May 17, 2021

Scarsdale Historical Society Awards Grant to Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters

May 17, 2021/ Marc Cheshire

Historic Site in Hartsdale, NY. Played A Key Role in Revolutionary War

The Scarsdale Historical Society (SHS) today announced the award of $7,500 granted to the Friends of the Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters (OHRH) in Hartsdale, N.Y. The grant is a part of SHS’s mission to discover, preserve and disseminate the rich history of Scarsdale and its neighboring communities in Central Westchester.

In 1781, OHRH served as the headquarters for the Comte de Rochambeau and his French Forces during the French American Encampment in Greenburgh, N.Y. It was here that Rochambeau and George Washington made the important decision to march their troops to Yorktown, Virginia, where they jointly defeated the British army and won America’s Independence. Not only is OHRH one of the most important sites of revolutionary history in Westchester County, but it is also a rare example of an 18th-century farmhouse, with its original details intact, that was occupied by one family from 1785 to 1990.

“Friends of OHRH are grateful for the continued support of the Scarsdale Historical Society,” stated Susan Seal, President of the Friends of Odell House Rochambeau Headquarters. This grant will help defray the cost of storing the vast contents of the house representing over 230 years of the life of the house. These antiques and artifacts have been safely removed from the house by the Friends to allow the restoration work to progress. The grant also continues to provide us with an expert to assist us in maintaining our website.”

“With this grant, we are pleased to play a role in making sure the history and legacy of OHRH lives on,” stated Randy Guggenheimer, President of the Scarsdale Historical Society. “OHRH is a community treasure that will educate and inspire the public for generations to come.”

Visit the OHRH website to learn more.

March 22, 2021

Remembering Jack Davis

March 22, 2021/ Marc Cheshire

By Lesley Topping

Among the remarkable people who have lived in Scarsdale is the renowned cartoonist and illustrator, Jack Davis. His zany cartoons helped shape the satirical humor of Mad Magazine. His illustrations for hundreds of news magazines, movie posters, books and comics have inspired illustrators for generations and are enjoyed by people around the world. Less known is that as a resident of Scarsdale for many years, he also generously donated his art and illustrations to the community.

Jack and his wife, Dena raised their two children in Scarsdale and were always involved in neighborhood activities. Jack donated his sketches for fund raising auctions for the Scarsdale Historical Society’s Cudner-Hyatt House Museum and he illustrated several covers for the Society’s journal. He developed a cartoon series for the Scarsdale Inquirer about the adventures of a suburban family called the Villagers and he contributed sketches for many Inquirer articles. As an avid sports fan he designed posters and t-shirts for the Scarsdale High School’s football and basketball teams.

*Fox Meadow Tennis Club displaying Davis’ tennis caricatures.*

Today, The Fox Meadow Tennis Club on Wayside Lane proudly displays a series of sketches by Davis, which lovingly poke fun at Paddle Tennis players. Friends remember Davis as a gentleman with a rascal sense of humor. Rick Reuter, who lived next door to Davis, said that Jack often drew caricatures of his friends and members of the Scarsdale Golf Club.“ We played tennis on Saturday mornings,” said Reuter, “In the winter we would play platform tennis.” They also both volunteered as Scout Masters at St. James the Less Church. Reuter laughingly recalled that while he was renovating his own home, Jack came over and said, “Oh, you do all this stuff, can you help me?” Rick would often lend him a hand with fixing problems in his house. When Davis made a drawing of Rick he displayed him with all his tools and varied interests. Rick’s wife, Karen, was an artist, and she was the colorist for many of Jack Davis’ drawings.

The Davis Family moved back to Jack’s hometown state of Georgia, in the 1990s where he lived until he passed away in 2016 at the age of 91.

Scroll down to see more samples of Jack Davis’ work and visit these links:

A Jack Davis Sampling by Drew Friedman
Tributes to Jack Davis at The Comics Journal

*The Villagers Comic Series, Scarsdale Inquirer, 1963*

February 19, 2021

Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb Event

February 19, 2021/ Marc Cheshire

Join us for a conversation with author Robert Marchant, to hear about his new book Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb. This live virtual event will provide an informative and lively dialogue on Westchester’s fascinating and often surprising past, moderated by Jordan Copeland. The book examines four centuries of development in Westchester uncovering “a complex and often surprising narrative of slavery, anti-Semitism, immigration, Jim Crow, silent film stars, suffragettes, gangland violence, political riots, eccentric millionaires, industry and aviation, man-made disasters and assassinations.”

westchester history of an iconic suburb.jpg

Sunday, March 7 at 3 p.m. via Zoom
All members of the public are welcome. Admission is free.
Registration is required. Click this link.

Robert Marchant is a staff reporter at Hearst Media in southern Connecticut and the Greenwich Time newspaper. He lives with his family in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. Jordan Copeland is a Scarsdale resident and Trustee of the Scarsdale Historical Society and Scarsdale Public Library who has researched extensively and given many presentations about the history of Scarsdale.

The Scarsdale Historical Society is pleased to sponsor this event, along with The Scarsdale Forum, League of Women Voters Scarsdale and Scarsdale Public Library.

January 30, 2021

Annual Meeting via Zoom

January 30, 2021/ Marc Cheshire

Dear Scarsdale Historical Society Member,

Please join us for our Annual Meeting via Zoom on Tuesday, February 9th at 7:30 p.m. In addition to a brief update on the Historical Society and election of directors, Lesley Topping will discuss Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s. visits to Scarsdale in the 1960s. She will also discuss Jack Davis, renowned cartoonist and illustrator and long-time Scarsdale resident.

The Zoom link is below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87487448056?pwd=TGlEdFVlMHlHL2xsTmRJdjE4c0JsZz09
Meeting ID: 874 8744 8056
Passcode: 825514

Below are links to additional information about the Annual Meeting as well as information about renewing your membership for 2021. If you have already renewed, thank you and please disregard the Membership Card.

Best regards,

Randy Guggenheimer
President, Scarsdale Historical Society

January 16, 2021

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Scarsdale, March 31, 1960 and October 29, 1965

January 16, 2021/ Marc Cheshire

By Lesley Topping

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.”

—Martin Luther King, Love Your Enemies sermon, Scarsdale Baptist Community Church, 1960

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Abbott House benefit. From the left is Scarsdale resident John Marqusee, one of the event organizers, Arthur Litt, president of Abbott House Board of Directors and County Executive, Edwin Michealian. … — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Abbott House benefit. From the left is Scarsdale resident John Marqusee, one of the event organizers, Arthur Litt, president of Abbott House Board of Directors and County Executive, Edwin Michealian. Scarsdale Inquirer, November 4, 1965.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is praised around the world for his work fighting for interracial harmony, civil and voting rights, and an end to racial segregation. As an advocate of non-violence, Dr. King was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize just four years before his life was cut short by an assassin's bullet on April 4, 1968.

Dr. King spoke throughout the country, and many Scarsdale residents may be unaware that he visited Westchester County several times between 1956 and 1967. Although Dr. King is widely celebrated today, he was very unpopular in many regions of the country, including Westchester, during the heyday of The Civil Rights Movement. He was denounced as a socialist for his anti-poverty campaign and opposition to the Vietnam War. However, some forward thinking people from Scarsdale realized that the struggle for justice was not limited to the Southern United States and were eager to support and spread Dr. King’s message. Two of Dr. King’s visits were arranged by Scarsdale residents active in the fight for civil rights.

On March 31, 1960, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a version of his famous and controversial sermon, Love Your Enemies, to an overflow crowd at the Scarsdale Community Baptist Church at 51 Popham Road in Scarsdale. According to journalist Andy Bass, who wrote about Dr. King’s visits in The Westchester Historian (Spring 2018), the Reverend M. Forest Ashbrook was instrumental in bringing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Scarsdale in 1960. Rev. Ashbrook was a resident of Edgemont and a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization known for its civil rights work that challenged segregation laws in the South. Ashbrook initially wrote to civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, who was also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Rustin was an early advisor to King, and he organized the freedom rides beginning in World War II to integrate busing in segregated states. He was also the lead organizer of the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Dr. King delivered his powerful I have a Dream speech. Rustin was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 by President Obama.

It would take fourteen months of letter-writing persistence by Rev. Ashbrook before Dr. King’s visit was confirmed. During his visit, Dr. King had dinner with one of his book editors, Eugene Exman, who lived on Old Army Road in Edgemont. Their collaboration led to the publication of King’s 1963 book, Strength to Love which includes his sermon, Love Your Enemies.

In 1965, as the civil rights movement was shaking the nation, two Scarsdale residents played a role in inviting Dr. King to speak at a fundraising dinner for Abbott House, an organization—still operating today—which provides social services to children and adults. The agency had acquired a new location in Irvington in 1963. The fund raising dinner was held at Schrafft’s Restaurant in Eastchester where Dr. King gave a speech titled the Dignity of Family Life —the Fountainhead of a Just Society to an audience of some 600 people.

However, Dr. King’s visit did not make the front page of the Scarsdale Inquirer. The announcement of the dinner in his honor was reported on September 23, 1965 on page 18, and later only a paragraph and photograph was published after the event on November 4th on page 3. As reported in the Inquirer, the dinner committee included Mrs. Ogden Reid and Mrs. Richard Ottinger (both of them congressmen’s spouses), Robert F. Kennedy, and Jacob Javits. Many Scarsdale residents and village officials attended the dinner. John Marqusee, a Fox Meadow resident who was a board member of Abbott house, and his friend Robert Ostrow, also from Scarsdale, helped initiate the invitation. They also hosted receptions for Dr. King, Bayard Rustin, Julian Bond and other leading activists before the dinner.

Outraged by the violent reaction to the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, Robert Ostrow and John Marqusee decided to join the protest march from Selma to Montgomery led by Dr. King in March, 1965 to promote non-violence and Black voter registration in the South. During the march they were able to present Dr. King with a scroll from the Eastview Junior High School in White Plains. It read “To future voters of Alabama. We, the students of Eastview Junior High School, wish to express our deepest sympathy for your righteous and gallant efforts towards the equality and dignity of man.” It was signed by officers of the school's general organization as well as about 400 other students.

Many people throughout Westchester felt compelled to show their alliance with the ongoing protests. The Scarsdale Inquirer headlined that 500 people had walked for a mile in White Plains in sympathy with the protestors marching in Selma in 1965. They were led by Scarsdale students Hilary Ballon, age 9, her sister, Carla, age 8, and their father Charles Ballon. A Scarsdale resident at the walk was quoted as saying “This march was planned to show our sympathies with those who have worked and died for constitutional rights in the South.”

An article about Robert Ostrow’s participation in the civil rights movement. White Plains Reporter Dispatch, August 1965

Robert Ostrow, who lived with his family on Montrose Road in Greenacres, volunteered in 1964 as an attorney for representatives of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Freedom Summer voter registration drive. He traveled the perilous back roads of rural Mississippi with activist Kwame Ture, (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael), to help bail SNCC-trained Civil Rights Workers out of jail. Some of his harrowing experiences were reported in the New York Times, Reporter Dispatch and Scarsdale Inquirer.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s courage, work and words still resonate strongly in the continued struggle for racial equality, civil rights, economic justice, and world peace.

The 30-foot metal sculpture with words of Dr. King that stands near Lincoln Center in Manhattan was created by William Tarr while he was living in Scarsdale in 1973.

NOTES

For a recording and text of Dr. King’s sermon Love Your Enemies click here.
For a recording of Dr. King’s invocation at the Abbott House Dinner in 1965 click here.
Archives of the Scarsdale Inquirer can be searched here.

SOURCES

Andy Bass, MLK Visits to Westchester, 1956-1967, The Westchester Historian, Spring 2018.
For information on King’s visit to the Scarsdale Baptist Church in 1960 see Andy Bass’ blog here.
500 March to Demonstrate Sympathy with Selma Walk. Scarsdale Inquirer, March 25, 1965.
Selma Scarsdale Marchers Greeted by Defiant Confederate Flag. Scarsdale Inquirer, April 1, 1965.
Selma, Alabama… More Than Headline To a Volunteer Lawyer from Scarsdale Lawyer. White Plains Reporter Dispatch, August, 1965.
Dr. King to Speak Here at Dinner in His Honor. Scarsdale Inquirer, September 23, 1965.
Civil Rights Leaders Speaks. Scarsdale Inquirer, November 4, 1965.
Negro-Jewish Relations. (Rustin Speaks at Westchester Reform Temple). Scarsdale Inquirer, November 16, 1967.
Reliving Volunteer Work in the South. New York Times, June 16, 1995.

December 17, 2020

Lost and Found in Scarsdale

December 17, 2020/ Marc Cheshire

By Lesley Topping

Treasures are often found in the most unlikely places. Such is the case with a donation made to the Scarsdale Historical Society in 2020. In the 1960s, an old family photo album at a flea market caught the eye of hobbyist and collector, Everett Brandt of Saugerties, New York. He bought the album that contains 24 photographs from the 1890s of the magnificent 500-acre estate owned by Charles and Emily Butler in Scarsdale that became the neighborhood of Fox Meadow.

*Charles and Emily Butler at Fox Meadow circa 1890s*

When Everett Brandt passed, his wife Joan decided to clear some of her husband’s extensive collectables. Instead of tossing the album that had been on Everett’s shelf for over fifty years, the Brandt children googled its connection to Scarsdale and encouraged their mother to contact the Society. Their only clue was title of the book Fox Meadow, as there are no descriptions inside the album.

It remains a mystery as to how the book ended up at the flea market, except to note that Charles Butler was born in Kinderhook, New York, not far from Saugerties and likely had relatives in the area. Butler was an influential financier, lawyer and philanthropist. He purchased farmland for his summer home in Scarsdale in 1853 originally to improve the health of his ailing son, Ogden (whose namesake is Ogden Road). Butler called his estate Fox Meadow, which was the farm’s original name. It was derived from the days when indigenous tribes lived in the Bronx River Valley and foxes, wolves, beavers, deer and other animals were bountiful. When Charles Butler died, his sole heir and daughter, Emily held onto the estate until 1925 making Fox Meadow one of the last areas of Scarsdale to become a neighborhood of private homes. Emily was a progressive thinker and a supporter of Women’s Rights who contributed greatly to the Scarsdale Community. During her life, she welcomed neighbors to enjoy her property and Fox Meadow became a popular center for events, tennis, skating and nature walks.

You can view the photographs from the album below. Check out our video page to watch the film, Path to a Scarsdale Community: Fox Meadow and the Butler Estate which is about Charles and Emily Butler and the suburbanization of Fox Meadow.

Album cover