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 suppliers should carry it. There’s something wrong with him if he doesn’t. And if …
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 service, …
Or not, because look at that disease. I’ve posted this image from an 1860-something Albany directory before over on My Non-Urban Life, but it deserves a second look. I don’t know what’s wrong with the eye on the right, but I’ll say this: I don’t want it. Also, whatever the surgical cure would have been …
In the 19th century, Schenectady’s main business district was all concentrated west of the canal. And it would seem that most things that were for sale were concentrated in James Walker & Co., wholesale and retail dealers in groceries, agricultural implements, house furnishing goods, wood and willow ware, rope, twine and cordage, coal oils and …
Oh, steam! Is there nothing you don’t make better? I’m not sure exactly what they actually milled at Eureka Steam Mills, which was at Broadway and Division Streets (possibly where the defunct Adirondack Trailways terminal is), but they were one of a number of dealers in coffee, spices, cream tartar, mustard, &c. in downtown Albany …
In 1895, you couldn’t swing a cat in Troy without hitting a collar factory.
Bears in the news? Nothing new. The Cohoes Cataract, 1849, reported on a resolution of the trustees of the village of Cohoes: “Complaint having been made that Wm. H. Bortell has a bear near his house which is not safely secured, therefore Resolved: That the police constable be, and he is hereby ordered to direct …
As I’ve said before, if you wanted to show that your product was the height of modernity in the 19th century, it had to be made by steam. Witness Fred Carr & Son’s Greenbush Steam Cracker and Biscuit Manufactory. It had previously been J. Whiting’s cracker factory, at Second Avenue and Washington in what is …
Once, it might have been the most important transportation intersection in the United States: the spot where the Erie Canal opened into the Hudson River. Here, barges carrying grain and hundreds of other products from the Great Lakes region had to be lifted from mule-drawn packet boats the plied the canal and moved onto sailing …