John Swinburne, for whom Albany’s Swinburne Park and New York Harbor’s Swinburne Island are named,  led a life of medical accomplishment – a founder of Albany Hospital as well as of his own private dispensary, a professor at Albany Medical College, a noted expert in what would become forensics, chief medical officer of the…

His biographer (perhaps Joseph McKelvey — the book is unclear) barely sketched the early life of Dr. John Swinburne, once Albany’s foremost surgeon. Fatherless and supporting his family at 12, Swinburne nevertheless managed to get an education from local public schools in Lewis County, and then managed to attend the Fairfield Academy, one of…

Whish’s 1917 “Albany Guide Book” notes that Swinburne Park “commemorates Albany’s greatest surgeon.” A century later, the name Swinburne is all but forgotten, but he lived a most memorable life. An 1888 biography was titled “A Typical American,” while making it clear that he was anything but – it calls him an eminent patriot,…

There can be no doubt that in 1870, a “dollar store” had a different meaning than it does today. The Tweddle Hall Dollar Store of Albany, located in the landmark building long gone from the corner of State and Pearl, was proud of its white metal show cases, its “immence” stock of beautiful and…