History, Natural History & the Arts
One of the important historical figures of Clinton County, who is not often mentioned, is Dr. William Beaumont (1785 – 1853), considered “The Father of Gastric Physiology.”
His name is honored across the nation on schools and hospitals and locally on historic markers, a SUNY Plattsburgh building, and a local medical practice. [Read more…] about William Beaumont, Father of Gastric Physiology
Clinton County, NY is noted for its extensive and influential military history – we helped save the United States from invasion in the first naval battle of the Revolutionary War just off Lake Champlain’s Valcour Island, and we help end the War of 1812 with Macdonough’s victory off the lake’s Cumberland Head. But there is more. Clinton County is also noted for its agricultural history – apples, maple syrup, milk production, and potatoes. [Read more…] about Potato Farming: A Four Generation Story
Many people from Clinton County, NY have ancestors from Ireland or Canada. In the 1850 census, in the Town of Ausable, one in four people were born in Canada or Ireland. In the Town of Clinton, every other person would have been born in Canada or Ireland. In the whole of Clinton County in 1850, only half could claim to be born in New York, as was the case for the Town of Black Brook. [Read more…] about Clinton County’s Irish Immigrant Legacy
Lucy Beaman Hobbs was born in Constable, in Northern New York, raised in Ellenburg and later schooled in Malone. Early in her life she made it her mission to earn her living by the use of her brain, not by the sweat of her brow. One obstacle stood in the way more than others – she was a woman. [Read more…] about Lucy Hobbs Taylor: Northern NY’s ‘Girl Against the World’
An advertisement for The Hagey Institute first appeared in the Plattsburgh Sentinel in November of 1893 as an establishment which provided the “gold cure,” a permanent cure for the disease of addiction to liquor, morphine, opium and nicotine.
Offered was a “golden opportunity” for an absolute cure in just 21 days. With this promise, The Hagey Institute opened for business on November 4th, 1893 in the Winslow Block across from the Witherill Hotel on Margaret Street in Plattsburgh, Clinton County, NY. [Read more…] about The Hagey Institute’s Gold Cure for Addiction
Plattsburgh, from the 1860s through to the Second World War, was a manufacturing center for the 5 cent cigar. The smell of a quality cigar could be detected walking down Margaret Street between Court and Broad Streets. What began with small businesses in the late 1860s, turned into a major cigar manufacturing industry for the City of Plattsburgh thanks to the Scheier, Mendelsohn, Levy, Merkel and Payette families, to name a few.
The handmade cigar industry in Plattsburgh employed dozens of workers and produced thousands of cigars. [Read more…] about Plattsburgh’s Cigar Industry: 1860s-1940s