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Troy NY

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About Troy NY

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River.

Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District. The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which has a population of 850,957. At the 2000 census, the population of Troy was 49,170. Troy's motto is Ilium fuit, Troja est, which means "Ilium was, Troy is".

Before European arrival, the area was settled by the Mohican Indian tribe. There were at least two settlements within today's city limits, Panhooseck and Paanpack. The Dutch began settling in the mid 1600s; the patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer called the area Pafraets Dael, after his mother.

Control of New York passed to the English in 1664 and in 1707 Derick Van der Heyden purchased a farm near today's downtown area. In 1771 Abraham Lansing had his farm in today's Lansingburgh laid out into lots. Responding to Lansing's success to the north, in 1787, Van der Heyden's grandson Jacob had his extensive holdings surveyed and laid out into lots as well, calling the new village Vanderheyden.

In 1789, Troy got its current name, after a vote of the people; Lansingburgh was still a separate village, the first to have ever been incorporated in the State. In 1791, Troy was incorporated as a town and extended as far west as Petersburgh. In 1796 Troy became a village and in 1816 it became a city. Lansingburgh became part of Troy in 1900, though it maintained a very separate identity and still does to this day. (See below for a link to our website to search for homes for sale Troy NY)

Troy is known as the Collar City due to its history in shirt, collar, and other textile production. At one point Troy was also the second largest producer of iron in the country, surpassed only by the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Rensselaer School, which later became Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was founded in 1824 with funding from Stephen Van Rensselaer, a descendant of the founding patroon, Kiliaen. In 1821, Emma Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary on 2nd Street, which moved to its current location on Pawling Avenue in 1910. It was renamed Emma Willard School in 1895. The former Female Seminary was later reopened (1916) as Russell Sage College, thanks to funding from Olivia Slocum Sage, the widow of financier and Congressman Russell Sage. All of these institutions still exist today."

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History Troy NY

"Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Mohican Indians had a number of settlements along the Hudson River near the confluence with the Mohawk River. The land comprising the Poesten Kill and Wynants Kill areas were owned by two Mohican. The land around the Poesten Kill was owned by Skiwias and was called Panhooseck. The area around the Wynants Kill, the land known as Paanpack, was owned by Peyhaunet.

The land between the creeks, which makes up most of downtown and South Troy, was owned by Annape. South of the Wynants Kill and into present-day North Greenbush, the land was owned by Pachquolapiet. These parcels of land were sold to the Dutch between 1630 and 1657 and each purchase was overseen and signed by Skiwias, the sachem at the time. In total, more than 75 individual Mohican were involved in deed signings in the 17th century.

The site of the city was a part of the Rensselaerswyck, a patroonship created by Kiliaen van Rensselaer. Dirck Van der Heyden was one of the first settlers. In 1707, he purchased a farm of 65 acres (26 ha) which in 1787 was laid out as a village.

The name Troy (after the legendary city of Troy, made famous in Homer's Iliad) was adopted in 1789, and the region was formed into the Town of Troy in 1791 from part of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck. The township included the current city and the towns of Brunswick and Grafton. Troy became a village in 1801 and was chartered as a city in 1816. In 1900, the city of Lansingburgh was merged into Troy.

In the post-Revolutionary War years, as central New York was first settled, there was a strong trend to classical names, and Troy's naming fits the same pattern as the New York cities of Syracuse, Rome, Utica, Ithaca, or the towns of Sempronius, Manlius, or dozens of other classically named towns to the west of Troy.

Northern and Western New York was a theater of the War of 1812, and militia and regular army forces were led by Stephen Van Rensselaer of Troy. Quartermaster supplies were shipped through Troy. A local butcher and meat-packer named Samuel Wilson supplied the military, and, according to an unprovable legend, barrels stamped "U.S." were jokingly taken by the troops to stand for "Uncle Sam" meaning Wilson. Troy has since claimed to be the historical home of Uncle Sam.

Through much of the 19th and into the early 20th century, Troy was not only one of the most prosperous cities in New York State, but one of the most prosperous cities in the entire country. Prior to its rise as an industrial center, Troy was the transshipment point for meat and vegetables from Vermont which were sent by the Hudson River to New York City. The Federal Dam at Troy is the head of the tides in the Hudson River and Hudson River sloops and steamboats plied the river on a regular basis. This trade was vastly increased after the construction of the Erie Canal, with its eastern terminus directly across the Hudson from Troy at Cohoes in 1825.

Troy's one-time great wealth was produced in the steel industry, with the first American Bessemer converter erected on the Wyantskill, a stream with a falls in a small valley at the south end of the city. The industry first used charcoal and iron ore from the Adirondacks. Later on, ore and coal from the Midwest was shipped on the Erie Canal to Troy, and there processed before being sent on down the Hudson to New York City.

The iron and steel was also used by the extensive federal arsenal across the Hudson at Watervliet, New York, then called West Troy. After the American Civil War, the steel production industry moved west to be closer to raw materials. The presence of iron and steel also made it possible for Troy to be an early site in the development of iron storefronts and steel structural supports in architecture, and there are some significant early examples still in the city.

The initial emphasis on heavier industry later spawned a wide variety of highly engineered mechanical and scientific equipment.

Troy was the home of W. & L. E. Gurley, Co., makers of precision instruments. Gurley's theodolites were used to survey much of the American West after the Civil War and were highly regarded until laser and digital technology eclipsed the telescope and compass technology in the 1970s.
Bells manufactured by Troy's Meneely Bell Company ring all over the world.
And Troy was also home to a manufacturer of racing shells that used impregnated paper in a process that presaged the later use of fiberglass, Kevlar and carbon fiber composites.

This scientific and technical proficiency was supported by the presence of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI, one of the highest-ranked engineering schools in the country. RPI was originally sponsored by Stephen Van Rensselaer, one of the most prominent members of that family. RPI was founded in 1824, and eventually absorbed the campus of the short-lived, liberal arts based Troy University, which closed in 1862 during the Civil War. Rensselaer founded RPI for the "application of science to the common purposes of life", and it is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world. The institute is known for its success in the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace.

On December 23, 1823, The Troy Sentinel was the first publisher of the world-famous Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "The Night Before Christmas" or "Twas the Night Before Christmas"). The poem was published anonymously. Its author has long been believed to have been Clement Clarke Moore, but its author is now regarded by a few to have been Henry Livingston, Jr.

Troy was an early home of professional baseball, and was the host of two major league teams.

The first team to call Troy home was the Troy Haymakers, a National Association team in 1871 and 1872. One of their major players was Williams H. "Bill" Craver, a noted catcher and Civil War veteran, who also managed the team. Their last manager was Jimmy Wood, reckoned the first Canadian in professional baseball. The Troy Haymakers folded, and Troy had no team for seven seasons.
Then, for four seasons, 1879 to 1882, Troy was home to the National League Troy Trojans. The Trojans were not competitive in the league, but they did have the biggest hitter in professional baseball, Dan Brouthers.
For the 1883 season, the Trojans were moved to New York City where they became the New York Gothams, better known later as the Giants. The Gothams had the same ownership as the New York Metropolitans of the rival American Association. As a result classic Met players became Giants, including Hall of Fame Pitcher Tim Keefe.

Troy has been nearly destroyed by fire three times. The Great Troy fire of 1862 burnt the W. & L. E. Gurley, Co. factory, which was later that year replaced by the new W. & L. E. Gurley Building, now a National Historic Landmark.

In 1892, there were election riots there during which Robert Ross was murdered. One of his alleged slayers, "Bat" Shea, was executed in 1896.

In 1900 Troy annexed Lansingburgh, a former town and village in Rensselaer County. Lansingburgh is thus often referred to as "North Troy". However, prior to the annexation, that portion of Troy north of Division Street was called North Troy and the neighborhood south of Washington Park is referred to as South Troy. To avoid confusion with streets in Troy following the annexation, Lansingburgh's numbered streets were renamed: its 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3rd Street, etc., became North Troy's 101st Street, 102nd Street, 103rd Street, etc. Lansingburgh was home to the Lansingburgh Academy.

In addition to the strong presence of the early American steel industry, Troy was also a manufacturing center for shirts, shirtwaists, collars and cuffs.

In 1825, a local resident Hannah Lord Montague, was tired of cleaning her blacksmith husband's shirts. She cut off the collars of her husband's shirts, since only the collar was soiled, bound the edges and attached strings to hold them in place. (This also allowed the collars and cuffs to be starched separately.)
Hannah Montague's idea caught on, and changed the fashion for American men's dress for a century. Her patented collars and cuffs were first manufactured by Maullin & Blanchard, which eventually was absorbed by Cluett, Peabody & Company. Cluett's "Arrow shirts" are still worn by men across the country.
The large labor force required by the shirt manufacturing industry also, in 1864, produced the nation's first female Labor Union, the Collar Laundry Union, founded in Troy by Kate Mullany. On February 23, 1864, 300 members of the union went on strike. After six days, the laundry owners gave in to their demands and raised wages 25 percent.
There were further developments in the industry, when, in 1933, Sanford Cluett invented a process he called Sanforization, a process which shrinks cotton fabrics thoroughly and permanently. Cluett, Peabody's last main plant in Troy was closed in the 1980s, but the industrial output of the plant had long been transferred to facilities in the South.

One of the downtown landmarks of Troy was Frear's Troy Cash Bazaar, also known as Frear's Department Store, which was one of the largest in the state.

When the iron & steel industry moved to Pennsylvania and beyond, and with a similar downturn in the collar industry, Troy's prosperity began to fade. After the passage of Prohibition, and given the strict control of Albany by the Daniel P. O'Connell political machine, Troy became a way station for an illegal alcohol trade from Canada to New York City. Likewise, the stricter control of morality laws in the neighboring New England states, left Troy with openly operating speakeasies and brothels. Gangsters such as Legs Diamond conducted business in Troy. This gave Troy a somewhat colorful reputation through World War II.

A few of the finer houses have since been converted to fine restaurants, such as the former Old Daly Inn. Like many old industrial cities, Troy has had to deal with not only the loss of its manufacturing base, but a drainage of population and wealth to suburbs and other parts of the country.

Troy's population in 1910 was over 75,000, more than 50% higher than it is today. These factors have led to a sizable degree of dilapidation and disinvestment, although numerous efforts have been made to preserve Troy's architectural and cultural past.

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Landmarks Troy NY

"Some famous and interesting portions of Troy include:

The Paine Mansion (known as "The Castle") at 49 2nd Street
Oakwood Cemetery - Located in North Troy, or Lansingburgh, it is the final resting place of many famous Americans; among them, Civil War Major General George Henry Thomas, known as "The Rock of Chickamauga", and Samuel Wilson, better known as Uncle Sam.
W.H. Frear Department Store
Burden Iron Works
Russell Sage College - liberal women's college
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Oldest technological institute in the English-speaking world.
Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center - a state of the art performing arts center on the RPI campus
Chapel + Cultural Center at Rensselaer - Unique multipurpose performing arts and religious center.
Woodside Church - Neo-Gothic church in South Troy now home to the Contemporary Artists Center
Hudson Valley Community College - Formerly the Troy Technical Institute, then the Hudson Valley Technical Institute. Ranked as one of the Top 100 two-year colleges in the nation by Community College Week in 2004.
Houston Field House - Hosts various concert events and RPI Hockey.
Emma Willard School - Oldest secondary school for girls in the United States.
Frear Park
Prospect Park
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall - World renowned for being "an acoustic marvel."
Washington Street
Troy Public Library
St. Peter's Church
Kennedy Towers, at 19 stories, is the tallest building in Troy. Part of the Troy Public Housing Authority, the plan originally called for two towers but only one was built. The name still remains towers despite this.
Olde Judge Mansion - the only bed and breakfast in Troy (located in Lansingburgh)
Troy Gas Light Company Gasholder House - one of few remaining examples of telescoping two-lift gasholder houses.

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