New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Utica

Central Adirondacks Lumbering Operations (1880-1900)

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6b1 Webb Land Sold to NYS in 1896 on Julius Bien MapAfter achieving his railroad dream and completing his Nehasane wilderness refuge – reachable using his own luxury rail car – William Seward Webb found himself in a major conflict with the State of New York.

Inlet historian Charles Herr tells this part of the story expertly, in his history of the Fulton Chain. My map here highlights that land aquisition by the State in yellow, totaling 74,585 acres of Brown’s Tract and in the Totten & Crossfield Purchase. Webb retained ownership of lakes like Twitchell and Big Moose because he intended those for later cottage and hotel sales. [Read more…] about Central Adirondacks Lumbering Operations (1880-1900)

Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

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Rev. Robert EverettRev. Robert Everett was a Welsh-American who came to Oneida County, NY in 1823 from Wales. He very quickly became involved in the anti-slavery movement. In 1835, Utica was selected as the site for the first New York State Anti-Slavery Convention.

The meeting was broken up by an angry mob. From Utica Everett was forced to move several times as his church services were often interrupted by people who continued to support slavery. He was physically assaulted while preaching and had his horse injured and home burned down by pro-slavery activists. [Read more…] about Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

The War of 1812 in the Capital District

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USS Constitution vs Guerriere in the War of 1812 by Michel Felice Corne (1752-1845)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

A Photographer Visits Utica, Saratoga & Albany in 1878

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Johnson Park in Utica ca 1870sThis essay by John Nicol, PhD, first appeared on July 12, 1878 in The British Journal of Photography.

Utica, intersected by the Erie and Hudson Canal, is really a beautiful place. Free from the geometric regularity of most of the American cities, its tree-lined streets impart to it the truly American sylvan character, while the size and elegance of its suburban residences show that its people are prosperous to a degree unknown in similar cities in the old country.

But their commercial prosperity is not the only, or even principal, quality on which the Uticans pride themselves, as they rank only second to Boston in their opinion of their culture and appreciation of science and art; and, so far as I have been able to judge, with quite as much, if not more, reason. [Read more…] about A Photographer Visits Utica, Saratoga & Albany in 1878

Jock Wright & Dut Barber: Honondaga Lake History

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Map of Jock’s Lake is taken from the 1876 E. R. Wallace Map of the Adirondack WildernessOne of the earliest written accounts of Jock’s Lake in the Adirondacks (about twenty-five miles east of Boonville) was given by Jeptha Simms in his 1850 book Trappers of New York: A Biography of Nicholas Stoner & Nathaniel Foster:

“Jock’s Lake, so-called after Jock (Jonathan) Wright, an early trapper upon its shores, is a very pretty lake, five or six miles long, though not very wide; and is situated in the north-eastern or wilderness portion of Herkimer County, some ten miles from a place called Noblesborough. Its outlet is one of the sources of the west branch of West Canada Creek.” [Read more…] about Jock Wright & Dut Barber: Honondaga Lake History

Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

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1885 Stoddard Map of the Adirondack WildernessThe adventure began with an exchange of letters in the spring of 1877 between a sportsman in Syracuse, NY, and Byron P. Graves of Boonville, a town on the western border of the Adirondacks. The purpose of this correspondence was to hire a guide and transportation for a two-week hunting and fishing trip into the Fulton Chain of Lakes for the man and his 11-year-old son Ned.

The sportsman was Ansel Judd Northrup, a 43-year-old attorney who would later write the book, Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks (1882), where this story was first told. The final communication from Northrup, in the form of a telegraph, simply read, “Engage Brinckerhoff, will reach Boonville, morning train, July 5th.” [Read more…] about Through The Fulton Chain of Lakes in 1877

“Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks”: Building the Adirondack Railroad

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Gainesville Midland track maintenance crew, CA 1890The St. Lawrence & Adirondack Railroad, also known as the Mohawk & Malone – eventually owned by the New York Central and called the Adirondack Line or the Adirondack Railroad ran directly through the Adirondacks from Herkimer (near Utica) to Malone connecting the rail lines along the Mohawk River to the Main Trunk Line running into Montreal. The line is often attributed to William Seward Webb, but it was the men who actually built the line that are the subject of this essay.

On March 29, 1892 a Boston Globe article titled “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks” reported that Utica “resembled Washington during war times, hundreds of penniless and destitute Negroes are camped out tonight in the temporary places of shelter given them, and the citizens of Utica are consulting as to the best means of returning them to their homes.”

The Globe told readers that all night, “runaway slaves” had been coming into town. One hundred and fifty of them, mostly black laborers from the Deep South, but some recently arrived European immigrants as well. [Read more…] about “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks”: Building the Adirondack Railroad

Beriah Green, Oneida Institute and Education as Liberation

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Daguerreotype of Beriah Green, courtesy of John Baker, a descendant.In his classic The Souls of Black Folk (1903), the famous activist, sociologist, and historian W. E. B. Du Bois, tells of how Alexander Crummell told Du Bois that he had experienced “three years of perfect equality” under the tutelage of Rev. Beriah Green when a student at Oneida Institute in Upstate New York.

Crummell, along with Henry Highland Garnet and Thomas Sidney, found an educational haven at Green’s school. They had been admitted to the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire, but outraged whites used teams of oxen to drag the academy building away. Crummell and his friends then journeyed to Whitesboro, New York, and enrolled in Green’s school. Du Bois said of Green that “only [a] crank and an abolitionist” would have dared to accept students of color such as Crummell at a time when African Americans were excluded from opportunities for higher education. [Read more…] about Beriah Green, Oneida Institute and Education as Liberation

A Welsh Immigrant Writes Home from Upstate New York, 1856

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“Welsh Settlement in Upstate New York, 1795 to c. 1940s,”There is a fascinating letter from Evan Evans of Turin, Lewis County, NY to his relatives back in Wales. It is written in Welsh and dated August 1856.

The letter tells the story of a young man who had recently arrived in the United States who was struggling with homesickness and wrestling with doubts about whether he had made the right decision to move to America. He describes the sea-crossing, his arrival, and his new life in north-central New York State.

The letter now resides in the Meirionnydd Archives in northwest Wales. [Read more…] about A Welsh Immigrant Writes Home from Upstate New York, 1856

New York Lunatic Asylum at Utica: A History of Old Main

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Old Main Book CoverBook purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.

The book The New York Lunatic Asylum at Utica: A History of Old Main (North Country Books, 2015) by Dennis Webster looks at the New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica, also known as “Old Main,” which opened in 1843 as the first institution of its kind to treat “madness” as a medical illness, not a curse.

Although closed in 1978, the building was placed in the National Register of Historic Places, and its iconic columns still fascinate the public today. [Read more…] about New York Lunatic Asylum at Utica: A History of Old Main