The Altamont Enterprise, Feb. 12, 1915
A COMMUNICATION.
To the Altamont Enterprise:
We have heard some statements which are being circulated which are not true and which evidently are intended to injure the Town Insurance company, so we ask you to print the following:
To Whom It May Concern:
There are statements being circulated which are misleading and untrue. These statements are, that the house, with store attached, belonging to Benjamin Crounse, was insured as a private dwelling, and that the insurance of Sanford Becker was raised after the fire. Those statements are false, and are made either through the ignorance of the parties making them, or with malicious intent to injure the Insurance Company...The Town Insurance company is a mutual insurance association for the benefit of its members, who are practically all neighbors; and when we pay an assessment for a fire we know where it goes. It does not make anyone presents; nor does it take advantage of any technical points and try to cheat the assured out of his insurance when he meets with a loss. It has, in common with all other insurance companies, been unfortunate in the amount of losses, as all companies will tell you there never was a year in which there have been so many fires as in the past year. Most other companies have raised their rates, especially on barn buildings and public property, some agents even going so far as to attempt to induce farmers to insure their houses with them and leaving their barn buildings for the Town company, charging 85 cents per hundred on houses and $1.15 on barn buildings. But we are not quite asleep and will not insure any farm barn buildings unless we insure the houses also. We are not like most stock companies, having salaried officers and transacting the business to make money thereby; we have seven directors and an agent; they receive a fee for just what they do, and no more. In our annual report to the state insurance department (which we have to make every year) we received the credit of being one of the most economically conducted companies in the state for the amount of business transacted.
William S. Waggoner, Agent, Guilderland Town Insurance Co.
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The Appeal of the Famished Belgians.
The nation-wide appeal that is now being made on behalf of the starving Belgian people is being generously responded to by the Altamont merchants. Mr. Mynderse, Pangbarn Bros., Mr. Lainhart, M. Snyder and Mr. Harrington have displayed window signs asking for the help of their patrons in purchasing non-perishable food materials, such as flour, rice, coffee, peas, beans, canned goods, and dried fruits. The boxes are already placed, ready to be filled, and in some cases special boxes have been prepared. Special prices have been fixed in the hope that the desperate need that has fallen on those people will meet a ready response. Any help, however small, will be appreciated. Albany has been made a distributing station, a warehouse having been donated for the purpose. The car will leave for New York on March 1st, and all transportation charges will be paid for by the Belgian relief commission.
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THE NEW STATE ROAD
From Schenectady to Dunnsville Will Probably Continue Through Altamont — Survey Made on Maple Avenue This Week.
At the meeting of the Board of Trustees of our village, held on Wednesday evening of this week, Mr. Kirk, the village president, called attention to the fact that the road leading from the northern boundary of the village to Dunnsville and known as the Dunnsville-Altamont road, would probably be built the coming season. Mr. Kirk then introduced a resolution petitioning the State Department of Highways to construct a macadam road sixteen feet wide through the village to connect the Dunnsville road with the macadam road on Main Street, and running from the northern boundary of the village on the Dunnsville road southerly to Western avenue thence westerly on Western avenue to Maple avenue, thence on Maple avenue to County road No. 849 on Main street. The resolution was penned by a unanimous vote and has been forwarded to the commission at Albany.