Celebrate the Erie Canal in July

This postcard image of Dock Street along the Erie Canal in Schenectady, ca. 1910, illustrates the canal as a site of commerce and industry, as well as pleasure. Image from Grems-Doolittle Library Postcard collection. 

On July 4, 1817, construction began on the original Erie Canal at Rome, New York. The construction of the canal was an extraordinary feat of engineering as well as state-sponsored economic development, and it had a great impact on trade, transportation, and the development of cities and rural communities that ran along its route from Albany to Buffalo. The Grems-Doolittle Library has recently compiled a guide to sources about the Erie Canal in our Library that includes books, photographs, oral histories, original documents, and other materials. The research guide can be found by clicking this link. Come in and visit us to find out more! We've also included a few Erie Canal-related tidbits below for you to enjoy.

Erie Canal enthusiasts might also want to check out a new exhibit at our Mabee Farm Historic Site in Rotterdam Junction, in the Nilsen Dutch Barn. The exhibit, The Erie Impact: Changing Agriculture in the Mohawk River Valley, highlights the changes that occurred on farms along the Mohawk after the construction of the canal. The Mabees and their neighbors shifted from cash crops like corn and wheat to specialized products like dairy, orchard fruits, and vegetables. This is a chance to see some of the wonderful agricultural and cooking tools found in the Mabee Farm collection.

The history of the Erie Canal also comes alive on July 20, 2013 at the Mabee Farm Historic Site with a program "After Erie: The Impact of the Erie Canal on Mohawk Valley Agriculture." This family-friendly event will feature hands-on activities and exhibits highlighting the changes the Mabee Farm and its neighbors along the Mohawk River underwent because of the construction of the Erie Canal. Focusing in on broomcorn, hops, the orchard, and the vegetable garden, visitors will have the chance to see if they have the skills to be an 18th Century farmer, brewer, broom maker, or cook.

If you have any questions about this upcoming event or the exhibit, please contact our Assistant Curator / Educator, Jenna Peterson, at educator@schenectadyhistorical.org or by phone at 518-887-5073, ext. 104.

Ice-skaters enjoy the frozen Erie Canal in Schenectady, just south of State Street, circa 1910.  Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection. 

Erie Canal weigh master's bill dated June 20, 1879. It was issued by Thomas Riley, weigh master at the West Troy weigh lock, for the boat John W. Hall of Whitehall. At that time, boats on the canal were weighed and a toll charged according to their weight. From Grems-Doolittle Library Documents Collection. 

Picture postcard of the Erie Canal through Rotterdam. From Grems-Doolittle Library Postcard Collection. 

The enlargement of the Erie Canal was necessary to accommodate canal traffic, but not everyone was happy with the process. This note from the Mabee Family Papers (M-LM-43) estimates damage to the property of Simon and Sarah Mabee in Rotterdam Junction due to the enlargement of the canal at $150.00. The damage to the property is identified as damage due to riding over the soil and the destruction of fences. 

Travelers on board the Kittie West, an excursion boat that transported passengers between Schenectady, Rexford, and Vischer Ferry. Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library. 

House History Resources in the Grems-Doolittle Library

Members of the Kokernak family on the porch of their home at 780-782 Bailey Street in Schenectady.
From the Wadsworth S. Kokernak Photograph Collection.

The Grems-Doolittle Library offers a number of research tools that can help to enrich your understanding of the origins of your house, neighborhood, and community, and how their histories have unfolded over time. Resources in our library can provide strategies for researching house histories, help to identify your home's architectural style/details, trace the history of your neighborhood or community, trace the owners/residents of your home and approximate a construction date, and discover biographical information about the people who lived in or owned your home.

Two of the key resources that can help to trace the history of a home or neighborhood in the city of Schenectady are city directories and maps/atlases (particularly Sanborn Maps). These resources are "snapshots" that document the city at a particular period of time. By using these resources in conjunction with each other, you can identify changes in street names and numbers, identify residents, find for what purposes a building was used (i.e. apartments, store, saloon), and chart the development of various neighborhoods in the city.

Image of a portion of Centre Street (now Broadway) from the 1884 Sanborn Map.  These maps provide a great deal of information, including building structure and composition, street numbers, stories, outbuildings, and building use.

Like the Sanborn Maps, city and county atlases offer information about street numbers and building construction. They offer slightly less detail about the specifics of buildings themselves, but they do offer information that Sanborn Maps do not include -- the names of owners or residents of property. Other detailed maps in our collections, such as the 1850 Dripps city map and 1856 Fagan county map, offer similar information. Simple city street maps do not show individual houses or ownership, but they do show the development of the city's streets and neighborhoods.

Portion of map of Rotterdam in Schenectady County atlas, 1866. The maps of the the county's towns in this atlas provide a great deal on information about roads, businesses, and the owners/residents of farms and homes. 

Aside from maps and directories, our collections of personal papers, business records, and other collections of original documents can also prove to be useful. Our Historic Manuscripts Collection includes a number of resources that may be helpful, including deeds, wills, legal matters documents, and correspondence. Vault Book 79, from our Historic Manuscripts Collection, offers descriptions of properties that were offered for sale through the local real estate firm, Fitch and Griffes, from 1870 through 1880. Nineteenth-century historian Jonathan Pearson extracted information from assorted deeds, mortgages, wills, legal disputes, and other documents to create land ownership chains and sketch maps of the city's oldest streets (our library volunteers are currently working on indexing Pearson's work, referred to as the Jonathan Pearson Street Books). The Godfrey Family Papers feature information about Clark Godfrey's work in developing the Rosendale Estates in Niskayuna. The James Frost Papers provide survey notes, maps, and other information about a number of properties, including many in the area of Duanesburg and Princetown.

Representative page from one of the Jonathan Pearson Street Books. This page shows Pearson's notes and a sketch map for certain properties on Union Street in Schenectady. 

Books in our collections can also help to conduct research about the history of your house -- for example, how to "read" your home for architectural clues and how to create a chain of ownership using deeds. We have several books that can help to identify architectural styles and features, including resources that focus on architecture regionally and locally. Local histories, histories of particular neighborhoods, and genealogies may provide information about a local home or farm or illuminate the history of a community's settlement or development.

Other resources in our library, including clipping and surname files, newspapers, local government information, building/structure inventory forms, photographs, census records, wills, tax lists, and assessment rolls, can be valuable resources of information as well. A research guide to house history sources in our library can be found here.

Above all, always be willing to ask our library staff and volunteers for help in brainstorming about what resources might be of use to you -- we're here to help!

The History of Medicine in Schenectady County

In anticipation of our program about the history of medicine in Schenectady County this Thursday evening, we would like to highlight materials related to the history of medicine in our collections.

Please click here for a research guide to sources pertaining to the history of medicine in the Grems-Doolittle Library. In addition to the sources listed in this guide, family files, city directories, city and county maps, and other library materials are useful in tracing the development of the medical profession in the city and county of Schenectady and learning more about the area's doctors, nurses, dentists, and other medical professionals. Below, we have included a small sample of materials -- please visit the Library to see more of the resources available for research!


Operating room at Ellis Hospital, ca. 1900.
Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection.

Advertisement card for Hill Dental Company in Schenectady.
From Grems-Doolittle library Documents Collection.

Steel work addition to Sunnyview Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Center on Rosa Road in Schenectady, 1959. Photograph from Grems-Doolittle Library Photograph Collection

Minutes of the Medical Society of the County of Schenectady, 1810.
From Grems-Doolittle Library Documents Collection.

Label from Barhydt and Van Patten in Schenectady. From prescription book, ca. 1900.

Entries in Schenectady Nurses' Directory, 1905.
From Grems-Doolittle Library Documents Collection.

Dutch-language documents in the Grems-Doolittle Library

Land agreement signed by the Mohawks ceding land
in Schenectady, 1670. A translation of the original
document is printed in Jonathan Pearson's History of
the Schenectady Patent.

Given Schenectady's founding as one of the northernmost parts of the New Netherland colony and the longevity of Dutch-speaking settlements in the area, it should come as no surprise that the Grems-Doolittle Library has in its holdings a significant number of Dutch-language documents. There are 550 Dutch-language documents in our collections, including family correspondence, land records, account books, poetry, and other materials. Our holdings of Dutch-language materials date from 1661 to 1909; the bulk of the documents date from the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth century.

Many of the documents have not been translated, although three new translations have been added this year. As interest in the history of Dutch settlement in the area grows, we hope to be able to generate more interest in these materials and translate them so that a broader range of researchers can access the information that these documents contain. Click here to see a complete list of Dutch-language documents in our collection.