A Sketch of the Beginnings of a Nineteenth Century Railroad Town Voorheesville, New York

A Sketch of the Beginnings of a Nineteenth Century Railroad Town Voorheesville, New York A Sketch of the Beginnings of A Nineteenth Century Railroad Town Voorheesville, New York A Sketch of the Beginnings of A Nineteenth Century Railroad Town Dennis Sullivan Constance Burns: Illustrator Published by New Scotland Historical Association P.O. Box 541 Voorheesville, New York 12186 www.newscotlandhistoricalassociation.org Published by The Town of New Scotland Historical Association Voorheesville, NY 12186 First published by the Village of Voorheesville, 1989 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 Copyright © Dennis Sullivan, 1989 All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89050027 ISBN 0-9622282-0-6 Text design and layout: Richard Schreibstein Cover art: Constance Burns Rendition of photograph by Jim Shaughnessy Cover design: Joe Keyser Printed in the U. S. A. Dataflow, 71 Fuller Road Albany, New York TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1 Acknowledgements 3 Foreword 5 Chapter One: The Beginnings of A Railroad Town 1. The Railroad Arrives 7 2. An Agricultural Hamlet Grows 15 Chapter Two: The Golden Era Begins 1. What's In A Name? 23 2. Farlin Who? 27 3. Hay and Straw Market 29 4. A Mill and Apple Cider Town 36 5. Quality Cider Up The Road 41 Chapter Three: An Enterprising Business Community 1. Cooperative Values 45 2. A Canning Factory 45 3. Cigar-Making 47 4. Malleable Iron Works 49 5. Encouraging Thriftiness 52 6. Shirts and Collars Button Holes 54 Chapter Four: Village Hospitality 1. Taking A Vacation 59 2. Morris Harris' Place 60 3. The Elegant Grove 63 4. Fryer Himself 65 5. The Boarding House 68 6. Tourists of the Boxcar Variety 72 7. A Few Inhospitable Moments 73 Chapter Five: A Note on Provisions 1. Groceries and Meats 77 2. Bread and Lunch 80 3. The Village Milk Route 81 4. Ice, Coal and Lumber 85 Chapter Six: Everyday Social Life 1. Collective Work and Play 91 2. Weddings and Socials 96 3. A New Social Center 100 4. While the Band Played On 102 5. Then There Was Baseball 106 6. Wanting a Place to Read 110 Chapter Seven: Public Services and Government 1. Incorporation 115 2. A Government is Established 117 3. Hose Company No. 1 121 4. Roads and Sidewalks 125 5. A Public Water Supply 130 6. Electric Lights and Telephone 132 Chapter Eight: Religious and Moral Influences 1. The Society of Methodists 137 2. A Church on Main Street 142 3. A Catholic Mission 144 4. Temperance and Prohibition 146 Chapter Nine: The Beginning of the End 1. The Automobile Arrives 151 Appendix A: Voorheesville's First Dwellers and the Van Bael Patent 155 Notes 163 References 171 Index 173 Dedicated to Arthur Gregg 19th c. Voorheesville resident, author, historian, journalist, who unfailingly cherished through deed his love of Voorheesville's history E. Dayton Joslin hardwareman, teacher originator of the first library, school principal and trustee, inspirer of students, among them Arthur Gregg, to delve into history and Mary Vosburgh who through her kindergarten on High Street kept open the eyes of the young for a quarter of a century Preface When the Polish-American poet an abstraction, but to simultaneously sever ourselves Czeslaw Milosz gave his Nobel from the present. Community-making becomes Lecture for his prize in poetry in 1980, impossible or at the very least extremely difficult when he surprised many people by saying people lack a sense of place. Sooner or later life becomes as much about history as he did about poetry. Speaking haphazard; anything can go. about a vision of history, Milosz said that, even though But, even when people do show a sincere interest in our planet gets smaller each year through the fantastic their roots, those roots are not always as open to scrutiny proliferation of mass media, we are witnessing what he as they might be. The job of the local historian, therefore, described as a ""refusal to remember." is to search for those roots, to bring them to light and to The poet went on to say that in the past one might invite the community to make a connection with them. expect a society's illiterates to know little about their To do this successfully, the historian must be able not country's past. But today, he added, there's a group of only to round up the critical actors of the past but to oftentimes highly educated people for whom history is allow them to speak for themselves, as it were, to a confused blur. They have little sense of which people interact on the historical stage as they once did in real lived in which century and consequently are at a loss as life. Supposedly the freer they are in doing so, the to how history's actors helped shape different historical clearer will a community's picture of itself be. events. Milosz revealed that his biggest fear was that I have made an attempt to create that stage here and "history will be reduced to what appears on television." to allow our ancestors to walk across it as boldly as they Anyone who has shown the least bit of interest in did years before. To the extent that they breathe here the history will find more than a grain of truth in what way they did times before, this little history will be a Milosz says. And when searching for reasons to explain success. the "confused blur," what immediately comes to mind The reader should keep in mind, however, that this is is civilization's great romance with mobility—upward not a scholarly work, though I have gone to primary mobility, over-there-mobility, another-time mobility. sources whenever possible. Nor have I attempted to People throughout the globe seem increasingly driven provide a detailed history of every aspect of the life of to be in some other place or state of being than where the village but rather a feel of what went on. they presently are. Consequently I am calling this narrative a sketch and This way of life has had great ramifications for people's am limiting it basically to the period when the railroad commitment to the local, to the place they currently live came to town and a village grew up around the tracks in. This includes the history of a place as well, the people in leaps and bounds. It's an arguable point but I have and events that helped shape that place in earlier times. described this period as the golden era. Why expend energy here if one is just passing through? When I began this history 1 thought I would be able to For a Voorheesville resident just passing through the avail myself of the short histories that some residents village, what would be the value of knowing that our and schoolchildren had compiled at various times. But first library was arranged for by E. Dayton Joslin in 1901 these accounts were filled with so many contradictory and set up in the back of A1 Borst's restaurant near the facts and dates that 1 decided I needed to go deeper to depot? Or that the Ferguson Brothers had a cider mill at straighten out as much as I could. In the face of new the northern end of Voorheesville Avenue that produced data, some old-timers still seem to prefer the myths. So some of the best sparkling Baldwin cider on the East be it. Coast? Or that toward the end of last century the creek I also need to mention that I have not included much rose so high some years, the swelled waters forced information about the school system, in large part school to be canceled, the kids unable to get across the because presently two teachers at the high school are bridge? compiling a history of the school district. Before moving But whether a person has lived in the village a day or in that direction I first want to see their work. There is so for 93 years, as in the case of Gertrude Coughtry, care little time and so much to be done that it's a waste to must be taken with whatever facts come along. They are duplicate the efforts of others. too often easily treated as cute little artifacts, quaint Moreover, I would add that when I began this work aspects of a quaint railroad town in days gone by. And I had considerably more time at my disposal. By the to treat history this way is not only to make of the past time I began organizing the materials for publication, I 1 had considerably less to devote to the project. It became have I spoken to or corresponded with by letter so many clear to me that town and village historians who do little men and women in their late 60s, 70s and 80s who are so writing about their communities are not lazy or uncaring. bright and keen-witted. Despite all our supposed Most simply do not have the required time. technological advances over former times, I am Finally, I would like to make special mention of those convinced they had much that was better. And for all older citizens of the village-former and current our current world's worry about staying young forever, residents-who have shed light on this project. Never theirs was a much deeper drink at the fountain of youth. 2 Acknowledgments It seems as though a cast of thousands and Art, the City of Albany Library. A special note of from both within and outside thanks belongs to librarians Karen Levi-Lausa of Voorheesville has shared in making this Bethlehem and Nancy Hutchinson of Voorheesville.

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