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Troy, 1836: The Salubrious City
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In 1836, J. Disturnell of New York City published “The Traveller’s Guide through the State of New York, Canada, &c.” The title wound on for a while, as was the fashion at the time. In addition to its description of Albany, the guide had a little bit to say about Troy as well. Troy,…
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Mrs. Entwistle, Clairvoyant Physician
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In the Troy directory for 1860, we find this listing for Mrs. Mary Entwistle, Clairvoyant Physician. She lived at 611 River Street, and that is all we want to know about her. Jaded readers will be unsurprised to learn that some clairvoyant physicians were subject to malpractice suits. It would be nice to think…
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Miss J. Kimmey, Costumer
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An image from the 1902 Albany directory, which included some Troy listings as well. Miss J. Kimmey was a masquerade and theatrical costumer, with thorough knowledge of the business and twenty years experience. She had shops at 342 River and 11 Fourth streets in Troy; presumably the Santa Claus outfits were available in both.
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The Justice Bell
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Some months ago I promised myself to get all the way over to Valley Forge National Park, a distance of nearly three miles from my current domicile, and finally get a picture of the Justice Bell, which was cast by the Meneely Bell Foundry in Troy (not the other one in West Troy). And…
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Colonel Roosevelt’s “flying trip” to Rensselaer County
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There’s some sort of hubbub about Roosevelts these days, so we may as well recall the time when Colonel Roosevelt, not yet Governor of the Empire State, made what the New York Tribune called “The Colonel’s Flying Trip to the Rensselaer County Fair,” in 1898. At that point flying was entirely metaphorical. Troy, N.Y.,…
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What’s up in the publishing world, 1919
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Ran across an edition of “The American Printer” from August, 1919, which featured a series of short blurbs informative of what was going on with printers and publishers in New York State that summer. Among them: The Schenectady Union-Star has changed its mechanical equipment to print an eight column, 12½ em page, instead of…
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An old-time newspaperman
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While perusing old editions of Editor and Publisher, we came across this little reminder that in the old days, there tended to be two kinds of newspapermen: the ones who were lifers at a single publication, and the ones who worked all over the place. Here’s the obituary of one of the latter type…
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River travel before steam: wind, white-ash breeze, and kedging
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In “The History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County,” Arthur Weise described river travel before the age of steam. In periods of calm winds, the tides of the river could be, a little bit, the traveller’s friend, but then sometimes they had to resort to kedging: “Anyone taking passage in a sloop…
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The Photography Stylings of Zeph Magill
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A couple of weeks back we ran across the photograph of Hugh McCusker, dealer in carpets, who did his carpet-dealing from River Street in Troy. We said at the time we didn’t know much about the photographer, Zeph Magill, other than that he worked out of the Keenan Building. There was also a milliner…
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Troy’s Earliest Merchants
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According to Arthur James Weise, in his “The History of the Seventeen Towns of Rensselaer County,” the first merchants of Troy came to the riverside town almost before it was even a town. At that time, Lansingburgh was actually where it was at. In 1786, the present site of Troy was known as Ferry…