Our Towne Bethlehem June 2021: The Delmar Progress Club

In a roundabout way, my recent obsession with street names has led me to the Delmar Progress Club. Read on for news about this community organization that is celebrating 125 years.

 

On the evening of Monday February 13, 1905, after her daughters, toddler Mary and infant Dorothy, were put to bed, 24-year-old Lulu Mochrie hosted her fellow members of the Delmar Progress Club at her Hudson Avenue home. Her husband, Charles was likely resting from his labors clerking for the nearby D&H Railroad. In 1904-1905, there were 20 club members, most of whom were young women with a yen for personal and community improvement.

 “A Year in England” was the theme of study for that season. The women gathered in Mrs. Mochrie’s parlor heard Aimee Allen present about Rugby. She left her three young daughters back at the parsonage of the Delmar Reformed Church with husband the Rev. Henry Bacon Allen. Ada Ticknor presented about Warwick Castle. She left her infant son Roland with husband William, also a clerk with the D&H.

Inspired by a visit to the Women’s Club of Cobleskill in 1901, Elva Hinman established the Delmar Progress Club “for the mental, moral, and social development of the members and the betterment of the community.” At the time Elva was 25 years old and had been a schoolteacher for several years. She grew up in Delmar, daughter of Clara and Nathan. In 1896 and 1897 she was teaching in Delanson, and in 1899, amazingly, was nominated on the Albany County Democratic ticket for school commissioner for the first district (Bethlehem, Coeymans and New Scotland). The Political Pointers column of the November 4, 1899 Albany Argus newspaper notes that in her examination for her state teachers’ certificate she passed 90% in the subject of school law. The writer continues, “It is very doubtful if the Republican candidate for school commission knows there is such a thing as school law.” While Elva did not win that election, her legacy with the Delmar Progress Club is vast.

Elva Hinman Dyer, probably about the time the club was founded.
 (Courtesy of Findagrave.com)

How to summarize 125 years of women working for the improvement of our community. The list is long and varied. Do you enjoy visiting the Bethlehem Public Library? It was organized by the women of the club as the Delmar Free Library. One way they raised funds for books and building was to create the Delmar Family Directory in 1913. They also held food sales, card parties, masquerades and dramas. All proceeds went to the library. How about improved train service and the banning of smoking in D & H depot? Done. How about naming and numbering streets in order to get home mail delivery. Done. Town ordinances for garbage pickup, controlling fireworks and prohibiting use of firearms in town (apparently there was a rash of bullets shattering windows) were all promoted by the women of the club and their Civic Betterment Committee. And we are only up to about 1940!

Mrs. Stuart S. Belcher and Mrs. Harlan Raymond, Delmar Progress Club members,
enjoy a meal in 1954. (Town of Bethlehem archive)

In addition to their work improving the community, the club sought to improve their minds with intellectual presentations and discussions organized around the year’s theme like the previously mentioned “Year in England” in 1904-05. Another example is 1928-1929 “American Art and Music.” By the 1930s, the club’s membership had grown into the hundreds and the study groups Homes and Gardens, Modern Literature, Government and Drama were added.

Local papers are full of clips about the doings of the Delmar Progress Club, holding dramas and fashion shows, raising funds for various charities and scholarships, supporting environmental causes, and one of my favorites, the 1965 Know Your Town Driving Tour. I am finding it nearly impossible to summarize the good work of so many dedicated women in so short a space. To learn more about the vibrant and very modern-day Delmar Progress Club, please visit their website at DelmarProgressClub.org.

The cast of the drama What Became of Parker? a farce comedy presented by the Delmar Progress Club in the fall of 1915 to benefit the library fund. Women of the club played all of the characters including Mrs. Gregg as Otto the waiter, center of the photo with serving tray held in the air, and seated in front of her is Mrs. Johnson as Fred Parker, the title character.
(Delmar Progress Club archive.)

Unfortunately, Elva Hinman did not live to see any of this progress. She married Daivd Dyer on July 23, 1902 and gave birth to their daughter on December 1, 1903. She died seven days later on the 8^th at the age of 29. Her obituary is poignant. It reads in part, “Mrs. Dyer was a woman of strong personality, possessing rare gifts and graces that compelled admiration and respect a brilliant conversationalist; an entertaining and delightful companion.” It goes on to describe her work with the Progress Club, “She was the founder of the Progress Club, and was its honored secretary from the first until her death. To this she devoted much time and energy and by her own interest and zeal created much interest among the members in the study of history and classics.”

Elva’s husband died not too long after her in 1905 and their daughter Clara Dyer was raised by Elva’s mother Clara Hinman. Clara Dyer also became a school teacher. A 1936 club history provides a poem written by Clara Dyer and dedicated to the club. It reads:

Beyond the hills the pathway leads, and we
Well-poised upon the mountainside,
Pause for a moment. Far below us lie the
Green and fertile fields of our endeavor
Dew-wet and smiling in the morning sun.
All we have labored, all that we have given
Of our abundance was well spent
For this – the larger vision of our hopes
And dreams come true.
We turn rejoicing.
Foar beyond the hills the path still leads
And we have still to follow with our faith
A flam beyond us in the darkness
And our zeal a sword.

Many thanks to Progress Club members Lynne Lenhardt, Debbie Gall, and Alison Calvagno for the deep dive into club history. The club is working to preserve their boxes and boxes of records including 125 years’ worth of meeting minutes, scrapbooks, account books and drama scripts.

******************************

You've gotten this far in the blog, wonderful!  I have a history mystery for you.  The Progress Club often presented their dramas at "Universal Hall" in Delmar.  The problem, where was this building?  It was advertised from about 1914-1919 as an event space you could rent out for dances, parties, plays, what have you.  It was on Kenwood Avenue.  But, where where???

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FLASHES and DASHES

 Explore the historic Delmar Four Corners and Elsmere with this walking tour:

https://www.townofbethlehem.org/DocumentCenter/View/13406/Four-Corners---Elsmere-Historical-Walk?bidId=

History hikes, cemetery walks, and history paddles are all happening in the coming months.  Pop over here for details: 

https://bha1965.webs.com/history-hikes-paddles

And the Cedar Hill Schoolhouse Museum is now open Sunday afternoons from 2 to 4 pm.  We've also got a special Family Time program on Saturdays. You know where to go for more info: BethlehemHistorical.org.

Bethlehem's 1885 Board of health

 Another story in the ongoing saga of things that just turn up on my desk.

For the past year's Covid time we've been hearing a lot from the  Albany County Department of Health.  Back in the day, this was a function of local boards of health, including Bethlehem of course. 

Recently a pamphlet entitled "Organization of the Local Board of Health" and subtitled "Sanitary Laws and regulation obligatory upon the Inhabitants of the Town of Bethlehem, N.Y., as Adopted April 28, 1885." came my way.

As you can see from the pictures, it lists the members of the Town Board of Health and their residences including supervisor John L. Winne resident of Adams Station and Justice of the Peace L. W. Soop of Beckers Corners, place names you don't hear so often today.

The board was concerned with the dangers to public health.  Among the duties outlined in detail in the document are (a) to receive and examine into the nature of complaints concerning causes of danger and injury to the public health,  (c) to take charge of, and provide for, the quarantine of cases of contagion and its sources, and (e) to report every case of small-pox, and to provide the means for thorough and safe vaccination of those who may need it. Interesting in light of current times.

There are many items regarding burials and burial permits, privy-vaults and cess-pools, unwholesome food, regulations regarding notification if anyone in a household has scarlet fever, diphtheria or small pox and rules about recording births and marriages.

It is all rather elegantly summed up in this item: Whatever is dangerous to human life, and whatever renders the air or food and water or drink unwholesome, are declared to be nuisances, and to be unlawful.  

So simple, yet so complicated.

Our Towne Bethlehem May 2021: Streets of Selkirk

 Have you noticed I am on something of a street name kick?  This month I thought I’d explore some street names in Selkirk.  Thatcher Street has always intrigued me because I wonder if there is a connection to Thacher Park.  Hackett is interesting because I wonder about connections to Hackett Blvd in Albany. But Selkirk is not giving up its mysteries easily, if at all

Thatcher Street in Selkirk is one of those old streets that can still be traced on early maps of Bethlehem.  It is clearly there on the 1854 Gould, and 1866 and 1891 Beers maps with prominent property owners J. Elmendorf, A.J. Ten Eyck and of course Selkirk. Unfortunately, those early maps don’t include street names.  While often street names are connected to local family names, that is not working out here. Looking at the maps and in the Census, there are no families with the name Thatcher (or Thacher) living in the general Selkirk area.  None. There are members of the Thacher family living in Delmar, most prominently, Kenelem and Catherine, who moved there in the early 1940s.

While street identifications are hit or miss in the census records, there are some hints.  The 1920 U.S. Census uses the terms Selkirk Village and Selkirk Road, and in 1930 Hackett Gardens appears along with Selkirk State Road and Beaverdam Road.  In 1940, Thatcher Street appears, but no families named Thatcher. 

We are left to wonder. Is there a story connected to how a thatcher is a person who uses thatch to cover roofs?  Maybe there was someone in the hamlet who did that?  Maybe people just liked the name?  Maybe it goes back to Albany’s prominent Thacher family which included several mayors.  Maybe it is the road to Thacher Park – but that doesn’t really make sense.  Thatcher Park by the way, was donated to the state as a park in 1914 by Emma Treadwell Thacher in honor of her husband John Boyd Thacher (aunt and uncle of Kenelem Thacher mentioned above.)

And what about Hackett Gardens? It was a development that began when the Selkirk Rail Yards came through.  In 1926, there were frequent real estate ads in the Knickerbocker Press newspaper touting the “Land Boom” and that “Selkirk is the future city of the largest rail yards in the world.”  The exuberant ad goes on to say “A large city is being created at Hackett Gardens in Selkirk.  Property values will increase by leaps and bounds. But will you be among those to benefit by this large increase? Not unless you own real estate there.”  95 years later, you can look up the tax map for this area and see the paper streets of Vassar and Harvard, and the many lots that were laid out for Hackett Gardens, none of which were built on.

While Selkirk did not boom quite like the ads proclaimed, development did happen around Hackett Street and Whitehead Street.  Whitehead Street is named after Samuel G. Whitehead.  After he retired from the successful Whitehead Brothers sand company, Whitehead turned to building and developing Hackett Gardens.  In its February 3, 1928 issue, the Altamont Enterprise noted that “Hackett Gardens is prospering better than ever.  Mr. Whitehead sold two houses last week with prospects for a third soon. He has several houses to be put up in the spring.  He thinks in a few years Hackett Gardens will be quite a nice little settlement.” The previous summer, the Coeymans News Herald noted that eight new houses were going up at Hackett Gardens with seven of them being within three blocks of each other.  All of them were of different architectural styles.

A walk along Hackett and Whitehead Streets today reveals the varying architectural styles, from charming bungalows to sleek modern ranches.  It does not however, reveal the source of the name Hackett.  Again, there are no Hackett families to be found living in Selkirk around the time that Hackett Gardens got going. Perhaps inspiration was drawn from nearby Albany where Hackett Blvd was going strong, named after William Hackett another Albany mayor.

So, now we’ve got two Albany mayoral names, Thatcher and Hackett.  A theme perhaps?  Selkirk is hanging on to its mysteries.  Be sure to let me know if you know anything about this nice little settlement.

Behind this street sign are several Maple Avenue bungalows.
They are similar to the ones on Whitehead and Hackett. 

Flashes and Dashes

The Cedar Hill Schoolhouse Museum, home of the Bethlehem Historical Association is now OPEN Sunday afternoons from 2 to 4 PM.  Stop by and check out the new exhibits including Woman Suffrage, School Days, and Rivers, Roads & Rails.  BHA is also starting a new program called Saturday Family Time where a family can reserve the museum for their exclusive use with play-based learning activities for elementary aged children. https://bethlehemhistorical.org/

Second Saturday History Hikes and Paddles are underway hosted by yours truly.  Go to the BHA website for a schedule or look for the Bethlehem Parks & Recreation Department’s seasonal brochures  May 8 is a history hike at South Bethlehem and June 12 is a walk at Bethlehem Cemetery.  https://register1.vermontsystems.com/wbwsc/nybethlehem.wsc/splash.html

Mark Saturday, May 22 on your calendar for the inaugural Four Corners/Elsmere Self-Guided History Walking Tour.  As her Girl Scout gold award project, Isabella Richardson has researched and created a self-guided walking tour brochure through the Four Corners area, down Kenwood to Elsmere, along Herber and back to Delaware. Stop by her table at the municipal parking lot on Kenwood Avenue at the Four Corners between 10 and 2 pm and pick up a copy and take a walk.  Digital copies of the tour will be placed on the Historian's page on the town website as well.  Feel free to email me if you have questions, sleath@townofbethlehem.org

And one more Selkirk bit...

While researching this article I took another look at a typewritten page in the town’s archives called “Houses in Selkirk after 1883, when the railroad came through.”  The undated page contains the remembrances of an unidentified Selkirk resident. Item number one reads: “Manlius Skinner had the first post office in 1883 and owned what is now Elmore’s store.  He married Ana Skinner, sister of Clifford’s father, and they both went on the Klondike Gold Rush 1897-8, when I presume they sold the store to John Vrooman, Anna’s father.” 

While there is a lot to unpack there, what intrigued me most was the reference to the Klondike Gold Rush. Usually, one reads about single men heading out on the hunt for gold but here we’ve got both Anna and Manlius going west.  What is their story?  How did it all turn out? I don’t know.  Despite the unique name of Manlius, my research so far has turned up nothing.  Always more questions than answers!

The Selkirk School, District #2, has been an anchor on Thatcher Street since it was built in 1928.

I so enjoy Selkirk social media circa 1928!

Bethlehem Central High School Memorabilia - Class of '38

There hasn't been an entry in the ongoing saga of "things that just turn up on my desk" in quite a long time.  So I was thrilled to recently receive a giant envelope stuffed with Bethlehem Central High School memorabilia.  Here are some snapshots.  It all looks to be related to William Schoonmaker, president of the class of 1938.  Enjoy!

The pictures below are from the 1938 yearbook which you can access via the Bethlehem Public Library's Local History page.  Note that their Alma Mater is the modern day Middle School.

Our Towne Bethlehem April: The Retreat in Retreat House Road

 Have you wondered about the retreat in Retreat House Road? We’ll get to that, but first we have to explore the way the roads have changed in that area of town including the old hamlet of Kenwood, Old River Road, Old South Pearl Street and Old Route 9W. *

The modern-day landmark to start this discussion is the Cumberland Farms on Route 9W at the top of Corning Hill Road. As you probably guessed, Corning Hill Road gets its name from the Corning family.** The Corning property used to run along the entire south side of Corning Hill Road. Erastus Corning started buying up land here with the purchase of 136 acres from Angelica Van Rensselaer in 1833 eventually assembling an estate of hundreds of acres. Much can be said about the wealthy and influential Erastus Corning, from his railroad, banking and insurance investments to his active political life (N.Y. State Senate, U.S. Congressman, Mayor of Albany) to his involvement in Albany civic projects like heading Albany’s first water commission in 1850 or his plan for the All Saints Cathedral in 1871. The man was busy and made millions. At the time of his death in 1872 his estate was estimated at $12 million.

Look for the Corning name in this snip of the 1866 Beers map showing Kenwood. Look for the V shaped roads in the middle. That is the intersection of modern-day Corning Hill Road and Retreat House Road.  At that V, you can follow River Road north to the hamlet of Kenwood.  There is a prominent J.R. near the V – that is about where Cumberland Farms is today.  Another landmark is the spot marked J. Haswell at the lower left.  That is the brick Haswell house that still stands just north of Panera on 9W 1866 Beers Map. 

And what about that Bethlehem property? During Erastus and his wife Harriet’s time it was more of simple summer retreat. Their mansion was in Albany and their more elaborate summer places were in Newport, R.I. and Sachem’s Head, C.T. It was Erastus Corning, Jr and his love of all things flora and fauna, that turned the farm into a spectacular estate. He raised Jersey and Hereford cattle, Southdown sheep and thoroughbred race horses. He was particularly known for his orchids, his collection of moths and butterflies and the many exotic specimen plants he grew. Besides a large residence, the property had greenhouses, both hot and cold, stables, barns and even a horse racing track. When Erastus, Jr died, the estate was divided into two equal farms, the upper and the lower.

Edwin Corning and his wife Louise inherited the Upper Farm (these are the parents of Albany’s longest serving mayor, Erastus Corning). Nowadays, this is the land opposite Cumberland Farms. A large portion of it is protected in The Bio-Reserve, a not-for-profit biological field reserve of 68+ acres. The driveway to this property, and the lot containing Mayor Corning’s old house, is known as Old Route 9W.

The Lower Farm, modern day Retreat House Road and River Road area, came to Parker Corning and his wife Anne Cassin McClure. Parker began to rebuild the family’s wealth (Erastus, Jr managed to run through his entire multimillion-dollar inheritance – all those orchids were expensive!) especially through the development of the Albany Felt Company (later Albany International) which started as a small mill at Kenwood supplied by the fleece from the sheep his father raised. Paul Grondahl describes Parker as someone who moved easily from the worlds of agriculture to society to business to politics (he served in Congress from 1923 to 1937.) Especially after his marriage to Anne in 1910, the couple embarked on a lavish, high-society lifestyle. That lifestyle included swanky parties at their Lower Farm mansion. (They also had five other homes where they lived and entertained as the seasons dictated.)

Biographies often note the couple’s passion for race horses. One of their best-known thoroughbreds was Attention, who in 1941 beat the Triple Crown winner Whirlaway. The couple had one daughter together, Mary Parker Corning, who was born in 1912. Mary Parker enjoyed a privileged childhood, entering society with balls and dinner dances in New York City and Long Island culminating in her betrothal to Philip Lawrence Birrell Inglehart in 1933. Mary shared the Corning passion for high bred horses being a frequent visitor to the track and polo fields at Saratoga. Indeed, husband Philip was a polo player of some note.

Getting back to Retreat House Road, in1804, it was part of the Albany Bethlehem Turnpike road that went from South Pearl Street connecting up to River Road. Imagine, in the modern roadway, driving down Corning Hill Road by Cumberland Farms. Imagine where Retreat House Road comes in on the right. Back in the day, you could turn left and head towards Albany. This road with its bridge over the Normanskill would lead you to modern-day Old South Pearl Street and the long-gone hamlet of Kenwood.*** If you were to turn right onto Retreat House Road, this is the old route of the turnpike and River Road. Continuing down Retreat House, you come to modern day River Road. If you keep going south a little bit more, you could veer off onto Old River Road, another original section of the Albany Bethlehem Turnpike.

And that bit of River Road, the busy through fare that was the turnpike that is now Retreat House Road? It ran right in front of Parker and Anna Corning’s mansion. Bringing traffic and noise that they didn’t like. Sometime before 1935, the Cornings used their influence to have River Road moved east, preserving their privacy and creating the more direct route we know today that links River Road to South Pearl Street in a smooth transition.

Parker and Anna Corning both died in 1943 and the estate came to their daughter Mary Parker Corning Inglehart. In 1945, Mary donated 43 acres to the Catholic Diocese and it became a Jesuit Retreat House. Hence the retreat in Retreat House Road.  As the Jesuits noted in a history of the property, “Early in 1945 Mrs. Mary Parker Corning Inglehart, a Protestant, presented the beautiful Old Corning Manor House and Farm… as a gift.” They also noted its beautiful grounds and accessibility from downtown Albany. The Jesuits set about fixing up the old house. It was completely empty except for an old chair painted green and yellow, the Corning racing colors. They hosted many retreats for Catholic laymen over the years. One 1948 headline sums up nicely: “Many Catholic Laymen Find Seclusion to Meditate at Former Corning Estate, Where Gaiety Once Reigned.”

In 1968, the property no longer served the Jesuits’ needs and the retreat center was moved to Auriesville. For a brief time, the property served as the Center for Humanistic Education, loosely affiliated with S.U.N.Y, but by 1974, it had been purchased by the Emmanuel Community, now the Emmanuel Christian Church.

So now you know the back story of a unique street name. Take a drive on the old roads around Corning Hill, from the busy 9W to quiet, tree lined Retreat House Road. The old mansion is still there as are many out buildings. A little further down is the old Beth Emeth Cemetery, established about 1838.  And when you come out onto River Road you’ll be very near the entrance to the old Hurlbut estate at Halter Road – we talked about the Hurlbuts last month.

 * Now might be a good time to pull up a map. Start with your favorite modern one like Google maps. You can even check out the tax map for the area, 87.03. It still has the old roads on it. Easiest way to get there is to Google Albany County Tax Maps.  Because you are reading this online, I can add a link:

https://www.albanycounty.com/Home/ShowDocument?id=11046

** I highly recommend Paul Grondahl’s book Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma. While its main focus is Albany’s longest serving mayor, Erastus Corning III, mayor from 1942 until his death in 1983, the book has excellent information about the Bethlehem farm which Grondahl describes as “the family’s heart and soul, the place where it established a sense of permanency for successive generations.”

***Kenwood was a busy hamlet boasting the usual hamlet amenities like school (District 12), store and hotel. Over the years, and taking advantage of the water power available on the Normanskill, the area was home to a variety of industries from small scale saw mills and gristmills to the huge complex known as the Huyck’s Kenwood Mills. Huyck’s knitting and felting mill burned down spectacularly 1894.  Some of the old brick houses for Huyck’s workers are still standing on Old South Pearl Street.

 **** And also because you are reading this online and you've got this far, I can add a link to Paul G's recent Times Union story on the Bio-Reserve.  Its a good one!

https://www.timesunion.com/home/article/Grondahl-A-living-laboratory-of-ancient-trees-16063692.php

A circa 1950 postcard of the Jesuit Retreat House

The house on March 19, 2021.

Mary Parker Corning with her favorite thoroughbreds, Red and Joy,
at the opening of the Washington Horse Show. Circa 1933. 

Our Towne Bethlehem March 2021: Catherine and Elisha Hurlbut

This essay started out as an introduction to Elisha P. Hurlbut, New York Supreme Court Judge, accomplished lawyer, staunch advocate for the woman’s rights and abolition movements, and resident of Glenmont for almost 30 years. Chris Philippo of the Bethlehem Historical Association has done extensive research on the Judge and is in the process of securing a grant for a historic marker recognizing Hurlbut’s contributions to the Woman Suffrage Movement.  

 You can go online and find the masters thesis of Hurlbut descendant Jeffrey Dunnington entitled A Study of the Journal of Elisha P. Hurlbut, American Social Reformer, 1858-1887. Dunnington’s inspiration are the many journals that Hurlbut kept while residing at Glenmont. Hurlbut writes of his activities, his family, and his many opinions on the state of society. (Note the journals are dated 1858-1887. Hurlburt himself lived from 1807-1889.)

Elisha P. Hurlbut borrowed from Dunnington's work. 

 In amongst all of the masculine Hurlbut information, you will usually find a side note to the affect that Hurlbut married Catherine Van Vechten from the prominent Albany family. But what if the Hurlbut story were told from Catherine’s point of view? Shall we give it a try?

 Catherine Van Vechten was born June 8, 1826, the daughter of Teunis Van Vechten and Catherine Gansevoort. She had at least nine brothers and sisters. When she was 11 years old, her father was appointed Mayor of the City of Albany. He was a graduate of Union College and a prominent lawyer for the Van Rensselaer family. The Van Vechtens lived in Albany on Montgomery Street, around the corner from her father’s law office on Maiden Lane.

Catherine’s mother, Catherine Gansevoort, likely grew up at the famous Whitehall mansion. Her father Leonard purchased it, and about 1000 acres, in 1789, the same year she was born. (Modern day Whitehall Road is its namesake. The house was near where Whitehall, Delaware and Ten Eyck come together. Until 1916 this area was in the Town of Bethlehem.) One wonders if she heard the story growing up of how her aunt Magdalene Gansevoort’s thwarted suitor, a man named Sanders, instigated the terrible fire of 1793 that destroyed much of Albany. The family moved out to Whitehall after their city home burned down in the fire. After Leonard’s death in 1810, Whitehall came to Magdalene and her husband Jacob Ten Eyck.

For a time located in Bethlehem, the Whitehall Mansion was originally built in the 1760s, thought to be a Loyalist hideout during the Revolution and extensively rebuilt by Leonard Ganesevoort, Catherine Hurlbut’s grandfather. The image here is from Allison Bennett’s book The People’s Choice and is a mourning sampler made by Hester Gansevoort Ten Eyck in 1810. Bennett suggests that the two women in the portrait are Leonard’s daughters Magdalena and Catherine. 

One wonders if Catherine Van Vechten spent time at the elegant mansion, both before and after her marriage to Elisha Hurlbut. It would have belonged to her aunt and uncle. And how did Catherine meet Elisha? Probably through the interconnected social circles of those practicing law in Albany and New York City.  

Elisha was born in Herkimer County, New York on October 15, 1807, attended the Fairfield Academy and studied law under Arfaxus Loomis. In 1835 he moved to New York City. Dunnington summarizes well, “ As a young lawyer, Hurlbut enjoyed tremendous success, becoming well known across the state, and in law circles around the country. In one particular case, Bailey vs. The Mayor, he earned the largest fee ever obtained by a lawyer in New York City at the time. After a successful, lucrative, and brief law career, Hurlbut was elected to be a judge on the New York Supreme Court in 1847, the youngest person to achieve the honor.”  

 On the day her fiancée was nominated to the court, January 8, 1847, Catherine married Elisha. She was just 20 years old. Her new husband was 39.

 The Hurlbuts lived in New York City for few years before Elisha’s ill health prompted them to retire to the country. While Dunnington states they moved to Newport in Herkimer county and lived there for eight years, the 1850 U.S. Census captures them at Albany. The 1860 has them in Bethlehem. Catherine had four children: Jeanette born 1851, Bertha 1853, Gansevoort 1857 and Ernest 1863.

 While we have no words of Catherine’s own, Dunnington provides this description gleaned from Elisha’s journals:

While Mrs. Hurlbut was not afraid to voice her opinion on both political and family matters, she habitually deferred to her husband, following the era’s customs. Upon her death, Hurlbut wrote:

  "All her conduct shows that her family was her world—her children her jewels—and her husband her protector and unfailing reliance. She was not learned as a scholar—her headaches in youth having prevented study—but she had remarkable sense—great household economy—and was wholly devoted to her husband and children. She retained the simplicity of childhood through life. Her father called her “a child of nature” truly—and she lived and died uncorrupted by society.”

 Hurlbut claimed she brought order to his life by balancing out his negative attributes. Where Hurlbut was prone to fits of anger, Mrs. Hurlbut conveyed a calm and soothing temperament. She died of breast cancer November 13, 1880, at the age of fifty-five.

 

The Hurlbut Mansion in Glenmont was located at the end of modern-day Halter Road off of River Road. Surely Catherine influenced the elegant design decisions that are apparent in this photo. The house is seen here when it was owned by John Eddy (you might remember him from last month’s article.) It is no longer standing, having burned down in 1915, as this headline from the Albany Evening Journal announces: Old Hurlbut Manion Destroyed by Fire. Crowd Attracted by Spectacular Blaze at Glenmont – House Was Owned by John Eddy.

The Hurlbuts were a wealthy family. They owned the 12-acre estate in Glenmont. Inspired by the landscape marked by a hill and a glen, Hurlbut named it Glenmont on the Hudson. He also desired to distinguish the property, the former Abbey Farm, from the nearby, and rowdy, Abbey Hotel. 

The Hurlbuts also owned property in Albany.  I wonder if these Albany acres, which were across Delaware Avenue from the Whitehall mansion, were part of Catherine’s inheritance from her grandfather Leonard Gansevoort. As the crow flies, they are only a few miles from their Glenmont home. The Hurlbuts are remembered today in the names of Albany streets between Second Avenue and Delaware: Jeanette, Bertha, Van Vechten and of course Hurlbut.

1891 Beers map - the cross roads in the middle are modern day Whitehall Road, Delaware Avenue,
and Second Avenue.  On the green side of the line is Bethlehem, on the yellow Albany.

While I tried to highlight Catherine here, her husband Elisha P. Hurlbut truly was a fascinating character. You are encouraged to read more about him and his thoughts on civil rights, religion and phrenology in Dunnington’s work.   https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/51290226.pdf

And that fire in 1793? The story is disturbing on many levels, from the catastrophic fire to the eventual death of two slaves, Bet and Dinah, charged with arson. Curious? Start with this page from the People of Colonial Albany Project:https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/doc/fire1793.html#scandal

Flashes and Dashes

I am getting back to walking and talking history with a series of Second Saturday events. First up on Saturday, March 13 is a walkabout in historic Slingerlands. Find more information at the Bethlehem Historical Association’s website and Bethlehem Parks & Recreation’s Seasonal Brochures.

http://www.townofbethlehem.org/295/Seasonal-Brochures

 

I Spy My Hometown: Bethlehem, NY

 

This wonderful iSpy game from about 30 years ago surfaced today.  Enjoy the little poem clues. 

Sadly, as far as I can tell, the links and websites no longer work.

And I must admit, your historian is stumped.  I can figure out all of the clues, but pictures 8 and 15 are so similar!  I know which two properties they are, just not which is which!  Time for a road trip!