In 1934, Doctor Helen Hosmer opened a physician’s office on West Street in the Village of Galway, in Saratoga County, NY. Originally from Billerica, Massachusetts, when Hosmer arrived in Galway, she was 50 years old, and though an experienced chemist and scientist, she was just beginning her career as a physician. [Read more…] about Dr Helen Hosmer’s Rural Healthcare in the US & Canada
Sand Lake
Old Hudson Valley Churches Now Community Venues
Due to shrinking congregations and finances, many abandoned church buildings in New York’s Hudson Valley have been reused for other purposes. Some are now apartments or condominiums, fraternity houses, museums, historical societies, businesses and vibrant art venues and community centers. [Read more…] about Old Hudson Valley Churches Now Community Venues
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
History Supplies Leads to Rare Carnivorous Bladderwort
In April 2025, the Sand Lake Historical Society was contacted by Will Lenihan, who is the Gardner and Curator for the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
He was curious about a small perennial carnivorous plant that was documented by Charles Horton Peck (1833-1917) of Sand Lake, in eastern Rensselaer County, who was the New York State Botanist from 1867-1915. [Read more…] about History Supplies Leads to Rare Carnivorous Bladderwort
The Anti-Rent War: A Second American Revolution
Between 1839 and 1845 tenant farmers in New York State revolted against paying rents to the patroon system — a system of land ownership implemented by the Dutch in New Netherland that prohibited farmers from owning their land outright.
Disguising themselves in calico gowns and leather masks to demand change. Their struggle, known as the Anti-Rent War, helped shape the future of American democracy and land ownership. [Read more…] about The Anti-Rent War: A Second American Revolution
Faith Mills: An Upstate New York Underwear Factory
In June I found myself in Averill Park, in Rensselaer County, NY, participating in a residency – spinning and weaving up a storm, but more on that later. First, I want to tell you about the mill where the residency is hosted, the Faith Mills.
The Faith Knitting company (they became Faith Mills Inc. in 1929) knitted wool and cotton “union-suits” (long underwear), shirts and drawers from 1897 through 1962. [Read more…] about Faith Mills: An Upstate New York Underwear Factory
Rensselaer County Rises for the Anti-Rent War
Few of us think back to the troubled times when the farmers of Rensselaer, Columbia and Albany counties were involved in sometimes violent demonstrations against rents collected by the Manor of Rensselaerswijck and the feudal conditions imposed by the land leases of the semi-feudal patroon.
It can be said to have started in the 1790s when Stephen Van Rensselaer III encouraged the development of his land holdings stretching from the Helderbergs in Western Albany County east to the Rensselaer Plateau in Eastern Rensselaer County, which dated back to the original Dutch grants in 1629 made to Kiliaen van Rensselaer (1586-1643). [Read more…] about Rensselaer County Rises for the Anti-Rent War
Crooked Lake Hotel: A Getaway For Celebrities
The Crooked Lake Hotel in Sand Lake, Rensselaer County, NY – now Old Daley on Crooked Lake – began in the early 1800s as a stage coach stop, Philip Upham’s tavern, along the plank road from Albany to points east. The building burned in 1850 and was rebuilt by James Mosher. In 1881, it was bought by the Brown family and became Brown’s Crooked Lake House. [Read more…] about Crooked Lake Hotel: A Getaway For Celebrities
‘Send Pies’: A Letter From School, 1854
As summer vacation comes to an end, students are once again preparing to return to school. What follows is a letter written in 1854 by a student at the Jonesville Academy. The Academy was a private school, built about 1839, complete with dormitories. It still stands today as a private home in the hamlet of Jonesville, in Clifton Park, Saratoga County, NY. [Read more…] about ‘Send Pies’: A Letter From School, 1854
1873 Rensselaer County Firehouse Threatened with Destruction
A Rensselaer County fire department is planning to demolish its historic former home and replace it with lawn and landscaping for a new firehouse next door. Local historians oppose the destruction of the 1873 fire house and are seeking community help to save the structure. [Read more…] about 1873 Rensselaer County Firehouse Threatened with Destruction
Rensselaer County Industrialist Albert Fox: A Short Bio
Albert Rodmond Fox was born on February 10, 1810, and came of age during a dynamic period in American history, as the new nation found its footing. Fifty years after the Declaration of Independence there was a new generation of leaders. It was a time of internal improvements (infrastructure) – new roads, canals, railroads and, eventually, the telegraph – and the industrial revolution. Fortunes were made.
It was also a time of social reform: circuit-riding preachers; new schools and churches; missionaries of all sorts; temperance and abolition advocates. Albert Fox of Sand Lake, Rensselaer County, was in the middle of it all. [Read more…] about Rensselaer County Industrialist Albert Fox: A Short Bio
Rensselaer County Floods: A Short History
Floods have been a fairly frequent occurrence in Rensselaer County, especially along the Poesten Kill and Wynants Kill and at their mouths which are impacted by the flooding of the Hudson River.
Two whales that ascended the river and were stranded during exceptionally high water in the Hudson in 1647 died there. In 1654 flooding all but destroyed the West India Company’s garden below Fort Orange and in 1666 Jeremias van Rensselaer reported that “fully forty houses and barns have been carried away, among which our house in which we lived, the barn and the brewery, the new as well as the old are lost also, so that hardly any traces can be found of where they have stood.” [Read more…] about Rensselaer County Floods: A Short History