The area at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers was one of America’s great industrial and transportation centers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Located north of the old Dutch city of Albany, this area was relatively undeveloped at the beginning of the nineteenth century except for the small Hudson River port and commercial center of Lansingburgh, now part of Troy. After the American Revolution, many New Englanders migrating westward were attracted to the region because of its strategic location at the head of navigation on the Hudson and the availability of cheap water power.

Goods being shipped overland between New England and the west were ferried across the Hudson at Troy and Greenbush, and the region developed into the hub of an excellent system of waterways. West Troy, now Watervliet, became the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal, opened to the Great Lakes in 1825. The Champlain Canal, which emptied into the Hudson River at Waterford, provided a water route to Lake Champlain and Canada. Because of the growing volume of traffic, the Erie Canal was enlarged and in some places rerouted between 1837 and 1842. The New York State Barge Canal, constructed between 1905 and 1918, replaced both the Erie and Champlain canals, with Waterford as its eastern terminus.

The first railroad in the region and the state – and one of the first in America – was the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad. Opened in 1832, it connected Albany and Schenectady. The first railroad to serve Troy, the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, was chartered in 1832, and by 1840 other lines were being constructed to Boston, New York City, Schenectady, and points west. The opening of the great Hoosac Tunnel in 1875 completed the Troy and Boston Railroad, and from then until the mid-twentieth century rail lines radiating from Troy in all directions provided cheap transportation for both raw materials and finished products, just as the canals had half a century earlier.

The founding of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer “for teaching the physical sciences with their application to the arts of life” also encouraged the area’s development as an industrial center. The first degree-granting engineering school in the country, RPI provided leadership and technical expertise for industries at the local and national levels during the nineteenth century. The major financiers and engineers associated with the construction of the trans-continental railroad, for example, had connections with either RPI or the Troy area.

Of all the major industries which developed in the Hudson-Mohawk area during the nineteenth century, the manufacture of iron products was one of the earliest and most important. Many of the iron companies initially manufactured goods related to transportation – horseshoes, ship and railroad spikes, rails, and car wheels, for example. Other companies in the region used these components to manufacture products such as wagons, railroad cars, locomotives, and boats and ships. The Gilbert Car Manufacturing Company began making railroad cars in 1841 first in Troy and then after 1853 in Green Island. Shipyards in Lansingburgh were building river craft in the eighteenth century, and the former Matton Shipyard was renowned for their canal boats, tugs, and barges in Cohoes.

It was natural for the Troy area to become a center of the iron industry because of its location and excellent transportation network. Iron ore was shipped from mines in the Hudson Valley, Adirondacks, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to blast furnaces in Troy where it was converted to pig iron. Charcoal from the region’s abundant forests was readily available. Later, coal from the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania was shipped to Troy inexpensively first along the Delaware and Hudson Canal and later on the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. Limestone for flux was readily available from the Hudson Valley, as were ample deposits of very fine molding sand for the foundry industry. The finished products were shipped by water and rail to consumers all over the United States and Canada.

The Albany Rolling and Slitting Mill, built by John Brinckerhoff and Company on the Wynantskill in 1807, was Troy’s first iron mill. It later became Corning, Winslow and Company, and under that name rolled the hull plates and other components for the Union ironclad USS Monitor during the Civil War. Also located along the Wynantskill was the Burden Iron Company, founded in 1809 as the Troy Iron and Nail Factory, and later to become famous as the world’s largest manufacturer of machine-made horseshoes (click here for further information on Henry Burden and the Burden Iron Company). The Bessemer process for the conversion of pig iron into steel was first employed in the United States at the Winslow, Griswold and Holley Company in Troy in 1865. Beginning in the 1830’s, the Hudson Mohawk area became one of the leading stove making centers in the country, with more than 200 different firms in operation over time.

Other important metal products made in the area during the nineteenth century include cannon, architectural ironwork, bells, valves, and surveying equipment. The decision to build a United States arsenal at Gibbonsville, now Watervliet, in 1812 was an important one for the industrial development of the region. The Watervliet Arsenal has remained a major manufacturer of ordinance since its founding.

Bells were made in the Troy area as early as 1809 by a number of firms founded by the Hanks, Meneely, Jones, and Hitchcock families. The region’s bells were shipped to all corners of America and around the world. The last bell company, Meneely Bell Company, operated until 1950 (click here for spreadsheet of information on all known bells cast locally). Beginning in 1866, there were four major valve manufacturers in the area which produced thousands of valves and fire hydrants each year. Today, only one firm, Ross Valve Mfg. Co., founded in 1879, is still in operation. Closely related to the development of transportation was the manufacture of scientific and surveying instruments which was commenced by the bell-making concerns, but which was turned into high art starting in 1845 by the Gurley brothers, who founded the W. and L.E. Gurley Company. The company continues in Troy as Gurley Precision Instruments.

After iron and metal products, the manufacture of textiles was the next largest industry in the Hudson-Mohawk area. Attracted by the tremendous potential of water power provided by the Poestenkill in Troy and the Cohoes Falls, textile mills sprang up in the area starting in the 1820’s.

Benjamin Marshall built a series of cotton mills along the Poestenkill beginning in 1825. The Cohoes Company, formed in 1826 by Stephen Van Rensselaer, Peter Remsen, and Hugh White, constructed a dam and elaborate power canal system to harness the power of Cohoes Falls. This project, completed in 1834, made possible the tremendous development of Cohoes as a textile center.

The Harmony Manufacturing Company of Cohoes was established in 1836 for the manufacture of woven cotton cloth and immediately began the erection of mills and worker housing. By the 1870’s the Cohoes complex of dams, power canals, mills, and housing rivaled in size even the largest in New England. One of the Harmony Mills buildings was said to have been the largest single cotton mill building in the world. In addition, a number of individually owned knitting mills were built along the power canals. Together, these textile factories employed thousands of workers, including a large community of French Canadians.

In Troy another kind of textile manufacture, the making of collars and cuffs, began in the 1820’s. By the end of the century, Troy was the “collar and cuff capital of the world,” and at one time 15,000 people – mostly women -- worked in the Troy collar shops. The major firms included Earl and Wilson; Cluett, Peabody and Company; and George P. Ide Company, with most factories located along River Street. Cluett, Peabody and Company produced shirts under the “Arrow” brand until the 1980’s.

Associated with the collar and cuff industry was the manufacturing of textile cuttings and waste into so called “shoddy” or non-woven products. Among other industries in the area were breweries, brush manufacturing, oilcloth factories, and paint companies. For many years, Lansingburgh was noted for the manufacture of brushes and oil cloth.

Ford Motor Company opened a parts plant in Green Island in 1922. The plant was served by its own hydroelectric plant on the Hudson River. Employing as many as 1,000 workers, the plant closed in 1988.

The growth of the Hudson-Mohawk area was phenomenal in the nineteenth century. It was transformed from a wilderness to a major urban area producing a great variety of goods. However, after 1900 a number of factors including labor problems, the Depression, lack of forward-looking industrial leadership, changing sources of raw materials, changing national consumer patterns, and lessening importance of water and rail transportation networks caused a general decline in the industries of the area. The region’s population peaked in 1950, and like many other places, suffered greatly from further de-industrialization in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Today some of the structures built for industry during the nineteenth and early twentieth century still exist and are proving to be a great potential resource for the revitalization of the area.

Source: Industrial Archeology in Troy, Waterford, Cohoes, Green Island, and Watervliet. Troy, N.Y.: Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, 1973.

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