of 6 and 8 P. M., to Vote on the Following Appropriation,

TO WIT:

$50 for Hose Rack to Dry Hose on.

$50 for Insurance Now Due.

$50 for Lighting Houses.

$50 for Bills Now Due.

$75 for General Running Expenses & Repairs

DATED FEBRUARY 3d, 1897.

JAMES W. CAFFREY, Town Clerk, Pelham.

________________________________

Press of the Mount Vernon Daily Argus"

Please Visit the Historic Pelham Web Site
Located at http://www.historicpelham.com/.
Please Click Here for Index to All Blog Postings.