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With Lips As Close As Possible To The Mouthpiece: Albany Telephones, 1895
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Telephone service dates to the 1870s, with the National Bell Telephone Company being formed in 1879, and a long-distance operation by the name of American Telephone and Telegraph formed in 1885. Even as late as 1895, telephone service was rare enough that AT&T was able to publish a national telephone directory, listing all the…
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The Albany Brush Company
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We know that way back when, the Albany Penitentiary was supposed to be a model reformatory, one where prisoners were expected to be silent and work for their keep. In fact, From the time of its opening in 1846 on a plot of land behind what is now Hackett Middle School, the Penitentiary, a…
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Union College Alumni in the Civil War
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We ran across an interesting tome by the title of “Union College Alumni in the Civil War,” and thought we might try to give a little rundown of the alumni of the little Schenectady college, founded in 1795, who had served both the Union and the Confederacy. How much work could that be? As…
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A Cabin in the Woods, and a Little Family History
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After years of good intentions but poor execution, of being somewhat nearby but never quite in the right area, I finally made it to the land of my ancestors last week. It’s a little tucked-away corner of the north central Adirondacks, far from any roads in the 1860s and not terribly close to any…
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Not Quite Man’s Best Friend
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In the Albany Hand-Book of 1884, which contained an alphabetic listing of topics of interest to both residents and strangers, we find this remnant of an earlier time, when an Albany ordinance prohibited all dogs from going at large in June, July, August and September unless properly muzzled, out of the belief that rabies…
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Vacation
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Hoxsie’s on vacation. Will be back next week refreshed and full of . . . . well, no, we’ll probably still be randomly throwing up posts about whatever catches our fancy the night before, with minimal research and plenty of typos. In the meantime, click the archive link on the right and find something…
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Roller Skating Rinks of 19th Century Albany
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We have a real love-hate relationship with George Rogers Howell’s “Bi-Centennial History of Albany,” from 1886. On the one hand, it’s a treasure trove of incredible information that is organized in ways the esteemed Joel Munsell couldn’t achieve. On the other hand, it’s mostly plagiarized, often self-contradictory, and almost completely unedited. But: treasure trove!…
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The Freshet This Time
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Munsell’s “Annals of Albany,” in the Notes from the Newspapers section, includes a description of the devastating spring flood of 1833, one of many notable floods in Albany’s history: May 16. A freshet which began two days previous was not at its greatest height and produced much loss and damage. South Market street was…
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Albany, Home of Nearly the First Globe Manufactory in the Country
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Howell’s “Bi-Centennial History of Albany” says that the Wilson boys of Albany, John and Samuel, were the sons of the first globe manufacturer in the U.S. That would have been James Wilson, born in Londonderry, N.H., and died in Bradford, Vt. According to Howell, around 1820 sons John and Samuel established a globe manufactory…
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Dog Days of August, 1944
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1944: The world was at war. Air conditioning was a rare feature in Albany homes and businesses. Factory work was still commonplace. And in August, the temperature reached 90 degrees in Albany on 27 days of a 31 day month. “You may have thought that every one of the 31 days was a scorcher,…