Mohawk & Hudson Railroad

The Mohawk & Hudson Railroad Route in Albany

May 11, 2024 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the first passenger railroad built in New York State and one of the first in the United States. It was built to cut the time needed to travel between the Erie Canal at Schenectady and the Hudson River at Albany from a whole day to under an hour. What follows is an excerpt from a talk delivered to the now defunct New York State Historical Association on October 14, 1908 by Harry L. Taylor (1866-1955).

As a concise statement of the present remains of the roadbed and of the more important facts connected with the first five miles of the eastern end, the following is taken from the records of the Albany Chamber of Commerce, concerning the proposed boulevard commemorating this historical monument. [Read more…] about The Mohawk & Hudson Railroad Route in Albany

West Point Foundry: Pioneer of Steam Engines and Artillery

March 22, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The West Point Foundry was a major American iron-working and machine shop site at Foundry Cove in Cold Spring, in the town of Philipstown in Putnam County, NY, which operated from 1818 to about 1911. [Read more…] about West Point Foundry: Pioneer of Steam Engines and Artillery

Albany and Troy: 19th Century Commercial Rivals

March 16, 2024 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The ambitions of Albany and Troy for commercial supremacy in the nineteenth century illustrate clearly the varied pattern of the transportation history of the United States and furnish a striking example of intercity rivalry. Only a few struggles such as that between Tacoma and Seattle to become the eastern terminus of the transcontinentals can match the bitterness of the Troy – Albany feud. [Read more…] about Albany and Troy: 19th Century Commercial Rivals

John Isaac DeGraff: Schenectady’s First Elected Mayor

December 11, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

John Isaac De Graff (October 2, 1783 – July 26, 1848) was a U.S. Representative from New York. Born in Schenectady, De Graff attended the common schools and Union College and engaged in mercantile pursuits and the practice of law in that city.

He served in the War of 1812 and was elected as a Jacksonian Democrat to the Twentieth Congress (March 4, 1827 – March 3, 1829). [Read more…] about John Isaac DeGraff: Schenectady’s First Elected Mayor

Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

May 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 6 Comments

Stephen Van Rensselaer III (1764-1839), was orphaned at the age of ten. His father had died when he was five and his mother remarried Reverend Eilardus Westerlo, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. She died five years later and Stephen was raised by Abraham Ten Broeck (later Brigadier General) and his wife (Stephen’s aunt) Elizabeth Van Rensselaer.

Stephen attended the John Water’s School in Albany, grammar school in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey and Classical School in Kingston. He then attended college at Princeton, but withdrew to Harvard because of the dangers in Northern New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. In 1776, Stephen’s grandfather Philip Livingston (who had married Ten Broeck’s sister Christina) had signed the Declaration of Independence. [Read more…] about Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

Early Railroads From The Capital District To Saratoga

August 23, 2020 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

It’s becoming popular to refer to our area as Tech Valley because of the nanotech facilities in Albany and Global Foundries in Malta (Saratoga County).

This is not the first time the region was at the forefront of a technological revolution. In the early nineteenth century some of the nation’s first railroads were built right here. [Read more…] about Early Railroads From The Capital District To Saratoga

Historian: America’s First Railroad Tunnel Located

August 14, 2008 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Incredible news from the Schenectady Gazette this morning. Schenectady City Historian Don Rittner has apparently found the first railroad tunnel ever constructed, buried in the historic Schenectady Stockade District. The find includes a section of the original tracks:

“The 15-foot-deep tunnel snakes its way across what are now a dozen or more private backyards. But in 1832, that land was a major thoroughfare — the foundation of the city’s prosperity and growth for the next century.
“Hundreds of business owners and daring families rode through the tunnel on trains so experimental that they were considered too dangerous to be allowed on city streets. They could travel so fast and their engines could produce so many wild sparks that city leaders feared pedestrians would be run over and buildings burned down.
“So horses dragged the trains from the Erie Canal to the Scotia bridge along a safe, deep tunnel. It was an experiment that lasted just six years, but in that time it was guaranteed a place in the history books. Not only was the tunnel the first ever constructed for a locomotive, but the entrance was the first junction of two railroad companies, according to Rittner.”

Technically, the first railroad in the United States is believed to have been a gravity railroad in Lewiston, New York in 1764. The Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, of which the tunnel would have been a part, was the first modern-style railroad built in the State of New York; it was incorporated in 1826 by the Mohawk and Hudson Company and opened August 9, 1831.

On April 19, 1847, the name was changed to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad. The railroad was consolidated into the New York Central Railroad on May 17, 1853. In 1867, the first elevated railroad was built in New York.

Mohawk & Hudson Railroad

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