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The Old Mohawk River bridge
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Schenectady and what is now the village of Scotia were populated at almost the same time, back around 1662. In fact, Alexander Lindsay Glen held an even earlier grant to the lands on the north bank of the Mohawk where the Glen-Sanders Mansion now sits. So from the earliest times, crossing the river was…
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Tragedy on the Mohawk
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One last look at long-gone Glenotia Park, and a tragedy that happened there on July 4, 1915. Adolph Held, owner of the Guarantee Bed Spring Company and the Guarantee Polishing and Plating Company, drowned in the river near the swimming school diving tower, right at the mouth of the Sanders inlet, which is right…
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Boy Scouts at Glenotia Park
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People often ask why the papers don’t print the good things that happen in the community (or they did when they still read newspapers). Well, here we have an excellent example of the paper printing good news, and the story it tells is excruciatingly dull. From the July 3, 1915 Schenectady Gazette, a detailed…
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Mohawk Swimming School, Glenotia Park
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News came this week that “Glenotia Island” is up for sale (for a mere $91,000). Growing up in Scotia, I never heard it called “Glenotia” — if anyone had a name for it, it was Isle of the Mohawks, and it appeared as such on maps of the time. Maps from around 1905 failed…
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Old School Week: Mohawk School
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Because I don’t have any good photographs of the outside of my elementary school, I’ll start with this charming photograph of my kindergarten class inside the gym. This was the Mohawk School on Ten Broeck Street between Riverside and Sanders avenues. We’re shown here in the gymnasium/auditorium, on the risers we would also use…
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Old School Week: Scotia High School
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Hoxsie’s going old school this week. Real old school. Scotia, New York was a booming village in 1905 when it built its first high school, on First Street just two blocks up from the main street, Mohawk Avenue. It served as the high school until a new one was built on Sacandaga Road just…
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Dying ain’t getting any cheaper, either
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While we’re plowing through piles of bills, receipts and credit cards, let’s have a look at this invoice for my great grandfather’s funeral expenses. Today the Baxter Funeral Home is part of a chain, but in 1963 it was still being run by Eugene Baxter. Why did they choose Baxter when my great grandfather…
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Colonial Ice Cream
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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…