Looking for America: Kings of the Road from Ardsley to Michigan
Introduction: Before reading this summer road trip Timepiece with breaking news, which travels over 150 years of history between Ardsley to Michigan, it is suggested that the reader begin their journey by listening to the Simon & Garfunkel song "America," which is linked here: America (1968)
The Rivertowns Enterprise's July 1, 2022, issue includes a touching story about two Ardsley High School class of 2022 graduates and lifelong friends (Hailey Goldberg and Matt Halperin), who both tragically lost a male sibling. By chance, both Seniors will be attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Of course, Michigan's flagship university, one of America's "Public Ivies," frequently accepts first-year students from Ardsley High School. [1] Even though their voyage from Ardsley to Michigan will be unique in its own right, the upcoming journey from Ardsley to Michigan of these two outstanding students has deep roots in local history.
Between 130 and 150 years ago, two brothers from Ardsley (formerly Ashford) emigrated to Michigan to begin new lives. One brother, Richard Lawrence King (1884-1913), a son of Captain John King, who in the middle of the nineteenth century founded King's Pickle Works at the end of what is now King Street in Ardsley, was briefly mentioned in the previous Timepiece. This entry from the April 1, 1882, Greenburgh Register illustrates the significance of the King family in Ashford (and the likely cause for its namesake before becoming Ardsley):
As shown in the below 1872 map, Richard King (who arrived in Michigan by train after departing from the Dobbs Ferry station) purchased a 120-acre farm (consisting of two neighboring parcels of 80 and 40 acres each) in Waterford, Michigan, along the Detroit and Milwaukee railroad route, about seven miles outside of Pontiac.
Richard began selling pickles under the brand name "Westchester Pickles." He later specialized in growing small fruits like "Lawton" blackberries (which were first produced in New Rochelle), "Cuthbert" red raspberries, and the "Warfield," “Haverland,” and “Jessie” varieties strawberries. Richard also became a leading apple trader, purchasing the majority of the crop grown between Holly and Detroit, and the proprietor of a cider mill. According to a biography of Richard published by the Waterford Township Public Library, after breeding Holstein cattle, he added another food to his line-up, producing about 800 gallons annually:
(from July 5, 1895, Pontiac Gazette)
Later, his sons Percy, John Irving, and George bought more farmland nearby (as shown on the 1908 Waterford map below), and the King family rose to prominence in Waterford. Customers in the United States, Europe, and Asia, including China, were delighted by Richard's Michigan apples and fruits, sold under private labels. Today, brands like Driscoll’s control nearly one third of America’s berry market.
Sally Strait, President of the Waterford Historical Society, who, about ten years ago, assembled materials her Society collected from the King family explained in a recent email to the author:
I have been trying to figure out why the Kings came to Waterford. From an interview with Mildred King Campbell (daughter of Percy King and granddaughter of Richard King), she [thought] her grandfather came because of the "good farmland and business opportunities available." Many people came from New York and settled in and around Waterford. So, maybe they heard about it. I know farmland was cheap and available. I suspect it is the same for most people "moving west.” [2]
Farmhouse of Richard King. Richard’s son John “Irving” King, inherited and lived in his father’s farmhouse. (Picture sent courtesy of Waterford Historical Society)
Below: The five King brothers and wives/family: Standing L to R: Irving, George, Frank, Percy, Will
Kneeling L to R: Alene (daughter of Will), Lottie, their sister May Louise (discussed in footnote three below), Grace, and Nellie (photo undated, believed to be between 1910-1920)
Richard’s first wife was Margaret Lefurgy, a scion of the Dobbs family, the name of Ardsley’s neighboring river village. She died at age 47 on January 8, 1897, and is buried next to Richard in Drayton Plains Cemetery in Waterford. Mysteriously, the record of her death in Michigan’s records (depicted below) is crossed out; however, it accurately indicates she died in Ardsley and was a “farmer’s wife.” [3]
When the Kings relocated from Ashford to Michigan in 1872, they brought a quilt made in 1863 as part of a fundraiser for the Ashford Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Ardsley United Methodist Church at 525 Ashford Avenue). When Margaret Lefurgy married Richard King in 1866, the quilt was part of her "hope chest." In 1908, the quilt was returned to Westchester when Margaret's only daughter May married Walter Travis in Yonkers. Margaret King Travis Lane inherited it from her mother when she married in 1936 and eventually donated it to the Westchester County Historical Society. According to a 1982 letter written by Margaret King Travis Lane to the Ardsley Historical Society (contained in its archives), the family quilt was allegedly lost by the Westchester County Historical Society. The only remaining image of the quilt is the one below, which, according to Margaret King Travis Lane, was unintentionally taken of the quilt as the attentive cat was the focal point of the picture. [4]
Lisa (in the baby carriage) and Linda Lane (Great Great Granddaughters of Capt. John King and daughters of Margaret King Travis Lane) showing Linda under the historic 1863 quilt watched over by “Blackie” the cat (Christmas Day, 1953) [5]
In 1903, Richard King married a second time to Celia Adeline Nicholson (who, at 38 years of age, was twenty years younger than Richard) in Detroit, Michigan. Interestingly, Celia’s father (like Richard’s) was born in England. Celia, born in Detroit in 1864, died in 1944 and is buried in Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery. [6]
In April 1892, ten years after being mentioned in the above-cited news report from Ashford, T.F. King (Thomas Felix King), the youngest brother of Richard Lawrence King and the youngest son of Captain John King, was mentioned in a news report from Highland Station, Michigan as being in Saginaw, Michigan:
Why was T.F. King in Saginaw? The answer is likely provided in the last entry in the below The Milford Times article from 1893, where he appears to be (not surprisingly) engaged in the pickle business:
Thirteen years earlier, in the 1880 Census for Greenburgh, Thomas King’s occupation was listed as a “Pickle Merchant.”
Arthur Silliman’s “Short, Informal History of Ardsley, NY” claims that T.F. King helped Henry J. Heinz set up a pickle factory in Michigan. When asked, Heinz historians advised the author they had no records of T.F. King working for the “57 Varieties” company. However, an extensive digital search of Michigan’s Newspapers uncovered the following notice from the September 24, 1894, edition of The Milford Times:
According to a pictorial history of Holly, following its acquisition by Heinz, Holly’s vinegar and pickle factory soon became the world’s largest. “Local farmers raised cucumbers from Heinz seed on contract. The long, wooden, one-story building was painted yellow with a large green pickle trademark which can be seen in the grainy photo below from 1913. It closed in 1931.” [7]
As evidenced by the below advertising brochure created by the Holly Board of Commerce, promoting Holly as an ideal location for the development and expansion of industry, Holly has long had a culture of economic boosterism. As a result, Holly has been spared the ills that have befallen nearby “rust belt” communities like Flint, which have suffered from divestment, deindustrialization, depopulation, urban decay, as well as high rates of crime, unemployment, and poverty.
In 1908, General Motors was established in Flint, Michigan. The "bumper sticker" slogan used by then-Vice-President Biden to promote President Obama's reelection, "Bin Laden Is Dead And General Motors Is Alive," captures the significance of General Motors in the American psyche. In addition to being the site of a health crisis that began in 2014 when the city’s drinking water was contaminated with lead that leached into its water pipes, Flint is the hometown of rock band Grand Funk Railroad who scored a number one hit with their 1973 song, “We're an American Band.” Grand Funk’s name came from a play on the name of the “Grand Trunk Railroad” that ran through Flint, as shown in the Holly, Michigan - The Hub business promotion brochure. Grand Funk’s frontman Mark Farner is of Cherokee heritage on his maternal side, and his mother was the first woman to weld on Sherman Tanks at General Motors Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan. Officially known as the M4, the Sherman tank was named after Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, known for “Sherman’s March,” in which he and his troops laid waste to the South from Atlanta to Savannah over 37 days beginning on November 15, 1864. The M4 was the successor to the M3 Lee, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee (however, the British version of the M3 was known as the Grant, for Union General Ulysses S. Grant).
Grand Funk Railroad has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, despite selling over 25 million records and selling out Shea Stadium faster than the Beatles did in 1965. They are, however, in the Michigan Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside fellow Michigan natives Madonna, Iggy Pop, Tommy James and the Shondells, and the legendary songwriting and production trio Holland-Dozier-Holland, who wrote over 40 number-one hit songs. Michigan's automotive industry drew economic migrants from North America, transforming the state into an influential incubator of twentieth-century music ranging from proto-punk (e.g., the MC5 (the MC representing "Motor City") to Motown to Techno. The Holly-Hub brochure also features Port Huron, the location of the Students for a Democratic Society convention in June 1962, which was sponsored by the United Auto Workers and resulted in the creation of the "Port Huron Statement," a comprehensive manifesto critical of American capitalism and its "Cold War" foreign policy. [8]
The Holly Hotel, a popular venue for events and a local Victorian styled landmark and several other structures and establishments, made up Holly's prized historic district. Unfortunately, they were destroyed in a massive fire of unknown origin on June 21, 2022, at the height of the wedding season. Even though many couples' wedding plans "went up in smoke," Holly's citizens and businesses quickly banded together and found substitute locations for the weddings, many of which had been postponed or affected by the pandemic.
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Fans of Simon & Garfunkel's matchlessly mellifluous song "America," which appears on their landmark 1968 concept album "Bookends," will immediately recognize Saginaw. "America'' was ostensibly inspired by a five-day road trip Simon took in 1964 with his then-British girlfriend, Kathy Chitty, after he was summoned to return to America before the release of Simon & Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday Morning 3 AM. At the same time, in 1964, country singer Lefty Frizzell had a number one song on Billboard’s Country Singles chart: Saginaw, Michigan, which earned him a Grammy Award nomination. Simon, on the other hand, believing his debut album would be a flop before it even came out, fled to Europe and eventually settled in England, where he played in coffee shops and wrote songs, including Red Rubber Ball, which he co-wrote with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. The Cyrkle, a band led by Don Dannemann of Eastchester, New York, and formed at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, later covered Red Rubber Ball. [9]
While Wednesday Morning 3 AM was, as Simon predicted, a commercial failure, one song, The Sound of Silence, began garnering radio airplay from regional college stations along the east coast. Unbeknownst to Simon, Tom Wilson, a staff record producer at Columbia Records and the song’s original producer, reacting to the new interest, remixed the folk music sound of the track by adding drums and electric instruments and released it as a single in September 1965. [10] To capitalize on the song’s ascendance up the pop charts (it would reach Number 1 in January 1966), Simon & Garfunkel reunited in England and started touring. [11]
Three months before competing with The Beatles' then-single "We Can Work It Out" for the top spot on the Billboard Pop Chart, local Saginaw disc jockey Bob Dyer had secured an appearance by Simon & Garfunkel for the reasonable price of $1250.00 at the Saginaw YMCA. The concert was held sometime in 1966, according to internet searches, but no precise date is given. Additionally, it is not mentioned in any biographies of Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, or Facebook tribute pages. Intrigued by this, I contacted the Saginaw Public Library, and Stacy McNally, Saginaw’s Local History & Genealogy Collection Librarian, researched the matter using their database of local newspapers. Hence, a Timepiece and global first. As shown by the below announcement in the December 21, 1965, Saginaw News, the actual appearance date by Simon & Garfunkel in Saginaw was Wednesday, December 29, 1965.
The January 8, 1966, edition of the Saginaw News contained this review which revealed Simon & Garfunkel performed twice during their evening in Saginaw:
In their interview with the Saginaw News, Simon & Garfunkel's homage to Bob Dylan was not surprising. As Richard X. Heyman, one of America's finest pop craftsman, observed about "America" in an email to the author:
When Bob Dylan unlocked the door to lyrical freedom, several of his contemporaries began to explore the varied landscapes that could accompany their musical ideas - Lennon, McCartney, John Sebastian, Jagger, Richards, John Phillips, Ray Davies, Joni Mitchell, Sam Cooke, Gene Clark, Marvin Gaye, to name a few, and right there at the beginning of this new world of songwriting was Paul Simon. America is a fine example of how far the artistry of songcraft under the banner of rock had come. Its attention to intimate detail, the no-rhyme lyric scheme, the adventurous production, the deceptively simple chord progression, and the wonderful singing of Paul and Art Garfunkel – all add to one of the most powerful and emotional listening experiences from the Golden Age.
Curiously, the first version of America would be performed in 1967 (before its release by Simon & Garfunkel on Bookends) by the Scottish progressive band 1-2-3/Clouds, where they performed it regularly at London’s Marquee Club. The uncanny attraction of the song to British artists would follow in 1971 by the rock band YES, who recorded a nearly 11-minute reimagined cover of the tune, partially influenced by 1-2-3/Clouds’s version. [12] A haunting rendition of America sung by David Bowie was the first song performed at the post 9/11 “Concert for New York City” held at Madison Square Garden on October 20, 2001, organized by Paul McCartney. [13] In 2016, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders used a portion of the song in a campaign commercial entitled “America.” Regrettably, Saginaw didn’t make the cut. Sanders' video, perhaps an example of American historical amnesia, overlooked that Saginaw is the birthplace of the incomparable American musical genius Stevie Wonder. Despite the exponential number of comments about the meaning or origins of America that can be found online (e.g.,https://www.songfacts.com/facts/simon-garfunkel/america) or elsewhere, one fact is rarely mentioned - the presence of members of the legendary Los Angeles based Wrecking Crew session musicians Hal Blaine on drums, Joe Osborn on bass, and Larry Knechtel on organ, which make the song, as observed by Heyman, extraordinary. Blaine’s crashing cymbals on the last verse are arguably unparalleled in American popular music and essentially make him a co-writer of this timeless track. [14] When Sanders was campaigning in the New York Democratic primary against Hillary Clinton, he revised the commercial to add images of the New Jersey Turnpike, referenced in the lyrics. [15] The Sanders campaign ad has been called one of the finest ever made. [16] America was also featured in the film “Almost Famous,” which won the Academy Award in 2000 for best original screenplay and 2001’s Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.
The moving rendition of "America" by Bert Sommer in 1969 at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair is frequently overlooked in the song’s discussions. In contrast to what is stated in his Wikipedia entry, Sommer did not attend Woodlands High School; instead, he enrolled at Ardsley High School as a sophomore in the fall of 1963 as a member of the Class of 1966.
Although Ardsley’s school records indicate Sommer only attended Ardsley High School for the first marking period, Sommer was well known to his Ardsley classmates. [17] As Sommer’s biographer Sharon Watts wrote in an email to the author:
Singer-songwriter Bert Sommer grew up in Hartsdale and teamed up with fellow Ardsley classmates to perform locally. He joined [classmate] William [Bill] Canfield and as the duo Bert and Bill, [recorded] a single in 1967: “You’re What Makes My Lonely Life Worth Living.'' Bert performed at Ardsley’s Chocolateria, and two years later, he took the stage at Woodstock and got a standing ovation with his interpretation of Paul Simon’s “America.”
The Chocolateria, an old-fashioned soda shop, was owned and run by the Pascone family. Originally a saloon and café, it was later converted into a luncheonette and finally into the “Choc.” During the summer days and on Friday and Saturday nights, after the store was closed, young people went for sundaes, to dance, to drink sodas, and to cool off while enjoying each others’ company. [18] In 1967, Sommer subsequently joined The Left Banke, whose songs “Walk Away Renée” and “Pretty Ballerina” are, with their use of strings and harpsichords, considered the pinnacle of the “baroque” style in rock. However, Sommer had joined a reconstituted Left Banke to capitalize on the subsequent success of these songs, which became hits after the original group had disbanded. As a member of the somewhat ersatz Left Banke, Sommer co-wrote the B-side of the 1967 single “Ivy, Ivy c/w And Suddenly” with Michael Brown, who had founded the original Left Banke. Lawsuits by the former band members caused the single to go nowhere, and Sommer never toured with the group. Nevertheless, the Washington, D.C.-based psychedelic pop band “The Cherry People” turned Sommer’s “And Suddenly” track into a minor hit in 1968. In the same year, Sommer starred along with Jennifer Warnes in the Los Angeles cast of the musical “Hair.” Warnes was the inspiration (his Kathy, so to speak) for “Jennifer,” Sommer’s opening song at Woodstock.
Nevertheless, despite his preternatural gifts as a songwriter, when you look up the word "forgotten" in the dictionary, you might see a picture of Sommer. Sommer, a protégé of Artie Kornfeld, one of the Woodstock music festival's creators and promoters, had just turned 20 and was supposed to kick off Woodstock. Instead, he became the third performer and sang several songs from his first album, The Road to Travel (released on Capitol Records in 1968), over the next forty minutes. Before starting his wistful ballad "And When It's Over," he mentioned the Vagrants had recorded by it and perhaps naively asked if anyone knew who they were.
A 2011 program on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” concerning the release of “I Can't Make a Friend,” a compilation of The Vagrants' complete body of work by Light in the Attic Records, contained the following:
“The Vagrants, between 1964 and '68, rose from a bunch of New York high-schoolers rehearsing in a basement in the Forest Hills section of Queens to playing for thousands of kids in clubs. Chances are, though, if you weren't in the audience, you've never heard the band. They got residencies in all of Manhattan's best clubs and visiting rock stars sat in with them. One of their gimmicks was to take a hit, like The Beatles' "No Reply," and slow it way, way down and turn it into a white soul showcase — a trick Vanilla Fudge later built a career on. A tall, skinny, troubled songwriter, Bert Sommer, began writing material for them, and they made some singles for Vanguard Records, but again, nothing.” [19]
After The Vagrants disbanded, Leslie Weinstein (now known as West) subsequently formed Mountain ((the band's name was allegedly bestowed by Sommer due to West's size and wide girth). Mountain, whose other musical heavyweight was Felix Pappalardi on bass guitar and vocals, appeared on day two of Woodstock and performed “Beside the Sea,” a song co-written by Sommer, Felix Pappalardi, and Pappalardi’s wife Gail. As a result, Sommer is the only artist at Woodstock who had a song of his performed by another act. [20]
Midway through his 1969 Woodstock set, Sommer engaged in a light=hearted exchange with an audience member (likely someone who refused to leave the towers where the speakers were) to whom he said, “Fuck You.” Brad Berger, Ardsley High School’s Class of 1965 Student Council President, in perhaps an early example of the burgeoning generation gap, tremembers Sommer uttering those exact words on the last day of school to high school principal Frank Kluge. As Berger cleverly noted in an email to the author, “Bert had a way with words.” Berger, an accomplished attorney, lecturer, and author became a legal advertising pioneer.. Woodstock would be known for Country Joe McDonald’s profane “Give me an F…” cheer he asked the audience to scream out before he launched into his anti-Vietnam War song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-to -Die-Rag'' linked here: The Fish Cheer
Kluge (1918-1998), a lifelong Ardsleyan, deserved better. While head of the mathematics department at Ardsley High School, he enlisted in the Coast Guard during the Second World War and saw action in several Mediterranean engagements. His name, as well as those of the founding generation of Ashford/Ardsley (i.e., King, Lawrence, Lefurgy, and Travis) is listed on the Roll of Honor memorializing the over 300 Ardsley male residents who served in the armed forces between 1941-1945, including 14 Ardsley High School students who made the supreme sacrifice 1941-1945 Roll of Honor. The Hartford Courant published a love story in 2019 how Kluge’s daughter Mary (who struggled socially as the high school principal’s daughter), married an Ardsley grade school classmate decades later. [21]
Toward the end of his Woodstock set, Sommer announced his upcoming song would be from Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends, which he was singing for “any Simon & Garfunkel fans.” Sommer then exquisitely intones the name of his next song, “America,” and in doing so, perfectly encapsulated the brief life (or myth) of “Woodstock Nation.” [22] Sommer ended his appearance with his song ”Smile,” and outside of “We're All Playing In The Same Band," a 1970 minor hit single he wrote backstage at the festival which bubbled under the top 50 songs on the pop chart, little else went right for Sommer over the next two decades.
The well-known Oscar-winning 1970 documentary Woodstock, which was directed by Michael Wadleigh, did not include Sommer. None of the ten songs he performed were on the soundtrack for the movie, which sold over two million copies. Even his name was left off a commemorative plaque identifying the festival's location in Bethel, New York in Sullivan County. [23] "It would be 40 years before part of Sommer's set at Woodstock, often referred to as the best of the first-day performances, would be documented in any appreciable way, in one of the lesser Woodstock box sets," according to a 2019 Phoenix New Times article. [24]
By that time, Sommer was gone.
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According to Margaret King Travis Lane’s memoir about her maternal great-grandfather Captain John King and his descendants (“Sloop Captain from Willow Point),” [25] Thomas Felix King was the last member of the family to operate the King family pickle works in Ardsley. Skipping over his years in Michigan, Margaret King Travis Lane wrote that in the early 1900s, Thomas King and his family moved to Rochester, New York. However, New York State’s 1905 census record indicates the King family living in nearby Greece, New York.
T.F. King and his family returned to Ardsley after nearly 15 years in Michigan before later relocating to Rochester. His son Ralph King worked for Yonkers-based Nepera Chemical, which George Eastman purchased in 1902. Some Nepera employees, including Ralph King, moved to Rochester, where the Eastman Kodak Company was based. Leo Baekeland, a Belgian immigrant, founded Nepera after inventing Velox, a type of photographic paper that allowed prints to be made using artificial light. After selling Nepera to Eastman, Baekeland invented Bakelite, ushering in the "age of plastics." [26]
In the opening scene of the 1967 film The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock (played by a young Dustin Hoffman) is awkwardly mingling with an affluent Southern California crowd at a graduation party arranged for him by his parents when a family friend offers one of the century's most famous pieces of cinematic advice: "I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: plastics." Of course, the Simon & Garfunkel song “Mrs. Robinson” is the musical centerpiece of ''The Graduate” film.
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As reported in the Highland Station section of The Milford Times (April 28, 1894), T.F. King was in a personal pickle:
As previously stated, King found work for Heinz in Holly, which solved his unemployment problem. Although King subsequently relocated to Rochester, unlike Bert Sommer, Michigan did not forget him. The Highland Township Historical Society erected a commemorative marker in 2014 that contains the following:
King Street honored Thomas F. King, manager of the Highland Pickle Works
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We end our road trip from Ardsley to Michigan in familiar King family territory with national historic significance. The Hill Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan (in Oakland County, home of Holly, Highland, and Waterford) will host an exhibition of Ardsley artist Ralph Fasanella: Portraits of American Life on September 16, 2022, following a hybrid symposium on Ralph Fasanella's Visionary Art at Michigan State University (previously known as Michigan Agricultural College where May Louise King, the granddaughter of Capt. King of Ashford/Ardsley, was a student 122 years ago) on September 14-15, 2022. [27]
King Street, Highland, Michigan
Endnotes:
[1] AHS graduates carry on siblings' legacies
[2] {Author’s note: All emails in this Timepiece have been lightly edited for clarity}A 2010 Michigan government report on the history of agriculture in the State noted that “The period following the Civil War was considered to be the golden age of agriculture in Michigan.” As the lumber industry declined, the number of family farms in Michigan increased.” Southwest Michigan RoadMap: The West Michigan Pike The State of Michigan arose from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established a procedure for adding new states to the Union from the Northwest Territory, thus advancing early Americans' westward expansion from the original 13 states to the Midwest region of the present-day United States. The Northwest Territory eventually became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. The remainder of Minnesota was formed from a portion of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
[3] May Louise King (1881-1957), the youngest child and only daughter of Richard L. King and Margaret Lefurgy, graduated from Waterford (Michigan) High School in 1899 with a class of five boys and six girls. In 1900, she entered Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State) in Lansing. She subsequently moved to Rochester and joined numerous King family members who worked for Eastman Kodak including her cousin, Ralph Davis “Bus” King (1885-1997) whose memories of Ardsley in the year 1900 can be found in Vol 26, No.2 of the Ardsley Historical Society Newsletter on the Society’s website. In 1908, she married Ardsleyan Walter J. Travis in Yonkers.Their daughter Margaret King Travis Lane, wrote extensive biographies of the King family. Included in the family papers she donated to the Ardsley Historical Society (which includes a copy of May Louise King’s 1899 high school diploma), is a report that Richard King, after ten years as a grocer in “Ardsley Square” (now “Addyman Square”), moved to Michigan as part of the extension of the King family’s pickle business. During one of the King family’s trips back to Ardsley, May’s mother Margaret took ill and died in Ardsley before they could return to Michigan. Margaret King Travis Lane and her parents May and Walter Travis later moved to Poughkeepsie where Walter operated a successful baking business. Travis Baking Co. made 30,000 loaves a day According to an August 19, 1957, obituary in the Poughkeepsie Journal, Walter was educated in Ardsley’s schools and, together with George Hicks, held many patents on automatic baking machinery.
[4] William J. Travis of Ardsley (who is depicted as a member of the Ardsley Hose Company in 1905 on page 108 of Fred and Patricia Arone’s book on Ardsley history, “Pictures of Our Past”), is identified as a co-investor with Hicks in the new corporations section of the 1906 Confectioners' and Bakers' Gazette Volume 28, Page 22. Hicks subsequently sold the company to Werner and Pfleidler which had a factory in Saginaw, Michigan, which had become a center for the manufacture of food and chemical equipment in North America. Today, Werner & Pfleiderer Bakery Technologies is part of the WP Bakery Group, the world's largest system supplier of artisan and industrial bakery technology. Walter’s father, Stephen Gregory Merrit Travis, was the first village treasurer when the Village of Ardsley was incorporated in 1896. In 1892, Walter and his father built a house that still stands at 485 Ashford Avenue in Ardsley and was once the office of Ardsley family physician George Newman (during which time it was painted “flamingo pink”). Dr. Newman’s wife, Frances Bessner Newman, was profiled in a 2001 Timepiece Ardsley's Woman of Valor
[5] Margaret Louisa Lane (nicknamed Lisa) lives in Ballston Spa (about 30 miles north of Albany) and advised the author she has a memoir written by her mother (Margaret King Travis Lane) recounting her early life in Ardsley which the Ardsley Historical Society plans to duplicate and add to its archives.
[6] Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul," born in Memphis, and David Ruffin, the lead singer of The Temptations, one of the most significant vocal groups of the 20th century, born in West Philadelphia, are both buried in Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery. Opened in 1863 during the Civil War, New York City's Woodlawn Cemetery is an otherworldly necropolis of notable members of nineteenth and early twentieth-century New York society.. https://www.woodlawn.org Currently located in the Bronx, it was formerly in Westchester County. Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis, and other notable musicians such as Celia Cruz (“Queen of Salsa”) are buried there as is former mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia (1882–1947).
[7] Les, Susanne J.., Mackler, Greta. Holly. United States: Arcadia, 2004. Heinz’s Holland, Michigan pickle factory (founded in 1898 and co-owed with Kraft Foods after its merger with Heinz in 2015), is now the world’s largest. During World War II, German prisoners of war worked at the factory and elsewhere in Michigan to address labor shortages caused by the war. German POW Camps in Michigan
[8] In 1960, a group of young conservatives gathered in Sharon, Connecticut, and issued The Sharon Statement, a one-page statement of principles. https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/ Tom Hayden, a former University of Michigan undergraduate/graduate student and editor of the Michigan Daily, read The Sharon Statement and, as the primary author, wrote the 64-page Port Huron Statement in response. For an examination of the two seminal 1960s documents that continue to reverberate today, see, The Port Huron Statement: A Manifesto at 50 Hayden later appeared in court as one of the Chicago 7 defendants accused of planning a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago by conspiring to cross state lines. A federal lawsuit concerning the First Amendment rights of four Ardsley High School students was brought about by efforts to raise money to fund the defense and was covered in a four part series in The Beacon, Volume 33, No. 2 - Volume 35, No. 1. (accessible on the Ardsley Historical Society website).
[9] The Cyrkle, whose unusual spelling of the word was suggested by John Lennon, were the only American band managed by Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. Red Rubber Ball sold over a million copies and hit No. 2 on the pop charts. The Cyrkle toured with The Beatles and were on the bill at their last American concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco (they would later play an impromptu concert on January 30, 1969, on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters in London at 3 Savile Road). Dannemann and co-founder Tom Dawes later became professional jingle writers. Before disbanding, The Cyrkle also enjoyed a second top 40 hit, Turn Down Day. Previously, members of what became The Cyrkle toured as a backing band with Simon & Garfunkel when Red Rubber Ball was offered to them after The Seekers turned it down.
[10] The Greatest Music Producer You've Never Heard Of
[11] During Simon’s initial visit to England in 1964 he met Kathy Chitty, a 17 year old part-time ticket taker at the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood, Essex. She is the muse for his most personal song, Kathy’s Song (1965), as well as his forlorn “Homeward Bound” which appeared on the duo’s third album“Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” (Columbia 1966). She appears with him on the cover of his 1965 solo debut album, The Paul Simon Songbook. Chitty is also referenced in Simon’s 1983’s nostalgic “The Late Great Johnny Ace.” (“It was the year of the Beatles. It was the year of the Stones. It was 1964. I was living in London. With the girl from the summer before.”) Simon performed "Homeward Bound" with George Harrison on the November 20, 1976, episode of Saturday Night Live. “America,” which appeared on Simon & Garfunkel’s landmark 1968 concept album “Bookends,” written in free verse (i.e., without any rhymes), contains the following the lyrics:
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America
Coincidentally, the Greyhound Bus Company was founded in Hibbing, Minnesota, Bob Dylan’s hometown. Saginaw is 371 miles from Pittsburgh. Hence, it is plausible it took Paul Simon four days to hitchhike from Saginaw to Pittsburgh.
[12] In 1967, 1-2-3 performed as a house band at London’s Marquee Club on Wardour Street. During their sets, they played “America,” a song that was learned from a demo tape cut by Paul Simon in 1966. “It has been said David Bowie, Keith Emerson (keyboardist of The Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer), and Rick Wakeman (later the keyboardist for YES) were present during the performances by 1-2-3 and that Wakeman's and Emerson's performance styles were both influenced by 1-2-3’s keyboardist, Billy Ritchie. Bowie later performed his own arrangement of “America” live using an Omnichord. 1-2-3 was only a three piece band, and beside Ritchie, it featured Ian Ellis on bass and vocals and Harry Hughes on drums. Although managed by Brian Epstein and later Robert Stigwood, 1-2-3 had little success. The band joined the Chrysalis management group and were rebranded as Clouds.” A detailed discussion of the historic links between America and the British versions of the song can be found here: America: Simon and Garfunkel; David Bowie; Yes.
[13] Thirty years earlier, in 1971, former Beatle George Harrison organized The Concert for Bangladesh, a charity event held at Madison Square Garden. Interestingly, John Lennon’s initial lyrics for his Dylanesque remembrance song “In My Life” focused on a bus trip around places in Liverpool including Penny Lane.Original “In My Life" handwritten lyrics Simon and Garfunkel, both from Queens, New York, did not appear at Woodstock or the two major Madison Square Garden benefit concerts. They did, however, headline a free concert on Central Park's Great Lawn Lawn on September 19, 1981, in support of efforts to restore the park following its neglect during the 1970s, allegedly in front of 500,000 people, which the press dubbed "another Woodstock." According to later estimates, the maximum number of people who could fit in the park space was 48,500. The crowd's raucous response to America's lyric "counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike'' prompted Simon and Garfunkel to repeat the refrain. The Concert in Central Park A car reference will likely be included in any well-known song about America. Rocket 88 (1951), regarded as one of rock's founding songs, is about an Oldsmobile automobile. Oldsmobile was established in Lansing, Michigan, as the Old Motor Vehicle Co. The automobile has been prominently featured in songs by American musicians such as Chuck Berry ("No Money Down," "You Can't Catch Me"), The Beach Boys ("409," "Fun, Fun, Fun"), Janis Joplin ("Mercedes Benz"), and Bruce Springsteen ("Racing in the Street," "Pink Cadillac").
[14] A little known Grammy Awards record held by Blaine, who died at 90 years old in 2019, is that he played on six consecutive Record of the Year winners:
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in 1966 for "A Taste of Honey"
Frank Sinatra in 1967 for "Strangers in the Night"
The 5th Dimension in 1968 for "Up, Up and Away"
Simon & Garfunkel in 1969 for "Mrs. Robinson"
The 5th Dimension in 1970 for "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In"
Simon & Garfunkel in 1971 for “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
Blaine, Osborn, and Knechtel were informally known as the “Hollywood Golden Trio,” referencing where they lived. Jack Nitzsche, a native of Michigan and a member of the Wrecking Crew, not only contributed to the creation of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, but his magnificent piano playing can be heard on numerous Rolling Stones albums, including the underappreciated 1965 single "Ride On, Baby," a musically daring but catchy (though somewhat misogynistic) baroque pop song that was only released in the United States on their 1967 album "Flowers" which can be heard at this link: Ride On, Baby Nitzsche later co-wrote the Oscar winning song “Up Where We Belong” for 1982’s romantic film “An Officer and a Gentleman,” a duet performed by Joe Cocker, who was catapulted to world-wide fame at Woodstock with his re-imagined version of the Beatles’ song “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and Jennifer Warnes. "Up Where We Belong" was co-written by Buffy Sainte-Marie (b. 1941) (then married to Nitzsche), the first Indigenous person to win an Oscar (Saint-Marie was born on a Cree Reservation in Canada and later adopted by a Massachusetts couple of Native American heritage). Sainte-Marie wrote the widely covered 1960s era songs “Universal Soldier” and “Cod’ine.”
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCd6-MZqPZg As Sanders explained, the advertisements were designed to show his candidacy was not a campaign, but a movement seeking a political revolution. Sanders eked out a victory over Clinton in the Michigan primary but lost to her in New York’s primary. Clinton would lose Michigan in the general election to Donald Trump by 0,23%, the narrowest margin of victory in Michigan presidential history and of any state in the 2016 presidential election. In 2020, although Trump did better at the polls than in 2016 including in Detroit, Biden won Michigan’s 16 electoral college votes by outperforming Hillary Clinton’s election tally to a degree that exceeded Trump’s gains. Trump's decision to hold rallies in Grand Rapids to end both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns served as evidence of how important Michigan was to him.
[16] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a41418/bernie-sanders-america-ad/
[17] While school records are usually confidential, a student’s privacy interest ends on death. Sommer died from respiratory failure at 41 on July 23, 1990. Accordingly, his school records were made available to the author by the School District pursuant to a freedom of information law request, Sommer is buried in Section 92 in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, NY.
[18] The Chocolateria, an old fashioned soda shop, was owned and run by the Pascone family. Originally a saloon and café, it was later converted into a luncheonette and finally into the “Choc.” During the summer days and on Friday and Saturday nights, after the store was closed, young people went for sundaes, to dance, to drink sodas and to cool off while enjoying each others’ company. (Ardsley Historical Society Newsletter, Vol.28, No. 2 (Summer 2013)). Today’s Ardsley Middle School students reenact this tradition by traipsing downtown along Ashford either during lunch or after school. Bill Canfield (Jr.) was one of nine children whose family lived on 193 Northfield Avenue in the Dobbs Ferry section of the Ardsley School District. Nearby is another King Street and further down Ashford is Lefurgy Avenue. Just off Northfield is 2 Russell Place where Dr. Edward Zuckerberg had a dental office adjacent to the family home where the co-founder and current CEO of Facebook (now Meta Platforms) grew up.
[19] A link to The Vagrants’ version of Sommer’s anthemic “And When It’s Over'' can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIN8fTX1cqA In 1983, Gail Collins Pappalardi, who contributed lyrics to songs by the rock group Mountain, which evolved from the Vagrants and co-wrote Cream's "World of Pain'' with Pappalardi and "Strange Brew'' with Pappalardi and Eric Clapton, and whose artwork appears on the covers of Climbing!, Nantucket Sleighride, Flowers of Evil, Mountain Live: The Road Goes Ever On, Twin Peaks and Avalanche, fatally shot her husband.. Pappalardi (1939-1983), who studied classical music at the University of Michigan before becoming a sought-after songwriter, session musician, bassist, vocalist, and producer, co-wrote Mountain's signature song "Mississippi Queen" in 1970, which remains a
[20] In 1983, Gail Collins Pappalardi, who contributed lyrics to songs by the rock group Mountain, and co-wrote Cream's "World of Pain'' with Pappalardi and "Strange Brew'' with Pappalardi and Eric Clapton, and whose artwork appears on the covers of Mountain’s albums Climbing!, Nantucket Sleighride, Flowers of Evil, Mountain Live: The Road Goes Ever On, Twin Peaks and Avalanche, fatally shot her husband Felix Pappalardi. Pappalardi (1939-1983), who studied classical music at the University of Michigan before becoming a sought-after songwriter, session musician, bassist, vocalist, and producer, co-wrote Mountain's signature song "Mississippi Queen" in 1970, which remains a classic rock staple. He is buried alongside his mother, Elia, in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. Gravesite of Felix Pappalardi
[21] Love Story: Decades after first crush, he still holds her dear
[22] Professor Gerard J. Degroot deconstructs all of the key 1960s events (e.g., Woodstock, a festival yes, a nation no, the Port Huron convention) in The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008) and flatly asserts Woodstock was a shallow commercial affair. Notably, the 30th anniversary event Woodstock 1999 was derided by attendees as "profitstock" and animated by the greed of the promoters, including Michael Lang, the original promoter of the 1969 festival, as explored in the recently released Netflix documentary miniseries Trainwreck: Woodstock '99.
[23] However, in the documentary, Joan Baez, startled by the roar of the crowd, is seen backstage asking “Who’s on?” A member of the Festival Staff replies: ``A guy named Bert Sommers (sic) and, I think, Timmy Hardin is going on next.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJt8QP2xc4
[24] Remembering Bert Sommer 50 Years After He Refused to Open Woodstock
[25] Published in The Westchester Historian (Spring 1970, Vol 45, No. 2 and now linked on the Digital Archives section of the Ardsley Historical Society’s website.
[27] MSU Fasanella Symposium The Timepiece profiled Fasanella in Zingarella de Ardsley