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The Ghost of Old Bill Spencer.By Jean Hadden
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Meet the Characters |
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Chapter 1
On a hot summer day, when the going gets rough and my telephone is working overtime telling me all sorts of things I don't really want to hear, I pack my camera, notebook and pencil and head for the local cemetery. I can't think of a more relaxing place to spend an afternoon, reading gravestones and piecing together bits and pieces of the town's glorious and not so glorious past. When cemetery caretaker Peter Haggerty occasionally comes along and joins me we try to outdo each other with tales about people buried there and the role each played on the Warrensburg stage of life. What fun this is! When I grow tired of visiting with the dead, I go and view the living, sitting on the park bench in front of Floyd Bennett Park and watch the endless stream of humanity pass by. Sitting there reminds me of Charlie Keays who used to sit at the same spot after he retired from working for the State. Charlie lived through a lot of town history and now he is over in the cemetery. It is hard to believe that someday we will all join him. Watching people walk on the sidewalks makes me think back to the time when the parents and grandparents of people living here now walked on the same sidewalks and lived in the same spaces we presently occupy. Being a diligent reader of old newspapers and obituaries enables me to know who many of them were by name, where they lived and what they did for a living. One time as I was sitting there, a little melancholic and nostalgic from the sweet intoxicating aroma of carbon monoxide fumes, I looked down the street and who should I see strolling along but the ghost of old Bill Spencer, "the whole of Warrensburg's colored population," as he was called. Rumor has it that the old gentleman originally came here from South Carolina, where he had been born in 1840, and lived in The Glen before he came to Warrensburg to become a legend in his own time. Paul and Walter ("Tink") Gurney grew up in Warrensburg. Before Paul retired in Chicago from being an architect, he designed the Floyd Bennett bandstand as a gift to the people of his beloved home town. As a boy he was well acquainted with old Bill Spencer and wrote the late Kathleen Goodman a letter about him which was published in the Warrensburg-Lake George News in 1973. Around 1915, Paul was about 11 years old and old Bill was 75. Paul, upon occasion in those days, would go over to Bill's shack and deliver a pie that his mother, Evangeline Gurney would bake for the old man. He always looked forward to going because he knew Bill would share the pie and tell some of his Uncle Remus stories for which he was well known. Paul had trap lines set up along the stump fences in the fields north of the cemetery. Bill's shack was in that area, just a little east of the present day Conservation Department building on upper Hudson Street. Paul came to visit often Next week: Chapter 2 - Warrensburgh's "Uncle Bill" |
Paul Gurney
Born in Warrensburg, NY, Paul Gurney was a chief architect and engineer for Montgomery Ward in Chicago as well as a talented cartoonist.
Read More → Peter Haggerty
Floyd Bennett
Warrensburgh native Floyd Bennett rose from a difficult childhood to become a celebrated Naval aviator and Medal of Honor recipient. Jean Hadden tells the story of the quiet local man who became a national hero.
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