USA > New York > Schenectady County > Schenectady County, New York : its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 17
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189
BURNING OF THE CHURCH.
Avenue and Front Street and it was a revelation to see not only the fire washed out at once, but the walls of the building torn to pieces by tremendous hydraulic power. There was no water systemn, only cisterns scattered here and there, a volunteer fire department that worked heroically, but lacking the admirable system of Chief En- gineer Yates and his men of today.
The panic in the city was terrible. Washington Avenue from State to Union streets, became empty. Barns and houses out of the apparent path of the fire, were freely opened to shelter the homeless and terror-stricken people.
In the midst of all the excitement, there was a shout among the people who had packed every street in the west end of the city. There was a reef of fire around the clock in the old Dutch church. People were too busy preserving their homes and staying the progress of the flames to bother at that time with any church. The question between God and mammon was readily settled in the excitement of the hour, and the church went.
It was a grand sight as the old building went to pieces, and was viewed with unconcealed joy by the pastor, who had been struggling and fighting for a new church for years. People rushed through the windows, because the fire descended, and saved the cushions from the seats, or stole them, and, with a great crash, the bell, weighing nearly two tons, came down making more noise in death than it ever did in life. It was a blessing in the disguise of flame, for the present beautiful edifice quickly rose upon the spot.
In this connection a moment's digression. Preserved from church to church back to the day of Queen Anne, a deliciously toned bell weighing 800 pounds, of such penetrating power that it was said to have been heard on a still Sabbath morning on the Helderberg, had been the pride and the joy of the congregation. The enormous bell that fell and melted in the flaines had replaced it. Many a citizen well remembers how melodious and silvery were thie tones of the little 800 pound bell. It might well be silvery because there was an immense amount of that metal used in its construction.
On a summer morning in 1848, the bell sounded muffled, dull and unmusical. The sexton went to investigate and the bell was found
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to be cracked. Why it was not re-cast cannot now be found out. The writer is unable to find a reason from any of the old inhabi- tants. It was melted up into little bells for the service of the tea table and distributed among the congregation, and these little mementoes are held as of priceless value in many houses in this city.
The pecuniary damage was heavy, but not so enorinous as to cause any serious loss, except the manufactory of Mr. Smith, which was one of the largest industries of its kind in the Mohawk valley. $120,000 would cover the entire loss.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
The close of the war found the city very lethargic and its growth was slow. In the early fifties, attention had been attracted to the fact there was no more room for burials in the city and a cemetery was demanded. On Green street, running back to Front, and about 200 feet along both streets, was the old Dutch burial ground in a shamefully neglected condition. There was really no room for more dead. The coffins in the little family plots had been piled one upon another. There was no shade or foliage in the desolate place. Graves had fallen in, making horrible cavities ; mounds had been heaped up again and again. Tombstones and monuments had been heaved and tossed in all directions or tumbled over by the action of tlie frost and the elements. The subject of a new resting place for the dead was discussed in the papers.
Far beyond the compact part of the city was a beautiful glen, that at the early part of the century was the best partridge feeding and homing ground anywhere near here. After long dispute, the Vale, as it was called and known, was selected. It was purchased
1
I91
THE OLD CEMETERY.
by a cemetery association of which the late Edward Rosa was the moving spirit. The lovely brook was halted into a succession of miniature lakes and the whole ground laid out and formally opened and dedicated in 1857.
It was continually enlarged by the purchase of adjacent territory but not fast enough to meet the demands of death. It has grown grandly in beauty with a sad increase in population, until the sleepers in the City of the Dead, that, but for the recent tremendous growth of the town, would soon outnumber the bustling living in city beneath. Meanwhile the town has in the tremendous advance of the last two decades grown all around it and the city is looking around again for some new territory to people with the fast increasing pro- cession going to join the great majority. This time it will be far away for prosperity, so called, will march close behind. But wher- ever the new dormitory of the forever silent is placed, it will never equal in loveliness the Vale cemetery of to-day.
In 1857, in the slow advancement of the city, it was decreed that a new street, the continuation of Lafayette, from Liberty to Union, should be opened. It was all pasture land, with here and there a scattered little shop or outbuilding in the way of the improvement. In excavating and grading for the new street, midway of the improve- ment begun, to the astonishment of everybody, the workmen to turn up skulls and skeletons, faded remnants of blue and buff cloth, here and there an old sword and bayonet. About the whole city rushed to the spot, and the constabulary of the town, and a poor little gang it was, were called upon to keep the crowd back and restrain the relic seekers from carrying away ghastly mementoes. The " oldest " inhabitant was on hand, in fact he was very much in evidence. It was soon learned that the spot had been occupied as a hospital and soldier burial ground in the Revolution. The remains, found to be those of about fifty-seven men, were gathered and given a military funeral and with patriotic poinp and ceremony, laid away in the new cemetery.
But a terrible and shocking innovation was on its way to just about break the hearts of the survivors of the dear old Dutch. Holland is unsurpassed by any nationality on earth in the reverence of its
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
people for their dead. The inscription of Shakespeare on his own gravestone :
"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust lies buried here,"
was his creed and his love and sentiment stood a fierce guard around the old Dutch graveyard in Green street.
Yet it had to go. The plague spot could no longer be endured. Its horrible fertility grew hideous weeds ; its suggestive hillocks and pits were eyesores and heartaches ; it was dark and rank and noi- some. So it steamed in the hot dews and showers of summer with miasma and malaria. Its great mounds heaped up over the piled up coffins beneath, had become so many fortresses behind which disease crouched, its sunken graves rifle pits from which death levelled an unseen bullet. At least so said the men of science and science was beginning to have its way.
The Dutch Church caused a bill to be introduced in the legisla- ture giving it the power to remove the dead and sell the land. It was bitterly fought, combatted before committee with wrath and vio- lence, eloquence, pathos and tears.
But the wrath was unheeded, the eloquence went to pieces against the wall of horse sense, and stern necessity, pathos and tears, heart- lessly pooh-poohed and the bill passed. Abundant opportunity was given for the removal of the family dead, provision generously made for the short, second journey of the unknown, or the bodies of those whoin poverty or indifference threw upon the hands of the carriers of the dead, and in the fall of 1879 the yard was cleared and the sleepers, who made no objection all this while, were taken away to lie with their children, or in the place set apart for them in the State street side of the cemetery.
A marvellous sight it was to see the dead thus arise. To the honor of our humanity, be it remembered, that all irreverence was hushed and the least exhibition of its tendency frowned promptly down. Burials in the enclosure had been prohibited for many years and no unpleasant results of exhumation were observable. Families watched as the spade invaded the shekinah of the dooryards and
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PROJECT OF A NEW DEPOT.
thresholds of their unforgotten dead. The secrets of the graves, closed in the morning of one century, to be opened in the afternoon of the next, were eagerly awaited. It was all skeleton. But here and there a wedding ring, still traceable, often yellow with the truth of solid gold, coffin plates untraceable but. easily restored. Indians with beads and traces of wampum and hair well preserved, tied with the ribbons that loving hands had fastened. So, with the hush of expectancy, the long breath of surprise sometimes with sobs and tears, the dead were carefully lifted and borne away to another-it is hoped, a lasting home.
Alinost simultaneously, an assault was made upon the depot. Negotiations were opened by the promoters of the project for a new one with the Central authorities who had solicited assistance. The trouble came over the closing of Liberty street. The railroad author- ities declared they could not build or accommodate their passengers unless this was done. The battle was fierce, bitter and long. The Hon. Jolın W. Veeder was then Member of Assembly. The ordi- nance passed the common council and a bill permitting the city to close the street, was introduced in the legislature. The Central sent a beautiful painting of the proposed structure and its approaches, to be exhibited in the window of the Wilson Davis store. Before the building was begun, the common council changed its mind and called upon Mr. Veeder to withdraw the bill. At the office of A. A. Yates, who was urging the passage of the measure, there gathered merchants and men of property representing the business and pos- session of millions. Mr. Veeder, a inan with the courage of his convictions, did not need the backing but it was welcome, and he promptly passed the bill and the building arose about as handsome a structure as any way station on the line. It was thought then ample enough to meet all possible future contingencies but it is inadequate at times for the needs of trains in these booming days.
The Hon. J. W. Clute, one of the inost fearless and progressive mayors we have ever had, has been of infinite service in the estab- lishment of tablets commemorative of scenes in the history of this, one of the most historic cities of the United States. But a great oversight has been committed in the failure to mark the site where
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
stood the scene of Schenectady's later martyrdom and to place a slab on the spot of the obliterated stigma of the old depot. The new depot was completed in 1882.
CHAPTER XX.
THE NEW CITY.
Straightway upon its completion, the city fairly bounded. It seemed as if the hands of the builders had rolled away a stone from the sepulchre door and dead progress had come to life. The old Clute foundry had long ceased to do much of anything, and thus passed out of the world of business the marine builders whose work is historic. The more sightly and modern arcade took its place, Wall street remodeled its business shanties and the Maxons built hand- somely. The Givens tavern went down, the stately edifice of the Edison rising grandly in its place. Isha Banker's shop passed out of memory, and the shabby little restaurant vexed the eye and tortured the palate no more forever.
Then in 1888, came a corporation, destined to call to Schenectady the attention of the whole scientific and mechanical world, and in time, to crowd the city to congestion with the highest grade of skilled labor and the most eminent men. It was a new motive power, the science of the lightning.
The Jones Car Works, coming here from Green Island, had failed and gone into the hands of a receiver. It had built a respectable plant on the present site of the tremendous works of the General Electric. Under the direction of the court, its real estate was for sale. The Hon. John DeRemer, the receiver, obtained an order from the court for the sale of the property for $45,000. The atten- tion of the Edison Machine Works of Goerck street, New York City, was attracted to it and negotiations were entered into. The com-
195
AN IMMENSE INDUSTRY.
pany, then by no means a very large corporation, examined the situ- ation and were struck with its advantages. Its directors discovered that they could not get in New York what they needed. Here then, were railroads and canal connection with all points of the compass, at the very doors of their shops, and opportunities for experimental work along the bank of the canal that were unequalled anywhere. But they would give but $37,500 for the whole outfit. The citizens took hold of the matter and private and personal subscription soon made up the $45,000. John Kruesi as general manager, William B. Turner, familiarly and popularly known as "Pop," William E. Gil- more, as secretary, took charge of the business. John Kruesi was a benefaction to Schenectady. While rigidly a business man, he was considerate and just with his employees, warm-hearted and sympa- thetic, in a remarkable degree. He died here at his post, universally beloved and regretted. Under the original management, the indus- try grew, daily increasing its output enormously and bringing work and workinen to the town till it began to be thronged with new faces and infused with new blood. A connection was formed with the Thompson and Houston, an immense plant in Lynn, Mass., and Orange, New Jersey. The works doubled, Edison himself took Gil- more away to be his right hand inan. "Pop" Turner went to Chicago on his own hook, and after suffering a terrible affliction in the loss of a beloved wife, John Kruesi was taken away from us, for he had become one of us long before he left us.
But his admirable management has continued. The works are advancing with tremendous speed toward the position of the great- est manufacturing corporation in America, if not of the world.
But the great corporation three years ago had abundant evidence of the appreciation of Schenectady. The managers of the new corporation, known as the General Electric Company, desired to close the street known as Kruesi avenue. Immediately, on the very com- mencement of the establishment in this city, gin mills and beer shops were banked up against doorways and gateways of the works until the employe could with difficulty leave the scene of his labor for the rest of his home without stumbling across the threshold of a "joint." The great manufactory, like all others, to their credit be it spoken,
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
does not want temptation too near their men. So it established its own restaurant inside its own works and wanted to close up the avenue in the edge of their premises. Besides they needed the land. Promptly the city, called " Old Dorp," ridiculed for its lack of public spirit, came to the rescue. Thirty thousand dollars were promptly raised by subscription, the street purchased and given to the General Electric, the gift guarded only by the proviso that if the plant removed the property was to revert to the subscribers to the fund. The corporation is showing its appreciation of the generosity of this people. It has contributed $15,000 to the new library and it is to do still more when the occasion coines.
Meanwhile, this is the status of the General Electric at this time. Before the publication of this work, these figures will be greatly increased. A large office building is in course of erection which will cost in the neighborhood of $200,000, and when finished will be the largest office building in the world. As an evidence of the mon- strous increase of their business we give the following figures :
January 31st, 1897,
. $11, 170,319
1898, - 14,431,342
1899, 17,431,327
1900, - 26,323,626 27,969,54.I
190I,
Of which the Schenectady works received sixty per cent.
The total number of employes in April, 1901, were as follows : In the office, managers and clerks, 496; draughtsinen, 386; employees, 6,769 ; total, 7,651. Their pay roll is $100,000 a week.
Since writing the above, the employees have increased in number to over 10,000, and a million and a half dollars worth of new build- ings are under contract, while the present pay roll amounts to nearly $150,000, and the end is not yet. The city increases so rapidly that the writer cannot keep up with it.
But giving employment to this vast multitude is not their only benefaction. Before that bluff and outspoken, but able manager, William B. Turner left, he built us a street railroad, extending at first from Brandywine Avenue to the end of Campbell Avenue in
197
THE LOCOMOTIVE WORKS.
Bellevue. It was opened with speeches in the park in 1887. The drivers and conductors were green, the horses new to the business. The horses tried to run away but could not, the weight was too great. The drivers could not hold then and the cars more than once were dragged from the tracks and bounded over the cobbles. Unused to the sight, runaways were common. But the people cheered and the road settled down to business, staggering along for some years, until to-day, Engineer Fraser, one of the most indefatiga- ble and capable railroad managers in the country, is gridironing the city with a system of electric railway that for convenience, comfort and elegance of equipment is unsurpassed in the state.
Meanwhile, the Schenectady Locomotive Works, that right bower of Schenectady for half a century, that in adverse hard times has kept its men at work with heavy loss, has also immensely increased its output. It is employing about 8,000 men, more heads of families, and owners of homes than any other local corporation. It is, in addition to its immense establishment, building the largest shop in the United States. Its machinery is a wonder, its appliances the last triumphs of modern invention, its locomotives pounding the iron all over the round earth, and being turned out at the rate of one and a half a day.
The effect of all this on the Ancient City is marvellous. The census of 1890 showed 19,000 population ; of 1900 nearly 32,000. The letters received and sent from the post office are four times as many as in President Arthur's time. The inail matter of the Gene- ral Electric alone is larger than that of the whole city in 1880 and that of Wallis T. Hanson & Co., is' as large as that of the former. Mont Pleasant, Edison Park, Villa Road, Bellevue, Scotia and the General Electric itself, are now within the city limits. It is safe to say that nearly 60,000 people live within reach of the postal facilities of the city. The police census of the city in 1902 gives within a few hundreds of 50,000 population. It is an astounding progress. It is indeed an "Electric City."
As an instance of the marvellous growth of the city, the beautiful grove directly east of Union College land, through which have rani-
14
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
bled the sons of Union, whose names have since gone around the world, has been purchased by the Schenectady Realty Co. Fifteen years ago the city had scarcely reached the College ground, and here is a new village, begun less than two years before the publication of this work, covering many acres of land laid out by the best of land- scape engineers. Decorated with the finest architecture it has cre- ated a suburban village, equal in extent and population to the size of the hamlet in the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER XXI.
POLICE.
In the early history of Schenectady, before it was incorporated as a city, it devolved upon the justices of the peace, appointed by the governor, to see that peace and order were maintained, and they had power to appoint certain persons whose duty it was to arrest and report to the justices all offenders against the laws.
In 1788, a law was passed by the legislature giving the justices of the peace authority to appoint six night watchmen and an officer from the citizens residing in the township of Schenectady south- ward from the Mohawk river and not more than three-quarters of a mile from the Dutch church. These persons so selected were required to keep watch and guard in their turn in such manner and time as the justices directed. Only one watchman was on duty at a time. The justices prescribed the rules and regulations to govern the watchmen, and a fine was imposed on any officer neglecting his duty. This was the first regular police service instituted at Sche- nectady.
This manner of appointing night watchmen was repealed when the charter of Schenectady was adopted.
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POLICE DEPARTMENT.
In the act incorporating the city of Schenectady, passed March 26th, 1798, the common council was given power to designate the number of constables to be elected in each ward. From, and up to the present date, one constable was elected in each ward, and to thein was given the same powers in criminal actions now possessed by the policemen. There was no regular salary `attached to this office. The only pay received for services consisted of regularly prescribed fees.
June 17th, 1817, the number of night watchmen was increased to eight. They were appointed by the common council and were placed under the direction of two superintendents, also appointed by the common council. The superintendents had entire supervision of the watchmen, prescribing the rules and regulations governing them and the time each should serve. Only two watchmen were on duty at a time. When on patrol, the watchmen carried a staff five feet long, and were obliged to be on duty from nine o'clock in the even- ing until daybreak. At every hour of the night, they announced, in an audible voice, the time. These officers were required to main- tain the peace and see that the laws were enforced and obeyed. A watchhouse was provided for the imprisonment of all offenders against the law.
March 10th, 1815, a law was passed by the legislature, creating a board of magistrates, consisting of two men selected by the common council from the alderinen or justices of the peace, who were empow- ered to attend to the relief of the poor and to punish petty offenses committed within the city limits. They were required to receive the report of the night watchmen every morning and to proceed to the examination of all persons apprehended by the watchmen. The common council selected one or more constables, called police con- stables, who were required to serve all warrants, summonses and pro- cesses by the board of magistrates. These constables were expected to arrest and report all offenders against the laws and ordinances of the city, and bring such persons for trial before the board, which had jurisdiction similar to the present police justices. The magistrates were allowed an annual salary of one hundred and fifty dollars, and the constables fifty dollars.
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
About 1830 a high constable was chosen by the common council, pursuant to an act of the legislature. He represented the entire city, and had jurisdiction over criminal matters such as is now exer- cised by the chief of police. His term of office was limited to one year. The high constable and ward constables continued to exercise their police powers in the maintenance of peace and order until the Capital police force was organized in 1867.
March 28th, 1842, the office of police justice was created by an act of the legislature, which provided that the board of supervisors should appoint one of the justices of the peace of the city to attend to complaints, examinations and trials of a criminal nature. April Ist, of the following year, another act of the legislature was passed, pro- viding that the police justice should be appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate, and that his terins of office should be for three years. March 31st, 1848, another act was passed pro- viding that the office of police justice, high constable and four jus- tices of the peace should be elective officers. The term of police justice was extended to four years and that of high constable and justices of the peace to three years.
April 22, 1865, a law was passed by the legislature creating the city of Albany and the several adjoining towns a district known as the Capital police district of the State of New York. This act pro- vided that three commissioners and two advisory commissioners of Capital police should be appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate. To these commissioners, called a police board, was intrusted the appointment of superintendents, captains, sergeants and patrolmen, and had the entire supervision of all matters relating to the police government of the district. April 10, 1866, by an act of the legislature, the Capital police district was extended so as to embrace the city of Schenectady, which city was limited to the ser- vice of seven patrolmen, at an annual salary of $500 each, to be paid out of the contributions of the city to the Capital police fund. A. W. Hunter of this city, was appointed police commissioner for the city.
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