HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, continued ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
The Supreme Court was divided into eight circuits.
There were four commercial events in Albany County history that had monumental consequences for the development of the County, the State and the nation.
On August 19, 1807, Robert Fulton’s Clermont docked in Albany, inaugurating regular steam powered travel on the Hudson between New York and Albany.
The one-way fare of $7 was substantial for the times but travel was reduced from several days to a day and the trip did not require overnight lodging along the way.
This enterprise proved extremely lucrative because Fulton’s partner, Chancellor Livingston, held a steamboat monopoly on the Hudson.
This monopoly would fall in the face of the Supreme Court’s famous decision in Gibbons v. Ogden issued March 2, 1824.
That decision held that those monopoly licenses violated the commerce clause of the Constitution.
After that, competition would quickly bring down the fares as larger and faster boats were built.
Some were longer than a football field, held 6,000 passengers and could make the Albany-New York City run in less than ten hours.
The second event took place in 1825 with the opening of the Erie Canal, which provided a continuous waterway from New York City to Chicago.
Shipping costs were reduced by 90%.
Albany’s population doubled between 1820 and 1830.
The City built extensive piers, wharves and two basins to hold the canal, river and ocean-going traffic.
Lumber, wheat, cement, potash, glass, and iron moved through Albany’s port in massive quantities.
Albany was the largest manufacturer of stoves and pianos in the world and the United States’ largest shipper of lumber.
In 1831, 15,000 canal boats tied up at city wharves and five hundred ocean-going vessels cleared from Albany.
In 1821 Albany was connected to Plattsburgh by the completion of the Champlain Canal.
In 1843 that water route was extended to the St. Lawrence River by way of the Chambly Canal and the Richelieu River.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, continued ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
The third event occurred on September 24, 1831, when the DeWitt Clinton made the first trip on the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad from Albany (near the intersection of Madison and Western Avenues) to Schenectady.
This became the first steam locomotive passenger train service in America.
Carrying eighty passengers, it covered the sixteen miles in forty-seven minutes.
The steamboats, the canal and the railroads would make Albany the Chicago of the East from 1825 to the Civil War (In 1850 the population of Chicago was 30,000; the population of Albany was 51,000).
The fourth event took place in 1851.
In that year Albany was connected to New York City by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Hudson River Railroad and soon after that by the New York and Harlem Railroad.
These lines came up the east side of the Hudson River and terminated in East Greenbush, now Rensselaer.
Because the only bridge across the river at that time was in Waterford, completed in 1804, passengers and freight were ferried across the river to be loaded onto the New York Central Railroad to reach Buffalo and beyond.
Erastus Corning assembled the New York Central from smaller lines but rail connections to Buffalo were available by 1842.
With other railroads to the west, connections were made to Chicago by 1851.
The trip to Buffalo was twenty-five hours, a drastic improvement over stagecoach or canal barge.
This situation improved with the completion of the first railroad bridge across the Hudson at Albany in 1866.
The piers upon which that bridge was built still carry Amtrak’s trains.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
The third event occurred on September 24, 1831, when the DeWitt Clinton made the first trip on the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad from Albany (near the intersection of Madison and Western Avenues) to Schenectady.
This became the first steam locomotive passenger train service in America.
Carrying eighty passengers, it covered the sixteen miles in forty-seven minutes.
The steamboats, the canal and the railroads would make Albany the Chicago of the East from 1825 to the Civil War (In 1850 the population of Chicago was 30,000; the population of Albany was 51,000).
The fourth event took place in 1851.
In that year Albany was connected to New York City by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Hudson River Railroad and soon after that by the New York and Harlem Railroad.
These lines came up the east side of the Hudson River and terminated in East Greenbush, now Rensselaer.
Because the only bridge across the river at that time was in Waterford, completed in 1804, passengers and freight were ferried across the river to be loaded onto the New York Central Railroad to reach Buffalo and beyond.
Erastus Corning assembled the New York Central from smaller lines but rail connections to Buffalo were available by 1842.
With other railroads to the west, connections were made to Chicago by 1851.
The trip to Buffalo was twenty-five hours, a drastic improvement over stagecoach or canal barge.
This situation improved with the completion of the first railroad bridge across the Hudson at Albany in 1866.
The piers upon which that bridge was built still carry Amtrak’s trains.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, continued ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
Albany had several newspapers over the years.
Its first was The Gazette, which began in 1771.
The Albany Argus, the voice of the Albany Democratic Regency, led by the founder of the Democratic party Martin Van Buren, began publishing in 1813.
The Albany Daily Advertiser, Albany’s first daily newspaper, started in 1815.
The Albany Evening Journal began publishing in 1830.
It was the voice of political boss Thurlow Weed who forged the Republican Party.
It was later published by William “Billie” Barnes, Weed’s grandson.
Barnes would take control of the New York State Republican party around 1900 at age 25 and, understandably, became known as “the boy leader.”
In an unintended way, Barnes helped elect Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1912.
At the Republican national convention, he supported William Taft and helped deny the nomination to Teddy Roosevelt.
Roosevelt bolted the party and ran on the Bull Moose ticket as a third-party candidate.
He drew votes mostly from Taft resulting in the election of Wilson.
Into the Twentieth Century, the Albany Times Union, under the leadership of former Governor Martin Glynn, would become an ally of the Albany political machine.
In the second half of the century it would become the Democratic Party’s fierce foe.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
Albany had several newspapers over the years.
Its first was The Gazette, which began in 1771.
The Albany Argus, the voice of the Albany Democratic Regency, led by the founder of the Democratic party Martin Van Buren, began publishing in 1813.
The Albany Daily Advertiser, Albany’s first daily newspaper, started in 1815.
The Albany Evening Journal began publishing in 1830.
It was the voice of political boss Thurlow Weed who forged the Republican Party.
It was later published by William “Billie” Barnes, Weed’s grandson.
Barnes would take control of the New York State Republican party around 1900 at age 25 and, understandably, became known as “the boy leader.”
In an unintended way, Barnes helped elect Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1912.
At the Republican national convention, he supported William Taft and helped deny the nomination to Teddy Roosevelt.
Roosevelt bolted the party and ran on the Bull Moose ticket as a third-party candidate.
He drew votes mostly from Taft resulting in the election of Wilson.
Into the Twentieth Century, the Albany Times Union, under the leadership of former Governor Martin Glynn, would become an ally of the Albany political machine.
In the second half of the century it would become the Democratic Party’s fierce foe.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, continued ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
Based on the patrimony of Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed, Albany County is uniquely the home of the founders of today’s two major national parties.
Billy Barnes is buried in Albany rural Cemetery, Sec. 109, Plot 3.
Weed is buried near him in Sec. 109, Plot 1.
Van Buren is buried in the Kinderhook, NY Reformed Church Cemetery.
Albany remained a vibrant, energetic City, which punched way above its weight, from its beginnings until after WW II when it entered a slow decline.
Its population peaked in the 1950’s at 135,000.
By 2000, it was under 100,000.
Albany did not benefit from the booms that resulted from the end of the war and the return of the G.I.’s who would start families and fortunes.
Hidden behind the stabilizing good luck of being the seat of State government and the building frenzy of Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960’s, was the stagnating influence of the Albany County Democratic machine.
Albany County Democratic Chairman Dan O’Connell, one of the co-founders of the machine, was elected City Assessor in 1919 as a reform candidate.
He promised to open government, run it as a business and remove politics from the decision-making process.
The Democratic party did that for a while and in the early days there was much good to say about it.
But as with any bureaucracy, it withered on the vine of its own success.
At some point, it lost its vision, and the perpetuation of party control became its only purpose.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
Based on the patrimony of Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed, Albany County is uniquely the home of the founders of today’s two major national parties.
Billy Barnes is buried in Albany rural Cemetery, Sec. 109, Plot 3.
Weed is buried near him in Sec. 109, Plot 1.
Van Buren is buried in the Kinderhook, NY Reformed Church Cemetery.
Albany remained a vibrant, energetic City, which punched way above its weight, from its beginnings until after WW II when it entered a slow decline.
Its population peaked in the 1950’s at 135,000.
By 2000, it was under 100,000.
Albany did not benefit from the booms that resulted from the end of the war and the return of the G.I.’s who would start families and fortunes.
Hidden behind the stabilizing good luck of being the seat of State government and the building frenzy of Governor Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960’s, was the stagnating influence of the Albany County Democratic machine.
Albany County Democratic Chairman Dan O’Connell, one of the co-founders of the machine, was elected City Assessor in 1919 as a reform candidate.
He promised to open government, run it as a business and remove politics from the decision-making process.
The Democratic party did that for a while and in the early days there was much good to say about it.
But as with any bureaucracy, it withered on the vine of its own success.
At some point, it lost its vision, and the perpetuation of party control became its only purpose.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, continued ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
However, no story of Albany County’s legal history can be told without mentioning Dan O’Connell, a saloon keeper’s son and Erastus Corning, great grandson of Amasa Parker, a founder of Albany Law School who would become a Judge of the Court of Appeals.
O’Connell and Corning made and unmade judges from Justice Court to the Court of Appeals.
They had legions of powerful lawyers ready to do battle.
The Board of Elections was within their domain.
The City Common Council and County Legislature did not act unless with their approval.
Their District Attorneys were hand-picked.
Police Departments were the enforcement arm of their party.
They controlled the jury pools.
Fire Departments were a repository of their patronage.
Democratic Presidential candidates paid homage to their voter turnout abilities.
Their base was built on their ability to produce votes and supply jobs, the universal currency of politics at all levels.
Indeed, from 1920 to 1983 their political and thus legal control of Albany County was total.
For the greater part of the Twentieth Century, Dan O’Connell and Erastus Corning were the most influential figures in Legal Albany.
Albany bottomed out in 1983 with the death of Erastus Corning II, its 41-year office holding Mayor.
Its finances were underwater.
The New York State Comptroller was recommending that a Financial Control Board be imposed on the City.
The City’s infrastructure was crumbling.
Its tax base was shrinking.
Under reform Mayor, Thomas M. Whalen, III, an Albany Law School graduate and Albany City Court Judge, Albany regained its footing, and it has been on an upward trajectory ever since.
At the same time, under the leadership of Chief Judges, Lawrence Cooke, Sol Wachlter, and Judith Kaye, a sclerotic court system was slowly modernized and brought into the 21st Century and became prepared to meet the needs of the people of New York.
However, as with any institution at any time, much work is yet to be done.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
However, no story of Albany County’s legal history can be told without mentioning Dan O’Connell, a saloon keeper’s son and Erastus Corning, great grandson of Amasa Parker, a founder of Albany Law School who would become a Judge of the Court of Appeals.
O’Connell and Corning made and unmade judges from Justice Court to the Court of Appeals.
They had legions of powerful lawyers ready to do battle.
The Board of Elections was within their domain.
The City Common Council and County Legislature did not act unless with their approval.
Their District Attorneys were hand-picked.
Police Departments were the enforcement arm of their party.
They controlled the jury pools.
Fire Departments were a repository of their patronage.
Democratic Presidential candidates paid homage to their voter turnout abilities.
Their base was built on their ability to produce votes and supply jobs, the universal currency of politics at all levels.
Indeed, from 1920 to 1983 their political and thus legal control of Albany County was total.
For the greater part of the Twentieth Century, Dan O’Connell and Erastus Corning were the most influential figures in Legal Albany.
Albany bottomed out in 1983 with the death of Erastus Corning II, its 41-year office holding Mayor.
Its finances were underwater.
The New York State Comptroller was recommending that a Financial Control Board be imposed on the City.
The City’s infrastructure was crumbling.
Its tax base was shrinking.
Under reform Mayor, Thomas M. Whalen, III, an Albany Law School graduate and Albany City Court Judge, Albany regained its footing, and it has been on an upward trajectory ever since.
At the same time, under the leadership of Chief Judges, Lawrence Cooke, Sol Wachlter, and Judith Kaye, a sclerotic court system was slowly modernized and brought into the 21st Century and became prepared to meet the needs of the people of New York.
However, as with any institution at any time, much work is yet to be done.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
HISTORY OF ALBANY COUNTY, concluded ...
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
As a rough gauge of Albany’s historical significance, the County has 214 sites listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
This is more than Erie, Monroe and Onondaga Counties which have two to three times the population of Albany County.
Albany will always be a puzzle — to insiders and outsiders alike.
It is the Rodney Dangerfield of cities; it gets no respect.
John Gunther, the American Tocqueville of the post WW II era, called it “a political cloaca maxima (greatest sewer) which makes Kansas City look pure.”
In 1749, Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm visited Albany and made the following observation: “The avarice and selfishness of the inhabitants of Albany are well known throughout all North America, by the English, by the French, and even the Dutch in the lower part of New York province."
"If a Jew, who understands the art of getting forward pretty well, should settle amongst them, they will not fail to ruin him."
"For this reason, nobody comes to this place without the most pressing necessity.”
In 1870, H.H. Richardson, the famed architect who designed our Capitol and City Hall, said this about Albany: “Misery, wretchedness, ennui and the devil---I’ve got to spend another evening in Albany."
"Of all the miserable, wretched, second-class, one-horse towns, it is the most miserable."
However, in the end, Albany will always be as described by its resident Pulitzer Prize winning author, William Kennedy: That “Improbable City of Political wizards, Fearless Ethnics, spectacular aristocrats, splendid Nobodies, and underrated Scoundrels.”
by W. DENNIS DUGGAN
Published 2021
As a rough gauge of Albany’s historical significance, the County has 214 sites listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
This is more than Erie, Monroe and Onondaga Counties which have two to three times the population of Albany County.
Albany will always be a puzzle — to insiders and outsiders alike.
It is the Rodney Dangerfield of cities; it gets no respect.
John Gunther, the American Tocqueville of the post WW II era, called it “a political cloaca maxima (greatest sewer) which makes Kansas City look pure.”
In 1749, Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm visited Albany and made the following observation: “The avarice and selfishness of the inhabitants of Albany are well known throughout all North America, by the English, by the French, and even the Dutch in the lower part of New York province."
"If a Jew, who understands the art of getting forward pretty well, should settle amongst them, they will not fail to ruin him."
"For this reason, nobody comes to this place without the most pressing necessity.”
In 1870, H.H. Richardson, the famed architect who designed our Capitol and City Hall, said this about Albany: “Misery, wretchedness, ennui and the devil---I’ve got to spend another evening in Albany."
"Of all the miserable, wretched, second-class, one-horse towns, it is the most miserable."
However, in the end, Albany will always be as described by its resident Pulitzer Prize winning author, William Kennedy: That “Improbable City of Political wizards, Fearless Ethnics, spectacular aristocrats, splendid Nobodies, and underrated Scoundrels.”
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
ANGRY WATERS
BY TRUDY E. BELL
In March of 1913, on Easter weekend and with no warning, disaster struck upstate New York.
Wreaking death and destruction, the Hudson River rapidly rose to flood heights that still stand as records in some places.
The flooding was part of a mammoth and violent storm system that hit about fifteen states in total and devastated half a dozen Midwestern states, especially Ohio.
But the great 1913 flood in New York brought two significant legacies to the state and the nation: the creation of Great Sacandaga Lake (in Fulton, Saratoga, and Hamilton Counties) as part of a statewide system of reservoirs for controlling the flow of the Hudson River; and dramatic proof of the effectiveness of chlorinated drinking water to combat typhoid fever and other water-borne diseases.
A One-Two Punch
After an unusually warm and wet winter of soaking rains and almost no snow, the sodden soils across New York could absorb no more water.
On Good Friday, March 21, a strong arctic high-pressure system swept from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico with sustained hurricane-force winds that in Buffalo topped ninety miles an hour.
Winds and heavy sleet downed telegraph and telephone poles and wires across the eastern half of the nation.
The resulting communications outages prevented the U.S. Weather Bureau from either gathering information or sending warnings about much worse to come.
On Easter Sunday, March 23, torrential rains began to pound.
In New York, the Genesee River rose so fast that it surpassed its previous height of 1865 and flooded downtown Rochester up to six feet deep for three days.
North of Albany, the equivalent of four to six weeks of normal rainfall fell in five days over the watersheds of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.
Runoff from saturated soil tripled the discharge of both rivers in forty-eight hours, giving them a combined flow equivalent to that of the Niagara River.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
In March of 1913, on Easter weekend and with no warning, disaster struck upstate New York.
Wreaking death and destruction, the Hudson River rapidly rose to flood heights that still stand as records in some places.
The flooding was part of a mammoth and violent storm system that hit about fifteen states in total and devastated half a dozen Midwestern states, especially Ohio.
But the great 1913 flood in New York brought two significant legacies to the state and the nation: the creation of Great Sacandaga Lake (in Fulton, Saratoga, and Hamilton Counties) as part of a statewide system of reservoirs for controlling the flow of the Hudson River; and dramatic proof of the effectiveness of chlorinated drinking water to combat typhoid fever and other water-borne diseases.
A One-Two Punch
After an unusually warm and wet winter of soaking rains and almost no snow, the sodden soils across New York could absorb no more water.
On Good Friday, March 21, a strong arctic high-pressure system swept from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico with sustained hurricane-force winds that in Buffalo topped ninety miles an hour.
Winds and heavy sleet downed telegraph and telephone poles and wires across the eastern half of the nation.
The resulting communications outages prevented the U.S. Weather Bureau from either gathering information or sending warnings about much worse to come.
On Easter Sunday, March 23, torrential rains began to pound.
In New York, the Genesee River rose so fast that it surpassed its previous height of 1865 and flooded downtown Rochester up to six feet deep for three days.
North of Albany, the equivalent of four to six weeks of normal rainfall fell in five days over the watersheds of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers.
Runoff from saturated soil tripled the discharge of both rivers in forty-eight hours, giving them a combined flow equivalent to that of the Niagara River.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
ANGRY WATERS, continued ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
Both the Mohawk and the Hudson reached record heights on Friday, March 28.
Worse, the crests of the two rivers coincided by the time high water reached the rivers’ confluence at Albany and Troy.
The churning rivers tore out bridges, undermined railway embankments, destroyed river walls, and rose well above the lowlands into downtown city streets, flooding streetcar lines, power generating stations, and sewage treatment plants.
In Watervliet, the angry waters reached five feet deep in some streets.
In Troy, burst gas lines ignited fires that raged through downtown, leaving smoking ruins.
On April 5, a special report in Dun’s Review estimated that direct damage to the state’s business property, and collateral effects from the interruption of transportation and industrial activities, exceeded $1 million (equivalent to about $22 million today), more than half of it suffered by Troy.
But the report did not tally losses for many cities, including Binghamton and Rochester, nor did it include losses to agriculture or damage to personal property, even though thousands of homes and farms were flooded.
Such uncounted losses ruined many: in 1913 as is still the case today — most homes and businesses did not carry flood insurance, nor was flooding covered by standard policies.
Trying to Control Water
By 1913, both major and minor floods along the lowlands of the Hudson River were common.
Moreover, as the Industrial Revolution spread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, paper mills and manufacturing plants built along the Hudson relied on both water power and hydroelectric power.
Not only was flooding a problem, but so was low water during dry summers.
As early as 1867, a series of dams and reservoirs to protect against floods was first proposed to the New York State Legislature — but to no avail.
In 1905, the state established a Water Supply Commission to examine regulation of the Hudson’s flow during both floods and droughts to keep hydroelectric turbines turning.
In 1907, the commission proposed a system of reservoirs throughout the state for storing water in times of excessive runoff and releasing it as needed to maintain stable river flows.
Pulp and paper mills also proposed the building of an enormous water storage reservoir on the Sacandaga River in the Adirondacks, the largest tributary of the Hudson River entering from the west.
Yet the monumental scale and cost of engineering such a system were daunting, and the proposals went nowhere.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
Both the Mohawk and the Hudson reached record heights on Friday, March 28.
Worse, the crests of the two rivers coincided by the time high water reached the rivers’ confluence at Albany and Troy.
The churning rivers tore out bridges, undermined railway embankments, destroyed river walls, and rose well above the lowlands into downtown city streets, flooding streetcar lines, power generating stations, and sewage treatment plants.
In Watervliet, the angry waters reached five feet deep in some streets.
In Troy, burst gas lines ignited fires that raged through downtown, leaving smoking ruins.
On April 5, a special report in Dun’s Review estimated that direct damage to the state’s business property, and collateral effects from the interruption of transportation and industrial activities, exceeded $1 million (equivalent to about $22 million today), more than half of it suffered by Troy.
But the report did not tally losses for many cities, including Binghamton and Rochester, nor did it include losses to agriculture or damage to personal property, even though thousands of homes and farms were flooded.
Such uncounted losses ruined many: in 1913 as is still the case today — most homes and businesses did not carry flood insurance, nor was flooding covered by standard policies.
Trying to Control Water
By 1913, both major and minor floods along the lowlands of the Hudson River were common.
Moreover, as the Industrial Revolution spread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, paper mills and manufacturing plants built along the Hudson relied on both water power and hydroelectric power.
Not only was flooding a problem, but so was low water during dry summers.
As early as 1867, a series of dams and reservoirs to protect against floods was first proposed to the New York State Legislature — but to no avail.
In 1905, the state established a Water Supply Commission to examine regulation of the Hudson’s flow during both floods and droughts to keep hydroelectric turbines turning.
In 1907, the commission proposed a system of reservoirs throughout the state for storing water in times of excessive runoff and releasing it as needed to maintain stable river flows.
Pulp and paper mills also proposed the building of an enormous water storage reservoir on the Sacandaga River in the Adirondacks, the largest tributary of the Hudson River entering from the west.
Yet the monumental scale and cost of engineering such a system were daunting, and the proposals went nowhere.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
ANGRY WATERS, continued ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
In 1913, Albany drew its drinking water from two hilltop reservoirs, each of which delivered water through separate pipes and supplied about half of the city.
Bleecker Reservoir was fed primarily from Rensselaer Lake in Albany (itself fed by several surface streams), as well as from the Hudson River.
The other, Prospect Reservoir, was fed only from the Hudson.
Before being pumped uphill to these reservoirs, however, the Hudson’s water was first treated by the Albany Pump Station (then called the Quackenbush Pumping Station), located riverside on Quackenbush and Montgomery Streets just off Broadway, which ran parallel to the river downtown.
Today the pump station’s original buildings survive as a well-known restaurant and brew pub.
Suspended particulates in the cloudy river water were filtered out by the pump station to clarify the water, then the filtered water was chlorinated to disinfect it.
Municipal disinfection of water supplies, which added small amounts of hypochlorite of lime (basically powdered bleach) to combat serious waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, was still controversial in 1913; indeed, the two cities that pioneered chlorination — Jersey City, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois — had started doing so only five years earlier.
Thus Albany was one of the first cities to chlorinate its drinking water.
By 8 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, the Hudson River was rising so fast that workers at the Albany Pump Station barricaded the doors and caulked all cracks with oakum (tarred fiber) to prevent river water from entering and contaminating the filters and chlorination facilities.
Despite these precautions, water pressure from the swollen river burst the door of one of the regulator houses at about 4 a.m. on Friday morning, and untreated river water flooded the filters and halted the disinfection operation of the pump station.
The Hudson stayed high enough to keep the station’s filters submerged for thirty hours — and thus raw river water, including contamination from human waste, was pumped up to Prospect Reservoir.
Knowing that rural areas upriver still relied on outhouses rather than indoor toilets, and that flooding and runoff would have swept human waste into the Hudson, Albany Commissioner of Public Works Wallace Greenalch immediately notified all newspapers to warn Albany citizens to boil their water for at least fifteen minutes before drinking it.
Pump station engineers flushed all the water mains by opening the hydrants, and within twenty-four hours they had set up a temporary chlorination plant.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
In 1913, Albany drew its drinking water from two hilltop reservoirs, each of which delivered water through separate pipes and supplied about half of the city.
Bleecker Reservoir was fed primarily from Rensselaer Lake in Albany (itself fed by several surface streams), as well as from the Hudson River.
The other, Prospect Reservoir, was fed only from the Hudson.
Before being pumped uphill to these reservoirs, however, the Hudson’s water was first treated by the Albany Pump Station (then called the Quackenbush Pumping Station), located riverside on Quackenbush and Montgomery Streets just off Broadway, which ran parallel to the river downtown.
Today the pump station’s original buildings survive as a well-known restaurant and brew pub.
Suspended particulates in the cloudy river water were filtered out by the pump station to clarify the water, then the filtered water was chlorinated to disinfect it.
Municipal disinfection of water supplies, which added small amounts of hypochlorite of lime (basically powdered bleach) to combat serious waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, was still controversial in 1913; indeed, the two cities that pioneered chlorination — Jersey City, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois — had started doing so only five years earlier.
Thus Albany was one of the first cities to chlorinate its drinking water.
By 8 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, the Hudson River was rising so fast that workers at the Albany Pump Station barricaded the doors and caulked all cracks with oakum (tarred fiber) to prevent river water from entering and contaminating the filters and chlorination facilities.
Despite these precautions, water pressure from the swollen river burst the door of one of the regulator houses at about 4 a.m. on Friday morning, and untreated river water flooded the filters and halted the disinfection operation of the pump station.
The Hudson stayed high enough to keep the station’s filters submerged for thirty hours — and thus raw river water, including contamination from human waste, was pumped up to Prospect Reservoir.
Knowing that rural areas upriver still relied on outhouses rather than indoor toilets, and that flooding and runoff would have swept human waste into the Hudson, Albany Commissioner of Public Works Wallace Greenalch immediately notified all newspapers to warn Albany citizens to boil their water for at least fifteen minutes before drinking it.
Pump station engineers flushed all the water mains by opening the hydrants, and within twenty-four hours they had set up a temporary chlorination plant.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: THE POT BELLY STOVE ROOM
ANGRY WATERS, continued ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
Saving Albany’s Water
However, despite these quick actions, when the State Department of Health sampled water in the two reservoirs they found organisms from raw sewage contaminating Prospect Reservoir.
But the gate valve shutting off the reservoir from the water distribution system was stuck open.
So engineers decided on a desperate measure: they would try to sterilize the entire outdoor reservoir.
On April 3, they loaded a small boat with bags of hypochlorite of lime, rowed out into the center of the reservoir, punched holes in the bags, and shook them vigorously as they rowed around the reservoir, releasing the bleach powder into the water.
The sterilization treatment was repeated two days later, on April 5.
In 1913, major epidemics of typhoid fever, a wasting disease with a fatality rate of about 10%, were still common, accounting for nearly 10,000 deaths annually nationwide.
In those pre-antibiotic days, Walter Reed and his co-workers had demonstrated that infection was linked to unsanitary conditions, including drinking water contaminated by untreated human sewage.
Before the flood, Albany was essentially free from typhoid fever, but beginning on April 16 for about a week, at least 180 documented cases of typhoid broke out in the city, mostly in the parts of the city supplied by Prospect Reservoir and its contaminated Hudson River water.
The lag from March 28 to April 16 corresponded to the incubation period common for typhoid.
However, two to three weeks after Prospect Reservoir had been disinfected by the powdered bleach, the incidence of new typhoid cases suddenly dropped.
Meanwhile, areas of the city supplied by Bleecker Reservoir were less affected.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
BY TRUDY E. BELL
Saving Albany’s Water
However, despite these quick actions, when the State Department of Health sampled water in the two reservoirs they found organisms from raw sewage contaminating Prospect Reservoir.
But the gate valve shutting off the reservoir from the water distribution system was stuck open.
So engineers decided on a desperate measure: they would try to sterilize the entire outdoor reservoir.
On April 3, they loaded a small boat with bags of hypochlorite of lime, rowed out into the center of the reservoir, punched holes in the bags, and shook them vigorously as they rowed around the reservoir, releasing the bleach powder into the water.
The sterilization treatment was repeated two days later, on April 5.
In 1913, major epidemics of typhoid fever, a wasting disease with a fatality rate of about 10%, were still common, accounting for nearly 10,000 deaths annually nationwide.
In those pre-antibiotic days, Walter Reed and his co-workers had demonstrated that infection was linked to unsanitary conditions, including drinking water contaminated by untreated human sewage.
Before the flood, Albany was essentially free from typhoid fever, but beginning on April 16 for about a week, at least 180 documented cases of typhoid broke out in the city, mostly in the parts of the city supplied by Prospect Reservoir and its contaminated Hudson River water.
The lag from March 28 to April 16 corresponded to the incubation period common for typhoid.
However, two to three weeks after Prospect Reservoir had been disinfected by the powdered bleach, the incidence of new typhoid cases suddenly dropped.
Meanwhile, areas of the city supplied by Bleecker Reservoir were less affected.
TO BE CONTINUED ...