-
Peter Coddle’s Trip to New York
•
What did people do for fun on rainy afternoons in 1888 (or, for that matter, 1968)? They played Peter Coddle’s Trip to New York. Now you can, too.
-
Stove Capital of the Country
•
Before collars, Troy’s fortune was made in iron works. The old forests of the Adirondacks fueled iron forges up and down the Champlain valley and beyond, but Troy emerged as the major iron manufacturing center in the state in the mid-1800s. And for a time Troy and nearby foundries were putting out huge proportion…
-
Colonial Ice Cream
•
There was a time when all ice cream was local, and Colonial Ice Cream was a prominent ice cream maker in Schenectady and Scotia, supplying many local restaurants and stores. The last Colonial factory was in the former Mohawk School on Mohawk Avenue in Scotia; the building was demolished in 1962 and has been…
-
Bame’s Livery
•
In 1862, John Bame’s livery service was at the corner of State Street and Centre (now Broadway). Funeral outfits provided at the shortest possible notice.
-
Weeber Bicycles
•
Christian Weeber was an inventor and tinkerer who built a variety of things in his Albany shop in the early part of the last century: handbuilt automobiles, some of the earliest automobile mufflers, gasoline-powered electric generators, a type of railroad rail. And with his brother Emil, he made and sold bicycles. Weeber had a…
-
Hate Albany? Blame it on the Dutch.
•
In Dr. Morse’s American Geography published in 1789, he says, “Albany is said to be an unsociable place … To form a just idea of the manners and customs of the inhabitants, we must confine ourselves to the Dutch, who being much the most numerous, give the tone to the manners of the place.”…
-
Mourning goods
•
I don’t know where I’d go for mourning goods today, but in 1870, I’d have gone to Betts & Medbury, in the Mansion House Block in Troy. Dry goods of every description, but mourning goods were their specialty. Mourning was big business in those days.
-
Hathorn Spring Water
•
Hathorn Water from the Hathorn Spring in Saratoga Springs clears the complexion, relieves the headache at once, promotes rest and sleep. Why, it even revives dormant faculties (to say nothing of somnambulant sophomores). And the State of New York says it’s good for constipation. And who would know better?
-
When you need bar belt dressing
•
We’ve seen ads where the advertiser begs leave to inform you of the availability of his humble product. That may be good enough for the other guys, but Stephenson Bar Belt Dressing didn’t go in for that namby-pamby stuff. Every mill supply dealer should carry it. There’s something wrong with him if he doesn’t.…
-
Wells & Coverly
•
The first time I became aware of Wells & Coverly, a pretty high-end gentlemen’s clothing store, was when I moved to Syracuse in the late ’70s, where I believe they had a store in Shoppingtown Mall and may have still had their South Salina Street location. It was a top name for quality and…