History, Natural History & the Arts
This week on “The Historians” podcast, Dennis Webster looks back at a precedent setting murder case in his new book, Murder of a Herkimer County Teacher: The Shocking 1914 Case of a Vengeful Student. (History Press, 2017)
Listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about Murder of a Herkimer County Teacher in 1914
The Fort Plain Museum’s 3rd Annual American Revolution Mohawk Valley Conference is back for 2017 and registrations are now being accepted. Space is limited and pre-registration is required.
The Conference will be held June 8 to 11, 2017. There will be 10 presentations, 2 bus tours, a colonial tavern/dinner, an opening reception and more. [Read more…] about 3rd Annual American Revolution Mohawk Valley Conference Set
The Fort Plain Museum has announced the return of its popular Fall Lecture Series. On Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 7 pm at the museum located at 389 Canal Street in Fort Plain, the museum presents “War on the Middleline – The Founding of a Community in the Kayaderossras Patent in the Midst of the American Revolution” by James Richmond. This is the first of four lectures that will take place at the museum.
James will focus on the Revolutionary War in Saratoga County and the surrounding area beyond the 1777 Battles at Saratoga. [Read more…] about War on the Middleline: The Founding of Kayaderosssras Patent
The Little Falls Journal and Courier proclaimed in a banner headline on their July 4th, 1916 edition that the celebration for the completion of Lock 17 “will go down in history.”
The paper stated that the pageantry and parades of the previous Friday and Saturday were a tremendous success. “Nothing so elaborate, so gorgeous, so successful from an historic, an artistic and idealistic point of view was ever before undertaken in this city… The crowd on Friday was conservatively estimated at four thousand and on Saturday it was as large or larger.”
Featured throughout the festivities were the recently arrived immigrant communities, the “New Americans” that Governor Whitman especially recognized in his remarks that Friday. [Read more…] about Little Falls’ Lock 17: An Engineering Marvel
This week “The Historians” podcast features Brian Mack of the Fort Plain Museum in the Mohawk Valley who has led an effort on social media to draw attention to the region’s importance during the American Revolution. Through social media and the launch of a yearly conference, Mack and Norm Bollen of the Fort Plain Museum have reached out to historic sites clustered near Exit 29 of the New York State Thruway. You can listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about The Revolutionary War And The Mohawk Valley
This week “The Historians” podcast features an interview with Jane Spellman, author of Women Belong in History Books: Herkimer and Oneida Counties, 1700-1950.
Retired as executive director of the Herkimer County Historical Society, Spellman and over twenty women worked on research for this book. You can hear listen to “The Historians” podcast online here. [Read more…] about Women in History: Herkimer and Oneida Counties
The Fort Plain Museum is taking the lead in organizing a new marketing association for the Mohawk Valley’s numerous 18th century historic sites. The new association will work to promote eight historic sites in western Montgomery County all within 4 to 6 miles of Exit 29 on the New York State Thruway.
Billed as “Mohawk Country, America’s First Frontier” the association’s first marketing effort has targeted the month of July. [Read more…] about Mohawk Country Heritage Association Forms
Senator Chuck Schumer, Congressman Chris Gibson, and Governor Andrew Cuomo have all been in the news recently on the subject of history tourism. It is instructive to compare and contrast their involvement in the subject.
On July 1, Senator Schumer visited the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, Greene County. The site is a privately operated. The cause of the visit was the unexpected discovery what appears to be original paintings from around 1836 by Thomas Cole which had been hidden under layers of paint. Schumer was contacted about federal funding to preserve the art. He not only supports the request, but also toured the site with executive director Betsy Jacks. [Read more…] about Schumer and Gibson on New York State History
James Kirby Martin, a history professor at the University of Houston, traces his interest in the Mohawk Valley to his birthplace in northern Ohio.
Joseph Brant of the Mohawk Nation was born in what is now Ohio in 1743 and Martin was fascinated by Brant’s life. The younger brother of Sir William Johnson’s longtime consort Molly Brant, Joseph Brant and Sir William’s son John led devastating raids in the Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution.
Sir William, Britain’s Indian agent in our region, died in 1774 before the war. However, his good relations with the Iroquois Confederacy kept most of them on the side of the British during the Revolution. [Read more…] about The Oneida Nation Supported American Rebels
A foundation named for a Fort Plain inventor and his wife, both born in the 19th century, continues to support local charitable organizations. William Yerdon was born in the town of Minden, NY in 1843. He married Sylvina “Vina” Barker in 1881.
Born in Canada, Vina Barker had studied telegraphy and came to Fort Plain in 1876 as a telegraph operator for the New York Central Railroad. She kept her job for about a year after marrying Yerdon, a businessman and Fort Plain postmaster who patented the Yerdon Double Hose Band in 1890. [Read more…] about The Legacy of Fort Plain Inventor William Yerdon