New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Industrial History

Italian Immigrants & Mechanicville’s Brick Industry

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mechanicville brick yard, ca 1910When Holyoke, Massachusetts investors sought New York State’s permission to build a large power dam and paper mill in Mechanicville, in eastern Saratoga County, NY, in 1882, one thing they knew they would need was tons of bricks.

Brickmaking was among the oldest trades in America, almost as widely distributed as town-building. But certain places blessed with superior clays, inexpensive fuel supplies, and shipping facilities to nearby markets became centers for the brick industry. [Read more…] about Italian Immigrants & Mechanicville’s Brick Industry

New York’s Ramapo Iron Villages During the American Revoltuion

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Remains of Sterling Iron Works in Sterling Forest State ParkIn the decades leading to the American Revolution, colonist began trying to exploit rich deposits of iron ore in the Ramapo Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains in northeastern New Jersey (Bergen and Passaic counties) and southeastern New York (Rockland and Orange counties). [Read more…] about New York’s Ramapo Iron Villages During the American Revoltuion

The American Coach & Carriage Industry in 1878

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Carl Rakeman recreates a scene of Deputy Post Master and later President Benjamin Franklin on the Boston Road in 1763, created for post riders to deliver mail from New York to Boston in 1673 (Federal Highway Administration)In the days of our great grandfathers the occasional ancient coach and the heavy lumber wagon in which the freight transportation of the country was carried on were almost the only vehicles that rolled along the roads. The people did not own private carriages themselves.

When they traveled they took to the coach or rode on horseback, the latter being the more customary plan. [Read more…] about The American Coach & Carriage Industry in 1878

A Short History New York Pasta Makers

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A worker for Atlantic Macaroni Company hangs spaghetti to dry at a factory in Long Island City, New York, 1943Although some industrial production of pasta took place prior to the industrial revolution, the introduction of steam-powered machines during the nineteenth century enabled the mass production of pasta and marginalized the artisanal production of the staple in Italy. [Read more…] about A Short History New York Pasta Makers

Niagara’s Manhattan Project Legacy Haunting Homeowners

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Angry local residents at a meeting Monday, July 20 with EPA and DEC officials about Niagara County radiation ocntaminationElevated radiation levels have been detected in the yards of over 120 homes in Niagara County, NY. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been conducting the first radiological survey of the area since 1984 and at least four families have fled their homes.

Governor Kathy Hochul has called on the EPA to step up testing and accelerate distribution of resources to those affected [Read more…] about Niagara’s Manhattan Project Legacy Haunting Homeowners

Small & Scarce: Early New York Paper Making History

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Illustration of a one tub paper making factory of the late 1700s and early 1800sAbout 1768, New York’s first paper mill was established, but throughout the 1700s New Yorkers suffered from a lack of paper, no more so than during the American Revolution. The industry grew from the need for paper and owes its early history to the rise of printing in America. [Read more…] about Small & Scarce: Early New York Paper Making History

Finch Paper Closing Glens Falls Pulp Mill; Logging Affected

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Finch Paper wood-yard in Glens Falls, NY, ca 2026The Finch Paper mill in Glens Falls, NY, a facility which has been buying pulp wood from the region’s loggers since 1865, has announced they will stop making their own pulp from local logs and will transition to buying it from suppliers outside the area.

Finch has been blending its own pulp with about 20% outside purchases. Going forward Finch is likely to source all its pulp from Canada, or buy market pulp, eliminating the work associated with the 45-50 log trucks who arrived at the mill daily. [Read more…] about Finch Paper Closing Glens Falls Pulp Mill; Logging Affected

New York’s Early Torpedo Development History

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Brooklyn made Bliss-Leavitt Torpedo Mark 3, 1911The word “torpedo” is generally believed to have been first used by New York steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton (1765-1815) around 1800 to describe a device with an enclosed mass of gunpowder which was to be exploded beneath enemy ships.

The word may have been chosen due to the similarity in the way in which the device and the torpedo fish both communicated shock, or simply because detonation of the charge rendered fish torpid. [Read more…] about New York’s Early Torpedo Development History

Otsego County’s Eliphalet Williams Bliss: Industrial Machine Maker

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E W Bliss stands beside the Bliss Geared Double Eccentric Press (from a ca 1900 Bliss Company catalog)Eliphalet Williams Bliss (1836-1903) was one of the six children of John Stebbins Bliss, a physician and farmer whose ancestors had settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, and of Ruby Ann (Williams) Bliss.

He was born at Fly Creek about three miles west of Cooperstown, in Otsego County, NY on April 12, 1836. Educated in the public schools and at Fort Plain Seminary (later Clinton Liberal Institute), he spent his boyhood on a farm. He had a pronounced mechanical bent, which led him to an apprenticeship in a machine shop in Otsego County, where he remained until he turned 21 years old. [Read more…] about Otsego County’s Eliphalet Williams Bliss: Industrial Machine Maker

New York’s Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells

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O. P. Taylor's Triangle #1 oil well near Petrolia, NY, taken on June 12, 1879. This was the first successful oil well in Allegany CountyApproximately 35,000 orphaned oil and gas wells are estimated to exist in New York State, many drilled and abandoned before the existence of modern environmental regulations.

The latest DEC Does What? podcast, produced by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), spotlights the work of their Division of Mineral Resources, which address the threats that unplugged oil and gas wells have on the environment and public safety across New York State. [Read more…] about New York’s Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells

Karl Peterson: New York’s Crescent Wrench King

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The Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers (January 1926)“A self-made man is the description which best fits Karl Peterson, a manufacturer of Jamestown. He has a natural gift for mechanics and is of an inventive turn of mind, quick to grasp the possibilities in any circumstance which may arise, and equally quick to develop the new idea presented to him,” wrote John P. Downs and Frederick Y. Hedley in their 1921 History of Chautauqua County. [Read more…] about Karl Peterson: New York’s Crescent Wrench King

The Invention of Rum: Quintessential Atlantic World Commodity

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Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic CommodityJordan B. Smith’s The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a complex history of distilled alcoholic spirit made from sugarcane byproducts, from its production to its consumption, and from its origins in the Caribbean to its impact on the Atlantic World.

It was strong. It was cheap. It was ubiquitous. Fermented and distilled from the refuse of sugar production, rum emerged in the seventeenth-century Caribbean as a new commodity. [Read more…] about The Invention of Rum: Quintessential Atlantic World Commodity

Glass Making at Redford Crown Glass Works in Clinton County

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'The Crown Process,' ca 1891 (New York Public Library)The Redford Crown Glass Works in Clinton County, NY, was one of the most important of some forty New York State glass concerns operating after 1830.

The company’s articles of incorporation show that the factory was incorporated by “Gurdon Corning, Gershaw Cook, John S. Foster and Charles W. Corning.” [Read more…] about Glass Making at Redford Crown Glass Works in Clinton County

Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie

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Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in PoughkeepsieSUNY Press has re-published Main Street to Mainframes: Landscape and Social Change in Poughkeepsie by Harvey K. Flad and Clyde C. Griffen in a Second Edition. A social and urban history of the city on the Hudson River in Dutchess County, NY, tracing its transformation from a 19th-century market town to a 21st-century urban region.

The book examines economic shifts, immigration, race, housing, and revitalization efforts through a blend of social history and spatial analysis, using Poughkeepsie as a case study for broader trends in American small-city development. [Read more…] about Landscape & Social Change in Poughkeepsie

Owen D. Young: WWI Statesman, GE Radio & TV Pioneer

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Historic sign for Owen D Young donated school in Herkimer County, NYOn a warm, sunny day amid the winding hills of Herkimer County, the world descended on Van Hornesville, a small Mohawk Valley community, without a train station but home to a global, widely respected statesman of commerce and international finance.

Ninety-five years ago this June, Owen D. Young (1874-1962), architect of the Young Plan on Germany’s fiscal rehabilitation after World War I, and longtime chairman of General Electric Company, presided over graduation ceremonies for the town’s newly built seven-room schoolhouse replete with a swimming pool, a playground, and an auditorium “wired for talkies.” [Read more…] about Owen D. Young: WWI Statesman, GE Radio & TV Pioneer

Coffee History: Enlightenment, Industry, Slavery & War

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Coffee arabica grew wild in parts of Africa.We brew it at home, we drink it at work, we socialize over a cup, or stop in at a café for its energy boost—never once reflecting on how the popularization of coffee literally changed the world.

It all began in Ethiopia, where coffee plants (Coffea) grew wild. It was discovered that the seeds of the coffee plant could be roasted and ground to yield a robust beverage with an unexpected effect. It seems to have become popular in the late-1400s and spread to Yemen quickly thereafter. [Read more…] about Coffee History: Enlightenment, Industry, Slavery & War

The Early History of Glass Making in New York State

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A drawing of a glassblower working in the 1600s at the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia (National Park Service)According to J. Leander Bishop’s A History of American Manufactures from 1608 to 1860 among the early settlers on Manhattan Island was a glass maker Jan Smeedes who is supposed to have been among the first to receive an allotment of land on the present [1880] South William Street between Wall and Pearl.

He probably carried on the business of glass making on the east side of the street just north of Hanover Square. This street formerly bore within the above limits the name of “the Glass maker’s street” and afterward Smee Street from its original occupant. [Read more…] about The Early History of Glass Making in New York State

Women’s Role in Canned Food Consumption

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Vintage Campbell's Vegetable Soup advertisementNew York State was the birthplace of the American canning industry and grew to become one of the nation’s most prolific food processing hubs by the late 19th century. The state’s history is marked by early technological developments, massive growth during wartime, and the rise of major corporate processors.

Initially, canned foods were not widely accepted, however. The overarching factor that drove the prevalence and public acceptance of canned food was the symbiotic relationship between the evolving canning industry and the changing role of women, in particular their need or desire to work in the public sphere. [Read more…] about Women’s Role in Canned Food Consumption

Some Early History of Glens Falls

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early bridge and development at Glens Falls on the Hudson River (Courtesy Chapman Museum)Human presence in the Adirondacks, including Warren County, dates back thousands of years. The rugged peaks, valleys, and lakes of the Adirondacks were the hunting grounds for several Native American people, notably the Mohicans, Mohawk, and the Abenaki.

The Haudenosaunee arrived in the region around 1,200 to 4,000 years ago. Both the Mohawk and Oneidas claimed the Adirondacks as part of their territory. [Read more…] about Some Early History of Glens Falls

Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day

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Mouth of the Gowanus Canal (photo by Wikipedia user Jim Henderson)The Gowanus Canal (originally known as Gowanus Creek) is a 1.8-mile-long waterway in Brooklyn that was once a saltwater marsh teeming with wildlife, but is now among the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.

The area’s early settlers, on the first land patents issued in Breukelen (today Brooklyn), named the waterway “Gowanes Creek” after Gouwane a sachem (chief) of the Canarsee, an indigenous Lenape tribe who exploited the waterway’s resources and farmed its shores. [Read more…] about Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day

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