The passing of Troy Savings Bank
Weise’s 1886 “The City of Troy and its Vicinity” recounts the early history of the Troy Savings Bank, which was incorporated by law in 1823. The board of managers first […]
Month: June 2012
Lost and found, 1923
In the age of Craigslist, the weird old charm of perusing the classified ads in the newspaper is gone. Once we depended on them to find jobs, apartments, cars, and […]
To the Manor born
If you want to see the original walls and doors from the Van Rensselaer Manor house, the home of Stephen Van Rensselaer II, the eighth patroon of Rensselaerwyck, circa 1769, […]
Where there’s beaver, there’s beaver crime
Munsell’s fourth volume of the “Annals of Albany” begins with various records from the Courts of Assize, generally a criminal court. In the early days of Beverwijck, when the fur-bearing […]
What’s going on, 1670
Joel Munsell’s “Annals of Albany” was a ten-volume opus published during the 1850s that was a magnificent mixture of history, biography, and just plain copying of things that happened in […]
Charter School, 1670
English: Francis Lovelace (1621-1675) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) In 1670, Albany’s Schoolmaster Jan Jurians Beecker was having a hard time. Despite the fact that Colonial Governor Richard Nicolls had granted […]
Measure for measure
Dutch roof line (Photo credit: carljohnson) In 1669, New York had been under British rule for five years, but the colony, her cities and her customs were no less […]
Sifting the ashes
Ran across this 1923 Carl Company ad for dustless ash sifters, only $2.98 in Carl’s Busy Basement, and it occurred to me that even though I’ve heard the phrase “sifting […]
Romantic Albany
The Northern Traveller, from 1844, relates an earlier, uncredited, positively gushing description of the capital city on the Hudson: “The younger race of fashionables and semi-fashionables know Albany, or affect […]
Cruising up the Hudson, 1909-style
English: US Postage Stamp, Fulton on the Hudson, 1909 Issue, 2c (Photo credit: Wikipedia) In “The Motor Boat: Devoted to All Types of Power Craft,” author C.G. Davis gave us […]