Glens Falls in 1918 — Charlotte Hyde’s cousins

Maury Thompson
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

I call Samuel Pruyn, the cousin of Charlotte Hyde, Mary Hoopes and Nell Cunningham of The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y., “the other Samuel Pruyn,” to avoid confusion with the three sisters’ father, also named Samuel Pruyn.

The other Samuel Pruyn, who died in 1978, worked 50 years for Finch, Pruyn & Co., including 15 years as vice president.

He was a leader in the Glens Falls Chamber of Commerce effort to develop the old Floyd Bennet Field on Aviation Road in Queensbury.

And he was a pall bearer at the funeral of Glens Falls native Robert Porter Patterson, who served as under secretary of war and secretary of war in the F.D.R. and Truman administrations.

Before all of that, the other Samuel Pruyn drove an ammunition truck for the American Field Service in France during World War I, first serving in the French Army and later in the United States Army.

The Post-Star on Sept. 10, 1918 published a letter the other Samuel Pruyn wrote home to his family on Aug. 18, 1918 from Paris, where he was on a week’s furlough.

Pruyn said the furlough came as a welcome surprise, as he had been working almost round-the-clock since May 27.

“My furlough came very unexpectedly. We had just finished up on one front when we were moved to another,” he wrote. “At the time we did not know the reason, but, as long as it is history now, I can say that it was not for another offensive.”

“We worked night and day for a week, when one morning, three days ago the lieutenant came to me and said I was going on furlough,” he continued. “Believe me, it didn’t take long to get ready, either. Inside of an hour I was on my way to Paris.”

The Army put Pruyn and John Santos of Ohio, a former captain of the Cornell University baseball team, up at a hotel in Paris.

The YMCA had taken over the Aix-les-Rains gambling casino and converted it to a recreation center that U.S. soldiers could use free of charge until 11 p.m. daily.

“There are billiard tables, an immense reading room and writing room, tea rooms, movies, a vaudeville house, etc. It was a great gambling place before the war,” Pruyn wrote. “The only comparative place near home that I can think of is Canfield’s Saratoga, and this is so much more wonderfully decorated, etc., and so much larger, that you could put six or seven Canfields inside of it.”

There were tennis courts and a golf course, where Pruyn played 18 holes.

“With rented clubs, not too good,” he wrote.

Golfing made him nostalgic for Glens Falls Country Club.

“The same old locker-room conversations, same old alibi, etc., and I really felt like I was up at Round Pond,” he wrote. “All it needed was ‘Puff’ Leavens shouting, ‘highball, Leonard,’ and A. B. Colvin deliberating on the ethics of golf to Albert Fowler to be the same.”

While the other Samuel Pruyn was serving in France, another cousin was volunteering at home.

Genevieve Pruyn was in charge of the Red Cross clothing collection for Belgian relief, heading up an operation on Warren Street, The Post-Star reported on Sept. 21, 1918.

The Glens Falls Red Cross had a goal of collecting six tons of fall and winter clothing, The Post-Star reported on Sept. 18, 1918..

Post-Star reports referenced in this post can be found at the New York State Historic Newspapers website, a project of public libraries.

Maury Thompson is a freelance historian of politics, labor organizing and media in New York’s North Country. He lives in Glens Falls, N.Y.