Category: Local history

Contributing writers will sally into archives and recover stories and voices from the past, from many communities in this independent stretch of hills between wide rivers and the Taconic and Hoosic ranges and the Green mountains.

  • Issue:

    The high-pitched buzz of summers past

    To some, the common mosquito represented an engineering marvel.“A scientist computes that with the aid of a machine constructed on the principle of the boring, drilling and pumping apparatus of the mosquito, a hole could be bored to the center of the earth in less than a day,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported read more

    The high-pitched buzz of summers past
  • Issue:

    Cycling editor earned respect in newspaper fraternity

    Editor Franklin Fishler’s preferred mode of transportation must have made it difficult at times to make deadline. But it got him out into the far-reaching communities of Washington County to gather the news firsthand, setting him apart from his peers, who typically relied on correspondents based in individual towns to keep readers informed. “Editor Fishler read more

    Cycling editor earned respect in newspaper fraternity
  • Issue:

    From local pulpits, a push to banish gambling

    The Rev. Sherman Williams, pastor of Glens Falls Methodist Episcopal Church, liked to watch horses trot — with one caveat. “Personally, I very much enjoy a pure and simple horse race,” Williams said in a sermon on Nov. 4, 1894. “But I have never attended a race where gambling and pool selling were the order read more

    From local pulpits, a push to banish gambling
  • Issue:

    From Troy, a world champion in era of boxing ‘exhibitions’

    It was billed as family entertainment.“The management desires to announce that these contests will be no slugging matches but simply a scientific exhibition that all can witness with pleasure as pure harmless fun,” The Granville Sentinel reported on Sept. 28, 1894. The former world boxing champion Patrick “Paddy” Ryan of Troy was to face the read more

    From Troy, a world champion in era of boxing ‘exhibitions’
  • Issue:

    Talked up for governor’s race, he stayed in the back rooms

    There was a big push for women’s suffrage in New York in 1894 as the state constitutional convention was set to begin. Former U.S. Rep. Henry Gordon Burleigh, R-Whitehall, who was weighing a run for governor, was not ready to fully embrace the “petticoat platform” of the suffragettes. “Ex-Congressman Henry G. Burleigh of Whitehall hurried read more

    Talked up for governor’s race, he stayed in the back rooms
  • Issue:

    Producing paper — Despite a mill’s closing, industry remains

    Despite a mill’s closing, industry’s role in region remains strong   The Essity tissue mill in South Glens Falls shut down in July, eliminating 300 jobs and ending a tradition of nearly 140 years of paper manufacturing at the site. But industry insiders say the Essity mill faced special pressures that don’t reflect a broader read more

    Producing paper — Despite a mill’s closing, industry remains
  • Issue:

    Slate quarries idled as a trust went bust

    Collaboration worked effectively for the slate companies along the border of New York and Vermont for much of the 19th century. The communities around Granville, N.Y., and Pawlet, Vt., held the majority of the nation’s slate deposits and an exclusive supply of certain grades. So it behooved local slate companies to form a trust, in read more

    Slate quarries idled as a trust went bust
  • Issue:

    New library found a village of avid readers

    The four most popular book titles in the first year of operation of Crandall Free Library can still be checked out at the Glens Falls library today, albeit in newer editions. But these classic works of fiction have only a fraction of the circulation they had in 1892 and 1893. “The demand for certain books read more

    New library found a village of avid readers
  • Issue:

    A county judge, a campaign attack and a con artist

    This gift to a sitting judge did not appear to raise any red flags from 19th century ethics watchdogs. “County Judge Whitman returned yesterday from Whitehall with a nice mess of frogs’ legs, which were presented him,” The Washington County Advertiser reported on June 15, 1887. Later in the year, however, as Whitman, a Democrat read more

    A county judge, a campaign attack and a con artist
  • Issue:

    Redrawn political map set stage for 1890s GOP drama

    Legislative redistricting in 1893 created a new regional state Senate district of epic proportions in northern New York — encompassing Warren, Washington, Essex, Franklin, Clinton, Hamilton and Fulton counties. The change shook up the region’s representation in Albany, as two incumbent Republican senators wound up losing their party’s nomination for the seat to a new read more

    Redrawn political map set stage for 1890s GOP drama