Plank Road Directors, 1849

Albany and Sand Lake Plank Road Co. Founding Directors

• Erastus Corning, Owner of Erastus Corning & Co. Hardware and the Albany Nail Works; formerly Mayor of Albany and state senator
• David V.N. Radcliffe, Lawyer living in Albany
• Samuel S. Fowler, Vice-president of Albany Mechanics' and Farmers Bank
• Richard J. Knowlson, Lumber merchant, former owner of Rensselaer glass factory of Sand Lake
• Gideon Butts, Lumber pioneer, Sand Lake
• Evert Van Alen, Surveyor of Van Rensselaer manor, of the Van Alen farming family of Defreestville, lived in Greenbush
• John Defreest, Farmer, of Defreestville
• James Dearstyne, possibly Dearstyne & Godfrey groceries, on Broadway in Greenbush
• Dewitt De Forest, Farmer, DeFreestville
• George Cipperly, Farmer, leased the Patroon’s water rights on the Wynants Kill at Glass Lake, owned sawmill and glass factory
• Wynant Younghans, Farmer, Sand Lake

List from “AN ACT to allow the president and director of the eastern turnpike to sell a part or all of their road, and to form a plank road from Albany to Sand Lake...”; (Laws of the State of New York, Seventy Second Session, Chap. 322, April 10, 1849) [Biographical info. is from internet searches, rather than any specific documentation.]

A different list of directors was elected at the first shareholder meeting in Sept. 1849: Richard J. Knowlton, Gideon Butts, and Samuel R. Fox of the town of Sandlake, Dewitt C. Deforest and James Dearstyne of the town of Greenbush, John V.L. Pruyn, William Smith, Stephen B. Gregory, and Archibald McClure of the city of Albany.

Here is an interesting article about the industrial enterprises of Sand Lake, etc.:"Geographic Integration of Industry on the Wynants Kill, 1816-1911", by Robert Dalton Harris and Diane DeBlois, in Business and Economic History On-Line.

Image from
Joseph H. Hidley's
painting of Glass Lake

Previously: The Albany and Sand Lake Plank Road; Anatomy of a Plank Road; The Tollgates and the Shunpike Road