100 years ago in The Saratogian
Friday, Dec. 7, 1917
Saratoga County fuel administrator Clarence B. Kilmer orders local coal dealers not to raise prices until they’ve used up their inventory from last month, The Saratogian reports.
Kilmer’s order, confirmed by state officials, compels some dealers to reduce prices by forty cents per ton, back to the $8.50 rate prevailing in November.
Before they can raise prices, dealers must verify that they’re only selling coal received after 7 a.m. on December 1. Once older stocks are exhausted, the price per ton can go up to $8.90.
“The residents of the county do not realize that there is a real coal shortage,” Kilmer says, “One firm which is employing eightyfive per cent of its capacity on government work has a supply of coal on hand for only ten days. Another concern which uses 300 tons a day has barely enough on hand to last two weeks.”
Going one step further than Kilmer, Ballston Spa coal administrator Thomas Kerley orders village dealers to refund customers the forty cents extra per ton they charged before today’s order from the county.
No shipping sugar
“Warning! If by any chance you happen to have more sugar on hand than you know what to do with, don’t try to ship it out of town, unless you want to ‘get in bad’ with Sheriff Dodge,” today’s paper reports.
The government is rationing sugar to municipalities under wartime rules, and is cracking down on anyone who tries to buy sugar in one place for shipment elsewhere.
Frank Silvo, a local barber, allegedly planned to smuggle sugar from Saratoga Springs to sugar-starved New York City, where he found on a recent visit that “his friends had great difficulty in obtaining enough of the precious sweetener even to use in coffee.”
“In some way,” however, Sheriff Dodge learns that Silvo plans to ship a hundred pounds of sugar to the metropolis. He thwarts the plan by visiting the barber and personally warning him “not to ship even one pound out of town.”
Deserter arrested
George Pixley of Saratoga County’s Company L, now part of the 105th U.S. Infantry regiment, disappeared from Camp Wadsworth in Spartansburg SC last October 7. He returned home to Wilton and was sheltered by his parents until county detectives arrest him this morning.
The Pixleys tell investigators that George “had gone to Schenectady,” but Detective James Sullivan and Deputy Foster Conlee don’t trust their story. They search the house and find George hiding in a bedroom. He tells them “he would like to be back with his company again.”