History, Natural History & the Arts
Archibald McIntyre was born in Kenmore, Perthshire, Scotland on the June 1, 1772. His parents were Daniel and Anne Walker McIntyre. Daniel McIntyre taught school in Scotland.
In 1774, Daniel and his family immigrated to the colony of New York and settled with four or five other Scottish families in what is now Broadalbin in Fulton County, NY. [Read more…] about Archibald McIntyre’s Life In Lotteries, Politics & Adirondack Mines
James Hall was born on September 12, 1811, to James and Susanna Hall of Hingham, Massachusetts. His father was a weaver trained in England who was making a comfortable living. One day he opened his newspaper and noticed a “help wanted” ad posted by a textile mill in Massachusetts. The salary was far better than James Hall, Sr. could earn in England.
After some inquiry, Hall heard that land in America was more cheap and plentiful than land in England, which was, in most cases, held by the same families for generations. He also heard that food was plentiful and less expensive than England. Like so many other Europeans looking to improve their lives, Hall packed up his family and they departed for the United States.
In 1826, when son James Jr. was 15, he learned of a new school, the Rensselaer School (later Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI) just started at Troy, New York by the Patroon of Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, and under the academic direction of Amos Eaton. This new school was a departure from conventional classical schools that Eaton called “a kind of literary bondage.” Eaton’s new plan was for a scientific school centered on the “useful arts” and “adapted to the native curiosity and ardor of youth.” [Read more…] about James Hall: New York’s First State Geologist & Paleontologist
The famed Tiffany Studios not only produced exquisite stained-glass windows for churches and civic buildings but had a department specializing in monument design from the 1890s until the company’s closure.
Since 2018, Albany Rural Cemetery has identified scores of examples of Tiffany Studios memorials ranging from an early significant Celtic Revival cross to stained glass windows in family vaults. [Read more…] about Tiffany Treasures of the Albany Rural Cemetery
In the June 1841 the Albany Evening Journal ran the following notice:
“Dr. Cooke, No. 3 Norton Street, Albany, NY — In every age of the world, men of superior genius have lived: Homer, Voltaire, Euripides and Virgil. It has, however, remained for the 19th century to produce a man whose attainments, both in letters and science, which justly entitles him to equal rank with the illustrious mentioned above. That man is the world-renowned surgeon and physician, Gen. George Cooke whose fame and knowledge of the healing art have reached every clime. [Read more…] about George Cooke: Albany Snake Oil Salesman
On August 25th, 1823, Mary McConnell, wife of Teunis Vandeveer, died at the age of 28. Her body was laid to rest in the Second Presbyterian Church’s lot at the State Street Burying Grounds in Albany, NY. Laid to rest until 1868, that is.
When the City closed the old Burying Grounds to make way for Washington Park to be developed, her grave was one of 14,000 transferred to the Albany Rural Cemetery, which had been established in 1844.
Her headstone did not make the journey with her coffin until last fall. [Read more…] about An Albany Gravestone Goes Home
Squire Whipple was born in Hartwick, Massachusetts on September 16th, 1804. His parents were James and Electa Whipple. Born and raised on a farm, he attended a small country school for three or four months a year. He moved to New York in 1817.
By the age of seventeen, he passed the required examination for common school teaching and taught part time to finance his education. In 1822-1828 he attended Hartwick College in Otsego County; Fairfield Academy in Herkimer County; and graduated from Union College, Schenectady in 1830. He spent the next few years working as a surveyor for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and married Anna Case. [Read more…] about Albany’s Squire Whipple: Father of the Iron Truss Bridge
Yates Street in Schenectady runs north and south from Union Street to Liberty Street, from the Friendship Baptist Church on Union Street to the Katbird Shop at the corner of Liberty and Yates.
In the late 1840s it was regularly traversed by the only former resident of Schenectady and the only graduate of Union College ever destined to occupy the office of President of the United States. [Read more…] about Chester A. Arthur, The Spoils System & Civil Service Reform
The Friends’ Trail Restoration Committee, members of the Adirondack Mountain Club, and some dedicated volunteers spent a weekend rebuilding sections of Dellwood Avenue at the Albany Rural Cemetery to turn the old carriage road into a safer walking trail. [Read more…] about Albany Rural Cemetery’s Dellwood Avenue Trail Restoration
The John Nicholas Bleecker was born in August 1739, the son of Albany businessman Nicholas Bleecker, Jr. and his wife, Margarita Roseboom Bleecker. When the American Revolution began in 1775, Bleecker was elected to represent the second ward on the Albany Committee of Safety, Protection and Correspondence.
He was commissioned in a militia company and while serving in the Commissary Department of the Northern Army he was involved in the removal of the cannon from Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. Bleecker died in October 1825 at the age of 87. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Soldier John Nicholas Bleecker Marker Dedication
Erastus Corning (1794-1872) got his business started in Troy and made the bulk of his fortune in railroads, including the production of iron tracks and hook-headed railroad spikes. Corning and his partner, John Flack Winslow, received the contract to make the deck and skirt armor for the USS Monitor and at least eight additional monitor class ironclad warships.
Born in Connecticut, Corning began his business career working in a relative’s hardware shop. His interest in the iron trade would eventually lead him to establish the New York Central Railroad which, during his lifetime, was the largest corporation in the United States. He served as Mayor of Albany, founding a political dynasty that continued into the 20th-century with Mayor Erastus Corning II. [Read more…] about Erastus Corning & His Ironworks