History, Natural History & the Arts
A new biography of the 8th president of the United States, the first chief executive not born a British citizen and the first to use the party system to chart his way from tavern-keeper’s son in Columbia County, NY, to the pinnacle of power.
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was one of the most remarkable politicians not only of his time but in American presidential history. [Read more…] about America’s First Politician: A New Martin Van Buren Biography
At Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site you can see all three of the major phases of the Erie Canal – from the original “Clinton’s Ditch,” to the enlargements of the mid-19th century to the Barge Canal of today. You can also see Lock E-12 operated by the New York State Canal Corporation between Tribes Hill and Fort Hunter in Montgomery County, NY.
This lock has a movable dam and is one of only two which also serve as an automobile bridge. It’s known as the “James Shanahan Lock.” [Read more…] about James Shanahan: Stone Mason & Railroad and Canal Builder
2024 marks the 130th anniversary of the adoption of the state constitutional clause that declares the Adirondack Forest Preserve “forever wild,” prohibiting the sale or leasing of state-owned woodlands to lumber companies and banning the destruction of the publicly-owned timber.
The legacy of that far-sighted provision, which New Yorkers approved in the elections of 1894, has been transmitted intact by several New York governors – Franklin D. Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller foremost among them. [Read more…] about Grover Cleveland: Sportsman, Conservationist, and Adirondacker?
Nehasane, Brandreth and Whitney Preserves were three private parks in the Adirondacks that included logging railroads built to extract large stands of virgin timber in the late 19th century.
The illustrious career of William Collins Whitney (1841-1904) was chronicled in a New York City social diary titled “The Gilded Age Billionaires”: “His political star rose right along with his business ventures … and he eventually entered national politics through Grover Cleveland’s Administration where he was Secretary of the Navy.” [Read more…] about A Short History of Logging Whitney Preserve in the Adirondacks
Daniel Manning was born in Albany, NY, on August 16, 1831, the second son of John and Eleanor Manning. The Mannings were of Irish, English, and Dutch descent.
Daniel was six at the time of the Panic of 1837 when his father died, causing financial strain on the politically connected family. When Daniel was ten he was appointed a page in the New York State Assembly where he served for two years. During the second year, he also got a job distributing the Albany Atlas newspaper. [Read more…] about Albany’s Daniel Manning: Newspaperman & Secretary of the Treasury
Trivia clue: This former New York governor and former U.S. president bagged a buck while vacationing at Upper Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks.
Correct response: Who is Grover Cleveland? [Read more…] about Political Anecdotes From Historic Newspapers
Former New Lebanon resident George Clark, a member of the community’s Floyd Carlton Post of the American Legion, has been working to identify the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers for many years.
Helping him has been his friend Dale Ackley. Former town historian Sharon Moon and Cemetery of the Evergreens board members have been working at it, too. The undertaking has been immense, and, if they succeed in their goal to restore headstones, it will be very costly. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Veterans in New Lebanon’s Cemetery of the Evergreens
Trivia clue: She was arrested at the St. Louis fair grounds in 1887 for throwing a pancake at First Lady Frances Cleveland.
Correct response: Who is Annie Sax? – who seemingly had good aim, but made a poor choice of targets. [Read more…] about Political Anecdotes From Historical Newspapers
Albany was a busy place on New Year’s Day 1883, the day of a collegial turnover of power from a Republican to a Democrat who had won election by an 11-percentage-point margin. [Read more…] about Grover Cleveland’s Albany Inauguration for Governor
John Morrissey was born in Ireland on February 12th, in 1831.
As a result of bigoted attacks by his political enemies being carried forward by later writers like Herbert Asbury in Gangs of New York (1928), he’s been falsely accused of being in criminal league with Tammany Hall, for leading “the dead rabbits gang,” and for being involved in the killing of the nativist William “Bill the Butcher” Poole. [Read more…] about John Morrissey: Toward Setting The Record Straight
Counting and verification of votes in the 1884 presidential election, as now, was controversial, with Republicans claiming fraud and inaccuracy.
“Republicans are diehard here. All their hope lies in finding a clerical error in the returns,” a Lake George correspondent wrote in a dispatch published November 11th in The Morning Star of Glens Falls. [Read more…] about The 1884 Election Also Brought False GOP Claims of Voter Fraud
After the 1884 Democratic National Convention closed at Chicago, the nation’s attention turned to Albany, where nominee-in-waiting Grover Cleveland was doing his best not to make news prematurely. [Read more…] about Albany Celebrated Grover Cleveland’s 1884 Nomination for President
President Grover Cleveland spent some years in Clinton, Oneida County, NY, as a boy, while his father Rev. Richard Cleveland and his family lived at 26 Utica Street (the house was marked by the Clinton Historical Society in 1968).
Rev. Cleveland had arrived there in 1850 to take a position as Secretary of the American Home Missionary Society. The job required a lot of traveling which eventually took its toll on Rev. Cleveland’s health. [Read more…] about Grover Cleveland’s Indiscretion, Oneida Co Connections
Constituents in New York’s 21st Congressional District, unlike U.S. Rep. Constantine B. Kilgore, D-Texas, didn’t get caught taking summer naps, joked The Plattsburgh Sentinel on April 5, 1889.
Kilgore, better known by the nickname “Buck,” had persistently blocked Republican John H. Moffitt, who represented New York’s North Country, from securing a $10,000 appropriation to construct a road through the military reservation in Plattsburgh. [Read more…] about John H. Moffitt’s North Country Political Biography
It has long been the conventional wisdom that the Irish in America trend Democratic in their voting tendencies. This was more true in the late 19th Century and in the 1880s, Republican Party election committees were hell-bent on mitigating that trend. [Read more…] about Collections Mystery: The Emancipator Newspaper in 1888
Local historian Wade Lallier is set to discuss President Grover Cleveland’s connections to Central New York, sharing facets of Cleveland’s life up to his trip to Clinton, NY for the village’s centennial. The talk will take place on Saturday, February 16th at 1 pm, at the Oneida County History Center in Utica.
The nation’s 22nd and 24th President, Grover Cleveland, lived in Fayetteville, Clinton, and Holland Patent, New York before his presidency. [Read more…] about Grover Cleveland and the Clinton Centennial in Utica
On the morning of August 28, 1888 residents of Dimmock Hollow (Ostego County) woke up knowing that it was going to be a memorable day. They couldn’t have known how right they were. [Read more…] about A Cannon Explodes: 19th Century Electioneering In Otsego County
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