History, Natural History & the Arts
Camping has been the backbone of the Boy Scout program since its inception. The national Boy Scouts of America kick-started its organization with a two-week summer camp at the YMCA’s Silver Bay facility on Lake George in August 1910.
BSA commissioned its first scoutmaster – S.F. Lester of Troy, NY – September 10th, 1910. Lester brought his troop to summer camp at the Vermont YMCA camp in 1911. [Read more…] about Early Boy Scout History & Camp Saratoga
Cholera can kill more people more quickly than any other disease. Thousands can die overnight. More people died from cholera in the 100-year period from 1817-1917 than from three centuries of Bubonic Plague (Black Death) during the Middle Ages.
The disease is contracted by the ingestion of water and food with fecal contamination by Vibrio cholerae bacteria, resulting in acute diarrhea, dehydration, and death. Poor sanitation contributes to its spread. [Read more…] about The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in the Capital District
Stephen Myers was a Black activist in connection with the Underground Railroad and African American rights in general. He was born and enslaved in Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York State and raised when it was a slave state working on progressive abolition. He was the principal agent and a key writer for the Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate, he was also the editor of The Elevator and The Telegraph and Temperance Journal.
As early as 1831 he was assisting fugitives from enslavement making their way to Canada. He was also active in 1827 with a group of little-known significance called the Clarkson Anti-slavery Society. As time went on he was involved in organizing and serving as a delegate to many of the Colored Men’s Conventions of the 1830s to the 1860s, to secure African American rights. He was involved in voting rights campaigns through the NYS Suffrage Association, was involved in organizing a school, and sued Albany Schools over segregation. [Read more…] about Stephen Myers of Albany: Abolitionist Writer, Advocate & Underground Railroad Activist
Throughout the 1840s, members of the commercial and professional classes of New York’s Capital Region cities established “Young Men’s Associations,” loosely based upon the Young Men’s Christian Association recently founded in England. In Schenectady, ten prominent men formed their own Young Men’s Association in an attempt to bring culture to their growing city of 10,000.
Although the Association required an annual fee of $2, members and ladies were allowed to attend the lectures for free. The entrance fee for men who were not members was 25 cents. “The association is the only place in our city, aside from the pulpits, where you are able to find any discoursing,” announced its founders in the Schenectady Reflector. “It is the only place where an amusement of a miscellaneous nature is to be found…It is the only place where the clerk, the mechanic, or lawyer, can spend an hour (profitably) out of his store, workshop, or office.” [Read more…] about Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852
The War of 1812 began on June 18, 1812, when President James Madison signed a declaration of war which began: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That war be and is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories.”
The causes of the war are quite clear. [Read more…] about The War of 1812 in the Capital District
The Historic Hudson Hoosic Rivers Partnership has announced the Champlain Canal Region Gateway Visitors Center (GVC), located at 30 Ferry Street, Schuylerville, is set to open on Saturday, August 6th at 10 am. [Read more…] about Champlain Canal Region Visitors Center Opening
Albany’s first museum was started in 1798 in a building on the corner of Green and Beaver streets. In the summer of 1808, two royal tigers were housed at the Thespian Hotel, a circus pitched its tent, and Ralph Letton started the Albany Museum.
The Albany Museum was located in the Old City Hall (Stadt Huys) on the northeastern corner of South Market Street and Hudson Avenue (today’s Broadway and Hudson Avenue). The Old City Hall was built in 1741 and was the site of the 1754 Albany Congress meeting where Benjamin Franklin first proposed the Albany Plan, a plan of union of the colonies that later was a basis for the U.S. Constitution. On its steps, the Declaration of Independence was first read to Albany on July 19, 1776 by the order of the Provincial Congress. With the construction of the new building on Eagle Street in 1808, the Old City Hall was converted into the Albany Museum. [Read more…] about The Albany Museum: Curiosities, Circus & Performing Arts
The Capital Region segment of the NYS Birding Trail is now open and is the sixth region to be completed. The region includes 29 sites on a mix of public and private lands throughout five counties. [Read more…] about Capital Region Segment of the NYS Birding Trail Opens
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, there were a growing number of adventurers anxious to explore the sea, find new lands, chart new islands, and if they made their fortune while doing it, all the better.
There were also those just trying to get away from home and signing on to a whaling ship seemed the adventure of a lifetime. [Read more…] about James Eights: An Albany Artist-Scientist Who Explored Antarctica in 1830
On May 8th, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied forces, ending the Second World War in Europe. Less than four months later, on September 2nd, Japan formally surrendered aboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, bringing history’s most destructive conflict to an end. [Read more…] about Mechanicville’s Unique Second World War Photo Collection