Another Visit to the Albany Institute

This is a lazy post for the night before the night before Christmas (that is the evening of December 23!)

I wanted to share a couple of items from my recent visit to the Albany Institute while they were still fresh and had not been chased out by visions of sugar plums dancing in my head.  I specifically went to see The Schuyler Sisters and their Circle before it closes on the 29th.  And per usual with a visit to the Institute, I found some fun Bethlehem items. 

One item that caught my eye was this original journal from the 1800 U.S. Census for Albany County.  I have seen the digitized version and transcribed versions, but there is something cool about seeing the actual thing.  Wish I could have touched it!

The other interesting exhibit was the one on Walter Launt Palmer. His family had a summer place at Cedar Hill in Bethlehem.  Happily it was mentioned in the show.  Also I liked the landscape pictured here. It is called Autumn Skies and reminds me of the land around here - Five Rivers maybe?

The man himself, looking dapper, Walter Launt Palmer.

Hop on over to https://www.albanyinstitute.org/ for more info.

Real Estate in 1976

A real estate booklet from 1976 recently came my way.  (Thank you Anne!)  It is funny how much the prices have risen, but some of the houses still look the same.  I included the "now" pictures for 3 of the homes that I could easily find.  Enjoy!

Our Town Bethlehem December 2019: Shoes

Shoes, Shoemakers and Shoes in the Wall
(and a bit about the Scharbauer's of South Bethlehem)

As we move into winter, do you think about your footwear more?  I do.  Are these boots waterproof? Will they keep my feet warm? Will they support my arches?  Thoughts such as these get me to wondering about shoes in history, and specifically in Bethlehem history. 

Seemingly as long as there have been humans, there have been shoes to protect our feet.  Shoes have a long, long history from Paleolithic leather foot wraps to Roman sandals; from tiny shoes meant to fit the bound feet of Chinese women in the Tang Dynasty to the high platforms of the European Renaissance. And let’s not forget the iconic wooden Dutch shoe that became popular in the 1500s in the Netherlands.

Skipping ahead in time to the 19^th Century, this is the time boot and shoe making went from a handmade process to an industrialized one.  Bethlehem residents could go to their local general store and buy factory made shoes or head into Albany for shopping at one of the big department stores.  However, one could still visit a local maker such as Ferdinand Scharbauer of South Bethlehem.

According to a biography of his son, Texas cattleman John Scharbauer, Ferdinand Scharbauer learned shoe making in his native Germany and followed the trade all his life.  It is not known exactly when he and his wife Rosanna arrived here, but their oldest child was born in New York about 1849 and the family shows up in the 1860 U.S. Census in Bethlehem. Ferdinand and Rosanna raised seven children in the South Bethlehem area.  In the 1880 Census, Ferdinand, age 70, was living with his son Christian.  Christian was a harness maker, a leather working occupation he perhaps learned from his father. In 1883, Christian and his family joined his brother John in Texas and they were both very successful cattlemen.  The other siblings remained in New York. Ferdinand (1809-1891) is buried next to Rosanna (1815-1878) at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in South Bethlehem.

Traditionally, shoemakers and cobblers are two different occupations.  The writer at footfiles.com puts it succinctly. “At one time, shoemakers were the skilled artisans tasked with making shoes out of brand-new leather, while cobblers were the ones who repaired shoes. In fact, cobblers were forbidden from working with new leather and had to use old leather for their repairs. The difference between the two trades was once considered so vast, it was a serious insult to call a shoemaker a cobbler (the latter of which, not so coincidentally, is a term that also means to work clumsily or bungle).The shoemaking  and cobbler trades were forced to merge around the beginning of the 19th century when the introduction of mass manufactured shoes left shoemakers out of work and having to accept lower paying repair jobs."  https://www.footfiles.com/subject/cobbler

Next time you put on your shoes, think of the long history of footwear, the many styles that have come and gone.  Even consider the aglet, the plastic tip of the shoe string that makes it easier to thread your laces.

Jessie Adams, daughter of John and Louisa Adams of Adamsville/Delmar, was born in 1860.
Notice her lace up boots. 

Concealed shoes are a fascinating find.  The ones pictured above were found in the wall under a window at a circa 1880 home on New Scotland Road in Slingerlands.  Shoes were placed inside walls and roofs going back to the 1400s in England and the practice carried over to the U.S. The shoes are almost always woman’s or children’s that are very worn. One idea is that they were placed to ward off evil spirits, or encourage good luck. Another is that they were related to fertility (you know the old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn’t know what to do.)  Interestingly, no written historic records about the phenomenon have been found, just the shoes themselves. 

Elsmere School, class of 1926. Notice the shoes!

Students pose at the Cedar Hill Schoolhouse circa 1920. Notice their sturdy, lace up boots. 

And finally, a side note.  Google John Scharbauer and/or the Scharbauer Cattle Company. It is kind of a fascinating story of how a young man from a small village in Albany County, namely South Bethlehem, went west and made it big in Texas. Look for this book: Historical And Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry and Cattlemen of Texas

I also found some interesting tidbits in the local paper about brother Phillip Sharbauer who stayed behind in South Bethlehem and made a good living for himself and his family.  He was a hay merchant and grocer. The 1900 US Census simply labeled his occupation as "Capitalist." The local papers had many entries for various events that took place at Scharbauer's Hall. Including skating - I couldn't figure out if it was ice skating or roller skating.  Or both. Fun!

You've got to read these old maps with a grain of salt.  Pretty sure this 1891 Beers map should read P. Scharbauer. 

Our Towne Bethlehem November 2019: Tobacco and Cigars

Pop over to Our Towne Bethlehem for the digital version - my article is on page 12.
http://www.ourtownebethlehem.com/

Tobacco and Cigars
November 2019

Search on Google Images for "cigar vintage daguerreotype" and you find find plenty of 19th century
 men and their cigars.  This gentleman came from the Flickr group Vintage People with Dogs. 

Tobacco and Cigars. What a strange topic I know. Here’s how it came up. Not too long ago while talking about the hamlet of Slingerlands, I used the quote below that describes the village in 1886.

 “The village contains 44 dwellings, 50 families, 230 inhabitants; a commodious brick school-house and M.E. Church, printing establishment, hotel, marble and monumental works, store, 2 blacksmith shops, wheel wright and paint shop, shoe shop, cigar manufactory, R.R. station and several fine residences….Being near the city, it affords many conveniences to those who seek for rural pleasure and the quiet of home life.”

Very nice right? But then, someone asked, “Where was the cigar manufactory?” I had no idea, but my curiosity was piqued. The question also brought to mind the ad for Pigaback Cigars with its cute picture of a pig with four little piglets on its back. The image was used by Dearstyne Brothers of Albany in the early 1900s and catches my eye every time I am researching in the Altamont Enterprise. The question also reminded me that tobacco was a very big deal in the early colonial times in what was to become Bethlehem.

Tobacco use has a long history with the native peoples of the Americas. European explorers of the 1500s encountered it and brought the practice of smoking tobacco, and the seeds to grow it, back to their home countries. It is said Sir Walter Raleigh introduced smoking tobacco in pipes to England’s elite. Tobacco use spread quickly fueled by belief in its curative powers and it became entrenched in the American and European economies.

You might have heard of Albert Andriessen Bradt, the Norwegian? Often recounted is the story that he was the early settler for whom the Normans Kill was named. Bradt signed a contract in August 1636 with Killian Van Rensselaer to leave Amsterdam, travel to Rensselaerswyck and start a sawmill venture with two others. Van Rensselaer described the 29-year-old Bradt as a tobacco planter meaning he probably managed one of the tobacco plantations in Holland. There were tobacco farms there as early as 1616.

There is much documentary evidence of tobacco farming in general and Albert Bradt in particular in what was to become Bethlehem, especially in the correspondence of Killian Van Rensselaer. For example, in a letter dated May 10, 1638, Van Rensselaer writes Bradt, “This will serve to advise you that I duly received your letter in which you wrote that the tobacco looked fine…” The following May, Van Rensselaer writes to Bradt, “Now as to the tobacco which you sent me, it is a great loss to yourself and to me that the tobacco in these barrels was so poor and thin of leaf that it could not stand being rolled, which must be due to your having left too many leaves on the plants; furthermore the weight was short.” It must be noted that Bradt engaged in a number of activities in order to make a living in Rensselaerswyck including trading in furs, cattle raising, grain farming and sawmilling. By 1646, Bradt had left the tobacco farm to concentrate on his other money-making ventures.

Northern tobacco soon fell out of favor as the supremacy of Virginia tobacco grew. I did find evidence of one Bethlehem farmer raising tobacco in the Agricultural Schedule of the 1880 Census. Usher Otman, on his 34 improved acres, amidst the many bushels of corn, oats, rye, wheat and potatoes, produced 30 pounds of tobacco. He is the only one in 39 pages of records, reflecting approximately 200 farmers.  

And what about that cigar manufactory in Slingerlands? It was owned by Samuel Dickson. Dickson turns up as early as the 1870 U.S. Census where he is listed as a “segar maker.” At that time, he lived with his uncle and aunt, Alexander and Elizabeth Dickson McGilva. He was still making, and one assumes selling, cigars in the 1880 census and by the 1892 NY census he is a listed as a merchant. The 1900 census has him as a grocer. All this time he was living in Slingerlands with members of the McGilva side of his family. As a side note, Dickson was active in Republican politics, winning election as Collector in 1872 on a ticket topped by Albertus Becker for Supervisor.

Dickson remained single all of his life, passing away in 1900 at about age 68. He is buried next to his aunt and uncle at the New Scotland Presbyterian Church Cemetery.  His cousin Elizabeth McGilva was in charge of settling his estate, and her legal notice in the Altamont Enterprise is fascinating. In searching for heirs and interested parties, the notice begins with a listing of a whole host of people from the Dickson family of Cigarville, Onondaga County, New York.

While I don’t know how Dickson landed in Bethlehem or how he learned his trade as a cigar maker, a large part of his extended family was located in a village so famous for its tobacco product that they called the place Cigarville. One newspaper clipping headlined “Tobacco Farming Lost Onondaga County Calling” describes Cigarville as one of the “liveliest settlements in Onondaga’s tobacco land.” It continues, “a thriving little community which derived its name from its ranking industry, the manufacture of cigars from tobacco cultivated in the surrounding region. In its hey-day the Cigarville factory employed between 75 and 100 men, described as a rowdy, rollicking, quick tempered lot.” With the decline of the industry around 1900, the hamlet of Cigarville became Clay Station.

I don’t imagine Dickson’s operation in Slingerlands was on the scale of the Cigarville factory. He probably had a small business hand rolling cigars and selling them locally. Cigar making in general ranged from large manufacturers, there were several in Albany, to smaller operations such as Dickson’s. One 1886 book reports “The smokers of cigars and chewers of tobacco are as numerous in Albany as elsewhere. Most of the wholesale dealers and manufactures are also engaged in the retail trade… all of the retail stores manufacture to some degree…there are over one hundred firms in engaged in this branch of trade in Albany.” Elsewhere in the book, the writer notes that the Cigar Makers Union was organized in Albany 1879 and included between three and four hundred members.

This exploration of tobacco and cigars does not even begin to look at the history of pipe smoking and cigarettes, or the health consequences we are familiar with today. While I am not at all nostalgic for the bad old days of widespread cigarette use, the smell of cigar smoke does bring back fond memories of my dad. And historically, it is interesting to wonder about the roots of a wide scale industry that is still impacting life today.  If you’d like to read further, check out the book Tobacco How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately. 

Cooke & Nelson’s cigar and soda store can be seen in this snapshot taken September 11, 1924. The building was at the Four Corners in Delmar where the Swifty’s parking lot is today. Cooke & Nelson advertised their confections, smoker’s articles, magazines and periodicals as well as
Syra-Cord tires and tubes for automobiles.

Another handsome cigar smoking gent from Google Images.

A glimpse of Bethlehem in Bennington

Today I had a fun local history moment at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont.  It involved this map. 

Look close, closer, even closer

Yup there it is, lower left corner

Renslearwick!

And just below that Normans Kill.  OK, it actually says Normans River.  That's Bethlehem's northern boundary.  Of course we weren't a town yet when this map was drawn, but still pretty cool.

The map, A map of the province of New York, by Simon Metcalf circa 1772, shows what was to become Vermont from a New York perspective.  At the time New York and New Hampshire were wrestling over the ownership of the territory. Hop over here for the full description.

https://bennington.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/A06EB1FE-FB29-4440-8F0C-673890026858

My other fun history fact of the day was how Vermont got its name - just never thought about it before.  Apparently, Frenchman Samuel de Champlain put down Verd Mont on his 1647 map - green mountains - verd mont - Vermont.

The Bennington Museum is a great place - I enjoyed the schoolhouse, "Visible in Vermont: Our Stories our Voices"  and Asa Cheffetz's Vermont engravings.  And not to be terrible, but I can take or leave Grandma Moses.  Lunch at Madison Brewing.  And then a stop at the Big Moose Deli & Country Store because, oh my, why wouldn't you?  It has every kind of "Vermont" item you could possibly want.  What tickles my funny bone is that it is actually in New York!

Below is a picture from their website. Above is from Google. https://bigmoosegifts.com/

The Town Historian's Web Page

Recently, I updated some items on the Town Historian's web page at the general Town of Bethlehem website, http://www.townofbethlehem.org/  and was wondering if all of you readers out there even knew this page existed.  http://www.townofbethlehem.org/151/Town-Historian 

When I started as Town Historian in September 2007, this web page was the place where previous historian Ray Houghton had posted articles and I soon added more.  When the town rebuilt the website a few years back, the articles were adapted into PDFs and they are now a little awkwardly spaced, and I wish they were properly attributed to their author. They are easy enough to replace (many thanks to the town's MIS department!) but I hate to impose on MIS for minor editing issues. So, they are now something of a historic monument in themselves.  Nowadays, new articles appear here on this blog or at Our Town Bethlehem, or in my books.

Recently, I replaced the article on Bethlehem's National Register listings to include color pictures of each property.
http://www.townofbethlehem.org/DocumentCenter/View/2570/National-Register-of-Historic-Places-in-Bethlehem?bidId=

Also replaced is the article Researching a House in Bethlehem.  Resources, especially digital ones have really improved!
http://www.townofbethlehem.org/DocumentCenter/View/3059/Researching-a-House-in-Bethlehem

Also recently updated is the list of Town Historians on the bottom of the home page.

Our Towne Bethlehem October 2019: Apples and Orchards

With the weather turning to the cool crispness of fall, your town historian’s mind turns to apples as I am sure yours does too. Apple picking is such a quintessential fall activity in Bethlehem and all of Upstate New York.

Apples and apple orchards have a long history here going back to the earliest Dutch settlement era.  The Van Rensselaers urged their tenant farmers to plant orchards of apples, pears, and other fruits. Think about that for a minute. In the 1600s, to European eyes, the land here in what is now Bethlehem was very much wilderness. To plant an apple seed in anticipation of the tree growing and bearing fruit, something that could take 10 years, was an act of faith in the future of the settlement.

In 1682, Albert Bratt, the Norwegian for whom the Norman’s Kill is named, subleased his orchard along the creek to his future son-in-law Teunis Cornelissen Slingerland. The rent was 150 “schepels” a year. If this was the usual ten percent, then that orchard was producing 1500 “schepels” of apples a year. That’s about 1100 bushels in modern terms, and likely over 250 mature trees.

65+ years later, during his stay in the Albany area in June 1749, Peter Kalm noted that each farm had a large orchard. Some of the apples were “very large and palatable” and were “sent to New York, and other places as a rarity.” He also wrote “they make excellent cider, in autumn, in the country round Albany.”

An important word about that cider. We are not talking about the delicious cider we pick up at the store today. We are talking about hard, that is alcoholic, cider. Also delicious, but not the benign cider of today. Orchards in those early days were dedicated to cider apples and the reason is interesting. Apple trees grown from seed do not produce the kind of apple the seed came from. For example, if you plant the seeds from a Golden Delicious apple, watch the tree grow and harvest its fruit, the resulting apple is not a Golden Delicious. It is likely to be sour and look nothing like its parent apple. Sour, inedible apples however, are excellent for pressing into cider. That cider can then be easily fermented back on the farmstead into a drink that, especially on the frontier, is more easily obtained than beer or wine, or even fresh water. 

While seedlings and grafted trees did come from Europe early on, apple seeds were also planted in abundance. You might remember the tale of Johnny Appleseed?

To get a true Golden Delicious, one needs to purchase a grafted tree. And this is interesting too. Apples, in the wild genetic mixing of their seeds, sometimes produce very yummy varieties. Every Golden Delicious goes back to a single apple tree, one found in an orchard on the Mullin’s family farm in West Virginia in 1904. Anderson Mullins sold the tree and propagation rights to Stark Brothers Nursery who first marketed it in 1914. Another example is the Granny Smith. That apple literally goes back to a single tree discovered by Maria Ann Smith in Australia in 1868. And yes, Maria did become a Granny.

The Temperance movement of the late 1800s (which eventually led to Prohibition in 1919) caused farmers and orchardists to wonder what they were going to do with all their apples if they couldn’t make hard cider from them. The answer was to market them for their healthy wholesomeness with the classic “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This in turn led to something of an apple gold rush where farmers scoured their orchards for the tree that distinguished itself with extra special fruit. Shoots of that special tree could then be grafted onto root stock and the saplings marketed and sold.

Apples, and other orchard produce, continued to be a cash crop for Bethlehem farmers well into the 1900s. For example, in the 1940s, Sunnybrook Farm, run by Charles and Virginia Waldenmaier, included a 500-tree orchard with Alexander, Wolf River, Greening, Delicious and Macintosh apple trees. While Bethlehem does not currently boast a large commercial orchard, remnant trees from the old orchards can be found. Recently while walking in the woods near my home, I noticed large apples on the ground, and looking up saw the gnarled old tree they came from. Could this tree have been part of the orchards of the Van Allen family farm that was here before my housing subdivision? You bet!

This article was inspired in three ways. First and foremost, by the iconic Indian Ladder Farms. Second by the book Botany of Desire A Plant’s Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. Pollan’s article on apples and the real Johnny Appleseed is fascinating. And finally, the collection of the Bethlehem Historical Association has several brass stencils that illustrate the wonderful variety of fruit produced by Bethlehem farmers. Romantic sounding names like Blue Gage, Green Gage, Baldwin, Magnum Bonum, Cranberry Pippin, Louie Honne, Sutton Beauty, and Hubbardston were stenciled onto boxes and barrels in preparation for shipment to market.

All of the apples on these stencils are listed in The Apples of New York published in 1905. Baldwins arose from a chance seedling on John Ball’s farm in Wilmington, M.A. The tree and its fruit were brought to the attention of Loammi Baldwin as early as 1784 who propagated it widely. Sutton and Sutton Beauty originated in Sutton, M.A. The Cranberry Pippin is mentioned only as what it is not, a Scarlet Cranberry. Louie Bonne is either a Belle Bonne or a Billy Bond, two very different apples whose names were mixed up early on. Hubbardston is an apple native to Hubbardston, M.A.

While in my mind Indian Ladder Farm is synonymous with apples, the only pictures I have are set among the pumpkins. Here is my daughter Emma circa 1998.