Toasting 25 years and a town full of contributors

CORNWALL — The tornado that swept through Cornwall in the summer of 1989, decimating its pines, is rooted within the modern history of the town. A tribute by William Ward Beecher to the scenic surroundings, painted after the storm but depicting the trees as they previously stood, currently hangs in the Historical Society’s gallery. Paul De Angelis, board president for The Cornwall Chronicle, a monthly newsletter that began printing two years later, in February 1991, attributed a resurgence in community effort to that storm. 

It would not be outlandish to suggest that nearly everyone who attended The Chronicle’s anniversary celebration at the Cornwall Library on Saturday, Sept. 17, had some part its publication over the course of its 25-year run (and counting). A list of contributors hung on the wall with just under 400 local writers, illustrators and monthly editors who volunteer their efforts toward the nonprofit, freely circulated four-page letter.

The very first issue, edited by Tom Bevans and Ed Ferman, announced that, “The goal is to publish a concise and comprehensive report on activities of your town government, to print a calendar of upcoming meetings and events, to highlight other news, and to offer you a forum for your opinions and concerns in the letters section.” 

Such letters of opinion were also on display, part of the library’s exhibit showcasing The Chronicle’s history, next to ink drawings (insects, chipmunks, beavers holding umbrellas in the snow) from some of the newsletter’s most prolific contributors: Bob Parker, David Bean, Roxana Laughlin and Marc Simont, to name a few. 

One letter to The Chronicle, appearing in the November 2000 issue and signed by Carol Goodfriend, detailed how she and her husband had solved the problem of the bears visiting their hilltop home: by blasting the first movement of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. 

“We’ve never met a bear yet that liked Bruckner.” 

Whimsy could certainly be found in Cornwall Chronopoly, a fully functioning Monopoly game board designed by Chronicle Vice President Annie Kosciusko, with the aid of Etsy and the 3-D printer at Cornwall Consolidated School for the game pieces. Instead of railways, players could collect cemeteries; instead of jail, one was kindly instructed to “go to the library;” and the coveted Boardwalk and Park Place  of Monopoly were replaced with Mohawk Ski Area and the Cream Hill Lake Association. 

Chronicle contributor Ella Clark stood to perform a Homeric rhyming ode penned by the late Ken Keskinen for the Chronicle’s 10th anniversary. 

“We write of rummage, cows and chicks, of gnats and birds and small ticks. We write of clubs and camaraderies, and all the bucks we bet on lotteries. We publish all the vital stats, but shun all gossip, idle chats. We want to keep our pages filled, yet try to keep our news distilled.” 

She concluded, with a sly reference to The New Yorker: “No, we’re not the mag with the man with the monocle/ We’re down-home types/ we’re The Cornwall Chronicle!”