Our Towne Bethlehem September 2020: Just Some Then and Nows

Keeping it simple for September. 

This month I invite you to enjoy some classic then and now photo sets.  All of the “now” photos were taken in late August 2020.   And one Flash and Dash.  Cemetery walks and a history paddle are on tap this fall.  Visit the Bethlehem Historical Association’s website for details. BethlehemHistorical.org.

 

Students stand in front of the Cedar Hill Schoolhouse in the early 1900s.  The original one room school was built in 1859 and was expanded to the size shown here in 1907.  The building was actively used as a school until 1962.

In this photo taken May 17, 1964, the school is boarded up, in the midst of its transition from the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk Central School District to the Town of Bethlehem and the Bethlehem Historical Association.  The schoolhouse is located at the corner of River Road and Clapper Road in Selkirk.

Organized in 1965, the Bethlehem Historical Association is a vibrant, local history organization whose motto is “Live for Today. Dream for Tomorrow. Learn from Yesterday.” BHA hopes to re-open the museum after the Covid-19 shutdown sometime this fall.  

Organized in 1908, members of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church did not raise their church building at the corner of Elsmere Avenue and Polar Drive until 1926. Before that, they were meeting at a former blacksmith shop Delaware Avenue. This photo is probably from about 1930.

Over the years, St. Stephen’s has made many enlargements to their facility. The light color wing is the original building. The section to the right of the tree in the center of the picture formed the entryway. You can match up the small rectangular vent windows in the peak.  

Lehmann’s Garage has stood on Maple Avenue in Selkirk for over 100 years, one of the oldest continuing family businesses in town.  Jacob Albert Lehmann started out as a blacksmith here in 1913, and his son Albert Jacob transitioned the business to automobile service.  The garage is seen here about 1930 with a truck of the Selkirk Fire Department.  

Lehmann’s Garage today.

The lovely Victorian house at 1511 New Scotland Road has a storied history. It was built in 1876 by Albert I. Slingerland for railroad executive Charles Hammond. The photo here is believed to have been taken in the mid-1930s by photographer Marion Dillenback.  She lived here with her husband Garrett V. Dillenback, Jr, in-laws Adele and Garrett Dillenback and sister-in-law Elizabeth Dillenback.  The house became locally famous as scenes from the 1987 movie Ironweed were filmed here. 

The distinctive round window, decorative brackets and pointed tower of the Ironweed House are visible in this modern photo. 

Marion Dillenback - Photographer

 See this postcard (and yes I know I am obsessed with postcards lately!)

Do you see the signature at the bottom? I've been curious about it for a while and finally looked it up. It turns out that Marion is the Dillenback of Dillenback Photo Service.

Marion Dillenback was the former Marion Gallagher who married Garrett V. Dillenback, Jr on May 26, 1927.  Garrett was the son of Garrett and Adele Dillenback and they lived for a time at 1511 New Scotland Road - New Scotland Ave at Bridge Street as the card says -  the locally famous Ironweed House.

The 1940 U.S. census has the whole family living together.  Garrett and Adele are in their 70s with no occupation listed.  Daughter Elizabeth is 46 and a secretary at the state laboratory. Garrett, son, is 37 and his occupation is hard to read, but it looks like technician photographer, and he is a wage earner in private work. Marion, daughter-in-law, is 33 and her occupation is photographer private business, working on own account.  

And just to make things fun, the 1940 U.S. census also captured Garrett Dillenback, Jr. as a guest of the Times Square Hotel in New York City. I know its our Garrett because it states that on April 1, 1935 he was a resident of Slingerlands, NY.  His occupation is listed as "technician newspaper."  Garrett has a long history of technical "things" that I can document including his graduation from M.I.T., his U.S patent in 1930 for a "television motor structure" and Ham radio commendation from the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War. 

But, getting back to Marion, she made a career with photography and several of the photos in the town's archive that are attributed to "Dillenback" were most likely made by Marion herself.  

Like this one of the house at 1511 New Scotland.

And this one of the library book mobile in front of the school on New Scotland Road.

And the whole series of construction photos of the Delmar Post Office.

And in a nice throw back to another blog post, Marion worked for James A. Glenn of Albany for many years as evidenced by several city directories. This one is from 1959. 

And here's an ad from the November 6, 1936 issue of the Altamont Enterprise.

And now, at here at the very end, I must confess to making the mistake that the Dillenback of Dillenback Photo was Garrett.  I have even put this mistake in print and will have to make a correction to my book Bethlehem People and Places.  Sigh.  Always, I do the best I can with the fact checking and make corrections as I am able. 

Our Towne Bethlehem August 2020: Magic Lantern Exhibits

This Our Town article was inspired by my previous blog post about lantern slides.  I just had to share the details I found.  The fact that slide shows go back to the 1600s is fascinating. Growing up, my dad always had the camera and took pictures on film that came back as slides.  I am remembering the collective groan around my house when someone said "let's look at some slides!" 

Yup, that's me and my brothers with my mom on the beach at Cape Cod.

Lantern Slides

When was the last time you sat through an old-fashioned slide show? The heavy carousel packed with 35mm slides? The fussy projector that always seemed to be blowing a bulb? Has it cooled down enough to turn off the fan? How about the finicky screen that never seemed to stay in place?

Nowadays, your modern PowerPoint presentation is defined by the number of slides you present even though those are not really slides. The Merriam Webster dictionary says they are “an electronic image presented as part of a series.”

But why are slides called slides anyway? The slide, that transparent object (first glass and later cardboard and film) that contains a picture, was moved in and out of the projector using a mechanism with a smooth, gliding, sliding motion. The projector, a magic lantern, used a mirror to intensify and direct light (from a candle, kerosene lamp, limelight, or later an electric bulb) through a lens and send the image out to a screen.

A typical magic lantern setup (A. Niemimki, commons.wikimeida.org)

Slides and slid shows were a thing way before motion pictures and photography. They go all the way back to the 1600s. Wikipedia says that Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens invented the magic lantern in 1659. In those early days, all kinds of scenes and illustrations were painted on glass. Sets were used to tell stories or illustrate lectures. Eventually, ways were devised to move slides in rapid succession to give the impression of movement.

Toy magic lanterns available from Gebruder Bing's 1906 Catalog of Instructive Optical Toys (archive.org)

Magic Lantern slide shows, exhibits and lectures were very, very popular. Here are some some local examples. The ladies of the M.E. Church in Coeymans offered a “dime social” in February 1878. The evening’s entertainment consisted of songs, speakings, and a “Magic Lantern exercise, which will be entertaining for children and also to grown people.” In January 1894, the folks at the Lutheran Church in Altamont presented a lantern exhibit of 80 slides described as an “intellectual and artistic treat.” The title of the show was “A Night in the Slums of New York.” Ministers illustrated their sermons, the P.T.A. presented lectures including one about the “wonderful scenery at Yellowstone” and the Camera Club had evenings where members presented their slides “throwing them upon the screen with the club’s fine electrical lantern.”

Even businesses got into the act. In 1892, Saul’s, located on Pearl Street in Albany, advertised that “Boys will please take notice that a beautiful and useful MAGIC LANTERN, will be presented from to-morrow in our Boys’ and Children’s Department with Saul’s compliments to all those purchasing a suit or overcoat irrespective of price.” Buy a suit and your children were entertained!

By now you might be wondering what got me going on this exploration of Magic Lantern Slides. Well, there is a stack of these slides in the photo archive at Town Hall. They were likely made about 1928 for the First United Methodist Church of Delmar’s Build or Bust Campaign. I imagine a gathering at the church, perhaps with a potluck supper, featuring the slide show followed by a fundraising pitch. The building campaign, by the way, was successful with $40,000 being pledged. Twenty-one members even signed a loan guarantee. The Parish House, the Norman Gothic addition at the rear and west side of the main sanctuary of the church, was completed and dedicated December 15, 1929.

The slides were made by J. A. Glenn of Albany. Glenn had a long career as a photographer and producer of lantern slides. His photo credit turns up all over the place on the internet on tons of lantern slides. Images like the Reformed Church at Tappen, N.Y. or Reveille House in Richmond, V.A. (Both hand colored and probably part of larger sets of buildings of historical or architectural interest.) A large set of images from the Netherlands are found in the William Gorham Rich Papers at the New York Public Library. One image found online is simply called “Cattle Wagon.” There are several that highlight rooms at Historic Cherry Hill in the Rankin Collection. All were produced by Glenn.

A snapshot of one of the J. A. Glenn slides showing local Delmar landmark the former Adams House Hotel. 

Glenn advertised in Moving Picture Age magazine in March 1920 writing, “Are you satisfied with the quality of Lantern Slides you are getting? Would you like to have the best that can be made? Send your negatives and copy to J. A. Glenn 76 Columbia Street Albany N.Y. Slide maker to New York State Education and other Departments.”

Did you catch the part about the N.Y. State Education Department? They, and especially the Division of Visual Instruction, procured thousands of slides, and sets were loaned to schools throughout New York from 1886 to 1939. Topics included geography, history, natural sciences, fine arts and more. J. A. Glenn made some of those slides too.

The Albany Advertising Club had Glenn in to talk about the effective application of photography in advertising and general business. He is quoted as saying, “A well-placed photograph tells a story which words sometimes cannot put over to the general public.” Another time the Albany Rotary Club had him in for an exhibit of educational lantern slides. At the talk, Glen described the process of taking the pictures and coloring them.

On the personal side, James A. Glenn (1878-1966) married Bessie Tedford (1880-1961) and they had three children, Robert, James, Jr and Donald. They lived at 9 Villa Road, Colonie, Village of Menand, for many years. In a local connection, his death notice states that he had a granddaughter, Judith Glenn, who lived in Delmar.

 

Piney Rest Farm

Thanks to a group on Facebook (thank you Bethlehem Central Randomness!), this wonderful postcard sent me down a small research rabbit hole this afternoon. Procrastination at its finest if you ask me!

And since it is easier to write up said research here instead of on Facebook, and because typing in "Piney Rest Farm" into the Old Fulton newspaper website turned up exactly one lonely, but very informative article, I've got good stuff to share. So here goes...

Please meet Mrs. Milton Slingerland, the former Carrie Mae Wiltsie, age 88.  This profile appeared in the May 8, 1962 Albany Times Union.  

In this delightful and long article about Gram Slingerland we learn some interesting facts about the Piney Rest Farm.   

Carrie Mae Wiltsie was born in 1874 and raised on the Wiltsie farm in Bethlehem.  She married Milton Slingerland when she was 19 and went to live with Milton at his family homestead. The 32 acre farm, where Milton was a truck farmer, was located on River Road in the town of Coeymans. It sat high with the land sloping down to the Hudson River. Carrie Mae and Milton lived there their entire married life - Milton died in 1947 and Carrie in 1963.  Carrie was a busy member of the household - well let me just quote the article...

"She helped to garden, sold eggs and home-made cottage cheese from a Model-T Ford truck, provided breakfast and lodging for tourists and, in spare moments, knitted and crocheted, sewed, painted pictures and tended her flowers.   The tourist business was discontinued at "Piney Rest Farm" 15 years ago, when her son brought his wife and three daughters to join her in the big house."

So there you have it, Carrie Mae Wiltsie Slingerland ran Piney Rest Farm as a tourist rest stop from about the time she got married until 1947 - which was the time her husband passed - say about 50 years. Pretty cool.

I did take a quick look through the census. Piney Rest Farm was on River Road in North Coeymans, town of Coeymans, but did not have a street number, so I can't exactly place the homestead.  I did find Milton and Bessie's son Carmen's WWII draft card and that shed some light.  In the 1940 census he and his wife Ruth lived right next door to Milton and Bessie. (Remember the article says they moved into the "big house" in 1947.) His draft card says his address is "RFD Selkirk"  That's it.  No street name or number.  His phone number was Ravena 14f2.  And his draft registration was filed by the town of Coeymans.  

So, once again I am going to blame the post office delivery system for the above postcard labeled Selkirk, even though the building it shows is really in Coeymans.

Do any of you out there have more information on Piney Rest?  Let me know!

PS: Please search for the the exact phrase "Piney Rest Farm" on https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html and read the whole article about Bessie Mae - she was quite the gal!

UPDATE (7-27-2020)

Here she is - 42 Fox Street, Selkirk, Town of Coeymans.  Owned by Carmen Slingerland until 2004.

Thank you Facebook and Blog commentators for the helpful hints!

Another Update (8-11-2020)

I was at Schodack Island State Park over the weekend and lo and behold what do I see across the Hudson, but a distinctive roof line. Confirmed it is our very own Piney Rest by checking with Google maps.  I was wondering why that cupola was added, must be an amazing view!

Lantern Slides

Buried in the vault at town hall is small box of what I assumed were glass plate negatives. They were given to me for the town's archive ages ago and I haven't really thought about them since.  Well, BHA is doing a small exhibit on photography, and I remembered those interesting slides and dug them out for a closer look.  It turns out they are actually lantern slides. And what gems they are!

They were created by J. A. Glenn of Albany and look like a set for the First United Methodist Church of Delmar's 1928 Build or Bust campaign.  I think they were taken all about the same time.  I imagine a gathering at the church, perhaps with a potluck supper, a presentation of the slide show, and then the fundraising pitch.  The campaign, by the way, must have been successful.  It resulted in the construction of the Parish House, the Norman Gothic addition at the rear and west side of the main sanctuary. 

Below is the whole set of slides. Please note that these are digital snapshots of the slides resting on an LED light box.  The light box (yes it is a cheap one I ordered online) has a glare reducing mask on it that I had to cover with a sheet of paper.  Unfortunately, this makes the images muddy - like the pictures were shot on a cloudy day.  The actual slides are crisp and clear black and white images.  If anyone has a better light box or idea on how to digitize, please let me know!

Delmar Methodist Church

Poster for the Build or Bust Campaing

Delmar Fire Hall former Adams Hotel

District #10 - Delmar School 

The new Delmar School

The new new Delmar School

District # 15 -  Elsmere School

St. Stephen's Church on Elsmere Ave.

Unknown church, perhaps for architectural inspiration.

Another unknown church, architectural inspiration perhaps?

One of the actual slides. 
My supervisor in the back there was saying "get back to work and leave me alone!"

Our Towne Bethlehem July 2020: Of Railroads and White Elephants

While working on “Rivers, Roads and Rails” (an exhibit for the Bethlehem Historical Association’s Cedar Hill Schoolhouse Museum) I’ve been delving into the history of the West Shore Railroad and keep coming across the story of the Commodore’s White Elephant.

I have questions. Like who is this Commodore? And why do we use the phrase “white elephant” anyway? And is there a Bethlehem connection in there somewhere?

Here’s the story:

The Commodore is Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), shipping magnet, railroad tycoon, wily businessman, self-made billionaire. Husband of Sophia for 55years, and then Frank for 8. Father of 12 (including William, who met cute with his future wife Maria Louisa Kissam near her home in Bethlehem in 1841). The Commodore made his initial millions with water transportation. By the 1840s, his fleet of steamships served routes in the waterways around and between New York City, Long Island, and Albany, including areas of New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. During the gold rush of 1849, he expanded his steamship service to San Francisco.

In the 1860s, sensing that the future of transportation was on land, he began buying up controlling interests in existing railroads like the Long Island Railroad, the New York and Harlen Railroad, and the Hudson River Railroad, eventually merging his holdings into the New York Central. It’s said that he made $25 million in the first five years of his railroad ventures.

Of note for our story is the Hudson River Railroad. In the early 1860s, the Hudson River Railroad did not have a bridge connection to Albany from its terminal across the river in Rensselaer. In 1864, the Commodore and investor Daniel Drew conceived the Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad, a 27-mile line that bypassed Albany. Westbound passengers and freight disembarked at the City of Hudson and then crossed the river via ferry and barge to arrive at Athens where they connected with the new line. The line connected with the New York Central near Schenectady passing through South Bethlehem and Feura Bush.

In 1867, the Saratoga and Hudson was leased by the New York Central and merged into their system as the Athens Branch. The busy junction at Athens met a spectacular end in June 1876 when it was destroyed by a huge fire. The steamboat John Taylor, the barge Hercules, the canal boat Stephen Van Warren, the entire depot with its sheds and office buildings, hundreds of cars in the yard, and all the freight (sugar, corn, oats, tobacco) in these various stages of transport, went up in flames.

Not too long after the fire, the Athens Branch became known as a white elephant because it had outlived its usefulness, plus it was never very profitable. It didn’t help that a RR bridge across the Hudson at Albany was opened in 1866. In 1881, the line was purchased by the New York, West Shore and Buffalo, and the section from Coxsackie to Schenectady became part of the mainline. The part between Coxsackie and Athens limped along for a few years before the rails were completely removed in 1888.

The Commodore’s white elephant was really only a white elephant for a short time. Then it passed into legend. Several secondary sources say Vanderbilt long regretted the investment and said it was “the most foolish thing of my life.”

And what exactly is a white elephant? Dictionary.com says it is a “possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to its owner” and that the phrase was first recorded in the early 1850s. The story is said to go back to Siam (modern day Thailand) where a literal white elephant was a highly prized, sacred animal. Let me just quote historyextra.com – they tell it so well:

“The term “white elephant” denotes any burdensome, expensive and useless possession that is much more trouble than it is worth. White or very pale elephants were so highly prized that when one was discovered, it immediately became the possession of the King. White elephants, however, were practically useless. As they were deemed to be sacred, they weren’t allowed to be worked and required special, expensive food and housing – making them particularly pricey pachyderms.

So the cunning kings of Siam, as the story goes, used to give white elephants away to anyone who displeased them or had fallen out of favour so that they would be forced to spend a fortune keeping the precious animals. The unfortunate recipient of a white elephant would be unable to get rid of it so the upkeep could ruin them financially.”

There you have it, the white elephant line that used to run through Bethlehem. The section in Bethlehem merged with the West Shore and provided passenger and freight service in the hamlet of South Bethlehem until about 1959.

 

Flashes and Dashes

CORRECTION: In June’s article, Cemetery Walks and Veterans Stories, I mistakenly referred to the Piers as a Gold Star Family. That is incorrect. Gold Star families are those who have had a family member die in service to our country. All of the Pier children survived their service.

If you haven’t heard already, the Bethlehem Public Library is collecting your stories about the current pandemic. Please visit their website for more info: http://www.bethlehempubliclibrary.org/quarantine-memories-archive/

The Bethlehem Historical Association hopes to open their museum as soon as it is safe to do so.  Visit their website for details: https://bethlehemhistorical.org/    

And finally, visit my blog for the Kissam-Vanderbilt meet cute story: 

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2017/01/maria-louisa-kissam-and-william-henry.html 

and

https://bethlehemnyhistory.blogspot.com/2018/03/maria-louisa-kissam-vanderbilt-revisited.html

 

Both of the above pictures are the South Bethlehem station during the West Shore Railroad era. I was unable to determine whether there was a station here on the White Elephant line.  (Town of Bethlehem)

 

The Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, in an image taken by Mathew Brady sometime between 1844 and 1860. (Library of Congress)

Sophia Johnson Vanderbilt (FindAGrave.com)

This print humorously portrays the fight over New York railroads between Vanderbilt (on the left) and James Fisk.  The story of Vanderbilt’s railroad wheeling and dealing has been extremely simplified for this article.  (Library of Congress)

A Bear and a Fire House

It has been a while since I had an entry in the ongoing saga of things that just show up on my desk.  I was back in Town Hall yesterday for the first time in a long time, and was greeted by a pile of fun items. Here are my favorites.

This tale of a bear in Delmar from 1946.

And what appear to be architect renderings of the South Bethlehem Fire Department building - really Selkirk Fire Company #3 - from 1956.   Do you know which design they chose?

 Thank you Mr. Purcell for brightening my day!