Professor Hamilton's Diary: April 16, 1935

He does research in Waterloo; 'fiend runs amuck,' slaughtering cattle

Professor Hamilton drove an hour and a half to the town of Waterloo to do research for his dissertation on New York’s early American printers and newspaper publishers. He found the library closed. Undeterred, “I tried the newspaper office, the Episcopal rector’s home, & two other places, & and finally saw the librarian in the library & gained admittance."

Apparently she was one of those librarians who wanted to keep everything to herself. She “reluctantly” allowed him into the upper reaches of the building you see in this postcard and he worked steadily for more than three hours, missing lunch, but got much valuable material.

He drove back to Rose’s house through sleet and snow. There they had a discussion of their sister’s estate with a man who might have been the lawyer or executor. “No agreement,” he wrote cryptically. “Later, after supper, Rose, Edna & I went for a ride in Rose’s new car.”

Back in Reading, two Berks County farmers were appalled to find more than a dozen of their cows mutilated and dying in two separate barns. Paid subscribers can read on about this fiendish bovine crime.

This vintage postcard of the Waterloo library, with the Episcopal Church next door, is being offered on eBay.