100 YEARS AGO IN THE SARATOGIAN

Sunday, May 26, 1918. A Vermont motorcyclist is in grave condition in Saratoga Hospital after crashing near Hathorn Spring this afternoon, The Saratogian reports.

Stephen Dueski of West Rutland, an Austrian immigrant, and his friend William Black are traveling south toward Ballston on the state road when their motorcycle, with Dueski at the controls, collides with a Saxon runabout driven by Jesse J. Hiscox of Schenectady.

“Hiscox states that he was well out on the right hand side of the road and was driving slowly,” a reporter writes, “He saw the motorcycle coming down the road at a high rate of speed and just before it came abreast of him Dueski let go of one of the handles to wave his cap at some girls who were drinking at the Hathorn spring.

“Almost immediately, Hiscox claims, the motorcycle swerved, dashed across the road and collided with the Saxon. Dueski struck his head on the road and was rendered unconscious and Black, who was thrown off, was badly shaken up. Both the motorcycle and automobile were badly damaged.”

Dueski will die at the hospital early Monday morning.

Memorial Services at Ballston Spa

Memorial Day is officially observed on May 30, a Thursday this year, but many churches hold Memorial Day services today, including the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ballston Spa.

The “unusually well attended” service honors veterans of the Civil War who are members of the McKittrick Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union army veterans’ organization. Also in attendance are members of the G.A.R.’s auxiliary, the Women’s Relief Corps. The Civil War ended 53 years ago, in 1865.

“While the ‘thin blue line’ is growing thinner with the passage of years there was a goodly representation of the veterans, eighteen of the survivors of the great conflict marching behind the starry banner from the post rooms to the church,” a Ballston Spa correspondent reports.

Pastors from the local Baptist and Presbyterian churches take part in the union service. Rev. Clement G. Martin of the Presbyterian church delivers the sermon from 2 Chronicles 25:18, “And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God and toward his house.”

Martin “spoke of how the nations of the world from time immemorial have honored their sons who have died for their country and have erected imposing monuments to their memory.” The greatest honor to the memory of Union soldiers, the pastor suggests, is “the heroic work of their children on the battlefields of Europe in battling to preserve the freedom of the world.”

— Kevin Gilbert