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The Rankins Family of the Mohawk Valley, Mohawk, NY (2026)

12/20/2025

Here is a short excerpt from words written by my Great Uncle Bob Rankins. Shortly before his passing in 1997 with the help of his daughter Jean he relayed “Memories from my Early Days”. I find the following appropriate for this season of Christmas.

“Wintertime often brings to my mind images of the Christmas season. Oh, I realize that the holiday season takes up only a small number of days out of the winter. Maybe one could try to explain the”Christmas images” this way. Pictures of Christmas trees with snow on them, Santa's sleigh being pulled through the snow, Santa about to start down the chimney- snow on the roof, pictures of Christmas shoppers in woolly winter clothing, Santa at the North Pole- bound to be winter up there. Well, anyway, I still think of Christmas as the major aspect of winter---logical or not.
Whenever I think of Christmas in the country, my first mental image is likely to be of a thing that my oldest brother, Russ, with characteristic ingenuity, made for us all. It was a fireplace made from thin boards, with mantel and fake chimney to the ceiling. Inside it, he put a log and cardboard “andirons” and a row of big candles flickering behind the log. The whole thing was painted brick-red and marked off with white paint as though it were made of bricks. A well-made thing indeed. There was a row of six nails driven into the mantel on which to hang Christmas stockings. We used this fireplace for I don't know how many years and it did so much to add to the spirit of the holidays. We always had a Christmas tree. While on the farm, someone would always find one, usually a white pine, cut it down and bring it to the house. To hold it upright, the base of it would be placed in a bucket filled with chestnut coal, the bucket covered in crepe paper. If I remember correctly, we never set up the tree and decorated it until the day before Christmas. The very first Christmas that I remember, the tree was a smaller one, placed in the center of the kitchen table. The table was set for a meal, and we would get our presents at our places at the table.
The tree decorations were those that had been handed down for many years. They were made of thin, blown glass, of paper-mache, of cardboard, but none of plastic. The tinsel strands contained sparkling, thin, strips of shiny metal. No colored plastic. And, of course no strings of electric lights. (There was no electricity in the old farmhouse.) Candle holders were pinched on to the branches or counter-weighted holders were hung on hooks from the twigs.
While all this tree-trimming was going on, very likely Mom was out in the kitchen cooking up a large quantity of vanilla-flavored custard, which would be frozen some time after lunch. The old fashioned ice cream freezer would be brought in, along with a supply of rock salt and crushed ice. Mom would pour the cooked custard mix into the freezer container, the ladle and top assembled and the whole inserted inside the wooden tub. Then, alternating ice and salt the freezing mixture would be packed around the metal freezer and the cranking mechanism added. Now the process would begin. We would share the turning of the crank, for what could seem like a very long cranking time, until, at last it would become too hard for us littler kids to turn it. Finally, my mother would decide that the ice cream was indeed frozen and a big moment was at hand. Enough ice was removed to allow the metal freeze lid to be removed, the ladle slowly pulled out and carefully – but not too carefully scraped back into the freezer and the ladle passed around for licking. O joy! O joy! To wind up the activity, the whole freezer would be repacked with more-ice-salt mixture, put out in the cool shed and covered with rugs or blankets- until treat time in the evening.
My brother Ken was a great one for making candy and popcorn balls for Christmas. He would coat the popcorn with a molasses toffee mixture, I believe. Some of the candy would be mints made with peppermint or wintergreen and a butternut meat pressed into the top. He might also make a batch of stretched or pulled candy. We also would find, on Christmas morning, a good supply o Christmas hard candy.
On Christmas eve, we were entertaining Aunt Carrie and her kids. The father, Uncle Ellis, would be working late at the Little Falls post office. When my brothers, my sister, and I trooped to bed. We made sure to agree that whomever awakened first the next morning would awaken the others so that we could all come down stairs together to see what Santa had brought us. So what happened? When it seemed as though we had been asleep a long time, someone awakened and called the rest. So we all started down the long front stairs together. And suddenly the hall door was thrown open and Dad's voice sounded, “Where do you think you are going? It's only midnight and Uncle Ellis hasn't come out from work yet. Back to bed with you!” Soo-oo-ooo, BACK TO BED WE WENT!
I must recall for you one special morning made brighter by the cleverness of my oldest brother. Russ got materials together, including two batteries, a bulb and wire. He fashioned a shade and socket and suspended it from the ceiling in the sitting room not far from the Christmas tree, and over a table set as for a meal. The wires were threaded up through a ceiling register, and attached to a switch and the batteries. Well, we started down stairs together that Christmas morning, Russ having turned on the switch, we walked into the sitting room and scarcely believed our eyes. This light, of unbelievable brightness, it seemed spread all over the table. Merry Christmas doubled!
That may have been the morning when Santa left me something close to my heart's desire- a pair of felt boots. As a small child, I had felt for some time that my life could hardly continue without them. So I wished and wished – and my life became complete that Christmas morning! One more comment Why couldn't I see any sleigh tracks in the snow that morning? I did not press the question. Somehow I felt That I did not wish to know the answer.

Robert Rankins (Uncle Bob)
by Nephew Willis (Bill) Rankins

Uncle Bob was a High School Science Teacher in Sidney, NY. He retired from teaching in June 1972, He was born August 14, 1910 in the town of Danube, Herkimer County, NY and died on October 2, 1997 in New Berlin, NY where he resided in a nursing home. Uncle Bob was a great one for a visit, he could tell stories any time. He graduated from Mohawk High School and State College at Albany. While in college he worked as a counselor at YMCA Camp on Fourth Lake in the Adirondacks in the summer.

12/05/2025

Here is another excerpt from the writings of my grandfather Rankins. He gives a close up look into the life of his granddad.

Part 11

Feb. 11, 1958

Dear Dick,
Tomorrow is Lincoln's birthday. “Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation...” When Lincoln spoke those words my Grandfather Rankins was a man twenty-seven years old. When he was born on April 22, 1836 in the old house now gone, on what is at present called the Ollie Decker farm on the tip top of Shoemaker Hill the United States was sixty years old. His father, known as Captain Jim and his mother Mary Casler Rankins spent their last years on what is now the Carl Shaver farm on the Oregon Road on Shoemaker Hill. When my father was born in 1866 in the town of Salisbury, Grandad was thirty. Four more children were born to the family. My Grandmother was Cornelia Richards. Granddad farmed it at various times in the town of Little Falls on the George Lotridge farm which the Boepples now own and the old Delong farm on Sandy Lane. At another time he was on a farm near Henderson. Never owning, all share cropping. My grandmother died at the age of forty-nine, and shortly an older brother Amos died leaving him the house at 5 W. Jefferson St., Little Falls. About this time, he sold out the farm, stock, and tools, moved to town with the rest of the family, bought himself a cane and tried to retire. The cane was always with him until he died in January1919 – nearly eighty-three years old. As I remember back, he did many a hard day's work after that, sometimes hoeing corn or in the garden with the cane hanging on his suspenders. When he was about seventy, he fell down stairs, breaking his hip, several ribs and his collarbone, but it wasn't many months until he was back plugging along sometimes with Dad. Sometimes with Uncle Wick who had a farm for several years north of Little Falls. Except for that accident and his last illness which lasted about two months, he was never sick, always had a good appetite and could always eat anything he wanted. I can only remember seeing him smoke once. He'd have an occasional glass of beer and was a great exponent of “early to bed, early to rise.”
There is one thing I have wondered about more so in my later years. He never seemed to be able to please either of his daughters-in-law, my mother, and Aunt Florence, Uncle Wick's wife. Whatever he did or said it never seemed to be the right thing. As I think back now, I believe he thought a lot of us kids, in his own way, altho he may have seemed bossy at times. But maybe we needed that extra bossing. I can remember him buying us clothes from time to time and of riding to the cheese factory. But I guess us kids used to give him some bad times. When the arguments got too hot, he would clam up. I've been told many times I was just like him. Usually, he was with us on the farm in the summertime where he was always managing the garden and he really had a “green thumb”. Mowing the lawn and keeping things trimmed up was another of his self-appointed jobs. I really think what kept him going to a ripe old age was accepting the responsibility of these jobs as small as they seem. He always had some job that required his attention. Winter times, especially in his later years he usually spent with Aunt Mittie and Uncle George Untz in Little Falls, even then unless the weather was terrible, he would walk uptown at least once a day to Seeley's Livery Stable to visit with old friends and get the latest gossip.
Many times, after I came to this farm (Paines Hollow) I have remembered some of his sayings or doings. Who can deny he still lives on?
So long
Pop

12/04/2025

It's been too long since I have added information to this page which looks back at the Rankins Family. Another blustery early winter day brought to mind another of my grandfather's memories from days long ago.

Part 10

Feb. 10, 1958

Dear Dick,
The blizzard like weather of the past two days brings to mind some of the winter storms I recall. In the winter of early 1909- I fail to remember the exact date- we had a sleet storm that was really something. At the time we were living on the Gardinier farm in Paradise. Ice built up to a point where telephone wires were the size of broomsticks. I can remember my Dad calling me outside one night as he came in from evening barn chores. As we stood outside in the otherwise dead quiet of a country winter night we could here first in one direction, then in another, then still in another, the almost continual crash, crack, crash, crash as an overloaded branch of a tree finally gave up to the great load of ice which had built up. I can remember sitting in the schoolhouse and watching the limbs of tough old elms up along the road snap off and come crashing down. It seems that it was weeks before we had a telephone again. But remember the telephone was comparatively new then, the repair crews were not organized, roads were not plowed, and repairmen traveled by horse or on foot.
On February 14, 1914, a Saturday, while we were living on the Bellinger (or known later as the Oscar Deyo) farm on the Little Falls-Paines Hollow Road there came a big snow storm It was light fluffy stuff. My father, who was about six feet tall used to wear an old suit coat to work in. I can see him now, wading through the snow. Later in the day, the wind got into it and by night it was really stacked up around the place, no roads were open even to the horses. That night the pig pen on Frank Mesich's farm, a couple of miles farther along the road to Newville burned to the ground and with it about sixty hogs. All that the two or three neighbors, who got there could do was shovel snow.
After a big snow storm, the farmers would start out with their teams to open roads (they didn't wait for the snow plow). Some would use a walking plow with a board extension to the mold-board. My Dad used to chain a heavy wooden block back of one of the bob sleigh runners and drag that along. That only opened one track but coming back home took care of the other. Those times when the heavy snows came the farmers just opened the fences here and there, and took to the fields, following the path of least resistance. Maybe the road would take you thru someone's back yard or barn yard, but we usually managed some way to get thru. Then when spring began to break a gang would get together and shovel out the roadway again. This was usually late March or April.
Early in 1920- the last year we lived on Sandy Lane before moving to Mohawk we had another heavy snow. This came on a Sunday. At that time I was working in Stafford & Holts and boarding with Aunt Carrie and Uncle Ellis Ferguson in Little Falls during the week and coming home weekends. Usually I would go down Sunday afternoon. This Sunday was too tough to take the horse out- so I walked (or rather waded) to town.
Late in January 1925, came one of the biggest snow storms I remember. It was just starting when we came home on the trolley from work in Little Falls on a Thursday evening. By morning (Friday) it was still snowing, and everything was stopped. You never saw Main St. in Mohawk as dead as it was that morning. When I pushed open the back shed door that morning I pushed back the snow. And you will remember that back hallway down to your Grandmother's was four steps above the yard. By Saturday afternoon the trolley cars were running to Herkimer, by Monday morning to Little Falls, shuttle service but it was another week before John St. and East Main were cleared so they could go round the loop by St. Mary's Church and Eastern Park.
Then there was that storm the first spring on the farm (Paines Hollow)- March 9 I believe. But you remember some of that. That was in 1947.
And now- so long again.
As ever,
Pop

06/06/2025

Part 9

A continuation of letters Granpa Rankins wrote to my Uncle Dick. Writing was his way of unwinding after working a factory second shift before heading to bed.

Feb 3 1958

Dear Dick,
When I was six Dad moved the family from Sandy Lane over to Paradise in the town of Danube. Somebody must have had a wry sense of humor when they named Paradise. It was all right after one got there, but for about nine months of the year it sure was hell getting in and out, what with mud and snow. It was here Izzy was born, December 30, 1908, and bob, August 14, 1910. It was here that I started in school in old District #9 in the fall of 1908. At that time there were only seven pupils-- the four Staffords, Earl, Reba, Allie and Irene and two Gardiniers, Harold (Cappy) and Harvey, and myself. Our teacher that year was Elizabeth Kennedy. In the five years that we lived in Paradise we had seven different teachers. Harvey Gardinier was always selling something to get a premium or win a prize. This one time he was selling “Bluine”, a wash day bluing which came in little paper envelopes as a powder. One day he fell into the creek back of the school with a whole pocketful of “Bluine”. The creek ran blue for a week!
The house we lived in was old, and the floors of the kitchen and dining room sloped to a common center, being about six inches lower on one side than the other. One morning Ken and I who slept in the bedroom over the kitchen, were horsing around and tipped over the pot. It was pretty well filled and due to the sloping floor ran hill, down the stove pipe hole, onto the kitchen stove where Mom was baking pancakes. Boy did we get hell.
The rooms, especially the ones in the back of the house were low and the doorways were lower yet. The door between the kitchen and dining room was just about six feet and as Dad and Uncle Wick were both over six feet tall, they continually were bumping their heads. All the time we lived there all the drinking water and most of the wash water was dipped and carried from a well across the road. The sink emptied into a wooden butter pail set under the drain hole. And of course, the outhouse was in the back yard. Then sometimes the creek would overflow into the back yard and leave the shanty on an island.
When Bob was three months old all five of us came down with the whooping cough, and we really had it. It seemed as tho we'd never get over it. The first spring we were there dad had yellow jaundice.
It was here the summer I was 10 that I started in helping in haying, and driving horses. There were many times when I would rather have done something else but Dad's word was law and he'd back it up with a harness strip. He was always swapping horses, never had but one good horse (and he fell into a gully in some manner and broke his back), but he knew horses—how to doctor them, how much work they could stand—and managed to get his work done with them. I wouldn't try to tell you how many different “plugs” he had in five years.
The summer I was ten Uncle Ben Ingraham (Mom's youngest brother) got out of the navy, came home with a pocketful of money, and bought me that little Stevens .22 repeater. That was the nicest present I ever got. But it was a long time before I could use it alone. While he was here, we had quite a time hunting and trapping woodchucks.
It is now forty-five years since we moved out of that neighborhood. The old house burned years ago, and was replaced with a newer style, smaller house. The old wagon house (where Granddad Rankins used to take his bath in warm weather) and the pig pen and hen house are gone, only the barn remaining and looking much as it did then. Just about all the old neighbors are gone. There were the VanAllens next door where we sometimes bought our butter, and Jonses, (old Bill Hank, his son Dave and his son Jim. On the hill back of us was Aunt Em Stafford and her sister-in-law Kitty Andrews, both widows. Next door, to the north was old John Robinson, beyond was the Ed Staffords, Gilbert Mosher, Gene Robinson and Steve Stafford (the slowest talking man in the country)
Will have to tell more later
Good night
Pop

06/06/2025

Part 8

Here is another remembrance by my Grandfather as told in a short letter to my Uncle Dick.

January 30, 1958

Dear Dick,
Of Stafford & Holts and the gang that used to work there, and where I got my start as a machinist back in 1918, one could write a book, if one could put down in black and white all the happenings of
“Skids” Failing, the boss of the machine shop, “Blink” Stafford, “Swamp” Cat Mosher, “Pickles” MacDonald, Charlie “Bif Dome” Kelly, Brownie” Kennedy, “Big Dan Tinkler whom I once saw pick up a four-hundred-pound casting from a lathe to the window ledge and then back again, “Wild Bill” Praine, and dozens of others who made life interesting as only a shop gang can. “Bobbie” Holts who came from the knitting mills down around Cohoes and Troy knew knitting machines and had the “line” to sell purchasing agents. Walter Stafford-- the “Old Boy” – was the mechanic of the firm. A clever mechanic but a man of terrific temper. I recall one instance when he had plenty of trouble with a sleever-- a knitting machine of a size to knit the sleeves of long johns. It finally reached a point when he fired the whole top assembly out the window, and the window wasn't open—into the river. After he cooled off a bit, he sent a couple of the boys down the back way to fish it out again.
Another I forgot to mention was old Ernie Eberle, a good mechanic, a hard drinker, and as tough as they come. Those who worked with Ernie will always remember his favorite and original expressions, most of which wouldn't look well in print. Ernie stuttered and had a big crooked nose. When anyone said anything about straightening it for him, he'd say “Listen, mister, it was a better son of a bitch than you that bent that nose”.
Another was “Dingy” Bill Troy. What a guy! He'd fry his grandmother in axle grease for a laugh. But it was all for fun. If he did or said anything by chance that really hurt another, no one felt worse than he. The first time I saw him he was singing that little ditty “The Old Red Flannel Drawers that Maggie Wore”. Later I will tell you about the man in the blue shirt, “Ebbie” Sheridan was another. I first worked with “Ebbie” in the old Reddy Machine shop on Mohawk St., Little Falls, later in Stafford and Holts, again in Re*****on Arms, Ilion, and later for a long time in Cherry Burrell.
“Skids” Elmer Failing was quite a drinker and he like the women, but he was one of the best bosses I ever worked for.
“Wild Bill” Praine, a French Canadian, who blew in from the north country years ago was a great teller of yarns and probably the butt of more jokes than anyone else in the shop. Like the day someone climbed up and tied a heavy cord to the belt shifter on his lathe, ran it over a ways and thru some hangers and then down. About the time Bill got a good long cut started and had settled down on his stool for a good snooze, somebody would pull the cord and stop the machine. It took Bill nearly all day to find out what was happening.
“Bobbie” Holts used to have real hot arguments with the boys from time to time, but he never seemed to hold a grudge. As I look back now, I believe he enjoyed a good argument. Stafford was different. His usual approach was, in his slow talking way “I guess you’d better pick up your tools and get to hell out of here. You ain't no god damn good anyway”. Maybe before the fellow was packed up, “Staff” would change his mind and hire him back again. But I always got along with both fairly well.
Well, its bedtime again, so will close for this time.
As ever
Pop

03/04/2025

Part 7 My Grandfather Rankins evidently had been asked questions about the family by my Uncle Dick. Some of the information is a repetition of writings I previously shared but there are some new remembrances shared.

January 29, 1958

Dear Dick,
I am going to put down from time to time some of the happenings, something of the people I have known, of those many I have worked with. Should I repeat myself, bear with me. The people that we live with, work with or for, are what make us what we are, good, bad, or indifferent. The things said or done by my father, my mother, my grandfathers, my aunts and uncles, the many I have worked with, yes and the kids I have seen grow up are often times remembered. They cannot help but influence what I am today. Who can say there is no life everlasting! Because as I am I cannot but help influencing others some way or other.
My earliest recollection is of living on the Casler farm on Sandy Lane. All of Mom's family and Dad were then living with the exception of my two grandmothers. Within my memory there has always been Ken, although we never got along very well as kids. I remember the day Gene was born. That's the morning Dad took Ken and me down to aunt Mittie”s in Little Falls to watch the circus unload. I can just remember my Uncle Gene, Dad's younger brother- how he made a little pick-ax and crow bar (the crow bar is still in my tool box) and how he showed me how to pick up the gravel that Dad had tamped down near the back door. Later that fall how he and Uncle Wick stopped at the house on their way home from hunting and how they did target shooting on ripe cucumbers thrown in the air with a 12 gauge shotgun. A few nights later we had a telephone call- he was very sick. I remember Dad hitching up old Tom and driving to Little Falls. The next morning Uncle Gene was dead. I faintly recollect the day of the funeral- a light early November snow- and all the fellows he had worked with at Stafford & Holts marching in a body behind the horse drawn hearse. And probably no one ever worked there who raised more hell, or played more tricks than he. Anyone that he could pull a gag on was a likely victim. My grandfather (his father) was at that spot as often as anyone. Grand dad was quite a guy for building things and they were usually more useful than ornamental, and about three times as strong as necessary. Grand dad made a saw horse in the usual pattern. Gene chained it to a post. Grand dad wanted to know what in the hell he did that for. Gene answered, “to keep it from suckin' the cows.” When it came to drinking Gene could hold up his end. My dad to the best of my knowledge never drank (neither could he use to***co). Gramp was always holding up Dad as an example to Uncle Gene, until one night the two of them had been to a corn husking. Dad had a little too much hard cider. By the time got home and a bed he was awful sick. Uncle Gene routed Granddad out of bed, “come in here Pa, I want to show you something”. As I said Dad was pretty sick, “Look at him now, there's the goddam example you've been holding up for me.” Nothing malicious or mean, just something to talk about.
Well, but it is quarter of three A.M. So I will close for today, more later. Pop

02/13/2025

Part 6 Mohawk in 1920 as described by my Grandfather, Russ Rankins. My, what a busy village it was!

When we moved to Mohawk in November 1920, the trolley cars were all running strong. One could get a car to Herkimer of Frankfort every 15 minutes, and to Little Falls or Rome and Utica every half hour. The big cars of the Southern New York Railways were then running altho I don't remember their schedules.
At that time Charlie Prince and Jim Nolan were running the print shop on East Main Street where Rinald Robotham is now. He had worked for them for some time and was later a partner until Jim died. Next door to the west in the brick building on the corner of Warren Street, now occupied by Fred Ludwig's liquor store, and taking in the entire first floor was the grocery store of Charlie Johnson. The hardware store on the west corner was run by Burt Richardson. About 1925 this was taken over by Ray Harter and Harold (Red) Ray. Next door was the waiting room and ticket office of the Southern New York Railways. Later L.W. (Lee) Branch ran the Red and White grocery store here for about twenty five years, selling it to John Pumilio about 1953. Next was the icecream parlor conducted by the Frateschis for many years. That store is now John Mayton's “Ye Olde Shoppe”. Next to the west where Mitch McCormack's tailor shop is located was Mike Bogan's pool room. Then came the Mohawk Creamery run by the same Lee Branch. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 Doug Cook and Howard Chambers had a bar and lunch room at this location. Carrol's grocery was next door. These two stores have been occupied by Robinson Brothers (appliances) for a number of years now. Shackleton and Anderson had a dry goods store where the Town's Clerk Office is now located. Some time later George Anderson continued the business by himself. After he died his wife continued the business for a number of years until she sold out to Tom Fahey. It was Anderson's for many years. On the first floor of the brick block on the corner of North Otsego St. now owned by Stanley Biasini was an ice cream parlor and soda fountain run by Tommy the Greek. At the rear and facing North Otsego St. were the village offices. On the second floor, Judge Rafter had his law office. On the third floor over this office a group of young fellows had their club rooms. Later the Mohawk Fife and Drum Corps had their rooms here and here they used to practice.
Acros Otsego St. in the Bates block, a Mr. Firman ran a Variety Store, the same one that Dwight Cook took over and ran for so many years until the block was destroyed by fire in early December, 1966. Next to the Variety store was the Judson Restaurant owned and operated by a Mr. Russell. Later Irv Lake and Butch Arthur operated a grill and restaurant until Butch left the partnership when Lake continued the business until the time of the fire. Beyond the lunch room was Alec Swartwood's newsroom. Later George Sweet took over and continued the business for a long time until his death. Sweet was in business here in 1922. Al Lief continued the business for some time for Mrs. Sweet and then took over and the store for himself for a long time. Beyond the news room was Art Robbin's pool room. This later became the Market Basket store, managed by Clyde Petrie. At the time of the fire Jack Zito had been running a grocery store and meat market here for several years. Next was the Masonic Temple and beyond that was Tony Bresher's clothing store and tailor shop. Earl Palmer ran this for a short time later, and then Jack Harry did business here. Next on the street was the A&P store. This later expanded and took over the former clothing store. DeWitt Allen’s furniture store was in the three story wooden building on the corner of North Washington Street, now occupied by Wright’s Furniture, which was started by Ernest Wright and has included the two store areas to the east formerly occupied by the A&P store. Across Main St. was the old Mohawk Valley National Bank which closed its doors in October 1931. What is now the parking lot of the Oneida National Bank, and next to the brick building to the east was a one story wooden building housing a Chinese laundry. Tony Henela later ran a meat market in this building for a number of years. In the brick building Oscar Day had a jewelry store for a long time. Not long after his death his son Robert sold out the business. Next to the east was the Post Office and beyond that was Del Ford’s hardware store. Del was Charlie Ford’s father. On the corner of S. Otsego St., William R. Clark had a shoe store. This was where Ted Gloo’s Insurance Office is now. The town clerk’s office was upstairs over the post office, and the Town Clerk was Jerry Sayles. Across Otsego St. was the Rexall Drug Store run by Harold Jarvis. Renwick Thomas had a barber shop next door. There was also a meat market along here and on the corner of Columbia St. was Tuttle’s Grocery. On this same corner on a narrow strip of ground Tommy Davis, who had been badly crippled in an accident, had a tiny cigar and to***co store. Around the corner on the Columbia St. side was Leon Warner’s Insurance Office. Sykes’ shoe repair shop and the office of the Mohawk Coal and Lumber Co. were also along here. Just south, in the building now the office of Dr. John Hershfield was Atkins and Robert’s monument works. About 1929 all of these buildings with the exception of the Jarvis block and the monuments works were torn down. About this time Mrs. Morgan Edwards ran a lunch room in a small one story building close by the Jarvis block. This was moved away when Socony (later Mobil) gas station was built. Al Marmet ran a meat market where Walkers store is now. The Mohawk Hotel stood where the Gulf gas station is. Harry Lake did barbering in the little shop where Sam Licari is now. Davis and Carp ran a tire and battery shop and sold accessories where the laundromat is at present. A short time later they decided to enlarge and built the large brick building to the east now used as the bus garage. Apparently, they bit of more than they could chew, for they went broke in the venture.
The three story building used for many years as the Municipal Building was the Aubrey Hotel run for a long time by Louie Buff. On south Otsego St., between this building and the Jarvis block was a house where Nick Such ran a speakeasy in the prohibition days. This was destroyed by fire about 1922 and was never rebuilt
Up West Main St., between Erie and Lock St., Andy Bacon ran a little home grocery. A little farther west across Fulmer Creek was the car barns, a busy place in those days. (trolley cars) This is now occupied by Holt Bros. Auto Sales. Between the car barns and the creek was Robinson’s Grocery. Across the street was another grocery run by a Mr. Youngs. Frank Johnson ran the garage where Jochmus is now. Fred Jochmus bought out Johnson in 1926.
There was another grocery next door to the garage on the corner of Pettingill St. this was the building lately occupied by the Valley Electric Co. To the east was a wooden building that housed a Ford garage.
The old Erie Canal bed was still open, as it was only five years since it had been abandoned at the opening of the Barge Canal in 1916.
On East Main St., occupied until recently by Mohawk Mill Bargain Center was the Elastic Spring Knit Mill operated by the Shauflers. The Duofold Mill was also running at this time.
To the best of my recollection there were four doctors practicing in Mohawk at that time: Dr. William Brooks on south Washington St., Dr. Williams on North Otsego St., and Dr. Crowe and Dr. Jennings on Columbia St.
John Cameron had a bakery in the brick building on Warren St., just back of the hardware store.
At this time the high school baseball and football games were played down on Casey’s flats, north of the West Shore Railroad tracks below the pump station. The basketball games were played in the Mohawk Armory.
John Ranney ran the coal yard on Johnson St. Later W.R. Clark ran the coal yard for many years. There was a blacksmith shop on the corner of Johnson St. and North Otsego St. Later Lynn VanHorn conducted a garage here for many years, Across the street was Pete Brown’s hotel. Up the street and just back of the Bate’s block was the Bate’s Theater. On South Otsego St. back of Clark’s shoe store was the Citizen’s Co-Op grocery. Walter Bronner was Chief of police and for a long time after this the only police in the town. Frank Dubois was the head of the Municipal Commission. Fred Graves was the Justice of the Peace and also conducted an undertaking parlor on North Otsego St. A Mr. Joslin also had a similar establishment on North Washington St.
As I recall, the only paved streets at that time were Main, Walnut, South Washington, North, West, North Richfield St., and Warren St. They were paved with concrete. The other streets have mostly been black-topped at a later date.
Rev. Maynard Beach was pastor of the Methodist Church, Rev. Boynton of the Reformed Church, Father Gage of the Episcopal Church and Father McCarthy of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps there are errors or omissions in this brief record, but forty-seven years is quite a long time and there have been many changes.
Omission corrected: George Graves conducted a drug store just east of the Masonic Temple – between that and Robbins pool room.
Since this was first typed, Rinald Robotham has passed away.

Russell Rankins
January 6 1968

The Rankins Family of the Mohawk Valley

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