VOORHEESVILLE —Library patrons can drink while learning about temperance on June 6.

Dennis Sullivan, the village historian and an Enterprise columnist, has taken a deep dive into the temperance movement in New Scotland at the turn of the last century.

He will be presenting his findings at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. After his lecture, an erstwhile Enterprise columnist, Jesse Sommer, a lawyer who founded New Scotland Spirits, will pour some of his locally distilled spirits for the 21-and-over crowd.

Sullivan’s research — with detailed endnotes making up about half of the pages — is laid out in his recently published 60-page book.

The front cover depicts a figure reminiscent of Joan of Arc riding side saddle as she virtuously slashes the barrels of liquor at her feet.

The back cover reproduces more period art — this time of an alluring young woman, just her head and bare shoulders, with the words: Lips that touch Whiskey are lips that will Never touch Mine.

The pages in between tell the colorful story of the temperance movement in Albany County in 1905, focusing on the New Scotland Law and Order League, and the case it pursued against Elmer Peters’ Hotel in town.

Sullivan says he gleaned much from old copies of The Altamont Enterprise.

“The paper is so open to the voices of the people in the region,” he said.

He noted “a sense of disgust” at some of the activities of the Law and Order League.

His book quotes the Enterprise’s Voorheesville correspondent: “A new fad is taking place in this village. For instance, if a person happens to indulge too much in a certain drink and gets in a comatose condition, some of the ‘smart ones’ applies a mixture of oil and lampblack to their physiognomy.”

Sullivan likens this to tarring and feathering on the streets of Voorheesville.

The book centers on a court case brought by the league against Elmer Peters’ Hotel, complete with evidence supplied by a hired detective from Albany.

“As a historian of the village of Voorheesville,” said Sullivan, “I had access to Methodist church records in their safe.”

The inch-think document in the church safe detailed the court case.

The man who led the League was Frank Van Auken; he lived in a house just two doors down from where Sullivan lives today on Voorheesville Avenue. A Methodist, Van Auken was also in charge of religious education for the young.

“What would be his take on morality?” asks Sullivan.

Sullivan posits that news today of young people struggling with mental health problems is due to a loss of grounding, a sense of place, which he calls the cousin of “having a purpose in life.”

He also notes that different communities at the turn of the last century adopted their own laws on drinking alcohol.

“The Town of Guilderland didn’t take kindly to prohibition in those days,” he writes. “They voted for drink pretty much every chance they got.”

Sullivan leaves the reader with this question: Has the social DNA of those times affected who we are today?