One Century Ago: Graduation and Tax Grievances

It's our third edition of One Century Ago, a collaboration between Patch and the .

Each week we'll be bringing you the front page of a local newspaper that covered the news in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow (North Tarrytown) one hundred years ago ().

This front page comes from the Tarrytown Press-Record. The Press-Record was published as a weekly from 1893 to 1946 and has been preserved on microfilm.

Celebrating the Class of 1911

Graduation was all over the Press-Record 100 years ago. The Class of 1911 was the largest batch ever to graduate from Washington Irving High School with whopping 17 graduates. That's a far cry from of 195 students.

Of these 17 graduates, the paper proudly proclaimed that 13 of those moving past WIHS were women.

The Class of 2011 choose as their motto "Honesty Before Honors" and selected gold and white as their colors and the daisy as their class flower.

During the graduation ceremony, Reverend G. Russell Hageman sounded out wise words of advice – which filled a quarter of the paper's front page when transcribed in full.

"Let your sympathies and tastes be broad," he proclaimed. "Extend you interest in others little by little until you include, not only many unlovely people, but the whole round world..."

The paper also leaves some room to announce those graduating from North Tarrytown High School. That class had two graduates, Edgar Johnson and Frank Kuntz.

Tax Grievances an Issue 100 Years Ago

While homeowners these days are piling on the grievances in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow – contesting the assessed valuation of their property – the practice was just as prevalent 100 years ago.

The Tarrytown Board of Assessor heard 90 complaints from residents about their property assessments. The paper noted that most were minor complaints, having to do with the paperwork on file with the Village, however, 30 other grievances were "significant".

Of note was the property owned by Joseph Eastman, who controlled seventy-two acres in the Village. He was upset that the board placed a $275,000 value on his property and asked for it to be lowered to $240,000.

John D. Maxwell also contested his property valuation. Maxwell owned the property that the Warner Library currently sits on and was famous in the region for starting the Maxwell Briscoe Automobile Factory which made some of the most popular cars in the country up until 1913. He argued that his property, valued at $30,000 was too high, although he paid $29,000 for the property a few years prior. Maxwell demanded a reduction to $20,000.

After listing all the major complaints, the Press-Record goes on to note that "a number of these complaints will no doubt be adjusted satisfactorily to the complainants."