by Alex Brooks
On Saturday, November 1, a group of Petersburgh elders, Veterans and Town officials gathered to move the newly refurbished aircraft observation post from Rolland Hewitt’s yard, where it had been rebuilt, to a spot prepared for it between the Veterans Memorial Hall and the Library. The Town loader was called into service to carry the building with Town Highway Superintendent Ray Harrison to drive it.
After an hour or so spent securing the building to the loader, a little procession started down River Road, with Emily Harrison driving the Town pick-up truck in the lead, with blinking lights in the front and rear of the convoy, over the Little Hoosic and up to Hewitt Road, along Route 22 under the Route 2 bridge and into the Town yard.
The building was set on blocks prepared in advance, and the whole process went rather smoothly. In the week since then, Mason Hubbard, Rolland Hewitt and others have been continuing to work on the building to get it ready for this weekend’s Veterans Day festivities.
The Building’s History
The Observation Post was originally built by Lawrence Hewitt in July of 1942 on the eastern crest of Twin Hill, behind where the Library is now. It was part of the Aircraft Warning Service created in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor to prevent surprise attacks by air. Over 50 local volunteers were trained to serve as aircraft observers, and they took turns manning the observation post 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until the close of the war. Howard M. Mills was the chief observer and Byron C. Jones was the assistant chief.
Over 16,000 observation posts were established at strategic locations across the United States, and these were a significant part of the home front mobilization for civil defense during the war.
The building was outfitted with a woodstove for heat, a single bulb for light, binoculars, images of airplane profiles and a crank telephone to report sightings. A report of an aircraft sighting took priority over all other traffic on the telephone, and the information about it was reported to the Air Defense Filter Center in Syracuse. All of the aircraft sighted over Petersburgh turned out to be friendly.
Early in the Cold War, the little building was moved to North Petersburgh and was used again as an observation post, this time looking for Russian planes, but as radar technology improved, its use was discontinued. At some point the building was moved to a corner of H. V. Hewitt & Sons Lumber Yard, and there it sat until this year.
Petersburgh Town Supervisor Mason Hubbard saw the building in the background of an old picture, taken just after the war, of the site where the Veterans Memorial Hall was about to be built. He asked Rolland Hewitt if the Observation Post building still existed. The two of them found it and resolved to rebuild it to commemorate the vigilance of the people of Petersburgh during the Second World War. Rolland Hewitt, a skilled carpenter and the son of the original builder, rescued many of the original parts of the building and used them to rebuild the Post, matching as exactly as possible the original.
A Dedication Ceremony will be held for the rebuilt Observation Post on Saturday, November 8, at 4 pm. At 4:30 there will be tours of both the Observation Post and the Veterans Memorial Hall renovations, followed by a Pot Luck Supper at 5 and music by the Hill Hollow Band starting at 6. The public is invited to these festivities.