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Early Dolgeville Photos & Postcards
Early Photos of Places Near Dolgeville
Frankfort, NY
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1794 Samuel Low, who is regarded as the first pioneer to the area, built
a saw mill and a grist mill near the area where State Street crosses the East
Canada Creek.
1795 John Faville settled on Ransom creek and built a grist mill and saw
mill as well. Not long after, a small settlement began to develop, with a
blacksmith, tannery and school. Some of the first families to settle the area
were the Ayers, Brockett, Lamberson, Randall, Ransom, Spencer, and Spofford.
These families settled and cleared the adjoining lands to make farms.
1805 A settler named Green built the first bridge over the East creek and
the area was known for years as Green's Bridge.
1815 The road from Dolgeville to Little Falls was built.
1826 The first postoffice was established with Zephi Brockett as
postmaster. The area was then known as Brockett's Bridge.
1830 to 1874 A store, tannery, and several smaller manufacturing
establishments operated here.
1874 Alfred Dolge arrived in Brocket's Bridge, New York, prospecting for
spruce wood to be used for piano sounding boards. At the time, Dolge was
from New York City and was an importer of piano materials.
April, 1875 Alfred Dolge purchased the tannery property and began
manufacturing operations which later developed into felt mills, and felt shoe,
piano case, piano sounding board, piano hammer factories and lumber yards.
Various factory buildings were erected, including the handsome big stone factory
(264 x 64 Ft. and four stories high).
1881 The Village of Dolgeville is incorporated and Dolge buys 30,000
acres of Adirondack woodland and introduced electric light into his lumber
mills.
1881 The village voted unanimously to change its name from Brockett's
Bridge to Dolgeville. Since Dolge's arrival, the local population had
grown from 325 in 1875 to about 1,500.
1887 Mr. Dolge brings electricity to the village. He also buys the
Reuben Faville farm, overlooking the picturesque "High Falls" of the East
Canada Creek. After developing 500 acres into a park, Dolge presents it to
the people of Dolgeville.
1890 Dolge employees numbered just over 850.
1892 Dolge began to build the Little Falls and Dolgeville railroad.
1898 Dolge ends business in Dolgeville after financial difficulties and
relocates to California. There, he begins a successful business venture.
January, 1922 Mr. Dolge died at Milan, Italy, while on a trip around the
world.
Alfred Dolge still holds a position of great honor in the hearts and minds of
village residents. He will be long remembered for his wonderful business
and social achievements while alive. Alfred Dolge pioneered the
establishment of an "Earning Sharing" system, combined insurance, endowments,
pension funds, a sick fund, and mutual aid society for his employees long
before these came into practice elsewhere.
To be continued. The history of this village does not stop here.
Will you be the next person to take your place in history alongside of Alfred
Dolge? The history of this village is made by people like you and me.
All that is needed is the will to make a lasting contribution to the people who
you care about the most, your family, friends, and neighbors. They all
need you and so does the village of Dolgeville. Make a decision to begin
making a difference in the lives of others now. By doing so, you will
enrich the lives of everyone around you, but most of all you will enrich your
own life in the process.
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The Old State Road
By Hector Allen, Town Historian, Oppenheim
When our first settlers arrived in this area they faced a dense forest, an almost
unbroken wilderness. As the very first settlers came, they walked in
carrying packs and such on their backs.
As the very first property owners came up here from
the Valley they would naturally look for the easiest way for obvious places to
cut roads through. These early roads would then follow the path of least
resistance, with brush and trees being cut by the local residents. In time
these trails would be widened for carts and wagons, and that is the way our
first roads came into being.
Catherine Clemons Cline, writing in 1960, stated that: "The first survey of a
road, (presumably what is now Route 29, formerly called the Old State Road), was
made by Christian Getman, under the direction of Sir William Johnson, the lines
being made with a pocket compass. The road began near Johnson Hall and
passed through Rockwood to Lassellsville."
In 1954 Mrs. Dorothy Ives, Town Historian in Salisbury for many years, wrote:
"Settlers followed trails through wilderness, and the first road contract was
cut from Johnstown to Salisbury; it followed the East Canada Creek, on the East
side of the creek. The creek was crossed at Emmonsburg instead of at
Stratford." This road probably followed a lot of what is now Route 29,
diverging at some point in the Town of Oppenheim and crossing at Emmonsburg to
get to Salisbury.
The Old State Road itself would eventually cross the East Canada in Dolgeville,
then called "Green's Bridge." This road has had a few different names;
The Black River Road, and for part of its length, the Military Road. Now it
is our familiar Route 29.
Paul Draheim, former Herkimer County Historian, wrote an article for the "Evening
Times" on this road in 1976. This is what he said about the beginnings of
our road: "It all started about 173 years ago, (1830) when a meeting was called
by the Road Commissioners in Johnstown. Here, pioneers from the wilderness
outposts assembled to petition the commissioners concerning the route to the
Black River country. The road was surveyed in 1806 and within two years a
wilderness road was opened."
The new State Road probably followed much of the path plotted out by Christian
Getman and Clarence Brookins. By 1803 we had a number of settlers in our
area, and so the surveyors of the new State Road did not have to go through pure
wilderness as trails already existed.
Mr. Draheim continues: "It was in March, 1803, that the New York State Legislature
provided for raising $41,300 by lottery for the construction of several roads.
One of them was that called "The State Road."
Our Old State Road, and many others, would be paid for through a State Lottery.
This practice died out by the 1840s, but came back in the 1960s and now provides
our politicians with quite a bit of money to spend as people try to "get rich."
"Hey," as the TV ads say, "you never know!"
The road that was completed in 1808 was not paved; it was just a dirt road.
Paving would have to wait approximately 120 more years. Probably there were
stumps left from fallen trees and plenty of mud holes, especially in the spring.
Zachary Green built the first bridge over the East Canada in 1805, and so the
community would be named for him briefly. By 1826 the name changed to
"Brockett's Bridge," and finally to Dolgeville.
I don't know if Mr. Green charged tolls, but he probably did as this was
customary in the 19th. century. Putting a bridge across the creek, about
where the present Rt. 29 bridge is today, was quite a project in those days and
I am sure Mr. Green expected to make some money on it. There have been
approximately four bridges at this site to carry the Old State Road or Rt. 29
across the water.
One of my Grandmothers had a saying she used a lot. It went, "I'll see you
if the Good Lord is willing and the creeks don't rise." I never give this
much thought for years, but just take a look at the East Canada in the spring
and see if you would like to walk across.
One of the major events on our Old State Road happened shortly after it was
completed. In 1814, Major General George Izard, after the British invasion
down the Champlain Valley had been stopped north of Plattsburgh, was ordered to
take a portion of his army to Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario. With no
roads through the wilderness, Izard went south through Lake George, Saratoga and
Johnstown and then west on the new road. His command totaled around 4,000
men, making this the largest parade we have ever seen in these parts. The
Regular Army units involved were the 4th., 5th., 10th., 12th., 13th., 14th., 15th.,
16th., and 45th. infantry regiments. Izard also had a troop of mounted
Dragoons and his light artillery marched as infantry. This march took place
in mid-September, 1814. I don't know if Zachary Green collected tolls for
all these men, their horses and wagons; if so, he must have made quite a bit of
money.
Mrs. Eleanor Franz wrote the following in the Dolgeville-Manheim Historical
Society's book on the Underground Railroad in 2000: "During the War of 1812
hundreds of soldiers, cannons and supply wagons passed through along its length.
After that war, the road continued to be a great thoroughfare, even in the winter
when it was thronged with farmers taking their produce to market. Taverns
sprung up every couple of miles or so to deal with the commerce, as droves of
cattle, sheep, hogs, flocks of turkeys and geese and wagon loads of dried apples
passed by. Brockett's Tavern was a favorite stopping place and every night
it was thronged with lodgers from garret to cellar. Sometimes as many as
one hundred ox teams were tied up outside."
Through traffic on the Old State Road diminished after the Erie Canal was
completed in 1825, followed by the railroads down in the Valley by 1836.
However, it remained a vital artery for local people. A stage line and
freight wagons were operated by Robert Higbie of Oppenheim until the 1840s, and
Isaac Cramer later operated a stage line through to Johnstown. An obituary
for Mr. Richard Guile of Dolgeville, dated March 2, 1935 stated that he owned a
stage line to Johnstown for four years, and then operated a stage line from
Dolgeville to Little Falls until the Dolgeville Railroad put him out of business.
Starting in 1924 our Old State Road became the "new" New York State Route 29.
Budd Claus, Supervisor in the Town of Oppenheim for many years, remembered when
Rt. 29 was paved. He said that a contractor named Murray had the section
from Dolgeville to Oppenheim Center, and Russ Casler had the contract from the
Center to Vedder's Corners. Some of the contractors hired Mexican laborers,
and there was a camp for them in Oppenheim near Poke Johnson's. The stones
for the base were all crushed by machines near the sites, and concrete was also
mixed right along-side the road. Budd said that the base was so good that
it has lasted for many years; the only problems seem to be with the edges of the
roadbed where it was widened in more recent times. Budd also said that much
of the work was done by teams of horses hauling dump wagons, graders and scrapers,
supplemented by men using picks and shovels. Quite a bit of manual labor
went into building both our "old" and "new" State Roads.
Budd told me that the paving project on Route 29 was completed in 1927, the last
year that Henry Ford's famous "Model T" was built. Automobiles were getting
more luxurious, and so were our roads. They still are.
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Click here to read about
Fire Fighting in Dolgeville
Source: "Herkimer County Volunteer Fireman's Association" (souvenir booklet)
Second Annual Convention and Field Day
Dolgeville, N.Y.
Friday & Saturday, July 26-7, 1935
Printed by the Dolgeville Republican
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A Railroad to Dolgeville
A History of the Numerous Attempts to Join Our Community by Rail to the Mohawk
Valley By: Michael Lyon
Many attempts to link our community by rail with the Mohawk Valley were
contemplated until Alfred Dolge succeeded in 1892. The first attempt to
build a railroad line was promoted by Colonel Jeremiah Drake, in 1834.
He envisioned building a railroad line to the southern Adirondack region passing
through Brockett's Bridge (Dolgeville). The Manheim & Salisbury
Railroad Company was incorporated in 1834 to build a railroad line from Finck's
Basin through Brockett's Bridge to Devereaux (Stratford). The main purpose
of this line was to connect the vast resources of the Adirondack forest with the
Utica & Schenectady Railroad Company line that was being constructed along
the north shore of the Erie Canal in the Mohawk Valley.
In late 1836, Major Daniel B. Winton of Brockett's Bridge got involved in the
effort to build a railroad line extending north from the Mohawk Valley.
He had recently arrived in Brockett's Bridge and was in the midst of building a
large leather tannery operation along the East Canada Creek. Also in 1836,
another scheme was promoted to link the Utica & Schenectady Railroad Company
line with the Adirondack region by passing through Brockett's Bridge. The
St. Johnsville & Ogdensburgh Railroad Company was organized with the
ambitious goal of linking the Mohawk River with the St. Lawrence River.
The promoters of this railroad line proposed linking up with the Manheim &
Salisbury Railroad Company line at Brockett's Bridge, or persuade them to change
the southern terminus to St. Johnsville. Almost immediately after these
discussions, the Manheim & Salisbury Railroad Company petitioned the
Legislature of the State of New York to alter the name of the incorporated
company to the Mohawk & St. Lawrence Rail Road & Navigation Company.
The plan was to connect the Mohawk River with the St. Lawrence River with a
continuous route comprised of railroad lines and water navigation. Both of
these efforts failed to raise the necessary capital and never materialized.
The effort seemed to lose momentum after the departure of the biggest local
booster, D. B. Winton, from Brockett's Bridge in 1842.
The next attempt to link the Adirondacks with the Mohawk Valley by rail was
proposed in 1882. The Little Falls, Dolgeville & Piseco Lake Railroad
Company line route went as far as an actually being surveyed. The
proposed route of the line was to cross S. Main Street near Beaver Brook.
Although the railroad line was never built, it did provide future investors with
a potential route to Dolgeville from Little Falls.
In 1888, a railroad line was proposed along an east-west route from Saratoga to
Utica. The line was surveyed with a route passing through Gloversville and
Dolgeville. The community invested $2,000.00 with Julius Breckwoldt
responsible for collecting the Dolgeville capital. However this line also
failed to materialize and was abandoned in 1890.
Transferring manufactured goods and raw materials between the nearest railroad
line at Little Falls, New York and Dolgeville proved to be time consuming and
very expensive. The road between Little Falls and Dolgeville was often
impassable. Alfred Dolge utilized 50 horses to accomplish this transfer
between the two communities. The horses required a large stable building,
which he erected on Dolge Avenue in 1888. Alfred Dolge saw the need for a
railroad line to the Village of Dolgeville as vitally important for the survival
of manufacturing in the community.
Wall Street investors organized the Little Falls & Dolgeville Railraod
Company in 1891, for the purpose of building a railroad line from Little Falls
to Dolgeville The total cost of constructing the line was put at $250,000.
The amount was issued in bonds, with the people of Little Falls and Dolgeville
assuming $75,000 worth of the total. Alfred Dolge invested $5,000, and
persuaded five other Dolgeville businessmen to subscribe to $1,000 apiece.
A contract to build the railroad line was awarded to C. W. Edwards & Son,
who in turn subcontracted the majority of the construction work to the Dutton
& Welch Company.
Ground was broken for the new line during the first week of May 1891.
By the end of June, construction came to a standstill. Throughout the
summer, construction would start and stop virtually by the week. By early
October, construction came to a complete standstill and the company folded.
Various reasons were given, including a lack of money and difficulty in
acquiring land, however it appears that the Dutton & Welch Company was
simply unable to manage such a complicated building project.
By late October of 1891, a second railroad company was organized with a board of
directors consisting of six men from Dolgeville, Alfred Dolge being one of them,
four men from Little Falls, and two men from New York City. At the end of
October the board of directors of the Little Falls, & Dolgeville Railroad
Company hired Godfrey & Howe as the contractor to finish the line. The
construction, although extremely difficult, was steady throughout the early part
of 1892, with the line opening as far as Crum Creek on August 9, 1892. On
December 14, 1892, the railroad line was opened from Little Falls to Dolgeville,
with the first train arriving in Little Falls at 9:35AM. The Little Falls
& Dolgeville Railroad line covered 10 1/4 miles, with the main passenger and
freight stations located in the northern section of the village of North Helmer
and McKinley Avenues.
Passenger stations were also located at various times at S. Main Street, Ransom
Street, and High Falls Park in the village. The High Falls Park station
was opened for service from 1893 - 1915. The Ransom Street station was
opened for service from 1893 - 1907. When the Ransom Street station closed
the railroad established a station at S. Main Street, which stayed open until
1921. In 1925, the old S. Main Street station building was relocated to
Howard Street Extension for use as a Health Center. Today this building is
used as a residence.
Several years after Alfred Dolge left the village he would state that at the
conclusion of the building of the line he was in debt, over and above his
legitimate business liabilities, to the extent of $547,000. This debt
would prove to be the major factor in his financial ruin, and exodus from the
Village of Dolgeville.
The railroad line proved to be an important transportation link to the outside
world for many of Dolgeville's businesses in addition to the factories of Alfred
Dolge. The time being before the invention of the automobile, so rail
transportation was a tremendous asset to the community. Alfred Dolge
established the Dolgeville Coal Company in 1894 with offices and coal yard
located on W. State Street adjacent to the rail line. In 1910, the
Silvernal Coal Company was organized, with offices and coal yard located on S.
Main Street adjacent to the rail line. In addition to the two coal
companies, the Daniel Green Company, the Julius Breckwoldt & Son Company,
and the Dolgeville Felt Shoe Company were all big shippers on the line.
Local farmers were also heavy users of the railroad line to transport their
products to market. In 1904, Blauding & Sheperd erected a milk station
near the L.F. & D.R. depot. In 1908, Praim & Bullock erected a
gristmill near the L.F. & D.R. depot on Helmer Avenue. In 1924, area
farmers organized the Dolgeville Dairy Company, and a large milk station was
erected at McKinley Avenue and Cavalli Streets. The Dolgeville Dairy
Company became the Producers Cooperative, Inc. in 1940.
In 1907, the Dolgeville & Salisbury Railroad Co. was incorporated with a
capital of $100,000 for the purpose of building a railroad line to Salisbury
Center. The extension to Salisbury Center, covering 4.5 miles, opened for
passenger and freight travel on April 16, 1908. In 1910, a further
extension brought the railroad line from Salisbury Center to Irondale. The
line extension was necessary because the Salisbury Steel & Iron Company was
operating an iron ore strip mine at Irondale, and required a direct railroad
connection for shipping the ore.
In 1898, following the financial collapse of Alfred Dolge, Schuyler R. Ingham
became the receiver of the Little Falls and Dolgeville Railroad. The
receivership then passed to Charles Sullivan in 1899. In 1906, the New
York Central and Hudson River Railroad purchased the line, which eventually
became the New York Central Railroad, and then the Penn Central Railroad.
Passenger service to Dolgeville ceased running in 1933, and had already ceased
running to Salisbury Center by 1925. Freight trains ceased running to
Salisbury Center in 1946 and to Dolgeville in 1964, with the tracks, trestles,
and bridges torn up and sold for scrap in 1964 and 1965. In 1975, the Penn
Central Railroad deeded the approximate 2 miles of right-of-way land inside the
village limits, to the Village of Dolgeville. The right-of-way although
interrupted in several places continues north to Salisbury Center and Irondale,
and south into the Town of Manheim and to the eastern line of the City of Little
Falls.
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