History, Natural History & the Arts
This week on The Historians Podcast, Bob Cudmore and Dave Greene take a look at Guy Park Manor, Amsterdam, New York’s, oldest house.
The colonial era stone building was originally a marriage gift for Guy and Polly Johnson. Guy was the nephew of British Indian agent Sir William Johnson and Polly was Sir William’s daughter. [Read more…] about Amsterdam’s Guy Park Manor: Some History
For more than 25 years, historian Russ Bellico and the leaders of the Lake George Battlefield Alliance, including the late archaeologist David Starbuck, argued that grounds as historically rich and as hallowed as the head of Lake George deserve a visitors’ interpretive center.
Now we have one. [Read more…] about The Battlefield Visitor Center: Lake George’s Newest Attraction
On this episode of A New York Minute in History, Devin Lander and Lauren Roberts visit New York’s oldest continuously operating courthouse, located in the City of Johnstown in Fulton County.
Built in 1772 by Sir William Johnson, the Fulton County Courthouse has seen the transition from British colonial rule to the establishment of the United States, and 250 years of legal history. Among the important judges to hold court at the courthouse include Daniel Cady, the father of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was heavily influenced by legal cases which demonstrated how few rights women had in the 19th Century. [Read more…] about Fulton County Courthouse: Some History
The hamlet of Fort Hunter in Montgomery County, NY, while small, has been historically significant even since before the American Revolution. It was home to people of the Mohawk Nation and was known as the Lower Castle being downstream or below Canajoharie on the Mohawk River. Being at the confluence of the Schoharie Creek and river it was always an important trade post for goods, food, and cultures. [Read more…] about Historic Fort Hunter: From Queen Anne’s War to the Erie Canal
In February 1826 one of America’s seminal works of historical fiction, James Fenimore Cooper‘s The Last of the Mohicans, was first published. Last of the Mohicans has also been adapted to film at least eight times, most recently in 1992 starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The novel is one of five Cooper wrote that make up the Leatherstocking Tales series, all of them set in Upstate New York between the years 1740 and 1804.
Warren County, NY is where many of the real-life actions of 1757 depicted in the novel occurred, including at what is now Lake George Battlefield Park, the location of several other important historical events. [Read more…] about Lake George Battlefield, More Than Just A Setting for Cooper’s ‘Last of the Mohicans’
William Shirley was the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, appointed by the King of England. Shirley had been a British official in England serving on negotiating committees with French officials determining boundaries. This had led Shirley to a thorough dislike of the French.
He was very aggressive and had been a stalwart advocate of invading Canada and driving the French out of North America. Shirley had written a strong criticism of the New York Congress for its resistance to an invasion of Canada in 1748. He was upset when New Jersey and Rhode Island refused to cooperate in the invasion because they were not threatened. [Read more…] about The Albany Congress of 1754: Native People, Colonists & the Monarchy
From the time Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River in 1609, the area that is now Albany, NY was considered the focal point of trade with Indigenous People. For over a hundred years, Albany was the trading post furthest west and most remote in the colonies. Most of the other colonies were English; New Netherland was Dutch and settled for the purpose of trade.
With a moderate climate, abundant rainfall, a lake and river system for good transportation and plentiful natural resources, New Netherland was well-positioned. The fur trade significantly raised the standard of living of many European settlers and Native People. Arriving at Albany with a catch of furs, an native person could trade would usually trade with a representative of the Van Rensselaers, or one of his agents.
Thousands of pelts began to flow into Albany in return for Dutch, and later English, trade goods. News of the Dutch market spread and before long Native People from as far away as today’s Minnesota and Illinois were traveling across the Great Lakes and Mohawk River to Albany to obtain manufactured goods with animal pelts. [Read more…] about Albany’s Role In Three Little-Remembered Colonial Wars in the Northeast
The Fort Plain Museum has announced the Sir William Johnson and the Wars for Empire Conference, featuring nine speakers and a bus tour, is set for October 15th through 17th. [Read more…] about Sir William Johnson and the Wars for Empire Conference Announced
On Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 7 pm, the Fort Plain Museum will present “Sir William Johnson and the Evolution of the Mohawk Valley Fur Trade by Michael Perazzini. The presentation will take place at the museum located at 389 Canal Street in Fort Plain. This is the second of four lectures that will take place at the museum.
Perazzini will discuss the evolution of the fur trade in Upstate New York as well as the changes implemented by Superintendent of Indian Affairs Sir William Johnson. He will also display and lead a discussion about many of the artifacts involved in the fur trade. [Read more…] about Sir William Johnson and the Mohawk Valley Fur Trade
One of the real pleasures in researching and writing When Men and Mountain Meet was exploring the actual sites of the historic places mentioned in my book: the little town of Castorland on the Black River, the LeRay Mansion at Fort Drum, Gouverneur Morris’ Mansion at Natural Dam and David Parish’s house, now the Remington Art Museum, in Ogdensburg. And then there was finding Zephaniah Platt’s grave in the Riverside Cemetery in Plattsburgh, in Lake Placid the site of the 1813 Elba Iron and Steel Manufacturing works , Charles Herreshoff’s flooded iron ore mine in Old Forge and the complex of building foundations that made up John Thurman’s 1790 development at Elm Hill.
There was one site, however, that was a little harder to locate than the others; Sir William Johnson’s fishing camp “Fish House”. [Read more…] about The Mystery of William Johnson’s ‘Fish House’