45 degrees fog and mist in The City of Amsterdam at 5:37AM-Mohawk Valley Weather, Wednesday, March 6, 2024-Rain, mainly after 10am. Patchy fog before 10am. High near 52. East wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Tonight Rain, mainly before 5am. Low around 40. Northeast wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Thursday A chance of rain before 7am, then a chance of showers after 7am. Cloudy, with a high near 48. Tomorrow on The Historians, the story of "Mill Girl"
Oneonta man researching life of Kirk Douglas
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
this Weekend in The Gazette and Recorder, Sunday on The Historians. SUNY Oneonta history professor emeritus William Simons is a braver man then I....
New This Friday, March 9, 2024
San Francisco State University history professor Charles Postel is author of Equality: An American Dilemma 1866-1896. In this edit of Episode 286, Postel compares three important social movements: Knights of Labor, Women’s Christian Temperance Union and farmers’ Grange.
Ed Sullivan's mother was Elizabeth F. Smith, whose family resided on Garden Street. His father, Peter A.Sullivan, was living in New York City when he married Elizabeth.
Ed Sullivan and his Amsterdam roots
By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History
Television star and newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan's parents were married in Amsterdam on September 22 1896, five years before he was born.
Ed Sullivan's mother was Elizabeth F. Smith, whose family resided on Garden Street. His father, Peter A.Sullivan, was living in New York City when he married Elizabeth. The wedding took place at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church with the Reverend John McIncrow celebrating the Mass. Reverend McIncrow, a formidable pastor, died two months later.
After a reception at the bride's home, the newly married couple left on the 5:23 p.m. train for New York where Peter worked as a customs inspector. Elizabeth was an amateur painter.
THE SULLIVANS
Peter's father was Florence Sullivan who came to Saratoga Springs from Glengarriff, Ireland, near Cork, in 1851. In the 1870 census Peter was 10 years old and the family was living in Saratoga Springs. Florence was a shoemaker, a coachman and later worked on the Erie Canal, as did many Irish immigrants.
When Florence died in 1883, his widow Margaret Sullivan moved to Cornell Street in Amsterdam with her six children. That section then was an Irish-American enclave nicknamed Cork Hill. Peter was listed as a broom maker in the 1890 and 1891 city directories. Although he did not finish high school, he was third ward supervisor serving on the county board in 1892 and 1893.
In the news story on Peter's marriage he is described as an Amsterdam boy. His younger brother, named Florence after their father, was assistant district attorney in 1896. In 1900 Florence became Amsterdam city attorney. In 1904 Florence moved to New York City and was a successful trial attorney there until his death in 1941. He was buried in the Sullivan family plot at St. Mary's Cemetery.
INFANT DEATHS
Peter and Elizabeth named their first son Florence in 1899. He died in infancy in New York and his body was sent to Amsterdam for burial at St. Mary's Cemetery.
Ed Sullivan and his twin brother Dan were born in an Irish and Jewish section of Harlem in New York City on September 28, 1901. Daniel died in July 1902 and his body also was taken to Amsterdam for burial.
According to an unconfirmed story told by a member of one of the longtime Irish families in Amsterdam, after Ed was born, he and his family lived in Amsterdam on and off for several years in an upper floor apartment opposite St. Mary's Church on East Main Street.
When Ed was five his family moved to Port Chester, N.Y. He turned down a chance to go to college, according to an online biography, although an uncle, perhaps Florence Sullivan, offered to pay the bill.
Edward Vincent Sullivan grew up to become a newspaper columnist then a radio and television star. He began dating Sylvia Weinstein, although both families were said to be opposed to a Catholic-Jewish wedding. They married in a civil ceremony in 1930 and their daughter Elizabeth or Betty was born that year. She was named for Sullivan's mother.
Sullivan's long-running television variety program, at first called The Toast of the Town, debuted in 1948. It became The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955 and was a CBS Sunday night staple. Sullivan's show often introduced mainstream American audiences to groundbreaking performers, perhaps most famously four appearances by the Beatles in the 1960s. In 1968 the theater where he broadcast the show was named the Ed Sullivan Theater.
CBS canceled the show in 1971. His wife Sylvia died in 1973 and Ed Sullivan died in 1974. Former Montgomery County historian Jacqueline Murphy provided research for this story.
