100 years ago in The Saratogian
Sunday, Nov. 25, 1917
An exchange of shotguns between two young hunters goes badly when one youth accidentally shoots another in the leg this morning.
Three Ballston Spa teenagers – Ernest Bush, Howard Laque and Lewis Robinson, head out toward Rock City Falls on a hunting trip early this morning. On their way back they stop at the Eastern New York Railroad waiting room in Factory Village.
“While there the boys talked of trading guns,” The Saratogian reports, “the Bush buy having a sixteengauge single-barrel shot gun and the Laque boy a twelve-gauge gun. While in the waiting room the boys traded guns and Laque was examining the gun in his hand when it suddenly went off, a shell having been left in the gun.”
Bush’s carelessness comes back to haunt him as he takes a load of shot from his own gun in his left leg from only a few feet away. Fred Sherman, an employee at a nearby power station, hears the shot and Bush’s cry and rushes to his aid. “He quickly applied a tourniquet to the leg of the wounded boy and no doubt saved him from bleeding to death,” a reporter notes.
Sherman calls Dr. R. B. Castree to the scene. From there Bush is sent to Saratoga Hospital for surgery. The shot blew away flesh and muscles outside his calf, but luckily missed bone. Doctors are confident that they can save Bush’s leg.
Draft slacker
Law enforcement officials at the local, state and federal levels are actively pursuing draft-age who fail to report for their physical examinations prior to shipment to military training facilities. One such “slacker” is arrested in Corinth today.
Benjamin F. Springer’s number was selected during the July 20 national draft lottery. He was supposed to report for his physical on November 9, but never showed. Deputy Sheriff Harry H. Hammond takes Springer into custody “back of the woods near Corinth on a farm,” The Saratogian reports.
Hammond will be shipped to Saratoga Springs tomorrow morning. From there he’ll be sent to the Camp Devens training facility in Ayer MA, where he’ll stand trial for draft evasion.
Peace novena
It might be risky to talk of peace when the country is waging war to a finish against Germany, but Saratoga Springs’ Catholic Churches have announced that they’ll be holding peace novenas from Thanksgiving through December 8.
“Let us pray that the warring countries may put themselves in that attitude of good will which merits the blessing announced on the first Christmas morning, ‘Peace on earth to men good will,’” writes Bishop Thomas Cusack of the Albany Diocese.