Spooky Schenectady: Halloween Images from the Grems-Doolittle Library

We wish everyone a safe, fun, and happy Halloween! In celebration, here's a look at some tricks and treats of times past in Schenectady.

1969 Halloween parade at Euclid Elementary School. Photo from Eleanor Jaeger School Photograph Collection.



Notice regarding Halloween from an 1863 issue of the Schenectady Evening Star and Times newspaper. Image obtained via www.fultonhistory.com.






1903 newspaper clipping from the Utica Globe depicting a "wheel puzzle" assembled by Halloween-inspired vandals in front of Samuel Hillis's grocery on Mohawk Avenue in Scotia. The Globe reported that the store "was blocked on both sides by 23 wagons, carriages, busses, and carryalls, so closely packed together with wheels locked that the work of removing them was something like the famous '15' puzzle of a few years ago. It remains somewhat of a mystery because the thing was done by 11:00 p.m. The majority of people look upon it as a good joke, remembering their own youthful days and pranks, but there are one or two who have lived long long beyond their 'happy days' and forget that they were many, many years ago young too." James Ransom of Scotia, who spoke with Larry Hart about the prank at the age of 81 in 1972, recalls that "it was done just about every year from about the turn of the century until maybe about 1910 or so . . . Of course the boys had to pick different places each year, but it was always done. I guess it was kind of expected, like a sort of Halloween ritual." Photo of image from Larry Hart Collection.






1927 newspaper advertisement for Halloween masquerade party at the Cains Castle "College of Dancing" at 164 Barrett Street in Schenectady. Image obtained via www.fultonhistory.com.





Costumed children take part in a sidewalk parade down Union Street in 1950. Photograph from Larry Hart Collection.



1937 advertisement for Halloween costumes for children and adults at Kresge's, 271 State Street, Schenectady. Image obtained via www.fultonhistory.com.



Boys march in the 1967 Halloween parade at Euclid Elementary School. Photograph from Eleanor Jaeger School Photograph Collection.