100 years ago in The Record
Saturday, April 21, 1917
The ruins of the Troy Armory, destroyed by fire last January, have become an “unofficial arsenal” for local boys who are excavating guns and other weapons from the site.
“While the warring nations profess to encounter great difficulties in equipping their armies, the youths of South Troy are getting all the guns they want, according to the police of the First precinct station,” the weekend Sunday Budget reports.
“All these resourceful juveniles have to do, so the police say, is to burrow deep enough in the ruins of the Troy armory and they are apt to unearth anything from a magazine rifle to a sixteen-inch gun.”
Three months after the Armory fire, investigators believe that Joseph Kulick used a firearm salvaged from the ruins to shoot playmate Harry Markham in the leg. While the Budget describes the incident as a “trifling experience,” local parents most likely don’t share the reporter’s sense of irony.
Kulick is taken into custody today and will be held over the weekend at the Humane Society shelter. Following the incident, the police raid several South Troy homes and recover “muskets, sabres and Colt revolvers which the young Americans had carted home and oiled up in preparation [for] a reported invasion.”
The Armory ruins have gone largely unguarded since the fire. The Second New York Infantry regiment, formerly based there, moved its staff headquarters to the National City Bank building in downtown Troy, while the troops drilled at Bolton Hall in Lansingburgh before being called into federal service this spring. The Troy troops are currently on police protective duty guarding roads and bridges in Schenectady County. The U.S. declared war on Germany on April 6.
Local police are “now respectfully suggesting that some one who has the time be delegated to keep Uncle Sam’s embryo soldiers away from the armory until the firearms have been collected.”
Firemen’s funerals
Two of the Troy firefighters killed in last Wednesday’s explosion at the Mohican store on Franklin Square are buried today. “A beautiful day added its tribute to memorial services,” The Record reports, “and the streets along which the funeral procession passed were filled with people who gave expression to their respect for the men who died in the public service.” Battalion Chief William Bailey Jr. and ladderman John T. Hoar died when an ammonia tank exploded inside the Mohican, which had been burning for several hours before the disaster. Fireman Albert De Courville also died while thirteen others were injured. Services are held at Bailey’s Fifth Avenue home and St. Peter’s Church. De Courville will be buried in his family home of Montreal.