HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
By 1846 an actual indenture between the Cohoes Company and Samuel Baldwin, Machinist, repeated all the familiar restrictions but set the annual rental for 100 square inches of water with a fall at twenty feet at $104 (vs $40 originally), indicative of the steep rise in the value of the sites.
The usual restrictions were repeated including a prohibition to establish a tavern on the land, "without license from the grantor, nor a public house of entertainment nor any livery stable, nor sell any spirituous liquors of any kind in any shop, store, or other building."
This would appear to have been an unusual degree of social and business regulation in a free enterprise age, perhaps reflecting not only the business interest but also the social standards of a puritanical society.
All of this points to a basic question arising out of the role of the Cohoes Company in the evolution of the Cohoes community.
It has existed wherever a private, profit-making organization has become such a controlling factor in the life of the community, whether by the ownership of its land or its principal resources.
This situation was also present in the case of Lowell, and to a slightly lesser degree, Lawrence on the Merrimack River in Massachusetts, where Boston capital dominated the growth of these textile cities through the exploitation of the water power site by a similar canal company, even to the extent of having these settlements named after the principal promoters.
In more usual form, the problem has arisen as well in company mining towns, where a single company owns everything, including housing, and business.
The question is, ultimately, whether such an arrangement, however paternalistic, is conducive to the welfare of the community and its people.
At the least, it introduces a private monopolistic influence which limits, and dominates, if it does not hurt, the common interest of all the rest.
The division between private and public interest in the case of Cohoes was accentuated after 1850 when the Harmony Manufacturing Company was taken over by a New York firm, Garner and Company, and reorganized as Harmony Mills.
The Garners brought in capable management in the persons of Alfred Wild, William E. Thorn, and Robert Johnston and son, David J. Johnston.
In the period that followed, especially during the Civil War decade, the Harmony Mills experienced a dramatic expansion, until they comprised six large structures, containing 130,000 spindles and 2,700 looms, and employing 2,500 operatives.
Here by the 1870s was one of the largest cotton factories in the United States, if not in the world.
In addition, the Harmony company owned 900 tenements, most of them built since 1860.
There was also a Harmony Hall and a Sunday school as well as a weekday school.
Altogether there prevailed the "perfect discipline of a well-trained army corps."
"An air of excellence and neatness of taste pervades and distinguishes the entire works."
For thousands of workers and their families the Harmony Mills were their "support, their friend, their constant benefactor, and their own sweet home."
These well-meant words of a contemporary observer convey perhaps an unintended note of skepticism and irony.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
Re: ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
The condition of Cohoes, however prosperous and growing during the latter nineteenth century, was affected by the fact that the same people, particularly the Garners, an absentee ownership family in New York City, dominated both the Cohoes Company and the Harmony Mills.
There was an interlocking of interests and officers between them.
A colossal bronze statue of Thomas Garner was installed in a niche in the main elevation of the ornate Number 3 or "Mastodon" Mill, erected in 1873.
The Cohoes Company too undertook some major renovation at this time, building a solid new stone dam across the Mohawk River in 1865-66 and a gatehouse which controlled the flow of water into a new and enlarged canal.
The entire installation was considered the finest of its kind in America.
The total available horsepower was estimated at 10,000 and about two-thirds of it was in use.
The rental was now twenty dollars per horsepower, which was described as "the cheapest in the country."
Cohoes had grown into a city of some 15,000 people, and in 1870 David J. Johnston, the superintendent of Harmony Mills, was elected as its first mayor.
This was at once evidence of public spirit but also of an interlocking interest between city and business.
Cohoes was a polyethnic community, its people largely recent immigrants, and half of them French Canadians from Quebec.
The 1870s were probably the heyday of Cohoes and the Cohoes Company, notwithstanding the severe depression of the time.
Despite the influence of the mills, labor unrest and trouble were almost endemic.
It was in this period that Arthur H. Masten wrote the principal history of the city, which he celebrated enthusiastically in conjunction with the celebration of the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence.
He extolled the Cohoes Company as the basis of Cohoes' prosperity by its policy of "developing the water power and offering the inducements for the settlement, here of capitalists. . ."
"It has moreover, by the construction of creditable works and improvements, by liberal donations of lands for public purposes, and in many other ways contributed to its growth and prosperity."
Its facilities, in the form of ten canals, threaded their way through the city.
Water was made available in small usable units on six different levels, each with a fall of approximately twenty feet, and it was thereby used repeatedly and economically.
A mill power comprising six cubic feet of water per second, rented for $200 annually, at twenty dollars per horsepower.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
The condition of Cohoes, however prosperous and growing during the latter nineteenth century, was affected by the fact that the same people, particularly the Garners, an absentee ownership family in New York City, dominated both the Cohoes Company and the Harmony Mills.
There was an interlocking of interests and officers between them.
A colossal bronze statue of Thomas Garner was installed in a niche in the main elevation of the ornate Number 3 or "Mastodon" Mill, erected in 1873.
The Cohoes Company too undertook some major renovation at this time, building a solid new stone dam across the Mohawk River in 1865-66 and a gatehouse which controlled the flow of water into a new and enlarged canal.
The entire installation was considered the finest of its kind in America.
The total available horsepower was estimated at 10,000 and about two-thirds of it was in use.
The rental was now twenty dollars per horsepower, which was described as "the cheapest in the country."
Cohoes had grown into a city of some 15,000 people, and in 1870 David J. Johnston, the superintendent of Harmony Mills, was elected as its first mayor.
This was at once evidence of public spirit but also of an interlocking interest between city and business.
Cohoes was a polyethnic community, its people largely recent immigrants, and half of them French Canadians from Quebec.
The 1870s were probably the heyday of Cohoes and the Cohoes Company, notwithstanding the severe depression of the time.
Despite the influence of the mills, labor unrest and trouble were almost endemic.
It was in this period that Arthur H. Masten wrote the principal history of the city, which he celebrated enthusiastically in conjunction with the celebration of the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence.
He extolled the Cohoes Company as the basis of Cohoes' prosperity by its policy of "developing the water power and offering the inducements for the settlement, here of capitalists. . ."
"It has moreover, by the construction of creditable works and improvements, by liberal donations of lands for public purposes, and in many other ways contributed to its growth and prosperity."
Its facilities, in the form of ten canals, threaded their way through the city.
Water was made available in small usable units on six different levels, each with a fall of approximately twenty feet, and it was thereby used repeatedly and economically.
A mill power comprising six cubic feet of water per second, rented for $200 annually, at twenty dollars per horsepower.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
The city's two principal industries were then recovering unequally from the effects of a long and severe depression.
Its seventeen knitting mills had suffered the greatest suspension and fall of prices, but the large Harmony Mills were now back at virtually full strength.
Its six mills had 258,054 spindles and 5,650 looms, employing more than 4,100 operatives.
A decade later, in the 1880s, a new power age was ushered in unobtrusively, which was ultimately to have profound effects on the Cohoes Company and the power technology of Cohoes Industries that were linked so closely together.
This was electricity, first appearing as a means of improved lighting, and subsequently as a highly efficient form of power transmission.
In 1887 the Cohoes Company contracted with the city of Cohoes to supply fifty arc lights in the streets.
For this purpose it built and maintained the first electric light plant, presumably powered by water from its own canals.
This was, however, only a small beginning.
A quarter of a century later, in 1911, came the revolutionary transformation in the means of utilizing the Cohoes Falls, when the Cohoes Company proposed an extensive project of electrification in the form of a hydroelectric plant on its water power site.
Dam, gatehouse, and diverting canal were already in existence.
What was needed was an electric generating plant at the base of the Falls.
Thus, at one stroke, as it were, the system of canals providing water power in small units on six levels for the direct mechanical driving of the mills was to be rendered obsolete.
Instead, a total of thirty-thousand electrical horsepower was to be generated in three hydroelectric units, and the alternating current thus provided could be distributed not only in Cohoes but over a wider area.
It could supply light and heat, where required, as well as power.
Interestingly, the model for this type of development already had been provided in 1895, in the construction of the first Niagara hydroelectric plant on an even larger scale.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
The city's two principal industries were then recovering unequally from the effects of a long and severe depression.
Its seventeen knitting mills had suffered the greatest suspension and fall of prices, but the large Harmony Mills were now back at virtually full strength.
Its six mills had 258,054 spindles and 5,650 looms, employing more than 4,100 operatives.
A decade later, in the 1880s, a new power age was ushered in unobtrusively, which was ultimately to have profound effects on the Cohoes Company and the power technology of Cohoes Industries that were linked so closely together.
This was electricity, first appearing as a means of improved lighting, and subsequently as a highly efficient form of power transmission.
In 1887 the Cohoes Company contracted with the city of Cohoes to supply fifty arc lights in the streets.
For this purpose it built and maintained the first electric light plant, presumably powered by water from its own canals.
This was, however, only a small beginning.
A quarter of a century later, in 1911, came the revolutionary transformation in the means of utilizing the Cohoes Falls, when the Cohoes Company proposed an extensive project of electrification in the form of a hydroelectric plant on its water power site.
Dam, gatehouse, and diverting canal were already in existence.
What was needed was an electric generating plant at the base of the Falls.
Thus, at one stroke, as it were, the system of canals providing water power in small units on six levels for the direct mechanical driving of the mills was to be rendered obsolete.
Instead, a total of thirty-thousand electrical horsepower was to be generated in three hydroelectric units, and the alternating current thus provided could be distributed not only in Cohoes but over a wider area.
It could supply light and heat, where required, as well as power.
Interestingly, the model for this type of development already had been provided in 1895, in the construction of the first Niagara hydroelectric plant on an even larger scale.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
This change-over did not occur without considerable controversy.
It required, of course, a large investment of capital, but also a renegotiation of power contracts with the participating mills, which would also have to make substantial outlays of capital for wiring, controls and motors to apply the new power.
Moreover, once begun, the venture would have to be carried out promptly and as a whole, since the electric power would be available for use at once.
The general negotiations between the Cohoes Company and its lessees occurred during 1911 and produced some controversy and bitterness, which found expression through the press.
Of 31 lessees some 15 refused to sign new agreements.
The Cohoes Evening Dispatch reported that behind their reluctance was the fact that these mills would now have to pay for all their power.
At present, they were drawing more water than they paid for, and the Cohoes Company was not enforcing its rights.
This situation would be corrected and charges made for power actually used.
An article in the Albany Telegram, however, presented the opposite side.
For many years the company had neglected maintenance, and mills had to shut down periodically for want of water.
The present plan was a "Wall Street financial game" to mulct users of millions instead of thousands of dollars.
At present, in fact, the same few people were also in control of the Cohoes Company, the Harmony Mills, the Cohoes Gas Company, and the Cohoes Electric Light Company.
Here was "a little clique of men."
The knitting mills were to be the next victims of the Wall Street plan.
Moreover, the Garner interests were now in the hands of three daughters, who were married to foreign noblemen, and American funds were thus to go abroad to support them.
The mills were to be asked to pay up to four times more for their power.
By increasing the power output from an existing 5500 horsepower to an estimated 25,000, the company income would rise to over half a million dollars per year.
In two years such income would repay the cost of the whole investment.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
This change-over did not occur without considerable controversy.
It required, of course, a large investment of capital, but also a renegotiation of power contracts with the participating mills, which would also have to make substantial outlays of capital for wiring, controls and motors to apply the new power.
Moreover, once begun, the venture would have to be carried out promptly and as a whole, since the electric power would be available for use at once.
The general negotiations between the Cohoes Company and its lessees occurred during 1911 and produced some controversy and bitterness, which found expression through the press.
Of 31 lessees some 15 refused to sign new agreements.
The Cohoes Evening Dispatch reported that behind their reluctance was the fact that these mills would now have to pay for all their power.
At present, they were drawing more water than they paid for, and the Cohoes Company was not enforcing its rights.
This situation would be corrected and charges made for power actually used.
An article in the Albany Telegram, however, presented the opposite side.
For many years the company had neglected maintenance, and mills had to shut down periodically for want of water.
The present plan was a "Wall Street financial game" to mulct users of millions instead of thousands of dollars.
At present, in fact, the same few people were also in control of the Cohoes Company, the Harmony Mills, the Cohoes Gas Company, and the Cohoes Electric Light Company.
Here was "a little clique of men."
The knitting mills were to be the next victims of the Wall Street plan.
Moreover, the Garner interests were now in the hands of three daughters, who were married to foreign noblemen, and American funds were thus to go abroad to support them.
The mills were to be asked to pay up to four times more for their power.
By increasing the power output from an existing 5500 horsepower to an estimated 25,000, the company income would rise to over half a million dollars per year.
In two years such income would repay the cost of the whole investment.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
Despite these grievances, progress was not to be stopped.
By 1915 the electrification project was executed by Sanderson and Porter of New York as engineers.
General Electric Company supplied the generators and other equipment.
Three generating units were installed, with a total capacity of 30,000 horsepower.
Two more were added in later years, with 24,000 horsepower.
The power generated was fed at high voltage into a system supplying Troy and Albany as well as Cohoes.
This modernization of Cohoes power really spelled the doom of the Cohoes Company, as well as of its canal system.
In 1918 a newly formed Cohoes Power and Light Company acquired the Cohoes Company together with the associated gas and electric companies.
The Cohoes Company had assets of over six million dollars, and the corporate surplus was valued at nearly four million dollars.
This was a notable showing for an old company which had been rendered obsolete by time and technological progress.
In 1927 the Cohoes Power and Light Company was in turn absorbed by the New York Power and Light Company which in 1950 finally became part of the Niagara Mohawk system, which stretched across upper New York state between the two great water power sites at each end: Niagara and Cohoes.
Thus were united the oldest and the newest power companies in the state, the Cohoes Company dating from 1826.
The provision of hydroelectric power unfortunately did not halt the decline of Cohoes as an industrial city.
The Harmony mills were eventually closed in the 1930s, and the vast structures were emptied of their machinery.
The remaining shells have taken on the drab patina of neglect and are partly, occupied by small new industries.
The many knitting mills too suffered decline, and most of them were eventually closed down.
The old canals, useless and clogged with an accumulation of vegetation and refuse, still wind their way through the city, hampering its traffic.
Only a newly projected program of urban renewal gives promise of disposing of these relics of a past age,-when they served a useful purpose.
They are to be filled in and turned into parks.
But they are still there and interfere with the fulfillment of a dream of Cohoes as a "Model All-American city," a title it has taken to itself, which is as yet more hope than reality.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, continued ...
Despite these grievances, progress was not to be stopped.
By 1915 the electrification project was executed by Sanderson and Porter of New York as engineers.
General Electric Company supplied the generators and other equipment.
Three generating units were installed, with a total capacity of 30,000 horsepower.
Two more were added in later years, with 24,000 horsepower.
The power generated was fed at high voltage into a system supplying Troy and Albany as well as Cohoes.
This modernization of Cohoes power really spelled the doom of the Cohoes Company, as well as of its canal system.
In 1918 a newly formed Cohoes Power and Light Company acquired the Cohoes Company together with the associated gas and electric companies.
The Cohoes Company had assets of over six million dollars, and the corporate surplus was valued at nearly four million dollars.
This was a notable showing for an old company which had been rendered obsolete by time and technological progress.
In 1927 the Cohoes Power and Light Company was in turn absorbed by the New York Power and Light Company which in 1950 finally became part of the Niagara Mohawk system, which stretched across upper New York state between the two great water power sites at each end: Niagara and Cohoes.
Thus were united the oldest and the newest power companies in the state, the Cohoes Company dating from 1826.
The provision of hydroelectric power unfortunately did not halt the decline of Cohoes as an industrial city.
The Harmony mills were eventually closed in the 1930s, and the vast structures were emptied of their machinery.
The remaining shells have taken on the drab patina of neglect and are partly, occupied by small new industries.
The many knitting mills too suffered decline, and most of them were eventually closed down.
The old canals, useless and clogged with an accumulation of vegetation and refuse, still wind their way through the city, hampering its traffic.
Only a newly projected program of urban renewal gives promise of disposing of these relics of a past age,-when they served a useful purpose.
They are to be filled in and turned into parks.
But they are still there and interfere with the fulfillment of a dream of Cohoes as a "Model All-American city," a title it has taken to itself, which is as yet more hope than reality.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: ENGINEERING HISTORY OF COHOES, NY
HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD - COHOES COMPANY POWER CANALS HAER NO. NY-9, continued ...
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, concluded ...
Principal Sources of Information:
1. "Map and Proposals of the Cohoes Company for the Sale of their Water Power and Lots at Cohoes" (Mew York, 1835), New York State Library, Albany.
2. "indenture of January 27, 1846 between the Cohoes Company and Samuel H. Baldwin," Manuscript Division, New York State Library.
3. File on Cohoes Company in the offices of the Niagara Mohawk Company at Albany containing many items of interest and value.
4. Deeds and land Grants of Cohoes Company, County Clerk's Office, Albany County.
5. Consultation and City tour with Dr. Edward J. Vandercar, Historian of Cohoes, who has also been compiling a newspaper diary of Cohoes happenings.
6. Masten, A. H., The History of Cohoes (Albany, 1877)
7. The City of Cohoes: Its Past and Present History. Cohoes Cataract, Book and job printing office, l8T3.
8. Weise, A. J., City of Troy and Vicinity (Troy, 1886).
9. Cornell, B. R., "The Hydroelectric Development of the Cohoes Company," General Electric Review, 1915.
Prepared by Samuel Rezneck
Professor Emeritus of History
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
August 1969
https://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/habsh ... 26data.pdf
PART III. PROJECT INFORMATION
HISTORICAL ADDENDUM - THE COHOES COMPANY, concluded ...
Principal Sources of Information:
1. "Map and Proposals of the Cohoes Company for the Sale of their Water Power and Lots at Cohoes" (Mew York, 1835), New York State Library, Albany.
2. "indenture of January 27, 1846 between the Cohoes Company and Samuel H. Baldwin," Manuscript Division, New York State Library.
3. File on Cohoes Company in the offices of the Niagara Mohawk Company at Albany containing many items of interest and value.
4. Deeds and land Grants of Cohoes Company, County Clerk's Office, Albany County.
5. Consultation and City tour with Dr. Edward J. Vandercar, Historian of Cohoes, who has also been compiling a newspaper diary of Cohoes happenings.
6. Masten, A. H., The History of Cohoes (Albany, 1877)
7. The City of Cohoes: Its Past and Present History. Cohoes Cataract, Book and job printing office, l8T3.
8. Weise, A. J., City of Troy and Vicinity (Troy, 1886).
9. Cornell, B. R., "The Hydroelectric Development of the Cohoes Company," General Electric Review, 1915.
Prepared by Samuel Rezneck
Professor Emeritus of History
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
August 1969
https://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/habsh ... 26data.pdf