Long before it became a bank, the building on Front Street was simply a house, quietly resting on land once belonging to Johannah Hawkins, a woman whose story lingers only in the faded lines of an old newspaper notice. Her property, marked by creeks and stone heaps, was a patchwork of boundaries and memories. When the land changed hands at auction in the winter of 1833, no one could have guessed it would soon anchor one of the village’s most enduring institutions, the First National Bank of Ballston Spa. Later named Ballston Spa National Bank, it is often referred to as BSNB. 

Five years later, the bank’s founders purchased that modest house and set about transforming it into a place sturdy enough to hold the community’s trust. The exterior stayed familiar, but the inside became something new: reinforced vault rooms, a front parlor turned teller counter, upper floors converted into bookkeeping and office space. Through it all, the fireplaces that remain are quiet reminders that this institution began as someone’s home.

In the 1800s, bank presidents and directors were not often bank professionals but rather business owners, lawyers, industrialists, and judges; men whose reputations served as the bank’s public guarantee. Their names lent credibility, their capital provided stability, and their influence shaped local politics and commerce. 

By the late 1830s Ballston Spa was thriving, powered by mills along the Kayaderosseras Creek, and mineral springs tourism. It was the bank’s good fortune that its first president, James Merrill Cook, was an experienced businessman and local political leader who also understood the role of financial institutions. 

Cook, a young man from a respected Ballston Spa family was eager to discover the world beyond his hometown and ventured to New York City, immersing himself in the bustling world of business. When Cook returned, he didn’t simply settle back in; he poured his energy into shaping the village’s future. He served multiple terms as village president and brought the same drive to the founding of Ballston Spa National Bank, while also owning and operated cotton mills in the village. He gave the growing community a financial anchor when it needed one most. He became well regarded in the New York banking profession, and after serving as the National Bank’s president for 18 years, he became Superintendent of the State Banking Department in 1856.

In 1833, he married Anna Cady, a woman who would outlive him by more than thirty years and quietly preserve the family’s legacy. Together they raised four children: James, William, Catharine, and Anna. Only Catharine would have children of her own, marrying diplomat George Sherman Batcheller and carrying the family line to Saratoga Springs where they built the well-known Batcheller Manson.

Following the Presidency of Cook, the Thompson family left their own mark on the bank’s strength and growth. Judge John Thompson’s son, John Whalen Thompson, was himself the county Surrogate judge from 1834 to 1847 and was one of its original incorporators and directors. He became the bank’s longest serving leader until his death in 1892. His son and grandson, George Lee Thompson and George Lee Thompson Jr., each went on to serve as president, continuing a family tradition of conservancy.

Andrew S. Booth succeeded the Thompsons as president from 1896 to 1907. A skilled telegrapher who once worked for Western Union, Booth represented the blend of technical ability and community standing that defined turn‑of‑the‑century banking.

Over the years the bank’s hierarchy, presidents, vice presidents, directors, officers, clerks, and tellers, represented a wide range of respected local professionals. Their collective reputation helped build the institution’s credibility, while their work supported its daily operations and its value to the community.

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, the bank’s leadership evolved. What had once been a role reserved for prominent local figures gradually shifted to trained financial professionals, reflecting broader changes in American banking. In the modern era, presidents such as Christopher R. Dowd represent this new model; career bankers supported by directors with expertise in finance, law, and business.

In an interesting side note, for 67 years, the First National Bank of Ballston Spa issued national currency, ending in 1931. Its $1, $2, $5, $10, and $20 notes, printed by the U.S. Treasury in uncut sheets, came in various forms: brown‑back, red‑seal, and blue‑seal designs. Today, these bills are prized by collectors, tangible reminders of the bank’s long federal charter.

The bank’s own story was later chronicled by Ruth W. Roerig, a Malta historian and former vice president. Her book The History of Ballston Spa National Bank 1838-1988 preserved not only the institution’s history but also the stories of the people who shaped it. Roerig herself broke barriers, becoming the first woman to serve as president of the American Institute of Banking and remaining an active community leader through her work with the Malta Planning Board and the Daughters of the American Revolution. This article owes much to Ruth’s legacy.

In 2026, BSNB begins a new chapter in its history by joining forces with the National Bank of Coxsackie. The merger is a partnership – two long‑standing community banks recognizing they could serve their neighbors better together. Coxsackie kept its familiar name as a division of BSNB, while customers served by both institutions will gain a wider network and stronger resources. Much like Cook’s original vision, the merger created a larger, more resilient community bank that still holds tight to its local roots.

From its humble beginnings in a converted house on Front Street, Ballston Spa National Bank grew alongside the village, quietly anchoring generations of families and welcoming newcomers. Its story is woven into the very fabric of Ballston Spa; a testament to resilience, adaptation, and the enduring spirit of a community built by those who believed in the power of local institutions. And as you walk past its doors or see its name on a street sign, you’re not just passing a bank, you’re stepping into a living piece of history, one that continues to touch lives, including yours and mine, with every passing day.

On Friday, August 30 in 1805, a man called Matthew Prendergast set off on horseback from Sharon, Connecticut. Matthew was about 50 years old, a resident of Amenia in Dutchess County, just across the state line from Sharon. He was comfortably well off, but definitely not super rich, and he suffered from rheumatism. He had a few errands to do on the way, but he was planning on heading north and taking the waters at Ballston Springs, where he had visited in the past. He took his time, stopping several times, including Kinderhook, Albany and Troy. He also checked out the “Stupendous fall of Water” at Cohose (sic), back to Waterford, and finally the road to the Springs which was “principally very Sandy and hard Travelling for a Horse”. Matthew finally arrived at the relatively new Aldridge Tavern in Ballston Springs on the evening of Tuesday, September 3. 220 years later, Aldridge’s still exists and is now the home of the Saratoga County History Center at Brookside Museum.

How do we know all this? In 2024, the museum was fortunate to be able to purchase his 1805 journal, describing his travels. It is a small book, only about 40 pages long, but provides wonderful, first person, information on what life was like for visitors to Ballston Springs, as Ballston Spa was first called.

Matthew was meticulous in recording his expenses, the cost of every cup of water, the cost of boarding for him and his horse, even the cost of writing paper and needles, and the tips he paid employees. Although the US dollar was the official national currency by 1805, and Matthew refers to “dollars” and “$”, prices were still expressed in effectively pounds, shillings and pence, with twelve pennies to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound. Matthew kept a very careful tally of his expenses, and his 8-week, 364½ mile trip, cost him $16.17.10.

Matthew was not impressed with Aldridge’s Tavern. “[T]he boarders were principally Gentry being no Company for me and the Charges so enormously high”, so he opted to leave and move to David Cory’s, about half a mile away, where he had stayed before. It certainly appears as though Aldridge’s was pricy. Matthew quotes $6 a week, as opposed to $4 at Corys. Aldridge’s charged 20/ a week “for a Horse to hay”, but Cory’s was only “6/ for pasturing”. Quite a difference, and Matthew was much happier there. He found the people “Clean and decent” and considered the location of the house, on higher ground, to be “more healthy that any of the flat low and damp Situations near the Springs”.

At Corys, Matthew “drank freely of the Waters, buying a pint mug for 9 [cents], and paying 8/ “for the use of what they call the pump Room, a long and commodious building over the Spring to drink the waters and to walk in”. They also had a “desent (sic) upper room to sit in” and supplied Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Albany papers for their guests to peruse.

Matthew seemed to enjoy the use of the newspapers, and devoted several entries to copying out stories. He seemed particularly interested in gruesome stories, at least if the entries of Tuesday, September 10th are anything to go by. In the margin of the 8 pages of his journal devoted to that day, where he retold tales from the papers or from other guests are titles “About Arnold Petitioners” (which was referring to a gruesome murder by Stephen Arnold in Otsego County of his 6-year-old adopted daughter in January, 1805), “Extraordinary Murder of a Child” and “Horrid Murder of a British Officer”. Other days give us “A Melancholy Accident”, “Yellow Fever in NY” and “Extraordinary Deaths”. To lighten the mood, he did include some articles on health, and a few delightful words on “The Character of Women written on the ceiling of the San Souci Springs Walking room with pencil”.

Matthew noted the weather each day, and also described how he spent his days. On Sunday, September 8th, he, along with David and Jemima Cory, he visited the Presbyterian Meeting “3 miles Northwesterly from Cory’s”. He was very impressed with the quality of the singing, as well as the sermon of the minister, Mr. Mcabe, who he had met a few days earlier at Cory’s.

He didn’t spend all of his time in Ballston Springs, and did venture out on some tourist excursions, including a few nights away to Schenectady (“an Insignificant City very few Elegant Buildings [but] “they have a Magnificent Collidge”) and out to the Albany Glass Works. He shares a very detailed description of how this industry made squares of glass for windows and how the company had built a small town, including “4 or 5 houses of entertainment”, for its workers. On Tuesday, September 24th, he travelled the 8 miles to Saratoga Springs, where he “drank pretty freely of the Rock Spring which is pretty much the same quality as the Ballston Springs”. However, he also drank “6 or 8 glasses” from the Congress Spring, which he noted were “much Stronger of Salts than any of the Springs I have yet tasted”, and, somewhat graphically, “it purge[d] like a large Portion of Glaubers Salts”!

On October 9th, Matthew left Ballston Springs for a few more nights in Saratoga Springs, before setting off towards home a week later.

Two years later In 1807, Matthew and his family moved to western New York along with his brother James, who founded the village of Jamestown. Matthew became the first Town Supervisor of the town of Chautauqua, and eventually died there, in 1838, at the ripe old age of 81.

Having this treasure at Brookside Museum, to have a first-person description of life as a tourist in 1805 is truly a gift. We have early reviews of local establishments, including our very own Aldridge’s Inn, and, for this Brit at least, interesting to see the spellings of “labourer“, “favourite” and “neighbour”, because of course, this American document was written before Noah Webster’s first dictionary was published in 1806.

The United States Patent Commission was created on April 10, 1790 to establish a formal method for submitting and indexing patents. Its first three members were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. As only three people made up the early patent office, the first applications were not closely examined. An inventor simply submitted a written description, a working model, and a $30 fee (equivalent to about $1,000 today). 

For over 25 years, the patents were stored in a building known as Blodgett’s Hotel, also the site of the General Post Office. A bizarre series of incidents at the hotel would irreparably damage a part of American history. That December was a particularly cold one in Washington D. C., so Patent Office employees had a large pile of wood stored in the basement to warm the building. Unfortunately, they also had a habit of storing ashes in the cellar hallway despite being warned against that dangerous practice. In the early morning of December 15, 1836, these ashes somehow set the wood on fire, and the cellar quickly became engulfed in flames. The fire station was called, but the pump was frozen from the cold, and the leather hose had disintegrated from disuse. A bucket brigade was formed, but it was too late. All of the patents and models were destroyed.

Although indexes from private collections have allowed the Patent Office to reconstruct a listing of nearly all the lost patents, most of the actual copies were lost forever. Congress acted to attempt to restore the patents from private collections and the inventors themselves, but only about 3,000 were recovered. These were given an “X” designation to distinguish them from patents issued after 1836 and are commonly called the “X-patents.”  

The Great Fire of 1836 was devastating to the early patent record of Saratoga County. Of the 54 X-patents issued, 34 were destroyed by the fire, including 22 out of the first 25. Four additional patents contain the drawings only, as the text has been lost, while in two others the drawings have been lost. The county’s first patent was one of those that could not be replaced, issued on April 2, 1810 to Jonathan Minor of Saratoga Springs for a water wheel. Others destroyed by the fire include Daniel Newell’s “Machine for Shaving and Dressing Shingles” (Saratoga, 7/26/1810), John Bryan’s “Manufacturing Hats” (Saratoga, 8/26/1815), Eliakim Cory’s “Stove” (Milton, 5/30/1816), and John Gue’s “Machinery for Windmills” (Waterford, 12/31/1822). 

The Town of Waterford possesses the most X-patents with 19, while Saratoga Springs comes in second with 10. Surprisingly, the Town of Galway is third with nine patents, all of which were submitted before 1830. None of Galway’s patents survived the Patent Office fire. The Town of Milton had four X-patents, of which one survived – Oliver Davidson’s “Door Spring,” issued on March 30, 1835. The towns of Wilton and Stillwater each have two X-patents, while the towns of Greenfield, Malta, Moreau, Clifton Park, Northumberland, Corinth, Charlton, and the Village of Schuylerville each have one. A few of those that survived intact are James McGregor’s “Planning Machine” (Wilton, 8/28/1833), George Tibbets’ “Water Cistern” (Jamesville, 12/30/1833), Valentine Brown’s “Canal Lock Indicator” (Clifton Park, 5/14/1836), and Isaac Norton’s “Thrashing Machine” (Schuylerville, 1/6/1831). One of the so-called “fractional” patents exists – Samuel Allen’s “Thrashing Machine” (Saratoga, 4/3/1835). Fractional patents arose when some of the original X-patents were left out of the sequence, and so to keep them in chronological order, newly-discovered patents were inserted between patent numbers. Therefore, Allen’s patent became number X8737½. 

The loss of more than half of the X-patents is particularly difficult when they are historic in nature. John F. Rogers of Waterford was a pioneer in creating new firefighting apparatus and had submitted two patents that were both lost. One was a “Forcing and Suction Pump” dated February 27, 1833, and the other was for an improved “Forcing Pump” dated March 30, 1836. Despite the fact that Joel Farnam was one of Stillwater’s greatest inventors with five patents, for some reason he did not provide the Patent Office with another copy of his own forcing pump. The only X-patents of Moreau, Charlton, Corinth, Northumberland, and Malta have also never been recovered.

Jedidiah Beckwith’s machine for boring timber is the earliest Saratoga County patent that survives completely intact. Beckwith’s invention was submitted in Saratoga Springs and accepted on December 21, 1830. The book Repertory of Patent Inventions describes the tool: “A frame is made having two uprights, like those of a standing press. A cylindrical vertical shaft fits and turns freely in holes at the top and bottom of the sliding frame; the augers or bits, with which the boring is to be performed, are adapted to the lower end of the shaft. By means of a handle, motion is given to the vertical wheel.”  

Beckwith also patented a rotary pump on April 16, 1831 and a double-acting metallic pump on December 27, 1833, making him the county’s most prolific early inventor. He must have provided the Patent Office with copies of his patents after the fire, since all three survived in their entirety. 

Samuel Allen of Saratoga Springs patented a pulley system for increasing the power generated from a farm horse. Oliver Davidson of Ballston Spa submitted that village’s earliest surviving patent on March 30, 1835 for a door spring. Valentine Brown submitted Clifton Park’s only X-patent on May 14, 1836, which fortunately survives to this day. His canal gate signal employed “vertical rows of friction rollers parallel to each other and embedded in the inner side of the uprights of the main gate.” 

Brown’s patent and John Drummond’s grain cutter were two of the last to be accepted before the fire. A few months later all 10,000 patents and their irreplaceable models were gone. Perhaps we should be grateful that 14 of the pre-1836 patents survive completely intact with drawings and text, but to historians this is little consolation.

Saratoga: super bowl of chips

Saratoga Springs has improved the American historical cultural canon through the years, especially in the area of food, which might be something to consider as you plan on attending your next Super Bowl party.

One thinks immediately of the club sandwich which Mr. Canfield developed in his casino, so players did not need to leave his Faro tables to refresh themselves.

I am not sure where you stand on the long running ‘Saratoga Potato Chip Debate,’ or whether you deem this be legend or perhaps upstate myth. The best part about folk tales is that no one will really ever know what actually happened in Moon’s Lake House.

The undeniable fact is George Crum certainly was a Saratoga Lake pioneer in many ways, and that he was a very successful man of business, having built a “shrine of rare cooking.” One of the reasons for the chip mystery might be quintessential to chefs from the beginning of time; never reveal your secret recipe. I am not sure if any potato chip investigators have looked into “the fact that they were made from a peculiar variety of potatoes, the like of which nobody else raised,” but that quote certainly adds merit to a prodigious legend.

I have long ascribed to a deep-seated personal theory, that rather than Commodore Vanderbilt being the influence behind the creation of the potato chip, that it was instead the notorious prankster John McBain Davidson, whose rather unusual middle name is often misspelled. “Ole John McB,” built the fine cottage which still graces 203 Union Avenue, and was one of pugilist turned Congressman Morrissey’s partners in founding the Saratoga Race Course.

Mr. Davidson was known for his mischievous sense of humor and would take practical jokes to the extreme. Mr. Crum had long been in Mr. Davidson’s employ as a wilderness guide and cook. My theory is that George Crum created a salty retribution potato chip snack on one of Mr. Davidson’s Adirondack camping trips, which would have required mass quantities of certain beverages to slake his victim’s thirst. Just a theory, which is more fun than serious, and we can all have our own. After all, Evelyn Barrett Britten in her legendary Chronicles of Saratoga wrote, “Much confusion exists in stories of the origin of Potato Chips.” She wasn’t kidding, and that’s what makes it so much fun!

Whether feeding famished fans of the Seahawks or Patriots, raise a glass and a chip and enjoy a fine tradition.

In September of 1876, a group of men led by a reporter from a Saratoga newspaper, visited the Saratoga County Poor House in Ballston Spa. Their purpose was to meet a “centenarian” who was there under the charge of Keeper of the Poor House George D. Story. The person they hoped to visit that day was a 102-year-old ex-slave named Samuel Rumples. We are fortunate that this unnamed reporter wrote about their time with Samuel, and that his account of the meeting was published in the September 26, 1876, edition of the Saratoga Sentinel. 

Samuel had been born as a slave into the household of Nicholas Fort of Halfmoon in 1775. While no written record of Samuel’s birth or his years as a slave has been found, according to the Federal Census, Nicholas Fort did own three slaves in both 1790 and 1800. 

Nicholas Fort established a rope ferry across the Mohawk River in Saratoga County in 1728, and there established the hamlet of Fort’s Ferry. This community lasted until about 1907, when work being done to build the Barge Canal raised the water level, making the location uninhabitable. 

New York was the eighth state to begin the process of ending slavery within its borders. It was a gradual process that began with children born after July 4, 1799, to enslaved mothers in New York being born free. Unfortunately, these young men and women had to stay with their mothers’ owners until they reached twenty-five if female and twenty-eight if male. For those born before 1799, freedom would not come until 1827. 

As Samuel Rumples was born in 1775, his release from slavery did not come until his 52nd year in 1827. In 1830, a free African American named Samuel Rumpus is found in the Halfmoon Federal Census. In this family are one male under 10 years of age, a man and woman between 36 and 53, and a man and woman over fifty-five. 

 In 1831, Samuel Rumpus, Jr., purchased a 2-acre parcel in Halfmoon for $150, and five years later, with his last name spelled Rumpas on the deed, he sold it for a profit of $73. It was in June of 1843 that Rumpus again purchased property in Halfmoon, Saratoga County. This time, he paid two hundred and forty dollars for a one-acre parcel that sat along the north side of the Mohawk River between the road leading to Fonda Ferry and the Erie Canal. The Fonda Ferry was adjacent to what is today the Crescent Bridge, where Route 9 crosses the Mohawk River. In 1846, Samuel, this time with his name spelled Rumpuss and using an X mark to sign his name, sold the property.

While Samuel talked with his visitors, he told of a time in his life that he had “amassed quite a small property,” but had lost it all through a friend’s fraudulent actions some thirty years earlier. From Saratoga County Supreme Court records, the truth of this matter is revealed.

In the 1840s, Rumples made a verbal agreement with Sarah Freligh to pay $400 plus interest “within a reasonable time” to purchase property along what is now Moe Road in Clifton Park. For over ten years Rumples lived on the property, and during that time he never paid any of the principal and only a small portion of the interest on this contract. 

With Rumples not fulfilling his agreement to purchase the land, in 1855, Sarah sent her niece’s husband, Nicholas Philo, to collect payment, and to inform Rumples that if he would not pay, the property would be sold. As Samuel Rumples did not pay the amount owed, in 1856, the property was sold to Eber Mills. 

At that time, the new owner agreed to rent the house and a small piece of surrounding property to Rumples for twelve dollars a year. After a year went by with Rumples not paying any of the rent owed to Mills, and likely because he was facing eviction from the property, he brought legal action against the previous and present owners of the property. Two years later, C. A Waldron was appointed as the referee to decide the case by the Saratoga County Supreme Court. It was in May of 1858 that Waldron announced his decision. First, he gave Samuel Rumples thirty days to pay the $429 due on the verbal contract he originally made with Sarah Freligh, as well as $35 in court costs. 

In the second part of the decision, Rumples was given the option to buy the portion of the property he had been renting from the present owner of the property, Eber Mills, by paying within thirty days, $408.25 plus court costs of $108.25. If Rumples did this, Mills would be required to grant him a “good and sufficient” deed to the property. There is no record that Rumples ever complied with these decisions. 

After this loss, Samuel Rumpus stayed in Saratoga County, with 1865 census records listing 85-year-old Samuel, and his 79-year-old wife Nancy living in Clifton Park. Sometime between 1865 and when he was interviewed in 1876, Samuel Rumple’s wife Nancy passed away, he lost his eyesight and found his way to the County Poor House in Ballston Spa. When the reporter and his friends talked with Samuel, his memory was growing dim, but he still could clearly remember his life with the Fort family, even recalling his old master, Nicholas Fort, who by then had been gone for over 50 years, as “the best man he ever seen.” 

The poor house where Samuel was living when he received his visitors was only three years old, having been built to replace the original building on the property in 1873. It was a two-story brick building with wings for both men and women. The visitors that day found the building to be as neat as a well-ordered hotel, making it difficult to realize that it was even an almshouse. At the time of their visit, the poor house held one hundred and twenty-five inmates. 

As the sun set, the men visiting Samuel Rumple bid their farewells and set off for home. 

While no date of death or place of burial was recorded for Samuel Rumples, thanks to this reporter and the Saratoga Sentinel, his story of embracing freedom after slavery has been preserved, and he will not be forgotten. 

On a cold December night in 1906, when the Champlain Canal still bisected the village of Mechanicville, a 61-year-old woman living alone in a second-floor apartment on Canal Street heard a cry for help.  Going out onto her porch overhanging the not-yet-frozen waterway, she saw a man floundering in the stagnant water.  She leaped over the railing into the canal below and swam to the man’s side.  Her cries for help, along with his, did bring help and the man’s life was saved.

Who was this courageous woman who put her life on the line for a total stranger? She was called “Mrs. Cats” by neighborhood children because she kept at least 40 of the creatures as well as a squirrel in her home. A reclusive woman, she had few friends, and her life before Mechanicville and Stillwater was completely unknown to the neighbors amidst whom she had lived off and on for around 30 years. After her heroic dive into the canal, she went back to her houseful of cats and her solitary existence. Mrs. Cats died eleven years later, alone on Canal Street, on April 17, 1917.  She was cremated and her ashes entombed at Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.

What was then known of Annie Blanche Scott Sokalski was that she was a widow but all she would ever say about her late husband was that he was a true gentleman and a hero of the Civil War. She had cared for a friend, Kate Hewitt of Stillwater, whose fiancé, General John Reynolds, had died at Gettysburg, until Kate’s death.  She had for a time tutored the children of a family in Hemstreet Park.  A member of St. Luke’s Church, she was gifted on the piano, and her neighbors, the Leylands, let her play their piano. She had directed an operetta, “Red Riding Hood”, at the Academy in Stillwater.  She had supported herself selling bicycles in Stillwater and Mechanicville, and later became a door to door peddler. It was a meager existence, a lonely life, a hard life for a woman alone.  It would be half a century before the rest of Annie Sokalski’s story would be known. 

Annie was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1845 to the wealthy, slave-owning Scott family.  She was well-educated and sang in her church choir.  She also played the organ at church, and unlike most genteel southern belles, she could ride a horse as well as a man could.

When the War Between the States broke out, the Scotts supported Arkansas’ secession from the Union, and Annie’s uncle and cousin became officers in the Confederate Army. After Ulysses S. Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863, Union troops moved into Little Rock and occupied the capital city for the duration of the war. One of the officers in the occupation was Captain Sokalski.

George O. Sokalski, a career military man was born in Troy and had graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1861, a classmate of George Armstrong Custer Somehow, in the midst of war, Annie met the young captain and the two fell in love.  Two days after Christmas in 1864, the 19-year-old girl and the Yankee officer were married in Little Rock.  Three days later, Sokalski was ordered to the frontier.  Annie, disowned by her family for marrying the enemy, went west with him.

Annie embraced the frontier life.  She acquired thirteen hunting dogs.  Her two favorites were named Romeo and Juliet. She learned to shoot a gun and became an expert marksman.   She was a better rider than most cavalrymen. The story goes that soon after the war had ended, dressed in wolf skins and wearing a riding habit with wolf tails hanging from her skirt, she galloped across the parade ground at Fort Kearney past a stunned General William Tecumseh Sherman who thought she was an Indian. 

Sokalski, who had been promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel, was next sent to Post Cottonwood in Nebraska Territory.  He was a highly-regarded young officer, experienced in all phases of combat, having served in 56 engagements in the war, but he was a bit of a hothead. Being a West Point trained officer, he resented being under the command of officers who had come up as volunteers and political appointees. He soon got himself in trouble for insubordination and was court-martialed.

On May 1, 1866 Sokalski’s trial began.  He would plead his own case, assisted by his feisty young wife.  The case went on for 8 days, but when the time came for Annie to take the stand on her husband’s behalf, the judge declared her incompetent to give evidence.  The case was lost. Sokalski was dishonorably discharged on July 10.  After an appeal was rejected, he lost heart.  But Annie was not about to give up.  She appealed by every means available to her, and on October 26, her husband was reinstated as a cavalry officer.  The success was not to be enjoyed, however, for the 27-year-old colonel died several weeks later at Fort Laramie in Dakota Territory and was buried there.

But not for long.  With no fanfare, Annie took her husband’s body home to Troy in a covered wagon.  She had him buried in Mount Ida Cemetery, but she told no one.  She returned to Little Rock where she taught school, but, rejected by her family, she left Arkansas and moved to this area in the mid 1870’s, living in Stillwater and Mechanicville for most of the next forty years.  She tended to her many cats, occasionally made beautiful music on the Leylands’ piano and peddled trinkets door to door.

The story of Annie Sokalski came to light largely through the efforts of Major General Charles G. Stevenson, working for the Polish National Alliance in the 1960’s.  With the approaching centennial of the end of the Civil War, the PNA was anxious to find the true burial site of Colonel Sokalski, who had been the first officer of Polish descent to graduate from West Point Military Academy.  . Thanks to meticulous research and some persistent physical searching, the colonel’s gravesite was finally found in Mt. Ida by a young boy scout who was part of the party searching the cemetery for the grave.

Annie’s ashes were removed from the vault at Oakwood and brought to Mt. Ida on September 11, 1965.  In a proper and fitting ceremony honoring Colonel Sokalski, and with prayers offered by Rev. Robert G. Field of St Luke’s Church, Annie Blanche Scott Sokalski finally rejoined the true love of her life.

The story of this fiercely independent woman of incredible courage and commitment, a giver of self, a humble and unassuming one-time southern belle who died alone at home alongside the canal in downtown Mechanicville, begs us to wonder . . . do we ever really know our neighbors?

Sources:“The Gentle Tamers: Women of the Old Wild West” by Dee Brown; Newspaper articles by Harold Sheehan: The Saratogian, April 29, 1963, July 11,1965, and January 16, 1972; The Schenectady Gazette, November 21, 1981;