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Troy

New York State Canals Bicentennial: Some History & Plans For Celebrations

March 23, 2023 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Erie Canal BicentennialThe Champlain Canal turns 200 this year and the Erie Canal will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2025.

The Champlain Canal between the Hudson River and Lake Champlain at Whitehall was the first to open. Worked started on the Champlain Canal in October, 1816. The first boats operated in November, 1819, and was fully completed in 1823, two years before the Erie Canal was finished. [Read more…] about New York State Canals Bicentennial: Some History & Plans For Celebrations

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley, New York City, Western NY Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Buffalo, Cayuga-Seneca Canal, Champlain Canal, Erie Canal, Erie Canalway Heritage Corridor, Hudson River, Lake Champlain, Lake Erie, Maritime History, Mohawk River, NYS Canal Corporation, Oneida County, Oswego Canal, Rensselaer County, Rochester, Rome, Saratoga County, Transportation History, Troy, Utica, Washington County, Waterford, Whitehall

Spotlight: Oakwood Cemetery in Rensselaer County

March 7, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Oakwood CemeteryOakwood Cemetery in eastern Lansingburgh, within the northeast section of the City of Troy, is a place to honor loved ones, contemplate nature, explore art and architecture, and discover the rich history of Upstate New York.

Founded in 1848, Oakwood is one of America’s largest rural cemeteries, commanding a spectacular panoramic view of the Hudson Valley with trails, ponds, and waterfalls. Oakwood’s picturesque 300 acre landscape and stately monuments make it a popular spot for runners, dog- walkers, families, nature lovers, and history buffs. [Read more…] about Spotlight: Oakwood Cemetery in Rensselaer County

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Nature, Recreation Tagged With: Cemeteries, Emma Willard, Lansingburgh, Military History, Monuments, oakwood cemetery, Rensselaer County, Troy

A Short History of Christmas for New Yorkers

December 25, 2022 by Peter Hess 9 Comments

Albany children singings hymns to St. Nicholas on the Eve of the Feast of St. NicholasThe tale of St. Nicholas is an old fable from mid-Europe that was popular in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. St. Nicholas was the patron saint of children, merchants and sailors and the patron saint of Amsterdam and was brought by the Dutch to the new world, which for the Dutch was Nieuw Nederlandt (New Netherland).

Many of the American traditions on Santa Claus originated in the Dutch settlement of New Netherland along the Hudson River between New Amsterdam (New York City) and Oranje (Beverwyck-Albany). The other colonies were English. [Read more…] about A Short History of Christmas for New Yorkers

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Christmas, Cultural History, Dutch History, Holidays, Religious History, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Troy

The 1832 Cholera Epidemic in the Capital District

September 5, 2022 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

le petit journal 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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Medical History, Rensselaer County, Schenectady, Schenectady County, Schenectady County Historical Society, Science History, Troy, Union College

Stephen Myers of Albany: Abolitionist Writer, Advocate & Underground Railroad Activist

August 30, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Stephen Myers portraitStephen 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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Western NY Tagged With: Abolition, Albany, Albany County, Black History, Hoosick, Journalism, Labor History, National Abolition Hall of Fame, Oneida County, Onondaga County, Political History, Publishing, Rensselaer County, Slavery, Stephen Meyers, Syracuse, Troy, Underground Railroad, Underground Railroad Education Center, US Colored Troops, Voting Rights

Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852

August 21, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Ralph Waldo Emerson courtesy the Library of Congress 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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Cultural History, Literature, Poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Religious History, Rensselaer County, Schenectady, Schenectady County, Schenectady County Historical Society, Transcendentalism, Troy, Union College

The Albany Museum: Curiosities, Circus & Performing Arts

July 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 3 Comments

1848 painting of State Street in Albany by John Wilson, the Albany Museum is on the right in the building with the colonnade (courtesy Albany Institute of History and Art)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

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Art History, Circus, Cultural History, Museums, Music, Musical History, Performing Arts, PT Barnum, Rensselaer County, Theatre, Troy

Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George

June 23, 2022 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

a new york minute in history podcastOn this episode of A New York Minute in History, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts discuss how the poor conditions of female textile workers in Capital Region cities led to the creation of a retreat on Lake George where women could “escape” the cities. [Read more…] about Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Georgia O’Keeffe, Labor History, Lake George, Podcasts, Troy, womens history, Yaddo

Leland Stanford, The Bull’s Head & Albany’s 19th Century Cattle Market

May 11, 2022 by John Warren Leave a Comment

Leland Stanford portrait by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, 1881, courtesy Stanford MuseumCalifornia’s 8th Governor and long-time Senator Leland Stanford, namesake of Stanford University and one-time president of the Central Pacific Railroad, has a unique connection to New York State’s Capital District.

Leland was born in Watervliet in 1824, the son of Josiah Stanford and Elizabeth Phillips. Among his seven siblings were New York Senator Charles Stanford (1819-1885) and Australian spiritualist Thomas Welton Stanford (1832-1918). The elder Stanford was a wealthy farmer in the eastern Mohawk Valley before moving to the Lisha Kill in Albany County where Leland was born. [Read more…] about Leland Stanford, The Bull’s Head & Albany’s 19th Century Cattle Market

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Agricultural History, Albany, Albany County, Colonie, Gambling, Gold Rush of 1849, Horses, Leland Sanford, Political History, Transportation History, Troy, Vice

The Eddy Family: Capital Region Industrialists

March 25, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Oliver Tarbell Eddy and Titus Egbert EddyWaterford, NY’s involvement in the Industrial Revolution was more significant than its geographical size would imply. Family-owned and operated business ventures were the norm and usually a first and second-generation operation.

Names that immediately come to the fore such families as brothers Hugh and Canvas White, the Knickerbocker, Kavanaugh, Button, Breslin, and King families all demonstrated the business model of the period; manufacturing firms that employed many hands from Saratoga County and surrounding communities. [Read more…] about The Eddy Family: Capital Region Industrialists

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany County, Cohoes, Industrial History, Iron Industry, Labor History, Publishing, Rensselaer County, Saratoga, Saratoga County, Saratoga County History Center, Saratoga County History Roundtable, Troy, Waterford

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