A Break For Local Holiday News And Gossip

While on a holiday break in December, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news and gossip from the Rhinebeck Gazette of the 1800s, available through the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers Archive.

I'll be back to normal programming soon. In the meantime, be sure to stock up on your boots, shoes, and rubbers!

These news items are from the following issues:

• Rhinebeck Gazette: Dec. 1, 1857
• Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 8, 1857
• Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 22, 1857
• Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 21, 1858
• Rhinebeck Gazette, Dec. 27, 1859
• Rhinebeck Gazette: Dec. 5, 1865

To support my end of year fund drive and keep The Jiffy going into 2026, you can become a sustaining member, or (and??) make a one-time donation here:

• Become a sustaining member here
• Donate here

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Break And Concept Setup
• 0:47 Rhinebeck Gazette And Source Context
• 1:07 Local Oddities And Community Notes
• 3:36 Christmas Customs Across America
• 4:52 National Politics And Underground Railroad
• 6:05 Animal News And Culinary Experiments
• 7:19 Shoe Rush, Theft, And Warnings
• 9:12 Wordplay, Maxims, And Christmas Tale
• 10:57 Independence Message And Support CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, James here. The podcast is taking a break for the holidays, but in keeping with my tradition here of using this time to report the local news from the past, I gotta keep the podcast feed consistent. That's very important. I pulled up a few news clippings from the Rhinebeck Gazette of the 1800s. The news you'll hear today is presented as it was printed in the newspaper, and this is all available online as part of the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers archive, which is one of my favorite places on the internet. And they all come from the Rhinebeck Gazette, the paper devoted to, quote, literature, morality, science, agriculture, and general intelligence, and its newspaper issues from the December's of 1857 through 1860. I've linked to each of the issues in the show notes, but there's some interesting and fun local news from this time. So here we go. It's literally news as it was printed, but presented here in what I would think would be the Rhinebeck Gazette's podcast if they had a daily headline news show. So let's get to it. From the Jiffy, it's the headlines from the 1800s. I'm James Cave. Here's what we're covering In local news and gossip, we have a new distance measured across the Hudson River. The distance between the residents of Amos Briggs Esquire and Kruger's station, taken by a lion on the ice, 200 feet long, is as follows. From high water to high water mark, direct across from Mr. Briggs' residence to a little island called Tunnel Island is 12,075 feet, making two miles and a quarter and one hundred and ninety-five feet. Something interesting from Stanfordville, a large factory intended to be used for consolidating milk has been erected for a New York firm on the farm of Mr. Carpenter at Stanfordville in this county. Mr. Borden is the inventor of this process of condensing milk, has established a condenser in Lichfield County, Connecticut, capable of reducing 5,000 quarts per day. And a new development of roguery has lately come to light in New York. It is the practice certain thieves have got into of examining the orders left on the slate of the express companies, and then going to the plates mentioned with wagons in all respects similar to express wagons, and taking the goods away. The deception is not discovered until it is too late to catch the rogues. A quakaress named Betsy, jealous of her husband, watched his movements and on one morning actually discovered the truant kissing and hugging the servant girl. Broadbrim saw the face of his wife as she peeped through the half-open door and rising with all the coolness of a general, thus addressed her. Betsy, he said, thee had better quit peeping, or thee will cause a disturbance in the family. And Mr. James B. Rinsley of Poughkeepsie performed the feat on Saturday of picking up 100 potatoes placed one yard apart on the ice in 36 minutes. It's reported that Rinsley had on a pair of skates. Now, to the question of, will we have a hard winter? Well, the knowing ones are prophesying a mild winter from the fact that the corn husks are remarkably thin, which is said to be a sure sign that the winter will not be severe. The best way to provide against the rigor of the approaching winter is to try your luck in the legalized lottery of S. Swan and Company, which draws every Saturday at Augusta, Georgia, by enclosing$10,$5, or$2.5 to their address. The holder of a whole, half or quarter ticket, which will be sent in return, will stand a chance for the magnificent prize of$60,000 or its proportion, which draws in December. The giraffe belonging to the menagerie of Driesbeck and Company died on Saturday. The establishment had closed for the winter, and the animal stabled in Cincinnati. The loss in the death of the giraffe is a heavy one, it being the only animal of its kind in America and one of the finest of its species. And as we all know, we're entering the Christmas time season, and so here we have from the Philadelphia Bulletin a bit of Christmas miscellaney. The annual festival of Christendom is approaching, and throughout the world there will be merry-making and festivity among every Christian people. In the United States, the mode of observing Christmas varies somewhat from the modes of the old world, and varies also in different sections of the Union. In New England, for instance, it is scarcely observed, except by the religious services of the Protestant, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic churches. The old Puritan antipathy to such observances has not yet entirely died out, and the Thanksgiving Day is more of a festival and holiday than Christmas. In New York, the day is more generally observed, but it is less of a holiday than New Year's Day. And the number of immigrants which arrived in New York during the week ending December 20th was 912, making the number since last December 77,331. In National News Now, it is said that the president has ordered his subordinates to exclude the correspondence of the New York Times from all official sources of information in consequence of its vigorous attacks upon his policy. And the Chicago Journal says that on Thursday evening, the 17th, the Underground Railroad arrived there with 30 passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, 12 from Kentucky, 13 from Missouri. They are now all safe in Canada. The 13 from Missouri were sold to go down the river the very day they started. A stalwart six-footer and a sharps rifle were the only guides. A large portion of the swamps of Florida are said to be capable of producing 500 bushels of frogs to the acre, with alligators enough for fencing, and it is said that in Iowa there are 30,000 more males than females. And now we're hearing that Kansas has become a formidable rival to Illinois, a quote, land of refuge for the unhappily mated. The divorce law is a wide-open gate to single blessedness, and one judge has recently granted 25 petitions at one sitting. It requires only 20 days' residence. A gentleman living in Indiana was recently astonished to learn that his wife, while visiting a friend in Kansas, had obtained a divorce and was passing herself off as a blooming miss of sweet 16. Cold feet are sufficient ground for divorce. Moving on to animal news now. In Peakskill, the messenger says that Jay McCoy caught a wild cat on Tuesday night in the highlands only a short distance from Peakskill. Himself and neighbors had lost fowls, and supposing some animal of the kind was prowling about, they set a box trap, baited it with a chicken, and his cat ship on going in for supper, sprang the trap and was caught. It showed evidence of generous living as it is fat as a seal. And in Manchester, the Manchester Guardian in England contains an account of a late feast on horse flesh got up by Mr. Rinzalt, the head director of the veterinary school at Alfort, to which some eight or ten distinguished savants were invited, among whom were Mr. De La Tour, editor of the Union Medical, Professors Boole, Raynal, and Robinet of the Medical Academy, and Professor Bernal, a chemist. The object of the feast was to test by comparison with ordinary beef the merits of the article. At the first course, the horse flesh was pronounced superior to the beef, but at the second it was deemed inferior. The banquet closed with a fine, fat, thick fillet of horse, larded and dressed as they dress here roe venison, vis-a-vis, plunged for a few days into a preparation of salt, spices, herbs, and onions, Madeira and a dash of vinegar, and then roasted, a most quote, delicate device, be it noticed, and one which no real gourmand ever forgets when he has once tried it. The fillet of horse was triumphantly welcomed and voted super excellent, tender, juicy, fat, high flavored, more delicate than the stag, more melting than the roe, more gamey than the beef. It was unanimously pronounced to be a great discovery. Now, in news about shoes that you can use, now's the time to purchase your winter boots and rubbers. Our neighbors, Mrs. Barton and Renders, carry with them an enviable name and are classed among the best, most gentlemanly and accommodating merchants, nor can they be excelled in cheapness these hard times. By giving them a call, you will confer a favor of great advantage to yourselves. Well, the storm of last week created quite a panic in our village, so much so that an immense run was made on the shoe and rubber bank of Mistress Barton and Rinder's until it was almost depleted, thereby causing the sudden departure of the head of this enterprising firm to the city for a fresh supply. Having procured this supply, had them put on board a vessel that found it next to an impossibility to keep up steam sufficient to enable her to carry so large a freight and arrive here under twenty-four hours. Such a demand for goods on their line has not been heard of before in this place. Boots, shoes, and rubbers are sold so low as astonished the natives. And on the evening of Tuesday last, some scoundrel took from Misters Barton and Rinder's one pair of calf skin and one pair of rubber boots. We are also informed that a few nights previous, a pair of ladies' rubbers were taken from the same store. Ye shoplifters, remember our star detective is on the lookout for you, and should he catch you lifting, you are a deaden and make no mistake. And now, in what appears to be a section of news just printed just to take up space on the front page, here's some random facts, I guess. Heroine is perhaps a peculiar word as any in our language. The first two letters of it are male, the three first female, the four first a brave man, and the whole word a brave woman. Some round on their centers, others from place to place. The cause of these motions is unknown. There's a certain tree in India, the wood of which is held in such veneration that every Burman house has a beam of it. Are you stepping on the threshold of life? Secure a good moral character. Without virtue, you cannot be respected. Without integrity, you cannot rise to any distinction or honor. And finally, in Popular Tales, it's Christmas for the Rich and Poor by Annie Proust. A Merry Christmas! It echoed through the wide streets in a thousand different voices. It rang out in the clear sleigh bells, it was shouted through the house by childish voices, it was whispered in loving tones by the invalid's couch. It was sighed forth with bitter emphasis in the prison cells. It was muttered in hard voices in the dark, dirty alleys where merriment was a mockery, or the despairing mirth of overwrought misery. That was an excerpt from A Merry Christmas by Annie Proust. Here's what else you need to know today. I'm completely independent and I'm fully reader and listener supported. I mean, you know what they say a lot these days. The problem with billionaire-owned media means that much of what we read, watch, and listen to is controlled by a small group of rich and powerful people. I mean, just look at Netflix and Warner Brothers or Jeff Bezos in the Washington Post. I mean, there's no way around it. I'm no billionaire. I don't even know Jeff Bezos. This is the Jiffy, not the Jeffy, after all. So if you enjoyed this podcast or the James Cape Instagram feed or the newsletter and would like to support, well, you can help me reach my goal by becoming a sustaining member or making a one-time donation. I've got links to these options in the show notes. Your support continues, truly continues to fund my independent project, and I just love sharing stories about the Hudson Valley. So let's do it. Let's keep it going into 2026. And until then, that'll do it for this episode of The Jiffy, not Jeff Fee. Until next time, I'll see you over on the Instagram feed.