1884

Pastor William Sharts, conducting services in the third church building, which, like the second one, was known as the "Church on the Rocks," because it sat on a rocky ledge overlooking the Sawkill (about ¾ mile east of our present location--that is, north of present-day Route 212, across from the country club). (To enlarge the picture, just click it.)

Above is a map of the Woodstock village, published in 1878, showing the Church on the Rocks on the east side of town, just north of current Route 212 (known then as simply Saugerties Road) and north of the Sawkill. It is identified simply as "LUTH. CH." (To enlarge the view, click it.)

It was about this time that the Bible School became a vital part in the church life, under the tutelage of Eveyln Cramer.

Pastor Sharts and Hiram Cramer went to the Rondout to buy supplies for a clambake.

The pastor noted that the deacons reported on assessments paid. This is the first mention of the specific duty assigned to deacons--that is, to collect contributions from the membership. In October, Pastor Sharts reported that only $14 ($282 in 2006 dollars) had been collected, and he noted with chagrin that

one deacon collected absolutely nothing.(1)

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From Anderson, Mark J., For All the Saints: Christ's Lutheran Church, Woodstock, New York, 1806-2006 [Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006], p. 57, citing the pastor's notes. (Close)

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Prospectors were exploring the Woodstock area for coal, oil, and gas.

Local Civil War veteran John Schoonmaker toured mountain resorts with his "Phantasmagoria" (a magic lantern that produced the effect of motion to glass-slide images projected on a screen), showing a version of Uncle Tom's Cabin and featuring his own war service.

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Chester A. Arthur (Republican) was President. The 48th Congress was in session. A dollar in that year would be worth $20.15 in 2006 for most consumable products.

Immigrants from the British Isles and western Europe (especially Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany)--the so-called "Old Immigrants," most of them boasting a comparatively high level of literacy and accustomed to some level of representative government, who were either Protestant (most of them) or Catholic, were arriving during this decade at an average annual rate of 275,300. The "New Immigrants," those from southern and eastern Europe (especially Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia), largely illiterate and impoverished, who tended to be either Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish and who had little experience with representative government, were arriving at an annual rate of 92,600--34% of the Old Immigrants' rate, a threefold proportionate increase from a decade earlier and a fivefold increase in raw numbers. The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

Larvae of the gypsy moth (Porthetria dispar) continued to spread from Medford, MA, where French naturalist Leopold Trouvelot had brought the insect from Europe 15 years earlier with hopes to start a silk industry in New England. The moth population was exploding and defoliating American woodlands.

Solidly Democratic white supremacists held political power all over the South. The economically dependent blacks who even tried to vote (forget about being elected to political office) would be facing unemployment, eviction, and violence. Blacks (and poor whites as well) continued being forced into sharecropping and tenant farming; former slave masters were now bosses and landlords. Through the "crop-lien" system, the serflike small farmers could get food and supplies from storekeepers by agreeing to a lien on their expected crops, a lien they would never be able to fully pay off. The daily discrimination against blacks grew increasingly oppressive. Blacks were continually assaulted by harsh reminders of their second-class citizenship, and the white supremacists dealt brutally with any black who dared to violate the customary racial code of conduct.

There were 211 reported lynchings in the United States during this year; 51 of the victims were black, 164 of them white. (Apparently what terrible things that happened to Native Americans or to Asians did not get counted.)

Presidential election of 1884

The spoils of patronage--the awarding of government jobs (especially in the postal service) in return for party service, kickbacks, and votes--was vitally important within both parties and was essentially a big business like any other Gilded Age capitalist enterprise.

Republicans and Democrats differed very little on issues, but the race between them was fiercely competitive nonetheless. Each party was tightly organized. On Election Day, hordes of party faithful tramped behind marching bands on the way to the polls. The parties were able to turn out huge numbers of voters--nearly 80% of those eligible. Most of them voted a straight party line, too.

Francis Asbury Pratt, 57, dierector of his 19-year-old Pratt & Whitney Company in Hartford, CT, invented a gear cutter.

Cattle drives on the 700-mile-long Chisholm Trail from San Antonio, TX, to Abilene or Ellsworth, KS (two "cow towns" on the Kansas Pacific Railway, where cattle could be transported to Chicago), continued on a large scale, hundreds of thousands of steers driven north on the "Long Drive," moving at an average 12 miles per day through open, unsettled country that provided abundant grass and water for the animals.

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The coffee rust (Hamileia vastatrix), which had appeared in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 15 years earlier, was spreading throughout the Orient and the Pacific, wiping out coffee plantations and causing coffee prices to soar.

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