Lawrence in 1942.

Part 1 – Before the War

Lawrence P. Belmont was born on November 18, 1923 in Walton, NY, a small community in the Catskill Mountains of Delaware County. The town was bisected by the West Branch of the Delaware River, boasted a small armory, two railway stations, and a toy and a piano factory. To the southeast was Bear Spring Mountain. To the northwest, Northfield Mountain, with its fabled railway tunnel bored through 4,000 feet of solid rock.

Walton’s main drag, Delaware Street, circa 1936. Courtesy Walton Historical Society.

Lawrence’s father, Samuel, was an Italian immigrant (arriving at Ellis Island at age 16 in 1911 from the village of Chiaramonte in the province of Potenza) who worked in various capacities for the New York, Ontario & Western Railroad (NYO&W, aka the “Old & Weary); his mother, Angelina (born 27 October 1895 in New York City), was a housewife who had raised Lawrence, his sister Virginia, and his brothers John and Sam, Jr. through the Great Depression. The Belmont family (the original name, Belmonte, was changed on Samuel’s immigration papers) lived on St. John Street on the west side of Walton.

The O&W and its three creameries were what put Walton on the map in those days. Our house butted right up against the railroad tracks. You could go out the backdoor and catch a train if you wanted. They were all steamers back then, in the early 40s. I can still remember the numbers of the old engines being called out as the trains pulled out, either heading north to Oswego, or south to Weehawken, New Jersey. My father had an outhouse right alongside the tracks. When the train pulled in for a stop, he didn’t even have to come inside when he had to go!

Lawrence, on living in a railroad town before the war

Their two-story house, Number 29, was built on a triangular wedge of land bordered by a Mobil gas storage facility, the O&W right-of-way, and a railroad cut spanned by a small wooden road bridge. The bridge was known as “Dry Bridge,” and had gotten its name from Prohibition days.

The O&W railroad yard on Walton’s West side, viewed from “Dry Bridge.” The first house in view left of center on the embankment is the Belmont house at 29 St. John Street (the street at left). The station is in the distance just to the right of the water tower. At right is the three-stall engine house where locomotives were serviced. Beyond the embankment at right is a swampy area that was used as a dump for the local residents that could be traversed by paths laid out in cardboard and scrap wood over the soft ground, and, further on, Sheffield Pond, which provided ice in Winter for the O&W’s numerous milk cars.

When you crossed Dry Bridge, you were in the Italian section of Walton, and that’s where all the booze was made. Go north, and you could get wet so to speak; south, you couldn’t buy a drink. This section was also called ‘Wop Hill.’ (Webmaster’s Note: “wop,” a common epithet for Italian-Americans, was derived from an immigration acronym, WOP, meaning “without papers.”) Nearly all of the Italian families up there were bootleggers. After the end of prohibition in 1933, Walton went dry again in 1936, so the Italians continued to make their own liquor. My father used to make 500 gallons of cider and 200 gallons of wine every year. Most families had a barrel of both.

Lawrence, on why it was called Dry Bridge

Walton, in addition to its trio of creameries (including the famous Breakstone’s, which produced a great deal of southern New York’s cheese and other dairy goods) and small wood product and toy factories, was one of the smallest places in the state to have a National Guard Armory. The red brick armory, still standing guard on the south bank of the river opposite the Bridge Street bridge, resembles a castle, and even features turrets and parapets.

Before the war, it was home to Company F of the 106th Infantry Regiment of the 27th Division, which was federalized in October 1940. After leaving Walton, this unit went on to Fort McClellan , Alabama, and then Hawaii in March 1942. The company saw action on Eniweitok, Saipan, and Okinawa. After Company F left Walton, New York formed a State Guard, which I joined just prior to going into Federal service.

Lawrence, on the armory
Walton’s Stockton Avenue Armory, sometime between World Wars I and II. Left of center on a patch of grass can be seen Company F’s ceremonial Civil War mortar (one of only two of its type ever made). The mortar was scrapped in 1942 as part of a nationwide metal recycling program, though it took a local contractor two days to load the 13-ton gun onto his trucks. Today, a memorial to the 24 Waltonites killed in World War II stands on the spot occupied by the mortar. Postcard from the Webmaster’s collection.

New York State in the 1930s and 40s was one of the Nation’s leading producers of dairy products. It would not take the war long to get to this part of the state, however. A few miles from Walton, in Sidney, the Scintilla Magneto Company, a Swiss firm headquartered in New York City and a Delaware County fixture since 1925, was gearing up for war production. Bought by the Bendix Corporation in 1929, the factory was beginning to add extra shifts to increase the production of magnetos for American fighter planes.

Walton was very rural. It had the railroad, a creamery, and a few small factories, but once you were a mile out of town, it was either woods or farms. It wasn’t unusual for a bear to come down off the mountain and take a walk around town.

Lawrence, on Delaware County in the 1930s
Lawrence often talked about walking across the top of the old steel bridge over the Delaware River when he was in his teens.
The bridge is at left in this 1930s view of the center of town from the armory tower. Note the low trestle carrying
the O&W railroad tracks along the opposite riverbank.

I used to do all kinds of things. Sometimes, you didn’t get paid, but you got something in return. I used to work at Smalley’s Movie Theater. The building is still there today and they still use it to show movies. On the second floor on the outside they hung billboards about three feet tall and I had to hang up letters to spell out what movie was playing. They kept a ladder on the second floor and I use to put it over the railing all the way down to the sidewalk. I had to change the letters at 11 o’clock at night after the first movie was out, because there usually would be a different movie the following day … they showed three or four pictures a week those days. In the winter time it was terribly cold changing the letters. My pay was that I got into all the movies for free. It was an all-purpose building. They held the high school graduation there. Also upstairs were two courtrooms. They also had a big stage with a curtain and behind the screen upstairs they had dressing room. In the back they had the Village Clerk’s office and a garage for two firetrucks. It had a balcony also where people could watch the movies — that’s where all the high school kids sat.

Lawrence, on one of the many jobs he had before the war
A program honoring local Boy Scouts kicks off on the front steps of Smalley’s Theater, 1940. We are left to wonder if it was Lawrence who put the messages on the twin marquees. Via Walton Historical Society.
A wider shot of the building reveals that not much had changed eight years later, when Smalley’s was showing
“The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) with 1948’s “The Emperor Waltz” advertised as a coming attraction.

On to Part II – Pearl Harbor