Julie Breen Madlin and I heard a wonderful story – from a new visitor to the Ogdensburg History Museum – about how a resourceful canine managed the dog days of summer. Jean (McAvoy) Romeo and her cousin, Jim Akin, dropped by to donate some very interesting Ogdensburg-related items owned by another Jim Akin, their grandfather, who was an Ogdensburg lawyer.
Among the items were letters related to grandad Jim’s service during the 1898 Spanish American War. (See yesterday's #WhatsNewWednesday video post for more.)
Jean – who’s from Ogdensburg (and a graduate of St. Mary’s Academy) and now lives near Raleigh, North Carolina – got to remembering the antics of her granddad’s dog, Hunter, an Irish Setter.
Hunter apparently loved to get out of the house. On the business side, he’d accompany grandad Jim to his law office. For fun, Jean and Jim’s grandparents would sometimes take Hunter with them on the trolley to Sandy Beach on warm summer days.
That gave Hunter an idea, presumably for days he decided to play hooky from the law office. The Setter figured out that if he ventured over to their usual trolley stop on Franklin Street, the door would open to allow him to board – free, as far as we know -- giving him a ride to Ogdensburg’s summer fun spot.
To imagine Hunter’s adventures when he took himself to the beach, check out the vintage postcard in our collection…. That wasn’t the end of Hunter’s outings. Jean told us about the dog's one and only visit to Frank’s department store, which she recalled used pneumatic tubes to carry a shopper’s money to a centralized spot. When the dog saw some cash go on its way, according to Jean, he ran after the money and knocked over a lot of stuff. “That,” she added, “is the day Hunter got outlawed from Frank’s department store.”
As far as we know, Hunter never got outlawed from Sandy Beach! #doglife #lifeofriley #ogdensburgstories
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