It Happened Here--In Precarious Positions

From a distance it might seem like a drama played out in the deep South in the days following Reconstruction. A black man waits in fear with manacled wrists, as a mob gathers demanding he be turned over to them. The officer and his deputies try to force their way through the mob with the man to the judge's office. The black man is battered and bruised as he is pulled first one way, than another as the mob tries to pull him from the officers. They succeed, wresting him away and throwing him in a small skiff to carry him from Troy to West Troy, (now Watervliet.) But the telegraph is faster than the boat, and when they arrive the police are waiting there to re-arrest the man. As a large part of the mob pours across the river in a ferry boat and various commandeered watercraft, the police and their prisoner are holed up in a judge's office on Broadway. Again the scene is repeated with the mob storming the building, this time ignoring shots fired into the crowd by unnerved officers. They retake the black man, now dazed and bleeding and he is thrown into the back of a wagon and spirited away to Schenectady. Spirited away—to what?  A tree, a rope, and a lynching?       No—to Freedom!
 

Charles Nalle was born into slavery in Culpepper Virginia about 1821. His mother, Lucy, was a light skinned mulatto girl and his father was, officially, unknown, but generally known to be Peter Hansbrough, a wealthy planter whose plantation was near the plantation where Charles' mother was enslaved. The year Charles was born Hansbrough bought Lucy and her children when his neighbor, her owner, died. Charles was brought up as house slave and coachman, assigned to drive his master's carriage and care for his horses. Hansborough gave Charles to his son, Blucher Hansborough, and Charles continued as his half-brother's coachman. Charles married Catherine “Kitty” Simms who lived on the nearby Thom's planation. Slaves were often encouraged to marry, but forced to live apart in nearby plantations. This gave plantation owners an important lever over their slaves, as it gave masters the power to permit or restrict the contact slaves had with their spouses and families, dependent on their good behavior.

Though Nalle was treated better than many slaves – certainly much better than field hands in the deep south, the insecurity and inhumanity of his everyday life weighed heavily on him. Though Blucher Hansborough promised never to sell him, one day following a major setback of a fire that destroyed a barn containing most of the plantation's wheat harvest Charles and a friend were set upon by local whites, at the behest of Blucher. Beaten and chained together with two field hands they were transported to Richmond's slave market to be sold. Only a lack of interest on the part of bidders saved Nalle and his companion from being sold away. (A glut of slaves in the marketplace and tight money prevented Nalle and his friend from the fate of the two field hands who were auctioned off, never to see their homes and families again.) Neither Charles nor his friend commanded the minimum asking price Hansborough required, and they were returned home.

A few years later another crisis loomed when Kitty's master died and his property was divided among his heirs. Perhaps because she was a young women with four young female children to care for she may have been considered more of a liability than an asset in the harsh economic calculation of slavery, so she was freed by her master. For the young black woman, this news was little better than if she had been bound away. Virginia law prohibited free-blacks from living in Virginia, as did most of the other "slave" states, so she was forced to move out of state. But if she went to a “free” state, Charles would certainly never be allowed to visit. So, she chose “Washington City” (D.C.), seventy five miles away, where freed slaves were allowed, but strict “black codes” gave slaveholders confidence they could control their slaves, and might encourage Hansborough to permit Charles an occasional visit.

In August 1858 Charles and a friend were given one week travel passes to go to Washington under the supervision of some of Hansborough's relatives and with prior notification of the Washington police.  In Washington they managed to slip away from their escorts, make their escape and link up with the Underground Railroad, an association of people who aided fugitive slaves. From there they made their way to Philadelphia, probably in the hold of a small coastal schooner,  then on to Albany and the Underground Railway Station run by a freeborn black man, Stephen Meyers.   In Albany Meyers offered the fugitives a choice . They could either take a ticket to continue on by train to Canada or stay on in upstate New York, in a rural area and be set up with jobs, there. Charles chose the latter option, believing it would be easier for his family to make their way up to Albany, and that by working, he would be able to send them money to make it happen sooner. A deciding factor may have been the presence of Minot Crosby, a teacher who had befriended him in the South, and probably helped facilitate his escape. Crosby had abruptly left his teaching position and fled from Virginia when Crosby's abolitionist leanings and Underground Railroad activities had become known. The teacher had settled in Sand Lake, Rensselaer County and was teaching at the Female Seminary, located there. At the time, rural Rensselaer County was enjoying a boom in lumber production, so work was readily found for Nalle, an experienced coachman, driving lumber wagons.

While there was much abolitionist support in New York State, (the Albany and Troy UGRR stations openly solicited monies from donors, even holding public fund raising events), New York was deeply divided. Most Democrats were pro-slavery, and supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which required “free” states and federal commissioners to assist Southern slaveholders recover their runaway slaves. Living near Charles was a young, struggling lawyer, Horatio Averill. Averill had practiced law for four years but had lost his position in a New York law firm following an accusation of embezzlement. He had recently worked for a small local newspaper, but had been let go from that job, as well.

One of Charles' ambitions was to learn to read and write – skills denied him when he was a slave. Crosby was tutoring him, and helping him write letters. Somehow, Averill or one of his siblings overheard one of their conversations or surmised from the contents of one or more of his letters that Nalle was a runaway slave and that Blucher Hansborough was his former master. Averill wrote Hansborough advising him of Charles' whereabouts, and offering to represent Blucher as his counsel to facilitate the slave's recapture and legal extradition to Virginia.

Charles suddenly left Sand Lake for Troy in the early spring of 1860. Whether he suspected something or was seeking the society of a larger black community is unclear. He found lodging in the house of William Henry, a local grocer and employment as a coachman for Uri Gilbert, a wealthy industrialist whose factory built railway coaches on nearby Green Island.

On April 27, 1860 Nalle was running an errand for Gilbert's wife using Gilbert's carriage to pick up bread at a local bakery. He had just climbed back onto the carriage when he was grabbed from behind by two men. One wore the star of a U.S. Deputy Marshall.  Charles stared in horror when he recognized the other as Jack Wale, a rough man he knew from his former Virginia home, who sometimes worked as a fugitive slave catcher for the local planters.  Wale fastened a heavy set of manacles on him triumphantly announcing these were the same handcuffs he had used on Charles youngest brother when he transported him to the Richmond slave market, to be sold several months before. The pair pulled Charles onto the pavement and dragged him several blocks to the Mutual Bank Building where the U.S. Commissioners had a second floor office. There, affidavits and other paperwork were completed for his transportation back to Virginia.  Wale, of course, was there to testify to Charles identity, as was Averill who testified to Charles' time in New York, and what he had learned about the fugitive.

The Mutual Bank Building, today

Meanwhile, one of Gilbert's sons had gone looking for Nalle, when he had not returned. After finding the abandoned  carriage, he contacted the grocer with whom Charles was staying. After an inquiry at the local jail turned up nothing, he heard from eyewitnesses that Nalle was being held at the U.S. Commissioners office, and Henry began telling his contacts in the Underground Railroad and the local Vigilance Committee, an organization to aid blacks, that had formed in cities in the North after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.

Plaque Commemorating the Nalle Rescue in Troy

Outside the bank building, a crowd began to gather, as Nalle, clearly visible in handcuffs could be seen from a second floor window.  Soon men and women, black and white, of all political persuasions, numbering nearly a thousand surrounded the building, blocking the roads leading from the building.  So too was the stairway to the second floor office jammed with people. In that hallway a seemingly decrepit old black woman was making her way to the top of the stairs. Ignored by most, she pushed her way past some, and used her apparent age and feeble condition to insinuate her way past others until she reached the head of the crowd.  Inside the office the Underground Railroad's lawyer, Martin Townsend, had gained entry to make his arguments and protest the proceeding but was told the proceeding was concluded.  Changing tactics, he rushed out to meet with State Supreme Court Judge George Gould and obtain a writ of Habeas Corpus. Nearly two hours later Townsend returned with a hand written note requiring the commissioner and the deputies to bring Nalle before him. In the meantime the crowd had nearly doubled in size;  a false alarm, called in had brought fire engines racing to the scene; Nalle had made a dramatic escape attempt by trying to jump through a second story window, before being dragged back in; and offers to buy Nalle's freedom shouted up to Jack Wale in the office, had been repudiated by the slave catcher.

Even with reinforcements from the local police, the Commissioner and Deputies were faced with the daunting task of bringing Nalle several blocks to the judge's office through this huge emotion-charged crowd. As the police cleared the stairway bringing their manacled prisoner out into the daylight, something they least expected happened.  The decrepit old black women lunged forward latching onto their prisoner with a powerful grasp, attempting to wrench him from the officers, and revealing herself as Harriet Tubman¹ the famous abolitionist who had personally led scores of blacks to freedom. Tubman's actions signalled the outbreak of pandemonium and set in motion the events outlined in the beginning paragraph.

Broadway, Watervliet

After about a month of hiding, Charles was freed when the people of Troy and West Troy arranged to buy his freedom.  Hansborough accepted $650,  having few other options open to him. Charles returned to Troy, and returned to work as Uri Gilbert's coachman.  After four years he was finally reunited with his wife and family.  The federal government decided to prosecute those they could identify as having taken leading parts in the riot. Subpoenas were issued but then events got in the way, as the United States became embroiled in a much, much bigger conflict, and they were forgotten.

1Tubman was in town visiting her cousins on her way to a speaking engagement in Boston. She had perfected this disguise/persona in several of her rescues in the deep South.


Next Week-- In Precarious Positions Part II   and
the Marker of the Week returns.

.

It Happened Here--Adam Helmer's Run

 

Tall and lanky¹, Adam Helmer came from sturdy peasant stock – the son of a Palatine farmer and his wife who had immigrated as children with Adam's grandparents and the other Palatines around 1709. At age 24, Helmer must have exuded strength and vigor that led his commanding officer Colonel Bellinger to select him as a scout when the orders came from General Schuyler to assign one of every fifteen militiamen from each militia company to scouting duty to keep track of Indian and Tory activity in the Tryon County.

For the past two years the settlements along the Mohawk Valley and the other valleys of the frontier of New York and Pennsylvania lay under a haze of uncertainty and anxiety that would develop into a cloud of fear that would hover over this area for the next six years, continuing nearly a year after the guns fell silent at Yorktown.

A stroke had cut short the life of the greatly respected squire and leader of the region, Sir William Johnson in 1774. With his death the old loyalties to the British crown began to wane among the heretofore strongly pro-British Palatines.  Unrest in New York, developments in New England and the publication of the Continental Congress' declaration of rights focused opposition to the British. The surviving Johnsons – Sir William's son John and his nephew Guy – declared their Loyalist allegiances and tried to suppress the growing “Whig” faction. The Whigs organized Committees of Safety and declared their support for the Continental Congress. The Johnson clan began to collect arms and gunpowder and fortify their properties, and, most alarmingly, began to court the support of the Iroquois to defend the Crown. In January 1776 Congress ordered General Schuyler to confiscate the arms collected by the Johnsons. Sir John was put on parole but he continued organizing his fellow Tories, violating his parole. Schuyler ordered his arrest. Vowing revenge, Sir John escaped to Quebec with many of his supporters. Guy Johnson escaped to Oswego through Iroquois territory, gathering Indian allies for the Crown.

The settlements along the New York frontier had their last taste of Indian warfare in 1757 during the French and Indian War and memories were keen from that experience. With the approach of hostilities, forts were built or strengthened near settlements and signal cannon were mounted in them to warn settlers. A screen of scouts were deployed in the field to detect activities of Indians and Tories. 

"Burial Place of Lieut Adam/Helmer and wife Anna/
Bellinger Helmer, A Famous/ Mohawk Valley Scout in/
Revolutionary War, Purchased/ This Farm in 1803" 
--Cottle Rd. Weedsport

Adam Helmer's first action came in the summer of 1777 when a Tory and Indian army led by Lt. Colonel Bary St. Leger laid siege to Fort Stanwix on their way to link up with General Burgoyne's invasion heading south from Montreal. Militia general Nicholas Herkimer led a relief party of Tryon county militiamen to assist the beleaguered fort. He chose three scouts to deliver a message to the fort ordering the Fort's Colonel to make a sortie out against the besieging Tories and Indians as Herkimer's force closed in. Adam Helmer was one of these scouts chosen.

Skirting around the enemy forces required that the scouts go far off the trails into the swampy backwaters of the Mohawk river. A sudden summer downpour added to the flooded conditions Helmer and the other scouts faced as they approached the fort. At one point Helmer was forced to float down a swollen creek, hiding under a pile of brush with his orders for Colonel Gansevoort tucked under his cap. Stealing through the enemy lines Helmer was the first to reach the fort.

Meanwhile, Colonel St Leger's forces, learning that Herkimer's militia were on their way, prepared a devastating ambush, in a narrow valley near where the Oriskany creek crossed the trail on its way to the Mohawk river, six miles from the fort. Herkimer's amateur army walked headlong into it. The first crash of musketry felled large numbers of militiamen, including Herkimer, himself who was shot from his horse with a musket ball in his leg. As militiamen sought the shelter of large trees along the trail Herkimer was carried to the base of a large beech tree, where his wound was tied off. From that position he continued to direct his men in battle as he lit and smoked his pipe. The downpour that Adam Helmer experienced interrupted the battle, soaking the gunpowder in the muskets' priming pans, rendering them temporarily useless, but it allowed the Palatine General time to form his men into a rough defensive perimeter and counter a devastating enemy tactic he observed. Herkimer saw that his men, desperately fighting as individuals behind trees were being killed after they were fired upon and had returned fire. The Indians intentionally fired on them to draw their fire. While the militiamen were struggling to reload, the Iroquois would rush in, grapple with them hand-to-hand and kill them with tomahawks or spears.  Herkimer paired his men together so one of the pair would always have a loaded musket and could defend the pair while the other reloaded.

In the first moments of the battle Herkimer sent out scouts to the fort to get help. They arrived at the fort a short time after Adam Helmer had delivered his message. A relief party was organized and attacked through the lightly defended Indian and Tories' camp. The Tory and Indian ambush had been very successful but it failed to annihilate Herkimer's forces or achieve a rout which would allow the Indians to destroy the column piecemeal. Instead, the militiamen had put together a credible defense and though they suffered serious losses they were beginning to make the Indians pay as well. Just as the Indians and Tory assault was beginning to falter they received the news. A force from the fort was rampaging through the Tory/Indian encampment. The Indians broke off their attack to attempt to rescue their food and possessions. The shattered Tyron county militia, instead of pressing on, limped back to Fort Dayton. The wounded general would bleed to death after a botched operation to amputated his wounded leg, 10 days later.

One might expect that the young scout would prefer the relative safety of Fort Stanwix over the hazards of slipping through enemy lines and through miles of Indian held or unoccupied wilderness, but within hours Adam Helmer was on his way, again, having volunteered to deliver the news of the battle and of Fort Stanwix' continuing precarious position, to General Schuyler and the Committee of Safety in Albany.

In the weeks that followed, American General Benedict Arnold would lead an expedition that would come to the relief of the Fort after creating a fantastic ruse. Arnold received word that the Tory Colonel Walter Butler was trying to recruit valley residents to the Loyalist side and had planned to meet with uncommitted farmers in a house in the settlement of Mohawk, near Fort Dayton. Arnold surrounded the house, captured Butler and the farmers, and declared he would hang them all as spies. Among those captured were a young feeble-minded man, Hans Yost Schuyler, and Han's brother. Hans lived on the fringes of colonial settlements and often associated with the Indians from the valley, many of whom were with the attacking Tory forces. He developed a reputation as being something of a “see-er” or prophet among the Indians, as he was known to, at times, exhibit strange behaviors and talk in tongues. (He may, in fact had a seizure disorder.) With the encouragement of his mother², who was frantic with worry that her two sons might be hanged, he agreed to Arnold's scheme. First the edges of his coat and hat were shot through with musket balls; then he was compelled to run to his Indian friends in the enemy encampment, appearing as if he had escaped the rebels, who had fired on him. With him he carried a story that a vast rebel army was approaching to relieve Fort Stanwix. ( In fact Arnold had less than 2000 men.) When asked the size of the army he rolled his eyes to the overhanging trees, to indicate they were as numerous as the leaves of the trees. His story was supported by the arrival of several Oneida Indians, from several directions, whose arrival had been orchestrated by Arnold. The Oneidas had broken with the other Iroquois tribes and were officially neutral, but increasingly sided with the Rebels. With their arrival, the St. Leger expedition collapsed, and beat a disorganized retreat to Oneida lake and Fort Oswego. The Indians who felt deceived and betrayed by their Tory allies took out many of their frustrations by tomahawking Tory stragglers and stripping them of their uniforms and weapons.

Late, the following summer Adam Helmer was again in the field, at the head of a small party of nine scouts. Their mission was to penetrate deep into the Iroquois' staging area along the Unadilla river to discover the state of Tory and Indian preparations to disrupt the settlers fall harvest; to attack the settlers when they were most exposed in their fields at harvest time. Helmer's men stopped to drink at a spring on the farm of Percifer Carr in what would become the hamlet of Edmeston. Suddenly shots rang out. Three scouts went down and the little patrol was embroiled in a desperate battle with a war party of what Helmer estimated were some 40 Indians. The surviving members of Helmer's patrol were driven back across the Unadilla River. In the melee Adam was able to escape and hide in a thicket.

As soon as the attacking Indians were out of sight, Helmer lit out back up the trail toward the American settlements. At one point he stopped and hid off the trail to see if he was being followed and discovered, indeed he was. The group of Indians that had surprised his patrol were but an advance party of some 200 Indians and Tories he counted. (The actual number would be closer to 400.) Breaking away silently and circling ahead of the Indians, Adam began a desperate run to reach the scattered settlements and warn the inhabitants ahead of the Tory/Indian forces.

                                                                                      

First he ran north east to the farms along Schuyler Lake; then he headed north west to Andrustown. Andrustown had been burned to the ground except for one farm back in July of that summer, but settlers had returned to salvage what they could and bring in the fall harvest. Helmer's sister and her husband were there, working their fields. Helmer warned them and they immediately set off for the safety of Fort Dayton, but not before giving Helmer a fresh pair of mocassins to replace a pair he had quite worn through. Returning to the main trail he passed through a settlement later called Columbia, and Petrie's Corners and warned the inhabitants there. By this time the Indians must have been quite close because at Columbia one old man returned to his house to snatch up something he had forgotten and was shot as he emerged from his front gate by approaching Indians.

On and on Helmer ran, spurred on by the certain knowledge that the Indians had most likely picked up his trail and the fastest among them were probably in hot pursuit.³ Most likely Helmer followed the ridge trail that meandered up and down the hills, gradually gaining altitude until it reached a crest along the edge of the Mohawk valley. Perhaps he got a second wind when he saw the trail, choked with the summer's growth of blackberry brambles, begin to fall away from him into the valley and he could see little wisps of smoke from the chimneys of the settlement known as German Flatts, (now Mohawk). 

On a farm on the outskirts of German Flatts, along the Warren Road that led into the trail that wound south, a ten year old girl, Catherine Meyer was outside, perhaps doing her chores as the sun was setting. Suddenly she heard a crashing in the brush on the overgrown trail. What she saw next was a sight that would stay with her throughout her life. A man burst from the woods. His clothes were in tatters; his eyes were bloodshot and his hands and face and limbs were bleeding and cut from the brush and brambles he had forced his way through. He paused only long enough to shout “Flee for your lives, the enemy is not far behind”, then he ran on to the next house to repeat his warning. Adam Helmer repeated his warning at every house he passed until he reached the gates of Fort Herkimer and soon the warning cannon from the fort was echoing down the valley.

Adam Helmer after delivering his report to the commander of Fort Herkimer, and having a light meal fell into a deep sleep, undisturbed by the arrival of hundreds of people to the fort. He had run, in one very long day, an incredible 35 to 40 miles!

The next day the Indian and Tory forces roamed through the area bringing widespread destruction. Sixty three houses, 59 barns and 3 grist mills were burned. Two hundred and thirty five horses, 229 “horned” cattle, 279 sheep and 93 oxen were taken off or killed. But because of Helmer's warning only two settlers died—the one who was killed at his gate, and another who hid in his barn, which the Tories burned.

 

Helmer slept for thirty six hours, before being woken by grateful, anxious neighbors who worried his run might have caused him fatal injury. But three days later the indomitable scout was leading a party back to the ambush site on the Unadilla River to bury the fallen scouts. Today, a D.A.R. commemorative tablet marks their gravesite.

1Adam lived until 1830. His grand children told their grand children of his accomplishments as well as his physical characteristics – 5'10, 130 lbs, thin and sinewy, comparing some of them favorably, with their great great grandfather.

2In the small world of colonial New York personal connections abound. Hans Yost Schuyler was a distant relative of General Philip Schuyler, and his mother was the sister of General Nicholas Herkimer.

3Walter Edmonds in his historical novel Drums Along the Mohawk fictionalized this chase, portraying a desperate scene in which the pursuing Indians closed to within tomahawk throwing distance before the Helmer character escaped. A movie followed by the same name with Henry Fonda portraying the scout.

Marker of the Week-- My Favorite Marker                                                                                 (or to be precise, site marked by an NYSHM)

 



Un-restored, but simply maintained to be lived in by generations upon generations since 1724,  this little house is a stone's throw from the Hudson river in the village of Athens, and less than 10 feet from the busy NY 385.  I don't know if the structure was built this way; or has sunken over the nearly three centuries it has stood here; or if in the the road's evolution from quiet dirt path, to paved and resurfaced and resurfaced and resurfaced State Highway, the road has risen in front of it.
Without the State Marker in front, it might well be mistaken for a cottage in the Netherlands, Ireland, or rural England, Scotland or Wales. 

 












 Next Week-- In Precarious Positions and another Marker of the Week

E-Mail Me: If you have comments about this blog or any other thing having to do with NYSHM's I would be delighted to hear from you. I would be especially interested if you know of any new or interesting markers or can report on any efforts to restore old markers. My email is tba998@gmail.com I look forward to hearing and sharing your thoughts on this blog. 

A Tale of Two Railroads -- Part II 

 

Like the earlier Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the Canojoharie and Catskill Rail Road owed its creation to the Erie Canal, but in a much different way. The little town of Catskill and the larger town of Hudson, across the River had seen an unexpected surge of business as the result of the turnpike building mania that occurred in the first two decades of the 19^th century. Turnpikes funneled a steady stream of wheat and other produce t0 the port of Catskill for shipment to the New York City and Southern New England markets from the fertile Schoharie, Cherry and Genessee valleys.  In the other direction, a steady stream of settlers left New England to begin their treks to new farmlands in western New York and the “Western Reserve” of Ohio. The coming of the Canal changed all that. As the turnpikes struggled to maintain their roads and remain solvent, the Ports of Albany and West Troy (Watervliet) thrived while Catskill and Hudson saw cargoes that used to be shipped from their ports sail by their front doors, coming from, or going to the ports at the end of the Canal.

The people of Catskill and Hudson, then, were excited when Thomas Cooke, a Catskill resident, and a group of entrepreneurs put forward a scheme to bring a railroad to Catskill following the route of the Susquehanna Turnpike to link Catskill to Ithaca and parts north, and to the navigable sections of the Susquehanna River, and parts south.  This plan for a Catskill and Ithaca Rail Road garnered a lot of enthusiasm for a while, but was overly ambitious for its time, and fizzled within a couple years. But Cooke returned in 1830 with a more modest plan to create a railroad connecting Catskill with the Schoharie Valley and linking up with the Erie Canal port of Canajoharie. Cooke and his backers outlined the advantages of such a route, citing the long delays that inevitably occurred at the eastern end of the canal with boats required to go through some thirty seven locks, and the long period during which the canal was shut down due to ice, from the narrows below Amsterdam, through the Port of Albany.

On October 27, 1831 ground was broken for the construction of the new Canajoharie and Catskill Railroad, accompanied by thirteen gun salutes at dawn, a large parade through Catskill, and a day of celebration. But actual construction was slow to begin. First, surveying a suitable route proved difficult. Early locomotive engines could operate only on the smallest grades. The first plans called for two inclined planes to be incorporated with stationary steam engines pulling cars with cables up to their summits. Also, the wandering flood plane along the Catskill Creek made route planning difficult-- necessitating at least five crossings of that creek as well as several feeder streams.

The engineering difficulties, however, were dwarfed by financial difficulties. The financial laws of the day placed few restrictions on speculating in stocks. Large amounts of C.and C. R.R. stocks were bought up by investors with promissory notes, instead of cash. When asked to pay up, many  investors were evasive. (Rumors circulated that Albany interests had bought into the company, delaying payment to insure the company would fail.) In 1837 a stock market panic sent the country into a depression that would make money tight and retard payments for years to come. The shortage of cash delayed construction on the road and resulted in much of the management's time being occupied with disputes with contractors and lawsuits arising from the non-payment of bills. 

The railroad's  promoters sought relief from New York State.  In 1838 a bill was debated in the Legislature guaranteeing $100,000 for every $100,000 the railroad put into the line.  In its final form, the legislature guaranteed $100,000 for every $150,000 spent. When the bill was printed, however, someone changed the figure back to the original proposal.  The newspapers and the bill's opponents screamed fraud.  A lengthy investigation of the company's officers was undertaken but proved inconclusive. But the railroad's reputation was irrevocably damaged.

The shortage of funds forced the company  to cut back on the quality of materials that went into the line. Original engineering spec's had called for  a ballasted roadbed of  crushed rock, the whole length of the roadway with strap iron rails laid over cut stone stingers, (something like curbing along a city street.) The line, as it was actually built was in most places a graded dirt or gravel roadway with sawed wood ties,  laid over a bed of logs. The rails would be wooden with 5/8" strap iron fastened to them.  This type of rail had already proven to be unsatisfactory because as the wood rails wore, the ends of the strap iron would tend to come loose and curl up forming dangerous "snake heads". ( The Saratoga and Schenectady Railroad, which came into existence shortly after the Mohawk and Hudson R.R., had experienced a horrific accident. A snake head that had curled up from the rail, burst through the flooring of a coach traveling over it, ripped through the coat of a passenger in the coach and pinned the terrified traveler to the ceiling of the coach by his coattails.) The first bridges built  by the railroad over the Catskill Creek were iron trapezoidal  bridges anchored to cut stone piers. (One, that was later used by the Catskill Mt. Railway still stands, a short distance from the Catskill High School.) When later bridges were built, farther up the line,  the company was forced to use  lighter wooden lattice spans.

The original engineering report also warned that the Catskill creek, due to the steep hills on either side of it in the spring and after heavy rains was prone to flooding.  "It will be necessary for the preservation of the road to make ample drainage and culverts to carry off the water which at times descends in torrents and astounding violence from the hills."  In this too, it appears the railroad was inadequately built.  Over the winter of 1838-39 the line suffered severe damage. Embankments were seriously eroded,  bridge abutments were undermined, and bridges collapsed.  The management tried  to suppress the news of the problems but only succeeded in increasing the speculation about the extent of the damage, and undermining the public's confidence further.

In the spring of 1839 the repaired and partially completed railroad  began operation hauling goods back and forth between Catskill and Winansville (Durham) using teams of horses to pull coaches and freight cars. After the line was extended, the forge at Malleable Iron Company, at Oak Hill and a hay press beyond Winansville became regular customers.  But as an early rate chart from the railroad indicates, the railroad was carrying all sorts of commodities. From coal and cotton, apples and ashes, cheese and candles to liquor, rakes and snuff, some 60 items were priced to ride the line.  Passengers could save $0. 50 if they elected to ride among the freight in the open cars, instead of in coaches.

Early in March 1840 the little engine -- the "Mountaineer" arrived.  Light and underpowered, for its tasks, it often needed teams of horses, to get it underway, to help it overcome the inertia of its loads. For several months it operated between Catskill and Cooksburg where a round house had been built to facilitate the turn around of the engine.

Then in May 4, 1840 disaster struck.  In a heavy rainstorm the little train crossed the lattice bridge at High Rock, north west of Winansville.  The bridge swayed, timbers cracked and the second span over the rain swollen Catskill creek collapsed,  just as the engine reached the other side. Freight cars and passenger coaches plummeted into the creek. Only the failure of the chain coupling between the engine and the rest of the train prevented the engine from being dragged back into the chasm. Freight and the wreckage of cars were swept down the stream.  Passengers swam for their lives. A  black man (unnamed in reports) was severely injured with a broken leg and two broken thighs and a railway worker, Jehiel Tyler was killed.

After the calamity the little railroad struggled to survive.  For weeks the Mountaineer was stranded on upper end of the track with no access to the rest of the line, unable to produce income for the railroad. The railroad struggled to buy replacement cars and build another bridge. Eventually, it returned to service, but by this time public confidence had evaporated. Two years later the little railroad skirting the Catskills, unable to make payments to its stockholders, or the State of New York was broken up and sold piecemeal at auction.

 

Marker of the Week

From early colonial decades, through the generation of the revolution and the generation that built the Erie and other canals; through the generation that left to escape the famine and arrived  in time to fuel the industrial revolution and send its sons to fight on both sides of the civil war, Immigrants from Ireland have played major roles in New York and American history.

E-Mail Me: If you have comments about this blog or any other thing having to do with NYSHM's I would be delighted to hear from you. I would be especially interested if you know of any new or interesting markers or can report on any efforts to restore old markers. My email is tba998@gmail.com I look forward to hearing and sharing your thoughts on this blog. 

NYSHMS:  It Happened Here –

A Tale of Two Railroads 

by Tom Arthur

The counties around Albany were home to two very early railroads, among the first dozen in America. One railroad could claim the distinction of being the first passenger railroad in the United States. Connecting Albany and Schenectady, it would survive and prosper to be merged with other railroads and eventually become the New York Central System, one of the great railroads of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

At the Intersection of N.Allen, Western & Madison in Albany

The other railroad, organized a few years later would be beset by a host of problems. It would suffer from bad timing, bad financing, questionable management and a difficult route that would cross the sometimes turbulent Catskill Creek  nearly half dozen times in its 26 mile route. It too would record a “first” – being among the first U.S. Railroads to suffer a fatal railroad disaster!

On Stone Bridge Rd Extension, E.Durham  The tractor path approximates the bed of the Railroad

The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad surprisingly owed it existence to a Canal ! The Erie Canal, completed in 1823 was a tremendous success. Not only did it open up the interior of upstate New York to commercial development but it also enabled a means of comfortable, if leisurely travel between Buffalo and Albany and all the cities in between . Packet barges were fitted out with accommodations for travelers, their main cabins converted to sleeping berths at night, somewhat like the “Pullman” railroad cars of the early twentieth century. Being towed along at a steady 4 to 6 miles an hour,  the packets could cross the state in about a week, the only major delays occurring when the packet had to wait for other barges ahead of it to go through the locks. Unfortunately, some of the biggest delays occurred for travelers beginning or coming to the end of their journey as they waited to be “locked” through a series of  locks from Schenectady to Albany, or the reverse. It occurred to Irish entrepreneur George Featherstonhaugh (pronounced Fen-shaw), that people might be eager to pay for an alternative method of transportation if they could bypass the most tedious part of their journey.

Featherstonhaugh convinced Stephen Van Rensselaer, the Patroon of Rensselaerwick, and arguably one of the wealthiest and most well connected men in upstate New York to partner with him. Though the “good Patroon” bought $100,000 worth of stock, he sold all but 24 shares of it before the railroad became operational, and as “President” he took little interest in the company, never attending board meetings, but as a figurehead, the Van Rensselaer name was priceless. Investors rapidly bought up the $300,000 of stock offered, and despite a long delay before construction actually began, within three months of the beginning of construction, the stock's value had increased 10%. The West Point Foundry of New York City built an engine, named for the popular New York governor who had promoted the Erie Canal, Dewitt Clinton. A larger engine was also purchased from England, and a local carriage-maker produced ten stage coach carriages that were mounted on railroad wheels.

The initial passenger trip was not without problems. The Dewitt Clinton's firebox, stoked with pitch pine sent forth a shower of hot embers and sparks, that rained down on passengers, as the engine huffed and puffed to gather speed. Ladies deployed their parasols, only to have them catch fire. Also, the cars, linked together by short lengths of chain first jolted ahead as the engine started, then slammed against one another as the engine braked. Passengers were thrown back and forth and into each others laps. The little train was barely out of Albany before it was halted to allow the engineer and fireman to tear down pieces of a farmer's rail fence to get lengths of wood to lash between the careening cars, and to allow passengers to disembark so they could better examine each other to put out their smoldering clothing. By the time the train reached its first station, the passengers shaken and bruised, singed and smoking, “presented a very motley appearance”, according to J.L Gillis, who witnessed the first passenger run. Along the right of way there were other scenes of chaos as farmers and townsmen and their wives and children who had driven in from the country side crowded the rails with their buggys and carriages and wagons to witness this new wonder of a railroad. What was an object of wonder and curiosity for the citizenry along the route was an object that inspired pure terror in their horses. Horses bolted; wagons were upset; and teams broke free-- heading for parts unknown. But these problems were soon solved on subsequent runs by proper screening of the engine's smokestack, changes in the engine's fuel to coal and coke, and with changes in the cars' linkages. The (horse) driving public quickly learned to give the rails a wide berth. From time to time the cranky steam engines would require that the runs be completed by teams of horses pulling the cars, but by September 1831 the directors were confident enough that a “Grand Excursion” was planned with the Governor, Lt. Governor, State Comptroller, Chancellor, former Governor, mayors of Albany and Schenectady, two high Constables of NYC and Albany and editors of three local newspapers in attendance. So popular was the event that all ten coaches were employed—the last seven being pulled by horses. By the end of September, the little engines, shuttling back and forth between the two cities would be averaging a remarkable 322 passengers per day! By the end of the first year, the receipts for passengers and baggage would total $16,313, with operating expenses totaling $7,477, a net earnings of $8,843 
( A 54% profit !)

Marker of the Week 

Rte 443 E. Berne

 

What do you do if the State has come

along and plopped down an historic

marker in your front yard and decades

later they have still never gotten around

to approving funds for its upkeep?

Well, if you have painted your barn,

(see right rear of picture), and have

some left-over barn paint....

Next week-- A Tale of Two Railroads - Part II and a Marker of the Week 

E-Mail Me: If you have comments about, this blog or any other thing having to do with NYSHM's I would be delighted to hear from you. I would be especially interested if you know of any new or interesting markers or can report on any efforts to restore old markers. My email is

tba998@gmail.com

Caution: Fragile Sign Ahead

  OLIVER HOUSE

Location: US 209 AT MARBLETOWN

        

It seems unlikely that the majority of NYSHM's built to withstand decades of exposure to the elements, firmly mounted atop 2 1/2”  or 3"steel posts, and made of nearly 1” thick cast iron should be considered fragile, but in fact, they are. Struck by an automobile or by blows from a determined rock-wielding vandal the NYSHM's show a disconcerting tendency to snap off and even shatter into half a dozen or more pieces. The newer cast aluminum signs are more durable but have their own drawbacks. The aluminum signs tend to shed their paint after  only a few years and those exposed to heavy road salt dissolve into corroded unreadability. 

 

Location: NY 67, Ballston Spa

 Though many signs have disappeared over the years, broken off and lost or destroyed, it is a testament to their popularity how many have been lovingly restored –-re-welded to their bases or reattached with steel plates or brackets. Many, like some aging professional hockey goalie from the days before the use of face masks, carry multiple scars-- the best efforts of the welder's craft, to make them whole again.

U.S. 20 at New Lebanon

Even a fresh coat of paint can't conceal this Albany County marker at the border with Greene county had been broken into at least four pieces.

 

A clever bracket attaches this Rensselaer Co. sign to its fitter

                      











                                    

      



Often ingenious methods are used to put the decapitated back in public view. Some now hang in wooden frameworks, or are attached to walls or boulders. At least one, in the Port of Buffalo, now stands on a pair or ornamental iron legs. 

Black Horse Inn
Built 1781
By Issac Hallenbeck
 Location: Rt.9W,Athens,Behind the
 Shopping Carts 

 

In recent decades, several local governments and historical societies have recreated NYSHM's that have disappeared or been damaged beyond repair. Sometimes the sign text is re-created verbatim, with only the sponsor's name changed to reflect the signs new sponsor.

The original “State Ed“ Glass Works sign disappeared

around the time Rte 20 was widened, in the late '60s or

early 70's. The town of Guilderland erected their own

new marker, on Foundry Road, closer to the glassworks.

                                                                                                                                    

The Tory Cave marker in Thatcher State Park was

snapped off by vandals. (I remember seeing it

lying next to its post; I think it was in the mid

1960's.) It had to wait to be replaced by the

local chapter of the Daughters of the American

Revolution until 1994. They used the same text

as the original. (Berne – Thatcher Park)

 
•                                                                                                    
  In 1966 New York State began a program of installing large historical signs along the Thruway and other state highways in rest areas and turnout spaces, to tell the history of an area, and provide historical context for events that occurred in the area. Though undoubtedly more informative/educational than the smaller NYSHM's which typically  had to tell their story in 25 words or less, to my mind , they are less appealing. In part this is because they tell the story of a whole area, and don't suddenly pop out at you and announce “Look what happened here !"  In part, it is because they attempt to answer/ put in historical context questions that the smaller signs might leave you to wonder about.
  

  Around the time of America's Bicentennial, a new type of historical sign became popular. Laminated to a steel base, these signs could carry whole pages of text, maps and pictures. Often set nearly horizontal, they encouraged readers to linger over them, absorbing their information at their leisure. At the Saratoga National Battlefield Park some twenty old NYSHM's were replaced with the new signs. With the text and picture photographically imprinted through layers of fiberglass they appeared nearly indestructible. Unfortunately, thirty five—plus years of heat, cold, wind, rain and ultraviolet light have taken their toll. Many of the signs, like aging memories have literally begun to fade, as the fiberglass filaments begin to de-laminate. It will be interesting to see what new signage  technologies the future will provide.

E-Mail Me: If you have comments about this blog or any other thing having to do with NYSHM's I would be delighted to

hear from you. I would be especially interested if you know of any new or interesting markers or can report on any efforts to restore

old markers. My email is Tba998@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing and sharing your thoughts on this blog. 

 

Next Week: A Tale of Two Railroads, Part I   and the Marker of the Week returns.