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Henry Burden
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It’s baffling that Henry Burden isn’t better remembered around here. His inventions improved the iron industry, advanced mechanization and helped build the railroads. His use of hydropower on the Wynantskill was world famous. His massive iron and steel works in South Troy employed thousands when the collar industry was growing on the north end…
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Mr. Burden’s Water Wheel
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We’ve been talking about the Troy Iron and Nail Factory Company, which was powered by the falls of the Wynantskill, below what is now Burden Pond in Troy. Water power began there in 1809, and its use expanded as the company grew. Arthur James Weise writes: “The five water-wheels of the works being insufficient…
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The Nail Factory
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It hardly seems fair to talk about the Nail Factory Cemetery without diving more into the history of the nail factory itself. As mentioned before, the Troy Iron and Nail Factory Company (which today would no doubt be shortened to “TINFCO”) was established on the Wynantskill, just a little way north of modern-day HVCC,…
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The Keenan Building
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Glad to see that The Keenan Building, one of the centerpieces of downtown Troy, has been rehabbed and is once again going to be a vital part of the urban core. James Keenan opened this lovely edifice in 1883. When Arthur Weise wrote “The City of Troy and Its Vicinity” in 1886, the building…
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The Nail Factory Cemetery
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Until I ran across it on the Troy Irish Genealogy Society’s website, I had never heard of the Nail Factory Cemetery, but apparently it was once a well-known feature at the top of the Wynantskill’s descent to the Hudson. Arthur James Weise’s “The City of Troy and Its Vicinity” reports that the Troy Iron…
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The Russell Sage School of Mechanical Engineering
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We’ve spent most of this week looking at the good that Mrs. Russell Sage did for two well-known institutions for the education of women, the Emma Willard School and Russell Sage College. But that wasn’t her sole focus. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) was founded in 1824 as the first school of science and civil…
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What she left behind
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Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage died November 4, 1918, at the age of 90, just two years after founding Russell Sage College. Her will, which had been drawn up 10 years earlier, distributed an estate of $50 million, which was on top of the $35 million she had given away in the years after Russell…
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The Benevolence of Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage
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American Biography: A New Cyclopedia has a more detailed description of the life of Margaret Olivia Slocum, who later in life became Mrs. Russell Sage and one of the nation’s greatest philanthropists. Born in 1828 and raised in Syracuse as the daughter of some old (like Miles Standish old) money, her father was impoverished…
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The new Emma Willard School
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After almost 90 years in downtown Troy, the Emma Willard School moved out to Mount Ida, thanks to a $1 million gift from one of its graduates, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, also known as Mrs. Russell Sage. After two years of construction, the new campus opened in 1910 with stunning examples of what was…
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Mrs. Russell Sage
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One of the Troy Female Seminary’s most important former students was Margaret Olivia Slocum. She is best known as Mrs. Russell Sage, for as the second wife of the Wall Street titan and railroad executive, she ensured that significant chunks of his wealth funded philanthrophic efforts all over the northeast. In chronicling the history…