In 1873 a pair of Oneonta businessmen initiated the Oneonta Fair, an endeavor that would grow into the second largest fair in the State and become known as the Central New York Fair. For one week in September thousands of visitors would fill Oneonta streets and hotels, coming from as far away as New England and Pennsylvania. The Fair offered acrobats, wild animals, midway rides, public weddings, parachute jumpers, horse races, and even the Golden Globe of Death The most popular attraction was the Floral Parade, a procession of horses and floats decorated with hundreds of thousands of flowers, and which drew crowds of 30,000 in a single day. The Fair always tried to provide sensational new attractions, featuring an airship in 1906 and the first airplane in 1910. But, due to the increasing popularity of the automobile during the 1920's, fairgoers began staying only one day, and attendance began to drop off. In 1927 the Fair was canceled, its iconic and beautiful buildings torn down, and the fairgrounds developed into building lots to create what is today the Belmont Circle neighborhood. Peppered with colorful characters and a sense of nostalgia, the story of the Oneonta Fair has been recovered by author and historian Jim Loudon, who has collected images, facts, and personal memories from those who can still recall this fond chapter in Oneonta's history. Illustrated and indexed. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jim Loudon is a native of Otsego County and currently resides in the West End of Oneonta. He graduated from the State University of Oneonta in 1972 with a BS in Liberal Arts, majoring in art and history. In 1982 he organized the Leatherstocking Railway Historical Society which currently operates the Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley Train Ride, on which he as worked as Brakeman and Conductor. Jim has written three books on local history: The Oneonta Roundhouse, Leatherstocking Rails, and Electric Lake.

This book is a comprehensive history of the town of Otego, located in New York state. It covers the town's founding and growth, as well as important events and figures throughout its history. Blakely draws on a wide range of sources to tell the story of this small town and its place in American history. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Heaven's Wrath explores the religious thought and religious rites of the early Dutch Atlantic world. D. L. Noorlander argues that the Reformed Church and the West India Company forged and maintained a close union, with considerable consequences across the seventeenth century. Noorlander questions the core assumptions about why the Dutch failed to establish a durable empire in America. He downplays the usual commercial explanations and places the focus instead on the tremendous expenses incurred in the Calvinist-backed war and the Reformed Church's meticulous, worried management of colonial affairs. By pinpointing the issues that hampered the size and import of the Dutch Atlantic world, Noorlander revises core notions about the organization and aims of the Dutch empire, the culture of the West India Company, and the very shape of Dutch society.