History, Natural History & the Arts
In 2021, while browsing the shelves at Berry Hill Bookstore, just outside of Deansboro, in Oneida County, NY, I noticed an old book entitled New York COMMISSIONERS for Detecting and Defeating CONSPIRACIES.
The book described this commission’s origins, powers, and jurisdictional controversies. Among the topics were stories of counterfeiters, deserters, murders, robbers, plunderers and more. [Read more…] about New York’s Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies
Before East Line Road marked the boundary between the town line between Ballston and Malta, it marked a community. Today, only a roadside sign hints at what once stood at the crossroads of Route 67 and East Line Road:
“East Line. An early community ca. 1780. ME Church built in 1809. Nearby was a hotel, a tavern, and by 1837 an RR stop.” [Read more…] about East Line Hamlet: A Forgotten Crossroads
Forest Park began with when the owner of the trolleys running from Schenectady to Saratoga Springs, the Schenectady Railway Company, decided to create a place of amusement – a trolley park – to boost ridership, especially on weekends.
“A trolley ride from Schenectady to Ballston Lake cost about $1.40 or less in the early days of the twentieth century and only took about an hour. This was the fastest way for people to get to Ballston Lake and the people of Schenectady were anxious to get there,” says Ballston Town Historian Rick Reynolds. [Read more…] about A Saratoga County Amusement Park History Tour
Amy Shannon is an author who writes about local history of the families and community life of Balls‑Town (Ballston Spa and Malta, in Saratoga County).
Shannon’s newest work, Reminiscences of Balls‑Town: Echoes and Whispers of Forgotten Legacies, highlights the stories of pioneer women whose contributions were often undocumented. The book grew from her research and cemetery tours at Dunning Street Cemetery and the Ballston Spa Village Cemetery. [Read more…] about Reminiscences of Balls‑Town Highlight Women’s Contributions
Long before it became a bank, the building on Front Street in Ballston Spa, Saratoga County, NY, was simply a house, quietly resting on land once belonging to Johannah Hawkins, a woman whose story lingers only in the faded lines of an old newspaper notice. Her property, marked by creeks and stone heaps, was a patchwork of boundaries and memories.
When the land changed hands at auction in the winter of 1833, no one could have guessed it would soon anchor one of the village’s most enduring institutions, the First National Bank of Ballston Spa. Later named Ballston Spa National Bank, it is often referred to as BSNB. [Read more…] about Historic Ballston Spa National Bank
On Friday, August 30th in 1805, Matthew Prendergast set off on horseback from Sharon, Connecticut. Matthew was about 50 years old, a resident of Amenia in Dutchess County, NY, just across the state line from Sharon. He was comfortably well off, but definitely not super rich, and he suffered from rheumatism.
He had a few errands to do on the way, but he was planning on heading north and taking the waters at Ballston Springs, where he had visited in the past. He took his time, stopping several times, including at Kinderhook, Albany and Troy. [Read more…] about An 1805 Visitor to the Springs in Ballston and Saratoga
There it is, sitting atop a hill, a hill known 200 years ago as Courthouse Hill, on present-day Middleline Road in Saratoga County, NY. It’s north of the Middleline Road/Charlton Road intersection where Eliphalet Ball established his church, the center of the community.
That community was to become the town of Ballston. And, yes, there it is, still standing to this day, a building then known as the Colonial Inn. [Read more…] about Ballston’s Colonial Inn
The premiere showing of the documentary video, What Was and What Is: The Communities of Burnt Hills and Ballston Lake and their School District, 1938-1940 and 2025.
The film is based partly on newly-discovered 16 mm film from the years 1938-40. [Read more…] about New Saratoga County Documentary Premiere
Saratoga County resident John W. Taylor twice served as speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the only New Yorker to ever serve more than 24 hours as Speaker of the House, the leader of that body.*
Taylor was born on March 26, 1784, at home in the town of Charlton (which was still a part of the town of Ballston, Albany County, at the time). An historic marker on Charlton Road roughly marks his birthplace. [Read more…] about John W. Taylor, New York’s only Speaker of the House
The mineral springs of Saratoga County first attracted the attention of the white settlers soon after the middle of the eighteenth century. In early colonial days they were westward of the first line of settlements and off the main line of such travel as there was between the valley of the Hudson River and the valleys of Lake Champlain and the St Lawrence River.
The colonists, naturally, established themselves first in the valley of the Hudson and their earliest settlements in this region were some ten miles to the east of Saratoga Springs [near what is now Schuylerville]. [Read more…] about Mineral Springs of the Saratoga County Area: Some History
A lot of things could be said about John Brotherson, but those who knew him well were unlikely to include “he would be late to his own funeral.” Yet in the middle of the day on October 17, 1887, a group of people waited patiently on a little knoll in Ballston Spa’s Village Cemetery, and he was nowhere to be found.
John had passed away two days earlier at the home of Dr. Charles Inslee Pardee, a relative with whom he spent the winter months in his later years. His death was an unfortunate accident by asphyxiation, caused by John inadvertently leaving a gas valve on when he retired for the night. At his passing at 87, John Brotherson was the senior member of the Saratoga County bar association and a practicing attorney for over fifty years. He was also a prominent Spiritualist. [Read more…] about John Brotherson & Saratoga County Spiritualism
Throughout Saratoga County’s long history, many religious and spiritual communities have called our home their home, with the land even being sacred to some. This article will highlight the founding of several of Saratoga County’s religious communities through the 19th century, with a focus on Saratoga Springs.
Today, diverse people of faith have joined those long-established denominations to call Saratoga home, including Jewish communities, several Indigenous Cultural Revival Movements, and a Mosque, Masjid Al-Arqam in Halfmoon. All of them play important roles in the Saratoga Community. [Read more…] about Early Saratoga County Religious Communities: Some History
Saratoga County, NY, has seen nine generations come and go in the almost 235 years since it was carved out from Albany County in 1791. Settlers moved in, established farms, mills, and small communities. Several of these communities have become villages, cities and suburban towns.
Others have remained hamlets and become forgotten crossroads – still vibrant communities with a rich history of memories. Still others have disappeared altogether, no longer visible or remembered. [Read more…] about Rowland’s Hollow: A Lost Crossroads in Saratoga County
It must have been quite an experience. The anticipation during their senior year must have been quite exhilarating as a group of rural American kids planned for a trip to big cities for what may well have been for some of them the experience of a lifetime.
Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake Central School District’s Senior class was going on a big-city trip some 400 miles south. [Read more…] about 1927: Rural High School Seniors Visit the Big Cities
Saratoga’s Black Heritage: A Guidebook, a 64-page book that tells previously-unknown stories of Black achievers, is now available free of charge. Published by the Saratoga County History Center of Ballston Spa, it was researched and written by Field Horne.
The book contains thirty tales, each with an illustration, ranging from the 1702 construction of mills at the present Schuylerville by enslaved people to the lively Spuyten Duyvil nightclub that operated near Saratoga Race Course until 1986. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s Black Heritage: A Guidebook
On a cold February 7th in 1791, Saratoga County officially separated from Albany County, marking its beginning as an independent community. Known as “Saratoga” by Indigenous peoples and later formalized by colonial settlers, the county has long been defined by its strategic location and historical significance. [Read more…] about In Saratoga County, History Matters
Although born in Connecticut in 1785, Gideon Hawley’s family moved to the Town of Ballston in Saratoga County, NY, in 1794 and four years later relocated to a farm in the nearby Town of Charlton.
Gideon worked on the family farm until 1804 when in his own words “too infirm in health for farming,” he entered the newly established Ballston Academy to prepare for college. [Read more…] about Gideon Hawley: Advocate for Common Schools in New York State
The Ballston Raid of 1780 was one of three coordinated raids launched primarily out of Canada in late September 1780 which struck upstate New York targets in Albany, Tryon, and Charlotte counties, including present-day Saratoga County, NY.
Ballston resident William Fraser was Captain of a group of 34 Loyalists known as Fraser’s Rangers. They were part of a 200-man force commanded by Captain John Munro of the King’s Royal Regiment. [Read more…] about The Ballston Raid of 1780: A New Documentary
In the spring of 1870, Rev. George Augustus Seeley boarded the steamship Colorado in New York harbor bound for Liverpool, England. When he stepped aboard that day, Rev. Seeley was beginning a journey of 8,000 miles to Farrukhabad, India, returning as a missionary to the place of his birth 23 years earlier.
This is a story of how the seeds planted by early settlers and patriots from Charlton, Saratoga County bore fruit as far away as the other side of the globe through the lives of George Augustus, and his ancestors. [Read more…] about The Seeley Family: Settlers, Patriots & Missionaries
As New York State prepares to host the oldest state fair in the nation in Syracuse, the latest episode of the A New York Minute in History podcast tells the history of the summertime tradition of agricultural fairs and how they developed from gatherings of learned societies into the popular attractions that we all know today. [Read more…] about A History of Agricultural Fairs in New York State
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