The New "Hastings Historian" Mails Today!

"Babe" Ruth and Hastings mayor Thomas F. Reynolds

Your next issue of the Hastings Historian contains many fascinating articles -- articles about how Hastings got its name and about Hastings’ first ambulance, plus a wonderful reminiscence on gym class in the early 1960s. It also contains a plea from Frank Domchek for a photograph of Babe Ruth. And not just any photograph! As you can see, we have three of them. But Frank is looking for a very specific image.

It was in 1927 that George Herman “Babe” Ruth came to Hastings. The local Rotary Club had invited him to speak on the opening day of the Boys’ Summer Twilight League, which they sponsored.

“Babe Ruth is coming here!” exclaimed the Hastings News the week before his arrival. “Yes, he, George Herman Ruth, the Home Run King, the Sultan of Swat, the Prince of Ball Players, is coming in the flesh, in his own proper person. He will appear right out in the open in broad daylight, where every boy will be able to get a good close-up of him, free of charge.”

On the 16th of June, Babe Ruth drove himself up to Hastings in his eight-cylinder sedan and met Hastings’ mayor, Thomas F. Reynolds, at the acclaimed Longue Vue restaurant (now the site of the Andrus Memorial Home). After dinner, Hastings’ motorcycle policemen escorted the two back to Reynolds Field. “Every small boy who was not already at Reynolds field,” the paper reported, “could be seen scurrying as fast as immature legs could carry him to the scene of the appearance of the idol of the American youth.”


The Boys’ Band of the Children’s Village played the National Anthem. Then, as the paper put it, “there were the usual pictures.”(And how glad we are now that they were so usual!) Coach LeRoy Cochran took the stand and explained the important purpose of the gathering. Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins presented the mayor. And Reynolds presented Mr. Ruth, who, he announced, had just that day hit his twenty-second home run at Yankee Stadium.

“I suppose everyone wants to know how I hit them out,” the Babe began, after the cheers had died down. “About twenty kids have asked me that. Well, I’m going to ask ‘Lindy’ how he flew across the ocean. … Some home runs are luck and on some you out-smart the other fellow. That’s what I want you boys to do, try and out-smart the other fellow, and play the game for all it’s worth. I’m coming up some night to see how you get along.”

Among the “sea of young faces, every one of which bore the rapt expression of absolute idolatry,” was young Frank Domchek. He remembers distinctly a photograph taken of himself, “the Babe,” and a few other boys sitting in the back of a pickup truck. Frank would love to track down this photograph. If anyone can help the Historical Society out with this request, please let us know!

The Babe poses at Reynolds Field with local Hastings boys, officers of the Rotary Club, school officials, and village officers. The photograph shows, left to right, front row: William Steinschneider, Henry Cochrane, Charles Andres, Jim Leddy, Mayor Tom Reynolds, Harold Ulmer with son Harold, Jr. in front, Fred Charles, Harry Murray, Superintendent of Schools John L. Hopkins, and Coach E. Leroy Cochran; second row (behind man with boy): Laken Owens (behind the Ulmers), Norm DiChiara (boy), and Foster L. Hastings; top row: H.H. Murphy (bow tie), two unidentified, Jimmy Croke, William J. Russell Sr. (taller husky boy), unidentified, Kirby Brown, Babe Ruth, unidentified, Warren Reynolds, three unidentified, Dom Raimondo (from Irvington in open-necked shirt), unidentified. If you recognize any of the unidentified boys or men, let us know!

Cutting Edge Technology in Hastings: The Phonograph

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you probably have some sense of how many unidentified photographs we have in our collection. In order to identify a photograph, we have to find the right person with the right knowledge, but sometimes that knowledge is not of names and faces.

The photograph you see above belonged to the late Margaret Woodrow of Hillside Avenue. It has no name, no date, no marks of any kind on it. Our resident costume expert, Kenneth Loyal Smith, was attracted by the young lady’s gorgeous sleeves. That kind of sleeve, he says, became popular in 1897, and the tight collar narrows the date of the dress down to right around 1899 or 1900. Kenneth also recognized the machine at her elbow as an early phonograph, the kind that played wax cylinders.

Some online research turned up the following advertisement for a machine with a similar silhouette. It was produced by the National Phonograph Company, a company founded by Thomas Edison.


The ad belongs to Neil Lerner, a collector of early Edison phonographs who lives in North Carolina. Neil was kind enough to look at our picture, and in his opinion the phonograph in is one of Edison’s “Home” units. You can identify the model, he says, by the clips on the side of the case. These clips were used to attach the lid of this “portable” (25 lbs.) machine. Behind the woman’s elbow is a hole in the case into which a crank would have been inserted to wind up the phonograph. Only a dozen seconds of cranking, and then you could sit back and listen to an entire 2-minute cylinder -- a song, a speech, or a story.

In the 1850s, several inventors had toyed with ideas for a sound recording machine, but it was Thomas Edison who developed the first machine that could reliably record and play back sound. He demonstrated his new invention in 1877 and patented it in 1878. At the time, the phonograph was seen as an almost magical device, and was the first of Edison’s inventions to bring him international fame. Edison went on to work on other projects and came back to take up the commercial manufacture of phonographs in the late 1880s. His earliest machines were leased for business use, but in 1896 he started the National Phonograph Company specifically to manufacture phonographs to be sold to home owners.

Edison’s first domestic machine was the phonograph in Neil’s ad, the “Home” model A. It was originally priced at $40, but competition with The Columbia Phonograph Company’s “Gramophones” reduced the price of Edison’s unit to $30. As the advertisement claims, the phonograph could both play and record. Undoubtedly a bargain. In 1901 this model was restyled and the clips removed, and this allows us to date the machine that appears in our photograph to between 1896 and 1901. If the picture was taken, as the dress suggests, around 1900, the phonograph would certainly have been a new and exciting addition to the household.

The woman in the photograph remains a mystery, but we can make a guess. Margaret Woodrow was born in 1904, and this young lady looks about the right age to have been Margaret’s mother. It does seem unlikely that Margaret would have had in her possession a picture of a woman of the previous generation, taken before she herself was born, unless that woman was a relative. Margaret’s mother was Frances McConnell, daughter of Benjamin McConnell who built a house for his family at 65 Washington Avenue in about 1860. We may be looking at the interior of that very house, and the woman may be Frances or Frances’ sister, whose name was also Margaret.


This is a photograph of Margaret Woodrow taken in 1923, the year after she graduated from Hastings High School. Is there a resemblance?

Of course, we can’t say for sure. The photograph at the top of the blog may show an older friend or mentor of Margaret’s who didn’t even live in Hastings. But, even if that is the case, photographs of domestic machines and household appliances are rare, and it is exciting to discover in our collection an image of one of the earliest phonographs.

Mystery Photo: Riverview Manor Hose Company, ca. 1945

Here is a great photograph of the Riverview Manor Hose Company No. 3 filling up at the Gulf station on Main Street. We have a 1947 photograph showing the Gulf station in just this location on Main Street, in the spot that is now the Boulanger Plaza parking lot, before the station moved to a new location further up Main Street. Behind the truck you can see signs for Riolo’s Meat Market on the left and the Green Tavern on the right, where Slices is today. We don’t know the names of any of the men in the truck. The photograph came to us through the Shreve family, so someone from that family may be in the picture. Does anyone look familiar? Click on the photograph to look at it in Flickr (use the All Sizes link to enlarge the photograph), or look at the details of the men’s faces at the bottom of this post. If you have any ideas, let us know!

If you don’t know, but are curious about the answers, come back to the blog and check this post. We’ll attach comments with any information we receive.

Houdon in Hastings: The Life Mask of George Washington

As soon as we had finished writing the previous week’s post on Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of Robert Fulton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we realized that that eminent French sculptor is actually represented in Hastings, in our own collection.

In our small but select library, in a glass case, is a copy of the life mask that Houdon made of George Washington in 1785. At the time, Houdon was working on a commission for the Virginia Legislature. Two years previously, America, France, and England had signed the peace treaty that finally ended the Revolutionary War, and General George Washington had retired as commander of the Continental Army and returned to private life. The Virginia Legislature decided to honor Washington for his courage and patriotism with a full-length marble statue that would stand in the capitol building in Richmond. The governor asked Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, the United States’ ambassadors in Paris, to suggest the best artist for the commission. They both recommended Houdon. “I find that a Monsieur Houdon of this place possesses the reputation of being the first statuary in the world,” wrote Jefferson, using a term for a ‘sculptor’ that has since gone out of fashion.

Houdon was delighted with the commission, which he considered the most important of his career. The American artist Charles Wilson Peale painted a portrait of Washington and this was sent to Houdon as a guide for his work. But Houdon insisted on taking Washington’s image from life. He accompanied Franklin back to the United States and arrived at Washington’s Mount Vernon residence in October of 1785. During his two-week stay, Houdon followed Washington around, observing his posture and expression. He also took detailed measurements of his body and created the life mask to serve as a model for Washington’s face. He applied grease to Washington’s skin, put quills in his nostrils so he could breathe, and then covered his face with wet plaster. This impression created a mould that, once dried, could itself be filled with plaster to create a positive image of Washington’s face. Because Washington necessarily had his eyes closed, Houdon had to hollow out the pupils of the plaster mask to give the face a life-like expression.


Houdon took the mask back to Paris with him and used it to create the likeness of the final statue, which was erected in Richmond in 1796. Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and many of Washington’s relatives praised the statue as the most lifelike representation of Washington that had ever been made. By 1796, General Washington had become President Washington, and was just finishing his second term. He had become, if possible, even more famous than he had been in the 1780s, and Houdon’s statue drew national attention.

The mask itself was prized as the most authentic likeness of America’s first president. In order to make the positive mask, the mould had to be broken, so only one mask was ever made from the original mould. This mask is now in the collection of the Morgan Library in New York City, most likely purchased by financier and art collector J.P. Morgan on one of his many trips to Europe.

Ours is but a humble copy, made at least a century later. It was on display here in the Draper Observatory Cottage in the 1950s when the cottage housed a public reading room, but it certainly may have been purchased long before, probably by one of the Draper family. The round plaster pedestal that is part of the mask is unusual and may someday help us identify when and where our copy was made. Masks and busts of famous men and women were popular library accessories at the turn of the century, and there are many copies of Washington’s mask in libraries around the United States. In fact, you can still buy one today -- on eBay.

The Draper Reading Room as it appeared ca. 1950. Washington's mask is not visible in the picture. It may have been where it is now, in the Transit Room, which you can see through the doorway in the center of the photograph.