By the time the month of October rolled around in 1925, the people of Sullivan County were all abuzz about a hotly contested race for District Attorney between two highly respected young lawyers.

Republican Sydney F. Foster of Liberty and Democrat William Deckelman of Jeffersonville were squaring off in the contest to succeed Henry F. Gardner, who had declined to seek re-election after three terms in office.

Foster was born in 1893 in Cazenovia, New York, the son of a farmer. He had come to Sullivan County around 1920 after a stint in the Army and as the deputy county clerk in Madison County. He had ably assisted Gardner in the prosecution of Smith Loomis in a highly publicized murder trial earlier in 1925, and when Gardner announced he would be stepping down as D.A., seemed the logical choice to replace him. Republicans had wasted no time in offering him the nomination.

“His experience and ability are available to the people of the county, and his appeal to the voters is based on no other grounds,” the Liberty Register (a Republican newspaper at the time) reported in its October 29, 1925 edition. “His reputation for honesty and integrity is unquestioned. His character is assurance of the fact that he will not be swayed by passion or prejudice in the conduct of office or permit the high functions of the office to be perverted for malicious or private ends.”

Deckelman was born and raised in Obernberg in Sullivan County, and graduated from Callicoon High School. He became a state certified teacher before attending Albany Law School, graduating in 1917. He passed the bar examination that same year.

In 1919 he took over the Jeffersonville law practice of Robert McGinn, who had died, and “through his diligence and aptitude in the law has developed a large practice and come to be regarded as one of the leading young lawyers in this part of the state,” according to a biographical sketch distributed by his campaign. “His counsel and aid are sought in many important legal cases and he has met with marked success in the practice of his profession.”

After a spirited-- but totally clean-- campaign, Foster emerged victorious on Election Day, garnering 6,851 votes to 5,934 for Deckelman, as the Republican ticket, led by the popular incumbent Assemblyman J. Maxwell Knapp of Hurleyville, dominated at the polls in the heaviest turnout in county history up to that point.

Foster hit the ground running once in office, handling the complicated murder trial of young Charles B. Wise, accused in the shooting death of Nina Vilona in Bittersweet in the summer of 1926, during which he conducted himself admirably, though the jury found Wise not guilty.

Foster would serve only one three-year term as D.A., and although he was unanimously nominated by his party to run again, he declined, choosing to run for the Supreme Court in 1928, a race he won. He eventually served in the Appellate Division and was appointed to the New York State Court of Appeals by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1960, winning election to the seat later that same year. He served on the state's highest court until the mandatory retirement age of 70, retiring in 1963. At that point he returned to Sullivan County as a certified trial jurist for four more years. He died at the age of 80 in 1973.

Following his defeat, Deckelman was appointed special Sullivan County Judge in 1927. He would be elected District Attorney in 1933 and went on to serve for ten years, prosecuting a number of high profile cases, including that of Irving “Big Gangi” Cohen, the mobster tried and acquitted in June of 1940 for` the icepick murder of Walter Sage in July of 1937. Although out of office, he assisted newly elected D.A. Ben Newberg in the successful 1944 prosecution of Jack Drucker in the Sage murder.

Deckelman became Sullivan County Court Judge in 1949 and was State Supreme Court Judge from 1953 to 1959. He died in Jeffersonville in 1975. He was 81.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.