100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN
Wednesday, August 1, 1917. The severe heat wave gripping Saratoga Springs breaks in dramatic fashion this afternoon as lightning wreaks havoc on the Spa City.
The opening day of track season witnesses “the most welcome thunderstorm that ever descended upon suffering humanity,” The Saratogian reports, “It looked as if the Heavens themselves had rebelled against the tyranny of that distant power that comes so uncomfortably near in summer, and then races away in winter while humanity freezes.”
The 1 p.m. storm soaks the grandstand and many of the 6,000 racegoers. While few of the people complain, “what the rain did to the track was a shame. It packed the nicely raked track into a surface as flat as a billiard table and as heavy as one of ma’s fried cakes.”
The day starts hot, a Broadway thermometer hitting 93 degrees at 9:30 a.m. Two truck drivers suffer heat prostration this morning and are treated at their homes by Dr. M. E. Van Aernem.
The storm hits with sudden violence. Lightning strikes a City Hall chimney, sending “a dozen or fifteen bricks” tumbling onto Maple Avenue. Another lightning strike at Lake and Maple brings bricks down from Salvation Army headquarters. Elsewhere on Lake, a telephone pole comes down in front of a meat market and an elm tree crashes into a cluster of phone wires, interrupting service in parts of the city.
No one is injured during the storm and the race card goes on as scheduled.
MECHANICVILLE MELEE. A man and a goat are shot during a fight outside a Mechanicville boarding house tonight, The Saratogian reports.
Michele Babbene, who shoots the goat, is taken to Troy Hospital with three gunshot wounds to the chest inflicted by Antonio Conte, the goat’s owner.
Conte runs a boarding house on Philadelphia Avenue where Babbene stayed until Conte evicted him yesterday after a quarrel. He tells investigators that Babbene reappeared tonight to take revenge on Conte’s goat.
Asked why he took his anger out on the animal, Babbene reportedly tells Conte, “You better look out or something will happen to you.”
After that, “a fight ensued,” but it’s unclear which man struck first. According to Conte, at some point Babbene draws a knife and stabs him in his left bicep. Babbene allegedly slashes at Conte several times more before Conte draws a revolver and fires three times.
Dr. W. John Maby treats both men at the scene after they’re arrested. He sends Babbene to Troy, while Conte is kept in the local jail “to await the outcome of Babbene’s injuries, which are said to be serious.”
-- Kevin Gilbert