Day Trip - Mohawk Meets Hudson

We did these on different days, but together they'd make a perfect daytrip. To get a lay of the land, this aerial view on the Tug 44 site is worth a look.

The new Falls View Park at Cohoes Falls is fantastic [N. Mohawk St, Cohoes]. (Check the Cohoes Falls Webcam to see if there's water - the image is only updated three times a day - can't imagine why.)


The Waterford Locks are very interesting [park near Broad St. and 5th]. Their Tugboat Roundup is coming up on Sept. 11-13, 2009. I like the views in these old postcards: Images of the Erie Canal in Cohoes - especially this Birdseye View of Cohoes in 1859.

















We walked over the bridge from Waterford to Peebles Island State Park [Peebles Island Drive] and did a hike around the island (saw dragonflies, deer, chipmunks, and fish). New York State's Historic Preservation & Conservation Headquarters is on Peebles Island, and they're having an Open House on Sept. 12.

Any suggestions for a good, casual lunch place in Waterford (or Cohoes) would be appreciated - we're tired of the pizza place.

August 14, 1909 - Boston Island

100 Years Ago: From The Rensselaer Eagle [NY 41 Rensselaer 93-32173].

OLD HOUSES PASSING
Residences on Boston Island Have Been Disposed of to B. & A.

After having lived for half a century on the Boston Island, which, by the way, is an island no longer, Mrs. Bridget Hanrahan has sold her property, the last tenantable property used for dwelling purposes to the Boston and Albany. The home of Catherine Doran also situated on the island but which has not been used as a home for some time has likewise passed into the company's control. The deal was effected by Geo. H. Russell & Son, and the sale marks the removal of two famous landmarks.

Up to 20 years ago there was a colony of old settlers on the Boston Island, but one by one they died, or moved away, or the steady march of progress caused them to seek other homes. For 10 years back Mrs. Hanrahan was the only one who lived on the island. She resisted many offers to dispose of her property and the company was also refused the Doran property.

It is possible that the property will be used to extend the coach yard.

From Mrs. Doran's 1923 obituary in the Albany Evening Journal:

At one time she lived on what was known as Boston Island, then covered with houses and hotels, where the Boston and Albany Railroad made its terminus and the passengers made their way to and from Albany on ferry boats.

The island was first documented as part of Rensselaerswyck, here described in The history of the city of Albany, New York, By Arthur James Weise, 1884, along with a copy of a part of the Map of Rensselaerswyck 1631.

Opposite Fort Orange on the south point of De Laet's Island are many birds to be shot, geese, swans and cranes. Turkeys frequent the woods. Deer and other game are also there; also wolves but not larger than dogs. On De Laet's Island are many tall and straight trees suitable for making oars.

Wikipedia's listing is for Van Rensselaer Island, but in the early 1900's, articles about "Van Rensselaer Island" referred instead to Castle Island (also known as Westerloo Island) on the Albany side. (There was much publicity about Glenn Curtis, who made an historic flight from Albany to New York City in 1910, taking off from Albany's Van Rensselaer Island).

Wikipedia also shows the names of Kalebacker's Island (I can't find any support for that name), in addition to Boston Island, and B&A Island (named after the Boston & Albany Railroad). These two USGS maps (Troy Quad, SE Corner), show the island in 1893 and later in 1928, long after the waterway was filled in.

















The Sixteenth Public Hearing of the Barge Canal Terminal Commission, Sept. 16, 1910, proposed the suitability of Boston Island as the eastern freight terminus of the Barge Canal. There was considerable discussion about the ownership of the parcels, and how the former waterways were filled in by the B&A Railroad. John A. Farrell, Chamber of Commerce President, confirmed the old name of "Van Rensselaer Island", but the group also referred to it as Bonacker's Island. John F. Munger, of the Rensselaer citizens committee, testified:

The old gentleman Bonacker who owned that property erected a couple of ice houses down on this end of the land; he was a very prosperous German. He saved his money and he died leaving his stock and estate and so forth to four or five sons; and as Mr. Lansing has already intimated to you the boys desire the money; and as has often been said, it is only a couple of generations from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves; they have got into a wrangle over this land in here and the probabilities are that it will be settled by the courts.

(He refers to this prior comment by Assemblyman Bradford R. Lansing, who was apparently a bit of a gossip: "A lot of young fellows coming on there who do want money but who do not want real estate; you cannot run real estate as fast as automobiles." )

Jumping ahead 100 years, here is the July 2009 Final Environmental Impact Statement for DeLaet's Landing (Rensselaer Waterfront Redevelopment). Join the Rensselaer Riverfront Redevelopment Google Group to get future notices from the Department of Planning.

Railroad to the Moon

From "A History of Old Kinderhook", quoting the June 27, 1827 Boston Courier:

... the project of a railroad from Boston to Albany is impracticable, as every one knows who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, and the expenses would be little less than the market value of the whole territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every one of common sense knows would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to the moon.

This echoed a phrase in "Wedding of the Waters" quoting Erie Canal promoter Elkanah Watson:

The utmost stretch of our views, was to follow the track of Nature's canal [the rivers and lakes] and to remove natural or artificial obstructions; but we never entertained the most distant conception of a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson. We should not have considered it much more extravagant to have suggested the possibility of a canal to the moon.

But it was the success of the Erie Canal that motivated the builders of the Western Railroad. From the Keystone Arches history pages:

So steep and remote it was said to be impossible... Yet not to try meant Boston would lose ever more traffic to New York as they had since the Erie Canal opened in 1823. The canal siphoned traffic down the Hudson River, but a railroad to Albany could recapture that trade... The Western Railroad was the longest (150 miles) the steepest (1458 ft.) and the first mountain climbing railroad in the world... When built, it was so steep no locomotives existed able to climb the grade.

Railroad to the Moon is a short, online documentary of the making of the Western Railroad. It also includes information by the "Friends of the Keystone Arches" about the preservation of the beautiful arched bridges, which were so well engineered that some still carry rail traffic today.

Railfans may want to attend the huge Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show at the Big-E in West Springfield, MA next weekend (January 24th and 25th, 2009, 9am-5pm). It fills four buildings at the fairgrounds, and has about 400 vendors, all rail related. (Friends of the Keystone Arches will be exhibiting.)

John Stevens

The Father of American Railroads

Born in 1749 in New York, NY, and educated at Kings College (now Columbia Univ.), John Stevens III was a lawyer, engineer, and inventor. The Patent Act of 1790 is said to have resulted from his petition to Congress requesting their protection for inventors. After serving as a Captain in Washington’s army, John Stevens bought land in New Jersey (now Hoboken), where he established one of the best-equipped machine shops in the union.

Stevens was a pioneering steam engine builder, and is known for making the first successful ocean trip by steamboat in 1809. He couldn’t operate on the Hudson because Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton held a monopoly on steam navigation on all New York State waterways. (This monopoly was fought to the US Supreme Court by Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Webster, where it was declared “repugnant to the Constitution” and voided in 1824.)

Robert Livingston, Chancellor of New York, was married to John Stevens’ sister, and collaborated with Stevens on his earliest steamboat experiments. But in 1798, Livingston secured the monopoly on steam travel on NY waterways for himself. He later met Robert Fulton, financed his work, and obtained their 1803 monopoly. Fulton’s paddle steamer first traveled from New York to Albany in 1807, in a record breaking time of 32 hours, at just under 5 mph.

Although he continued his steamboat work, John Stevens believed that a steam carriage on rails could travel at greater speeds and deliver goods more economically than a steamboat, which must overcome the friction of water. In 1812, Stevens proposed his railroad concept to the Commissioners for the Improvement of Inland Navigation in New York. The Commissioners were not favorable to the idea – not surprising, as they included Livingston and Fulton, and were focusing their efforts on the Erie Canal (constructed 1817-1825).

Stevens published his "Documents Tending to Prove The Superior Advantages Of Rail-Ways And Steam Carriages Over Canal Navigation", and continued seeking government support. In 1815, he received the first railroad charter in the US, for the New Jersey Railroad. He and his sons built a demonstration steam wagon in 1826, which carried passengers on a circular track on their own land, at up to 12mph.

Stevens' Demonstrator remained a prototype, but by 1830, two American-built locomotives were running on rails. Stevens’ sons imported a locomotive from England to start their Camden and Amboy Railroad. The sons were talented inventors as well, and are credited with numerous other railroad innovations, including the T-shaped metal rail.

[Image from Patent No. 2,773, Method of Connecting
the Drive Wheels of Locomotive Steam-Engines, 1842,
Robert Livingston Stevens, New York, NY]

For more information:

• John Stevens – “Father of American Railroads”
• Steamboat Days, by Fred Erving Dayton
• Old Steamboat Days On The Hudson River, By David Lear Buckman