With the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup underway this is a good time to consider that in June 1993 the United States Soccer Federation recognized Gerrit Smith Miller of Peterboro, Madison County, NY, as the founder of the first organized soccer team in this country. [Read more…] about New York & America’s First Organized Soccer Team
Madison County
19 NY Places Recommended for State and National Registers
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 19 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include a nineteenth-century church in Jefferson County that developed and promoted Universalism in Upstate New York, a pre-Revolutionary War house owned by seven generations of the Hulse family on Long Island’s North Shore, and additional documentation for New York City’s Hotel Chelsea recognizing its significance as a center of LGBTQ cultural and creative life. [Read more…] about 19 NY Places Recommended for State and National Registers
The Early History of Glass Making in New York State
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
Beer, Hops, Reformation & Prohibition
Christianity banned beer from the sacred domain as the Roman clergy continued the Latin habit of drinking wine. The opposition: Christian wine versus pagan beer, was upheld even in the north of Europe. Believers accepted wine’s sacramental role, whatever their climates, social habits, or drinking customs.
The Catholic Church was, at the same time, actively involved in the lucrative business of beer making. The Reformation was not just a schism that breached the unity of the Church, it was also a revolt against clergy-imposed customs that brought about a drastic change – from herbs to hops – in beer production and consumption. [Read more…] about Beer, Hops, Reformation & Prohibition
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a singular leader, thinker, and organizer whose fight for women’s emancipation stretched from the 1840s to her death in 1902, a full fifth of America’s history. Yet her legacy is marked by controversy.
In a new biography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life (Basic Books, 2026) historian Ellen Carol DuBois paints a fresh portrait of this complex woman whose work helped make contemporary feminism possible. [Read more…] about Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Revolutionary Life
Canal Boat Replica Lois McClure Moved to Port Byron
The Canal Society of New York State completed a multi‑year effort to move the full‑scale replica 1860s‑era canal boat Lois McClure to a land berth at Erie Canal Heritage Park in Port Byron in Cayuga County, NY, on December 23, 2025.
Launched in 2004 by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, the Lois McClure spent nearly twenty years traveling the NYS Canal System as an educational “time machine” helping people better understand the state’s maritime history and culture. [Read more…] about Canal Boat Replica Lois McClure Moved to Port Byron
Nature Conservancy Awards Climate Change Resilience Grants
The Nature Conservancy in New York has awarded $500,000 through its 2025 Climate Resilience Grant Program to support 12 projects that will protect more than 1,200 acres and strengthen climate resilience across the state.
Now in its fifth year, the Climate Resilience Grant Program funds land trusts, local governments, Tribal Nations and nonprofit organizations working to conserve resilient lands, protect floodplains and shorelines, and build local capacity to adapt to climate change. [Read more…] about Nature Conservancy Awards Climate Change Resilience Grants
Feeding the Erie Canal: Rome Summit Level Reservoirs
All canals are a series of ponds, at different water stages, or elevations. These elevation changes are transitioned by locks, with the area between the locks being of any length, and referred to as a level. Simply put, canal transport is similar to a set of stairs, with the levels being the tread, and the locks the riser. The highest level of any canal is known as the summit level.
As water flows with any lock movement, it is necessary to constantly re-supply the canal, and by feeding the replacement water to the summit level, the entire canal may be supplied. The original Erie Canal, statewide from Albany to Buffalo, had three summit levels; Lake Erie, Jordan and Rome. [Read more…] about Feeding the Erie Canal: Rome Summit Level Reservoirs
How The New Deal Helped Ignite Interest in American Skiing
Following the stock market crash of October 1929, an economic malady gripped the United States and much of the world, lasting several years. Loss of employment created excessive hardships, limiting even basic necessities of life.
The President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had previously been the two-term Governor of New York State, developed a composite plan to help citizens cope with the financial disaster and provide jobs, commonly known as “The New Deal.”
The ambitious program was multi-faceted, with one face being the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) established in 1933, where young men were organized into military style labor, housed in barracks at remote locations. [Read more…] about How The New Deal Helped Ignite Interest in American Skiing
New Yorkers Exiled to Tasmania for the 1837-38 Canadian Patriot Rebellion
On September 30, 1970, in a simple ceremony, a monument was unveiled at Sandy Bay Beach Reserve in Hobart, Tasmania, by the Honorable Douglas Harkness, the former Canadian defense minister. It was in honor to the ninety-two Patriot exiles, transported to what was then called Van Diemen’s Land who had been captured in the 1837-38 Patriot War insurrection in Upper Canada against British domination.
Listed as Canadian rebels, a majority were in fact from the state of New York. Although imprisoned US citizens captured in the various conflicts with England – from the American Revolution to the War of 1812– was not a novelty, it was to be the first time that American prisoners were shipped to a penal colony in Australia due to a confrontation with the Empire. [Read more…] about New Yorkers Exiled to Tasmania for the 1837-38 Canadian Patriot Rebellion
Drilling For Salt: Salt Springs & New York’s Salt Industry Origins
As the presence of salt in New York was first made manifest through saline mineral springs it is proper to begin this discussion with the history of their discovery and utilization. The most important of these are in Onondaga County at Syracuse.
About the middle of the seventeenth century several of the Jesuit missionaries during their journeys among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), in what is now the State of New York, heard local salt springs and related these experiences in the Relations of the Jesuit fathers. [Read more…] about Drilling For Salt: Salt Springs & New York’s Salt Industry Origins
The Cherry Valley & Great Western Turnpike: A Short History
In the early 1700s the Mohawk Turnpike and the Seneca Turnpike were improved from the rougher Indigenous trails whose routes they utilized into regular, if rough, wagon roads. But it wasn’t until the 1790s that New York State’s turnpike era took off.
This was good news to migrants and local travelers alike, as deep ruts along the former “Indian trails” made transportation impractical and slow. It took days just to go a few miles and the limited number of ferries, bridges and fords often caused wagons to go miles out of their way to get around a lake, river, or creek. [Read more…] about The Cherry Valley & Great Western Turnpike: A Short History
OZmosis: A Compendium of The Wizard of Oz’s Artistic Influence
New York native Frank Baum‘s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has been inspiring artists – filmmakers, political cartoonists, poets, sculptors, songwriters – for more than 100 years.
OZmosis: The Enduring Popularity & Artistic Influence of The Wizard of Oz (2025) by Noel Holston collects and annotates works from tin-can sculpture to movie musicals. It’s an illuminating and amusing compendium. [Read more…] about OZmosis: A Compendium of The Wizard of Oz’s Artistic Influence
A History of the New York Gypsum Industry, 1790-1930
New York State has been identified with the American gypsum industry from its start. The deposits in the central counties, where the gypsum [calcium sulfate] outcrops in places on the surface, were noted by the early settlers who began to take active possession of the lands… during the closing years of the eighteenth century.
The settlers were mostly from eastern New York and New England. They had some acquaintance, no doubt with the agricultural uses of gypsum, which at that time was imported and employed quite· extensively in the farming sections along the coast. This material came from Nova Scotia and France, for there were no local sources of supply in the coastal area. [Read more…] about A History of the New York Gypsum Industry, 1790-1930
The Chenango Canal: An Unrealized Dream
The success of the Erie Cavnal which opened 200 years ago in 1825 caused folks around New York to petition the State to build a canal to their town. At that time roads were typically very rough – early turnpikes were mainly oriented east-west across New York, few went north or south.
Eventually, 16 lateral canals were built off the Erie Canal by the state totaling more than 750 miles and extending to various parts of New York. [Read more…] about The Chenango Canal: An Unrealized Dream
The Great Seneca Turnpike
Today’s State Route 5 crosses New York State from Buffalo to Albany and parallels state Route 20 and the New York State Thruway. The part of Route 5 between Utica and Canandaigua in Ontario County, some 105 miles, is still called the Seneca Turnpike.
Originally a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) path, the route has been referred to in various accounts as the Great Genesee Road, the Great Genesee Trail, the Genesee Turnpike, the Great Seneca Turnpike or Seneca Road. Previously it had been known as the part of the Great Indian Trail or Iroquois Trail. [Read more…] about The Great Seneca Turnpike
The Stockbridge – Munsee Community in New York State
Most readers well be familiar with Oneida people occupying major parts of Oneida County in the colonial period and up to the present day having purchased much land back from locals in towns of Vernona and Vernon which were part of the original Oneida (Iroquois – Haudenosaunee) lands. [Read more…] about The Stockbridge – Munsee Community in New York State
Debris Burning Causes Multiple Wildfires Across Upstate New York
Between March 17 and 24, Forest Rangers responded to 12 wildfires in nine counties across New York State. The fires burned more than 40 acres of land. The largest fire was in Butternuts, Otsego County, measuring 10.5 acres. [Read more…] about Debris Burning Causes Multiple Wildfires Across Upstate New York
Burned-Over District Documentary Being Produced
A new trailer for an in-production feature-length documentary film about the Burned-Over District of 19th-century New York State has just been released. Burned Over focuses on Spiritualism, the belief that the living can communicate with the dead, and the Oneida Community, a free love commune.
Both began in 1848 in the Burned-Over District, an area famous as an incubator of radical religious practice and progressive politics, inspired in part by the Second Great Awakening. [Read more…] about Burned-Over District Documentary Being Produced
Early Upstate New York Roads: Some History
What is now New York State saw multitudes of American settlers moving inland from the Atlantic seaboard, especially those “locusts of the east” from New England. Traveling long distances overland before the 20th century was however, difficult to say the least.
In the 1600s their movement was constrained by topography, and settlements were limited to areas in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys previously inhabited or improved by Indigenous People. Some Indigenous portage trails were described by the earliest settlers as wide paths that a capable ox team and wagon could manage. [Read more…] about Early Upstate New York Roads: Some History