Schaghticoke at Fort Fisher – by C. Kelley

Last week I wrote about the amphibious assault by the Union Army and Navy on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, defender of the last access point for supplies to the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Confederates surrendered on January 14, 1865, and the fort’s ammunition store blew up the next day, killing 200 men.

Read the entire article in the Jan. 8th issue of the Express.

History of Schools in Schaghticoke – by C. Kelly

Over the years I have written about settlement of the town of Schaghticoke, Native Americans, early European immigrants, churches, and industry. It’s time to talk about schools.

New York State has provided monetary support for schools since it enacted its first public education law in 1795. Early records of the town of Schaghticoke note the appointment of school commissioners in 1796.

Read the entire article in the Oct. 23 issue of the Express.

Flax Mills in Schaghticoke – by C. Kelly

Last week, in this long series about the early textile mills using the water power of the Hoosic River in Schaghticoke, I spoke about the Joy Mill, which used flax as its raw material. It was owned by Bostonian Benjamin Joy. That information and what follows comes from a census of local mills done by Richard Hart of Troy in 1831, now located in the Hart Papers at the Rensselaer County Historical Society.

Read the entire article in the Sept. 18th issue of the Express.

Bicentennial of the Battle of Plattsburgh – by Chris Kelly

 

I will take a week off from Schaghticoke mill history to remind us all that 200 years ago at this time of year, New York State was being invaded by a large British Army via Lake Champlain. I was reminded of this because recently I heard an NPR radio broadcast recreating the invasion of Washington, D.C. two hundred years ago in August. The British Army, fresh from beating Napoleon at Waterloo, marched into Washington and burned the White House and Capitol buildings.

 

Schaghticoke in 1824 – By Chris Kelley

Over the past month, I’ve discussed the entry for Schaghticoke in Horatio Spafford’s 1813 “Gazetteer of New York.” Mr. Spafford, strapped for money, had ambitions to write many more Gazetteers, covering a wider geographical area, but was only able to produce one other edition, another New York Gazetteer in 1824. He died in 1832.
As one would expect, much of what Spafford published in 1824 was a duplicate of the 1813 edition. Things such as history and land types would be unchanged, one would think, but let’s see what had changed in the entry for Schaghticoke. To begin with, Schaghticoke was now 16 rather than 20 miles from Albany, though still 10 miles north of Troy. My GPS tells me that it’s 19 miles from Schaghticoke to Albany, though who knows where the measurements would begin or end, then or now.

Full article in the February 27th issue of the Express.