Harmony Mills Historic District
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SELF GUIDED TOUR HARMONY MILLS HISTORIC DISTRICT Spindle City Historic Society 237-7999 www.spindlecity.net 1. Visitor’s Center/Cohoes Music Hall. The the extension of the original Harmony Mill. the heyday of mill largest complete cotton mill, at 1156 feet Music Hall was constructed in 1874, and Offices were productivity. These long, 75 feet wide, and five stories high. during its history featured many luminaries located on the first sturdy brick buildings The building, as well as the other of the day, including Buffalo Bill Cody, John floor, and the are still used as structures comprising the Harmony Mills Philip Sousa, Col. Tom Thumb and his wife, upper floor served residences. More mill complex, is a National Historic Landmark. and Cohoes’ own Eva Tanguay. After many as a meeting worker housing can be While excavating to build the mill in 1866, years of neglect during the 20th century, the space for religious, found in the blocks the contractors dug into an ancient hall was carefully restored and re-opened in social, and other bounded by Vliet, Garner sinkhole that revealed the 11,000 year-old 1975. It has since been a venue for many company events. and Willow Streets, and bones of a mastodon, which now stand at dramatic and musical performances, and on Devlin St. the entrance to the New York State 8. The original Harmony Mill, built in 1837 today is the home to the Eighth Step. The by Peter Harmony, a New York City capitalist. 11. Cohoes Falls, with its 70 ft. drop, is the Museum. The marker commemorating this first floor is the Cohoes Visitor’s Center, It cost $72,000 and contained 3,000 largest cataract east of Niagara Falls. The discovery is some 1,000 home of the Spindle City Historic Society. feet south of the actual spindles. When the mill falls propelled Cohoes to a leading position in 2. These buildings, constructed alongside the opened in 1837 it employed the textile industry during the mid 19th site. A replica of the power canal, were probably built as worker 250 – one out of every four century. Water over the falls powered the mastodon can also be housing, storage, and workshop space for the Cohoes residents – who machinery of the Industrial Revolution, and seen in the Cohoes Cohoes Company. produced 1.5 million yards is still exploited for hydroelectric power. Library. This southern of print cloth that year. The When water is diverted for power, the falls section also contains 3. Fountain Place was probably built as two of the original five housing for mill supervisory level workers business was sold in 1850 dry and reveal the shale formations beneath. to Thomas Garner and During periods of snowmelt or heavy rain, Boyden turbines that and their families. powered this massive Alfred Wild for $1000. They the falls are restored to a raging torrent. 4. This building was originally the Van installed Robert Johnston as mill. The turbine room is Benthuysen paper mill. After its purchase 12. Beginning in 1857, the Cohoes a National Historic Mechanical Engineering mill superintendent, beginning a 61-year Waterworks Pump House captured Mohawk by the Harmony Mills Company, it was period of success for the mills. Landmark. River water, diverted by power canals, into a referred to as the “Bag Mill” or “Jute Mill”. 15. Harmony Mill 9. This is one of the double-chamber series of reservoirs used for drinking water 5. The northern end of Harmony Mill #2 was limestone locks (Lock #16) built in the 1840s and fighting fires. The Pump House, still in extension, completed in 1857. The as part of the expansion of the Erie Canal. operation, has as its foundation a lock from completed in southern section was The single- the original Erie Canal. 1853, was, along completed in 1866. The chamber locks of with the original foundation stones for the 13. In the Harmony Mill #1 Picker Room Harmony Mill, the original and Storage House, cotton bales were mill appear to be lock ‘Clinton’s Ditch’ collectively known as Harmony Mill #1. stored, then picked through to remove debris stones taken from the were replaced and 16. This Statue of Thomas remains of a single and sent on to the next stage in the the canal rerouted manufacture of cotton print cloth. This Garner is in an alcove chamber lock on the and increased in above the entrance to original Erie Canal, which ran along the structure was also probably built atop a width to seventy feet and in depth to seven remnant of the original Erie Canal. Harmony Mill #3. Thomas eastern side of Mill #2. The mill was damaged feet from its original width of forty feet and Garner, from New York by fire in 1995 and subsequently demolished. depth of four feet. There were once 10 locks 14. Harmony Mill #3, constructed in 1866, City, and Alfred Wild, of 6. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, first in the area within Cohoes city limits, became the model Kinderhook, formed a brought Cohoes to prominence as a canal numbered 9 to 18; most of these still exist. cotton mill in the partnership and purchased town. After the canal was expanded and Lock 18, north of Church St., is on the U.S., and was the Harmony rerouted in the 1840s, this remnant of the National Register of Historic Places. frequently visited Manufacturing Company in 1850. Garner by cotton goods original Erie Canal was used as a power 10. The Harmony Mills textile industries built bought out Wild’s share of the company in canal for the Harmony Mills. manufacturers 1867. and owned these brick houses and rented from across the 7. The Harmony Mills Office and Sunday them to employees and their families. This country and overseas. An addition was built 17. Heating Plant for School was constructed in 1854 soon after worker housing was built with double on Mill #3 in 1872, making it the country’s the mill complex, ca. masonry construction during the 1860s, in 1911. .