My grandfather, Ed Fitzgerald, was the mayor of Troy in the 1950’s. I was one when he died, so I never got a chance to meet him. They used to call him “Dynamite Ed”.
I’m a research preservationist, and I work for the State Historic Preservation office. I just finished leading a mystery tour in Troy, all about the song "Jingle Bells".
See, the song was written by James Lord Pierpont, but there’s been some debate about where it was written. For a long time, the city of Medford, Massachusetts claimed that he wrote it there. They even had a plaque. Then, in 1969, the city of Savannah, Georgia uncovered information that at the time it was published, he was the organist of a church down in Savannah! So the mayors of both cities started a letter war, writing snippy letters to each other about who had the rightful claim.
Here’s the thing, though: Savannah, Georgia doesn’t really have snow. Troy does... and we know that Pierpont lived in Troy for many years before he moved to Massachusetts or Georgia. So I told our mayor that he should write them both “how dare they” letters and claim authorship. *laughs*