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The Life of William Kimbol Johnson
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Updating my genealogy software for the first time in several years made me look at the state of some of my research. For starters, I’ve posted an updated version of my family tree cards which may be of use to anyone in my family. I also found that I had done a lot of…
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G.W. Van Slyke & Horton – Peter Schuyler Cigars
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Scrolling through some old newspapers, this ad caught our eye — not only for its odd syntax (I mean, I guess I wouldn’t want to get in front of a cigar), but for its note that Peter Schuyler cigars had been made for 40 years right in Albany by G.W. Van Slyke & Horton.…
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O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler
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For a while now we’ve been interested in the story of Emmett O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler. We hadn’t heard of him before he popped up along with some other research we were doing, but he was quite well-known and his crimes were widely reported across the state. (Various sources spelled his name O’Neill and…
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From canal to boulevard
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Imagine giving a weeklong exposition, with parade and fireworks, to celebrate the opening and lighting of a new street.
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“All Who Attended Were Well Pleased.”
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More for amusement than for historical edification, we present this clipping from an 1867 edition of the Schenectady Evening Star. We haven’t dug in to exactly who Prof. Shepard was or why he was giving demonstrations in the use of laughing gas. Nor do we know which very interesting experiments the second night’s audience…
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Crossing State (And Building a New Union Station)
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When Schenectady was a sleepy backwater, having numerous trains go across the main business street, just feet from the Erie Canal, was probably not much more than a nuisance. But with the growth of the American Locomotive Works, and the opening of the Edison Works in 1886, a serious boom began. Schenectady’s population went…
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How Well Do You Know Schenectady?
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On Dec. 30, 1911, the Schenectady Gazette asked on its front page, “Do You Know Your Own City?” It then posed questions about Schenectady that “will be answered by the committee on social service in the Men and Religion Forward Movement while making the general survey of the city.” Even in a time of…
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The Hotel Vendome (and any number of other names)
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For those of us who grew up around Schenectady in the 1950s or 1960s, the northeast corner of State and Broadway seemed long settled as the home of the Woolworth’s — indeed, the F.W. Woolworth store, which opened on that site in 1939, was there until 1994, and the rehabbed building remains. But for…
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Death and Debauchery
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We’ve been fascinated by this one for some time, for reasons not entirely clear even to us. We don’t usually publish true crime and the like, but now and then there’s a story that reminds us that over the centuries, people are fundamentally the same, though perhaps our treatment of them makes some halting…
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Dr. Jones’ Beaver Oil: No Beaver, No Dr. Jones
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In talking about Lebbeus Burton of Troy, the druggist whose fortune founded an orphans’ home that is still in use today, we touched on the seemingly unlikely cure of Dr. Jones’ Beaver Oil (also sold as Beaver And Oil Compound, “for the treatment of Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Sore Throat and Quinsy, Headache, Toothache, Backache, Bruises.”…