Maria Chapin Preston, born in 1842, was the sixth child of Dr. Calvin and Margaret Preston of East Street, Galway, New York.  Like her brothers, she exhibited musical talent early in life, playing the organ at the Presbyterian Church at the age of 14, keyboard instruments at social events, and teaching music.

She also shared their adventurous spirit exemplified by William and Platt, Gold Rush participants and eventual wealthy mill owners in Waitsburg, Washington; and Calvin, Union Soldier in the Civil War and survivor of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.  Leaving a comfortable existence in Galway, she boarded the Transcontinental Railroad for San Francisco in the mid-1870s, traveling to Waitsburg by coastal steamer and finally stagecoach, joining her brothers and living with Platt while pursuing her interests in music.  In 1885 she married Alexander Stewart, a wealthy Waitsburg businessman.

Unfortunately, while their wealth supported a very comfortable life, Maria’s mental health gradually declined; in 1904 Mr. Stewart became seriously concerned about his wife’s deteriorating mental condition.  He “took her east and consulted eminent specialists on mental diseases in her behalf and…when he returned ….he stated nothing could be done for her”.

The combination of his wife’s illness, their advancing years, and the probability that Alex had chronic health issues of his own motivated him to pursue an arrangement with members of the Stewart family to provide for their care when they were both incapacitated.  His plan was to contract with them to provide care in exchange for transference of property owned by him and his wife.  A problem with the plan: some of the property he intended to transfer was owned separately by Maria, and as she was not mentally competent could not legally enter into a contract to transfer it.  Nevertheless, he had a deed transferring the properties to him drawn up and on April 20, 1906 it was executed by their signatures.

In 1911, Maria and Alex travelled to Idaho to stay with family members. During October of that year, Alex signed a contract with his relatives stipulating that, in return for property transferred to them in Florida and Washington the relatives would support and maintain him and his wife as long as they should live.   In September of 1912 they went to Miami, Florida, where Alex died in November.  At that time all his property and investments including that fraudulently transferred from Maria had already passed into control of the relatives, some of whom lived in that state. 

At about the same point in time William Preston became concerned that Maria’s well-being was in jeopardy. Elderly himself and not in condition for a long trip, strenuous activity, and dealing with legal issues, in February, 1913 he employed an attorney and the attorney’s wife, the latter to provide health care and personal supervision, to travel to Florida and return with Maria.  There they found her in “neglected, in pitiable and filthy condition; …….in feeble health and unable to care for herself…..almost without clothing and in the most abject want…kept in this abject condition by the relatives of her husband”.  One could reasonably conclude that she had been left on her own, to die.

Before permission could be obtained to return Maria to Washington State, the lawyer was required to sign a written contract with the relatives on behalf of William, which described the purpose of Maria’s journey as one of “paying a visit to her brother.” That visit could be terminated by the relatives at any time and  the terms of the original contract signed by Alex and his relatives would not be affected.

“After the contract was executed, suitable clothing was purchased for [Maria], and by easy stages and with the assistance of nurses and hospital attendants secured at various points along the road of travel brought [her] to [Waitsburg] where her health and physical condition …. rapidly improved although her mind [seemed] to be utterly gone.

The next step was to block any attempt by the Stewart family to return her to Florida, and recover her property in Washington.  William was in an awkward position to take the lead in these actions, having authorized signature of the contract prohibiting such, but friends in Waitsburg came to the rescue, applying to the superior court of Walla Walla county to appoint a guardian. The guardian then commenced legal action to recover Maria’s property against the Stewarts to whom the lots had been fraudulently conveyed.  After this action had begun, the Stewarts filed suit to have the guardian’s appointment vacated, and title to the properties restored to them.

The trial judge, upon reviewing the evidence found that the Stewarts were aware of Maria’s insanity when her property was transferred to her husband, issuing a decree setting aside the deeds in question and quieting the title on November 11, 1913.  He also dismissed the action to have the guardian’s appointment vacated.  The Stewarts appealed the actions to the Supreme Court of Washington State.

The Supreme Court decisions on both cases are dated April 20, 1915.  They concurred with the trial judge in both instances. Saving the most critical assessment of the appellant’s contentions for last, the justice opined in part:

 It was not until they [the Stewarts] were about to lose property interests they hoped to control in this state they concluded that their contract had been violated by Mr. Preston … It was then that they concluded that the courts of this state had no jurisdiction to appoint a guardian for Mrs. Stewart, or protect her interests and insisted that she be returned to the state of Florida.  Such contentions, under the facts here known, do not commend themselves to a court of justice.  The judgement is affirmed.”

And that ended the matter.  Maria Preston remained in Waitsburg in the care of William until her death on October 18, 1916.  Had it not been for William’s devotion and decisive actions, she would have died alone, in unspeakable conditions.  She is buried in Waitsburg Cemetery, along with brothers William, Platt and Calvin.

Elder abuse is unfortunately prevalent today. The most likely abuser is a family member and the abuse is frequently financial.

Some people may recognize the name Joseph Henry as that of an imminent scientist of the 19th century, who helped establish the fledgling United States as having experimental and theoretical scientists just as skilled and serious as those in Europe.

Others may know he was the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, the Washington, D.C. organization that oversees the nation’s federal museums and research centers. His scientific work was so important that a measurement of electromagnetic induction – the henry – is named for him.

But maybe the most common recognition of Henry’s name is attached to the town of Galway’s elementary school, which seeks to instill Henry’s passion for knowledge and self-education into its students. While Henry was born in Albany, completed his education, and started his career there, he spent formative pre-teen and teen years in Galway, where a grandmother and other family members lived.

In Albany, the family was poor (his Scottish immigrant father worked as either a “cartman” or laborer), and that probably contributed to the decision to send young Joseph to live with maternal relatives in Galway. His father died in 1811, when Joseph was 13 year old; it is unknown whether William Henry suffered prolonged ill health before his death. However, many years later Joseph Henry told a Smithsonian friend that his father was an alcoholic.

Less well-known is that during the time he was conducting scientific experiments at the Albany Institute and teaching mathematics and natural philosophy at the Albany Academy, his Alma Mater,  marrying his cousin Harriet Alexander and starting a family – he occasionally returned to Galway, though for that era, it was a significant journey.

By the summer of 1832, Henry had taught and experimented with electromagnetism in Albany for nearly a decade. He had built a powerful electromagnet for a mentoring colleague at Yale University, with more electromagnets in demand. His reputation had spread far beyond Albany; he was in the process of being considered for a professorship at the prestigious College of New Jersey – the institution that is today Princeton University.

But that same summer, there was an outbreak of cholera in Albany – the sort of deadly intestinal disease outbreak that happened before public sanitation was common. Henry chose to take his young wife and newborn son William out of the city toward the end of August.  They went back to his childhood home to live with an uncle in rural Galway.

“The pure air of the county has an almost magical effect in restoring our prostrated strength,” Henry wrote to his cousin (and brother-in-law) Stephen Alexander on Aug. 27, adding a mention of the “pestiferous air” in Albany.

Two days later he wrote Alexander again, recounting a trip north into the Sacandaga River valley – the region that was flooded nearly 100 years later to create the Sacandaga Reservoir, now Great Sacandaga Lake. His observations offer a contemporaneous glimpse of how that area was viewed.

He and another cousin, Hugh Alexander, took a “jaunt” north on Aug. 28, to the community of Fish House. “We found it a very pleasant little village surrounded with mountains and apparently on the verge of the inhabitable portion of this state,” Henry wrote. “To the north beyond as far as the eye could reach only mountains on piles of mountains met the view.”

That would have been a common sentiment about the Adirondack Mountains in 1832 – it would be decades before it became common for recreational visitors to travel into the Adirondacks. The region north of the Great Sacandaga – which lacks dramatic high mountain peaks but offers dozens of heavily forested low peaks and hundreds of remote lakes and ponds – remains the least-inhabited part of the Adirondacks.

Today, Fishhouse is underwater — but its memory lives on as the name of a county road in Providence and Broadalbin.

Henry also wrote of visiting John Fay, whom he identifies as “a former member of Congress from the county of Montgomery” as well as a friend of Alexander’s father, a grist mill operator from Schenectady.

Fay’s occupations included land surveying (which Henry had also done as a young man), agriculture, and milling. He served as postmaster in Northampton (which at the time was part of Montgomery County) and represented Montgomery County in the New York State Assembly from 1808-1809 and in 1812.

Fulton County, where the town of Northampton is now located, didn’t become a separate county from Montgomery until 1838.

Fay was elected to Congress for a single term, from 1819 to 1821. He later moved to Jefferson County, was elected sheriff, and was a presidential elector for Democrat James K. Polk in 1844.

The community where Fay lived became known as Fayville. It is also underwater now, but the name survives on Fayville Road, another county highway in the town of Providence.

At the time he wrote, Henry was hoping that the cholera outbreak would lead to the cancellation of in-person classes at the Albany Academy, though that hope was in vain.

He also remarks in the Aug. 29 letter on learning of the death from cholera of Hugh Fraser, who was an Albany superintendent of the Schenectady-Albany rail line. “(Fraser) was the last acquaintance I parted with in Albany and the unexpected news of his death affected me more unpleasantly than any death that has occurred by the cholera,” he wrote.

The outbreak subsided, and Henry returned to Albany to teach. By the end of September, he had formally been offered the position at Princeton. He accepted. His cousin Stephen, a graduate of Union College who was primarily an astronomer, joined him at Princeton that year. In 1846, they would go on to the new Smithsonian Institute together, where Henry served as its first secretary for 32 years.

In April of 1930, the gates of the Conklingville Dam closed for the first time, beginning the process of flooding 27 miles of the Sacandaga Valley to create a new body of water that would provide both recreation and power to the region. While it was already being called Sacandaga Reservoir, there was another name being considered, one that would honor the chief engineer of the project, forty-five-year-old Edward Haynes Sargent. A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sargent had started working for New York State as a surveyor in 1911. He had been involved with the reservoir project since its beginning and oversaw the construction of the Conklingville Dam.

It was a reasonable proposal to have his name attached to the body of water he had created. In an interview years after this project was completed, Sargent’s son, Edward H. Sargent, Jr., reminisced that one of his father’s favorite stories was of a state legislator who jokingly suggested that he would “be glad to see the name stick” if the engineer would cooperate by passing away. Though his name was never used, Edward Sargent lived another 20 years, passing away at the age of 69 in 1954. Engraved on his gravestone in the Edinburgh Cemetery there is a map of the reservoir he helped create.

In the months before the closing of the dam, local newspapers had been reporting the growing controversy over a name for the reservoir. During this time thousands of suggestions had been proposed, some good, and some of questionable merit. Here are some examples from Letters to the Editor published in the Gloversville Morning Herald:

I would like to suggest Hudsondaga Lake as a name. Earl Davis

Why not name it “Lake Adirondack”? A.P.W., Gloversville

“Memory Lake.” Mrs. L. W. Cole, Johnstown

For a name with a higher sounding, I suggest “Greater Sacandaga” Mrs. W. Sprung, Gloversville

“Sir William Johnson Lake” Miss Lucy J. Sinclair, Summer-house near Fish-House

In February of 1930, Tracy R. Howard of Ormond, Florida, a subscriber to the Morning Herald with property on the newly created shoreline, brought up the idea of having a formal vote for the new name. At first, the newspaper rejected the idea, pointing out both the extra work it would put on their staff, as well as the fact that naming the lake was not a decision local citizens were being offered.

When the newspaper saw that the controversy over Sargent Lake was not diminishing, on June 24th they began printing a voting coupon each day that could be sent into their office to be tallied. Offering only the choice of Lake Sacandaga or Sargent Lake, the votes that came in on the first day were 118 for Sacandaga, and none for Sargent.

At the same time as the ballots were being distributed, Frank Rogers, the manager of the paper filed an application with the state submitting “Lake Sacandaga” as the official name of the lake created by the impounding of the Sacandaga River. While the Hudson River District Regulating Board was pushing for Sargent Lake, the decision was in the hands of the New York State Department of Education’s Committee on Geographic Names. While a state law had been passed giving the Education Department authority “over the naming of mountains, and other natural features,” there were questions raised if that included artificial bodies of water such as a reservoir.

To establish the public interest in the naming of this new lake, Rogers accompanied the application with a letter to committee secretary Arnold van Laer, and also published in the June 23, 1930, Gloversville Herald, that concluded with this obvious preference for a name:

I am sending part of the clippings of communications sent to our newspapers during the period when the whole countryside took an interest in offering suggestions for names. You will find a large variety, the majority, I believe, favoring “Lake Sacandaga.” You may have noted that newspapers in Ballston, Amsterdam, Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, gave editorial comments upon the fact that “Lake Sacandaga” is the most fitting name for this body of water, Yours sincerely, The Leader Republican Herald, Frank L. Rogers, General Manager.

At the end of the first week of voting the voice of the people was clearly calling for Lake Sacandaga. Each day hundreds of ballots were coming into the newspaper office, with the tally so far being 2136 to 12. The voting closed on July 3rd with a final 380 votes placed into the hands of the Leader Herald. Soon headlines like this one from the Glens Falls Times were proclaiming “Almost Unanimous for Lake Sacandaga.” While it was certainly written to catch the reader’s eye, it expressed the truth as Lake Sacandaga amassed 3177 votes to only 19 for Sargent Lake.

It would take the State of New York six months to make a final decision, announcing in February of 1931 that the name would be Sacandaga Reservoir. With all of the talk about an Education Department committee making the decision, it seems that in reality, the final say was always in the hands of the Hudson River Regulating Board, with clear proof given in their announcement of this decision when they stated “the new reservoir will remain Sacandaga reservoir, as it has been known ever since the reservoir project was proposed.” For the next 30 years, everyone settled into calling this new body of water “Sacandaga Reservoir,” with the next proposed change again coming from the group that had chosen the first name.

On June 5, 1960, the Albany Times Union ran an article with the headline ‘Reservoir’ Name Scares Vacationers: Sacandaga Name Change Eyed. The Hudson River Regulating Board now merged into the Black River-Hudson River Regulating Board, proposed making the name “Great Sacandaga Lake,” removing the often-misunderstood designation as a reservoir. They hoped that through this change boaters, fishermen and others looking for recreation would not assume that this body of water was closed to the public like many similarly named bodies of water across the northeast.

This new name, Great Sacandaga Lake, became official in 1968 through a bill signed by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. In the announcement, the Great Sacandaga was called “one of the last and most popular unspoiled vacation lands in the Northeast.

In the 56 years that have passed since this change, this body of water has provided countless thousands with opportunity for swimming, boating, and many other forms of outdoor recreation, and through the work of so many now and in the future the Great Sacandaga Lake will continue to hold its place a premiere attraction for many generations to come.

A historic marker along the Waterford Road denotes “Leland House: Raided by French and Indians in 1748, rebuilt in 1749, later the home of revolutionary patriot John Ten Broeck 1740-1822.”

The beautiful house that stands a short distance from the marker is indeed the one that was rebuilt 275 years ago.  It was built from lumber cut right there on the farm, with bricks made from clay obtained from the soil thereon.

But just what happened and why did it happen to the family that lived on that spot and farmed what has for many years been known as the Leland Farm back in 1748?  It was a sad occurrence, but by no means an isolated incident back in the 18th century here in our area.

As settlement by countries of Western Europe grew in this so-called New World, the English and Dutch were predominant in the areas along the Atlantic Coast, but France controlled Canada to the north and the wilderness lands to the west of the English territories.  Along with the English were colonists from the Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland.  The French befriended the native peoples, and worked with them to drive the encroaching settlers from their ancestral lands.

The first recorded claimants to the lands of the Mechanicville/Stillwater/Schaghticoke area were the Mohican Indians, ruled by Uncas, who claimed ownership of the entire upper Hudson Valley starting at a point near Cohoes.  This was Uncas’ very special hunting grounds, beginning near Waterford and running all the way to Schuylerville. While Uncas may not have actually lived right here, history does place him at Schaghticoke.  But his warriors did come this way as did those of other tribes.  All the Indian trails coming out of the St. Lawrence Valley crossed here for this was known as the dark and bloody neutral grounds that separated the Iroquois Confederacy of central New York from the territory of their ancient and hereditary enemies, the Algonquins of Canada.  Throughout time, there were many savage encounters among these tribes.

Indians had planted, hunted and fished on these lands for centuries, leaving behind stone implements and arrowheads which chronicled over 1,000 years of their civilization. The first Dutch settlers came into the Upper Hudson River valley in 1714. The newcomers hewed out a half dozen log huts in a forestland near Waterford north of the river’s confluence with the Mohawk and called it Half Moon.  Within a year, 101 people had settled here.

Situated in a flat river valley, with a major north/south route passing by it, on a road that would be called the King’s Highway, or eventually the Waterford to Whitehall Turnpike, what would become known in later years as the Leland House was part of that pioneer settlement.

Major Dirk Wessels (Ten Broeck) was commissioner of Indian affairs, a mayor of Albany and a trader and merchant. He owned a one-seventh share of the Saratoga Patent.  From this patent, the Ten Broeck family had obtained 700 acres of land along the river.  The substantial house was built on that property by 1732.  Land was cleared and farmed by not just the family occupying the house, but by the black slaves they owned.  At that time, the Albany Dutch community owned many slaves.

What is now Mechanicville sat smack on the edge of “the Paradise of Hunting Grounds” known as Sa-ra-gh-to-ga. The southern boundary of the hunting grounds was a creek that ran from Round Lake to the river and was known as Tien-en-da-ho. Eventually the Mohawks, the most powerful tribe of the Iroquois confederacy, drove out the Mohicans and took over this area.

Early settlers in Mechanicville in the area of Ensign Avenue unearthed evidence of a Mohawk village along the flatlands of the river.  Another encampment was located near the powerhouse where fish were plentiful. What would become known as the French and Indian War, which would ultimately secure this part of North America as a British colony, would not begin until 1755, but raids, killings and burnings by the French and their Indian allies were commonplace throughout this area in the early to middle years of the 18th century as they attempted to drive out the encroaching trappers and settlers from Britain and the Netherlands.

So it was that in 1748, the family that was living in the house and farming the land then owned by the Ten Broecks alongside the Hudson River was attacked in the night by a band of Mohawk Indians and their French allies.  The farmer, his wife and five children were killed and scalped.  Also murdered in the raid were their five black slaves. The house was burned.

Since that fateful day, this historic house, which was rebuilt in 1749, and its accompanying farm have seen many changes.  Originally belonging to the Ten Broecks, it was then occupied by Daniel Fort, sold to Scotsman John Strachan and then passed on through marriage or inheritance to the Lelands, the Leyerles and the Stevensons. The original Ten Broeck grant comprised 700 acres, but several hundred more acres were added by Strachan, so that the farm then occupied nearly two square miles of land.  Occupants of the house that was rebuilt after the massacre, in its more than 272 years of existence, have included lawyers, government officials, educators, engineers, farmers, horticulturists and caregivers.

The land itself has over the years been much diminished as with its prime location on a major river and north/south highway, it has been given over by sale or by government claim for two railroads, two major power lines, two canals, a dam, lock and hydroelectric plant and the Saratoga County sewer plant along with a number of homes and several businesses.  The house, once known as the mansion, was converted to apartments a half-century ago and several of the barns have been converted to houses.

But some things don’t change.  There were stories passed on for many years that the ghost of a headless Dutch woman frequently appeared in a well near the Leland House.  Perhaps she was that farmer’s wife, killed and scalped by a raiding party of French and Indians in 1748.  So spooked were subsequent occupants of the home by her frequent visitations that they filled in the well.  From some reports, however, that has not kept her away.

Wilfred L. “Spike” Mailloux, a World War II combat veteran I had befriended after interviewing him for an Associated Press story a decade ago, died on May 2 in the Albany-area nursing home where he was living in the room next door to Jean Mailloux, his wife of 77 years. He was 100 years old. The Maillouxs lived for a number of years in the town of Halfmoon.

In addition to being among the nation’s dwindling number of WWII veterans, Spike Mailloux was one of the oldest known veterans of the New York Army National Guard, as well as one of the last surviving U.S. Army veterans of the Battle of Saipan, fought June 15-July 9, 1944.  And he very likely may have been the last of the American survivors of the attack launched at dawn by the Japanese on July 7, 1944, in what’s considered the largest “banzai” charge of the war.

I first met Spike in the summer of 2014 at the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs, where he and his best friend John Sidur were attending a talk on the Battle of Saipan, where the Army’s 27th Infantry Division fought alongside two Marine Corps divisions.

When I approached Spike and asked if I could ask him a few questions about Saipan, he said the only time he talked with strangers about the battle was when John Sidur was standing by his side.

It was Sidur, then a 26-year-old staff sergeant, who saved Spike’s life after finding the then-20-year-old corporal lying in a watery ditch, bleeding from a stab wound to his thigh inflicted by a knife-wielding Japanese officer.

“He found me in the mud,” Spike told me for that Associated Press story, which moved the global news agency’s national and international wires on July 7, 2014, the 70th anniversary of the banzai charge that sent an estimated 5,000-plus Japanese against a thin front line manned by about 1,100 soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 27th Division’s 105th Infantry Regiment.

When that daylong assault ended with some of the surviving Americans literally driven into the sea, more than 4,000 Japanese lay dead. The 105th was nearly wiped out, suffering 406 killed, 512 wounded and several missing in action.

Since the 27th Division was a New York National Guard organization federalized in 1940, the casualties from the July 7 attack included scores of New Yorkers, many of them from the Albany-Saratoga region. Two, Lt. Col. William O’Brien and Sgt. Thomas Baker, both from Troy, were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Spike was evacuated to a military hospital in Hawaii to recuperate. Sidur stayed with the 27th Division and fought at Okinawa, where he was wounded. After the war, both men returned to their hometown of Cohoes and landed jobs, got married and raised families.

Spike and John were best friends until Sidur passed away in January 2015, a week after his 97th birthday. With his passing Spike became the last of the original 96 men in Cohoes-based Company B of the 105th Regiment. Spike, a member of a local drum and bugle corps, was the company bugler – a real-life bugle boy of Company B.

Spike and I would meet every now and then for lunch, usually at the Halfmoon Diner, near where he and Jean were living at the time. His son, Bob, would drive him, and one or both of Spike’s great-grandsons would join us.

At first, Spike didn’t offer many details about Saipan, especially the banzai charge. Those horrific memories were still too traumatic to share, even 70-plus years later. Over time, he divulged more about his wartime experiences, although he tended to avoid talking about what happened on July 7, 1944.

While checking online records of the New York National Guard’s 1940 roster, I noticed the birthday listed for Spike – Sept. 11, 1921 — didn’t add up to his age at the time I met him. He confessed: he had added two years to his age, making him the required minimum 18 so he could enlist and get the $5 Guardsmen were paid when they showed up for weekend drills.

That money, he said, came in handy in a French Canadian family with 12 children and a father who worked two jobs to keep them fed.

I had two other occasions to include Spike in AP stories I wrote on the Saipan battle. One involved several hand-drawn portraits of fellow soldiers that a 27th Division member created in 1943 while they were training in Hawaii. After the artist veteran died, his son donated the collection to the NYS Military Museum, which was attempting to identify all the men depicted. Spike didn’t recognize any of them, but he enjoyed his visit to the museum, home to a trove of artifacts, documents and photographs chronicling the 27th Division’s WWII history.

The other story was about a new book whose author said he was inspired to write it after reading in my July 2014 AP story about how John Sidur saved a fellow soldier – Spike – from bleeding to death.

“If one person could be identified as the reason I wrote this book, John Sidur of Cohoes, New York, is that person,” Texas-based author Bill Sloan wrote at the end of his book, “Their Backs Against The Sea: The Battle of Saipan and the Largest Banzai Attack of World War II.”

The last time I saw Spike was on Sept. 11, 2023 – his 100th birthday – at the 76 Diner in Latham. Jean was there, along with son Bob and other family members spread out in several nearby booths.

When I walked up to him, he smiled and greeted me the way he always did: “There’s my buddy.”

After Bob Mailloux informed me of his father’s death, I passed the news along to the Times Union and WNYT-TV, which aired a story on Spike using photos I provided. The TU included information and images I provided in a May 7 front-page story published on the day of his burial. The headline: Real-life bugle boy from Company B, Cohoes native and Saipan survivor, dies at 100.

So long, Spike. Thanks for sharing your stories with me so I could share them with the world.

The Town of Colonie owns the Stony Creek Reservoir located in southern Clifton Park, just above Vischer Ferry.  It was completed in 1953 at a cost of $1,800,000 and covers 297 acres holding 1.4 billion gallons of water that is carried by pipes under the Mohawk river to the residents of Colonie.  The reservoir is used primarily in the late summer months when other Colonie water sources are low.  The creation of this reservoir in 1950 began a long feud between the Town of Clifton Park and the Town of Colonie.

The reservoir project was opposed by the Clifton Park Town Board and was opposed bitterly by the residents in the Vischer Ferry area, as well as by some Colonie residents.  Opponents offered the Ranney water plan as an alternative, claiming it to be cheaper and better.  This method uses a type of well driven into water bearing sand or gravel beside and below a riverbed.  The naturally filtered water is pumped to the surface, and the supply is virtually unlimited.  Proponents asserted the Ranney method could be used without crossing town or county lines and would supply more water than the reservoir at less than half the cost.

At risk were several early homes, a cemetery and a town road that would be inundated by the waters of the reservoir.  Landowners would lose valuable property along the historic Stony Creek that meandered south from Barney pond, located north of Grooms Road, to the Mohawk River at Vischer Ferry.  The State approved the project in 1951.

One of the early structures to be destroyed was a fine two-story Federal brick home built by Francis Vischer in 1813.  Chester Hall and his wife had recently completed a lengthy and comprehensive restoration.  The family cemetery where Francis Vischer and his father Nanning were buried was on a hill in back of the house.  Members of the Vischer Family as well as a few of their slaves were all buried here.  Hall named his home Vischerdaal, and its preservation became one of the rallying points against the reservoir.  Even the New York State Historical Association entered the dispute in favor of Vischerdaal.

The road that the reservoir would eliminate was a dirt road known as Van Vranken Road that crossed Crescent Road and joined Vischer Ferry Road further north where Taylor Drive now joins it.  This was the oldest road in Clifton Park dating back to the first settlement of the 1680s.  The Town of Colonie was to provide a replacement road, connecting Bonneau Road, a dead end road, by a bridge across the reservoir to Vischer Ferry Road.  This never happened, and was a bone of contention with the Clifton Park Town Board.

The residents of Vischer Ferry and the landholders around the proposed reservoir led by Alfred C. Stevens and former Town Historian, Howard Becker, signed petitions against the reservoir.  The people in Vischer Ferry were especially concerned about being below the 35- foot dam that would be created to hold back the waters of the Stony Creek.  Lawyers were hired and suites were filed, but to no avail.  Some landowners finally capitulated and sold their land to the Town of Colonie.  Others like Howard Becker and Chester Hall held off for as long as they could, and even went to court to get some resolution.  Eventually, however, the Town of Colonie prevailed and was able to purchase the needed land by eminent domain.  The courts awarded Chester Hall $47,000 for his land and historic home.

By spring of 1952 work had begun on the reservoir, the land was cleared, existing structures leveled, and construction on the dam and spillway was begun.  Finally, by the end of the year the dam and spillway were almost complete and the Stony Creek began to flood the surrounding land.  On December 6, 1952 an auction was held on the grounds of historic Vischerdaal. 

Mantels, doors and other architectural elements were offered for sale, but the total proceeds came to only $1000.  Under the terms of the auction all former bids based on portions of the home were declared void and the house went as a unit.  Dr. Edward S. Goodwin, an Albany pediatrician won the house for $3,250.  The under bidder was Earl Tinkelpaugh, an antique dealer from Cobleskill.  The house had to be moved before spring when the waters of the Stony Creek would inundate the area.  Dr. Goodwin moved the house and re-erected it on Pheasant Lane near the Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands.  Chester Hall did not attend the auction.

The Latham Water District closed the floodgates on the dam across Stony Creek in the beginning of June 1953.  By June 14 the lake began to form with a depth of 12 feet.  The waters did not quite reach the Vischer cemetery.  It was high enough to avoid being flooded, and is now on the shore of the reservoir.

As to the road that was cut off, the Town of Colonie refused to connect Bonneau Road to Vischer Ferry Road.  They claimed that a new road and bridge across the reservoir would bring people and debris, contaminating the water supply.  In January 1955 the long feud between the Town of Clifton Park and Town of Colonie over the reservoir ended.  The Latham water district of Colonie paid a settlement of $35,000 to Clifton Park to indemnify Clifton Park for the loss of the dirt road flooded by the reservoir.  The court had decided that the road was not necessary, since the homes served by the road were flooded out and if a public bridge crossed the reservoir there was the hazard of pollution.

According to the decision of the New York State Waterpower and Control Commission dated June 13, 1950, the flow in the Stony Creek at the bridge in Vischer Ferry must remain at the equivalent to 1.5 cubic feet per second.  It was also understood that those living below the dam would have water rights.

The Stony Creek Reservoir could be a wonderful recreational resource for Clifton Park.  However, today the reservoir is patrolled to keep people away.  Perhaps at some future date the water supply will no longer be necessary for Colonie and Clifton Park can acquire this piece of our town back.  It is amazing that such a scenic and placid body of water is the result of so much consternation on the part of Clifton Park residents.

Hanging at the top of the main stairs at Brookside Museum is a pair of portraits. With them is a framed brooch which contains locks of hair. These portraits are of Thomas McDonnell and his wife, Frances Halsey McDonnell, and were painted in 1852 and 1853 respectively by John G. Taggart, a New York City trained artist with a studio in Saratoga Springs. In her portrait, Frances is wearing the brooch that now hangs beside her.

But who are they? That is the question their great great great grandson and his wife, who gave us the paintings, wanted to know.

Thomas, who was born on 28th Feb, 1795, and his younger brother Robert, arrived in New York City from Ireland in 1816. By 1823, Robert was in Saratoga Springs, opening a store selling groceries and liquor in a prominent position in town, on Broadway, opposite the United States hotel. In 1827, Thomas joined his brother, became a joint owner, selling “a great assortment of groceries”, and later taking sole ownership in 1831. Over the following years, the brothers owned a succession of stores, together, or with other people.

According to the New York Daily Herald, early in the morning of June 4th, 1846, a devastating fire, “doubtless the work of an incendiary” broke out in the offices of the Saratoga Sentinel. Although “the capacious reservoirs of the United States Hotel” across Broadway were made available to the firemen, six buildings were burnt, including one owned by Thomas McDonnell. This building was occupied by a grocery store, McDonnell and Bennett, and, on the 2nd floor, by a billiard hall. His property was insured for $2000, though damage was estimated to be $3000. 

But Thomas was still doing alright. The 1855 census lists his house as worth $4500, and his neighbors at the time were Samuel Root and Gideon Putnam, both prosperous gentlemen. By 1860, the value of his real estate was $12000 with personal property valued at $15000.

Thomas and Frances married on Nov 23rd, 1828 at the Vandewater Street Church in New York City. They had 5 children, and it is the children’s hair contained in the brooch. Two children, Thomas and Maria, died young. The eldest child, Jane, married Frederick L. Root, a neighbor from Saratoga Springs. A son, James S., died, at 30 years of age, in 1870. Interestingly, Thomas’s will, written in 1864, left his estate for the use of his wife, and, after her death, to be divided between his daughters; James was not mentioned. James, together with young Thomas and Maria, is buried with their parents in Greenridge Cemetery in Saratoga Springs.

The second child, Frances, married a Greenfield lawyer, John T. Wentworth on October 4th, 1852 at her father’s house. She was described as a “beautiful and accomplished young lady”. She was certainly accomplished. Frances and her husband moved to Chicago, IL, and then to Wisconsin, finishing in Racine, WI where John worked in multiple legal positions, including as a circuit court judge. Frances threw herself into causes, including being an early advocate for the temperance movement, and a very strong proponent for women’s suffrage. In 1909, in response to a request for names for a petition to Congress in support of the Federal Suffrage Amendment, “Mrs. Wentworth, over eighty years of age … obtained 1,000 names”.

Robert and Thomas’s seemingly rapid rise to wealth in Saratoga Springs suggests that the brothers were not poor Irish immigrants. According to a Wisconsin biographical note on his grandson, Thomas was Presbyterian Irish, of Scottish descent, from Portaferry, a small coastal town in County Down, Northern Ireland. After arrival in NYC, he went to Charleston, SC, from there to Syracuse, NY, and then to Saratoga Springs, where he stayed until his death. The Charleston connection is not as unusual as it may appear. From 1750-1820 a wave of Scots Presbyterian Irish traveled to Charleston and frequently these immigrants were from wealthy backgrounds, though were probably not eldest sons.

Thomas died on February 22nd, 1866. His death announcement in the Saratogian describes him a gentleman who had “won a high reputation for integrity, promptness, order and general business capacity”, but, more importantly than that, “[h]e had a warm heart [and] his sympathies were generous”, and “his tenderness often spoke when his lips were silent”.

Frances died on December 1st, 1876. Her death notice describes “her ready sympathy and benevolence, her cordial greetings and friendship, and her genuine integrity of character, [which] secured to her affection and respect”.

Thomas and Frances appear to have been kind, generous, hardworking people. We are proud and honored to have their portraits hanging in Brookside Museum. If anyone would like to see them, please let us know.