1909

Pastor Walter Frederick, 33, delivered his last sermon in mid-February. The Woodstock Dutch Reformed Church closed so that people could attend Pastor Frederick's sermon. Many came from the Methodist Episcopal Church as well. Pastor Frederick was replaced during the year by Carl (Karl?) H. Yettru, a recent graduate of Hartwick Seminary. According to church historians Magda Moseman and Mark Anderson(1),

The new church building was illuminated by a large, ornate chandelier hanging in the center of the chapel. It was balanced by a counterweight. Miss Florence Peper recalls helping her mother light the circle of kerosene lamps. The chandelier was pulled down with a long hook and the task took about ten minutes.

Above is a postcard view of looking up Mill Hill Road in the earliest years of the twentieth century. Our church is in the distance on the left of the road, the parsonage on the right. (To enlarge the view, click it.) There is no Joyous Lake or Denny's or CVS (Grand Union), no Woodstock Meats, Catskill Mountain Pizza, or Cumberland Farms to interrupt the view.

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Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) was President, succeeded during this year by William H. Taft. The newly elected 61st Congress was in session. A dollar in that year would be worth $20.91 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 106,900. 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 578,900--five and a half times as much as the Old Immigrants' rate, more than a threefold proportionate increase from a decade earlier and more than a threefold increase in raw numbers. The New Immigrants huddled together in large cities, such as New York City and Chicago.

W. E. B. DuBois, 41, observed the following in his The Souls of Black Folks(3):

Is it possible… that the nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights?… If history and reason give any distinct answer to those questions, the answer is an emphatic No.

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