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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 3 – Broadway
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Continuing our series on the bronze markers that were placed by the Albany Bicentennial Committee in 1886. The Committee on Monumenting and Decoration chose to commemorate Broadway, then as now the major north-south street through the city. Tablet No. 3—Broadway. Located on ground front of Government building, on Broadway near corner of State—Bronze tablet…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 2 – Municipal
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Continuing our series on the bronze markers that were placed by the Albany Bicentennial Committee in 1886. This was the tablet that was described by the Committee on Monumenting and Decoration in its presentation of June 1886. It’s not clear to me whether this was ever cast, or if the copy was changed out…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 1: Fort Orange
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Our last entry talked about the Albany Bicentennial celebration and the fate of a marker meant to commemorate the Black citizens of Albany that may never have gotten to its intended location in Washington Park. Now let’s talk about the bicentennial markers that did make it to their intended locations (mostly). We know what…
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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.”…
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Beaver Oil, Root Beer, and Orphans
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Looking up these old local stories is nearly always a venture down a rabbit hole, and it’s usually a question of where to stop. One little detail catches the eye, and I start to find out more about that, and it leads to another detail, which leads to a huge revelation, which leads to…
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Wolf Hollow
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Another of the historical markers placed in Glenville in 1935 through the efforts of Percy Van Epps, town and county historian for something like 25 years. This one was for Wolf Hollow, “A rent and displacement of 1,000 feet in earth’s surface rocks. Here in 1669 the Mohawks ambushed their Algonquin invaders.” As we…
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Troy-built Starbucks
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I suspect that, armed with a little bit of information, one could find bits of Troy’s manufacturing history in every state of the union. Here from the Library of Congress is a view of the base of a cast iron tower on the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge & Stone Toll House, near Lake Oroville…
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Wallace Armer, again
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Back when I put up the Wallace Armer receipt, I forgot to show you the back. It was from the brief glory days of the square serif.
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Freihofer’s
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Everyone in the Capital District remembers Freihofer’s. In my mother’s day and before, they were the major home-delivery bakery. You put the Freihofer’s sign in your front window and the truck (and before that, the horse-drawn wagon) would stop and bring fresh bread, cookies and cakes right to your door. Even when I was…