Report from Executive Director Dr. Susan Ouellette

I am pleased to report that this spring the Gateway received its largest donation ever. The gift of $500,000 came to us from Peter A. Grimm and his wife, Susan Grimm, long-time supporters of the museum (Peter was our Gala Honoree in 2022). This important donation will allow the Burden Iron Works Museum to finally move forward with electrical service upgrades and the installation of an air-conditioning system. We have also expanded our paid staff with a new employee, Kristen Murphy, who has joined us part-time. Finally, we look forward to a number of other projects which will improve and expand our exhibit spaces and archives.

While we were honored and humbled by this generous gift, we also want to celebrate the long relationship that we have had with the Grimms. Over time, their generosity made it possible to acquire and enhance the museum’s collections as well as to restore the building. In 1999, the Knowlson and Kelly steam engine made in Troy currently in the museum gallery was installed in part through their generosity. The steam engine was shipped from its location in Ohio and stored on Grimm property. After the museum floor was structurally prepared for its weight, the steam engine was then transferred to the museum. In 2017, the Grimms helped the museum purchase an important collection of Gurley instruments from the estate of former Gateway president William Skerritt. In 2022, another substantial donation funded the transfer and installation of an 1896 Edison direct current generator from the old Ludlow Valve site in Troy to the museum grounds. This project involved pouring a foundation, rigging and transporting the generator, and installing it on the new foundation.

That same year, in anticipation of the demolition and restoration of the museum’s main entry steps, the Grimms underwrote the restoration of the paymaster steps and entrance door as well as the painting and repair of what has now become the Precision Instrument Room. Our 2023 and 2024 visitor seasons would not have been possible without their generosity.

Now in 2025, Peter and Susan Grimm’s latest gift will allow us to address a series of upgrades to the museum. We will restore the decorative iron work and install a brass railing at the paymaster’s entrance to match the grant-supported ones at the east entrance. We will tackle the last of the failing plaster in the “old library” space, which will become our main administrative office. Other projects that we intend to undertake are an overhaul of the existing men’s restroom, window coverings in the main gallery to protect our exhibits, and a few other smaller projects in the main gallery. Most important will be the HVAC improvements and electrical upgrades to the building – all necessary changes that will move the museum into the 21st century.

The World’s Most Powerful Waterwheel – But Just How Powerful?

At 60 feet tall by 22 feet wide and with 36 water buckets, the 1851 overshot water wheel powering the original Burden Iron Company works in Troy, New York, is believed to be the most powerful vertical water wheel ever built. It is not the tallest; that honor belongs to the Lady Isabella wheel on the Isle of Man; this wheel is 72½ feet tall but only 6 feet wide.

Although claims have been made that the Burden water wheel generated as much as 1,200 horsepower, it probably generated around 500 horsepower.

The challenge of calculating the exact power output of the wheel attracted the attention of generations of students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute located in Troy. In the late 19th century RPI seniors were required to complete an academic project or thesis. At least two students chose the Burden wheel for their project. It was fairly close to campus and still operating, so they could observe and measure it. In addition, F.R.I. Sweeney, an engineer who graduated from RPI, studied the wheel and published his observations in 1915 in the journal Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers (later reprinted by the Society for Industrial Archeology).

The two students, E.F. Carbonell, Class of 1875, and J.F. Echevarria, Class of 1884, used similar approaches based purely on physics and mechanics. Their calculations included such factors as the flow of water, the weight of falling water, the capacity of the 36 buckets, the gravitational constant at Troy’s latitude, and friction losses, among others. All the calculations were done by hand. They came to generally similar conclusions: Carbonell calculated the wheel’s power at 473 horsepower and Echeverria came up with 392 horsepower. Both estimated the efficiency of the wheel at 70% -80%.

Sweeny took a different methodological approach but arrived at a similar result. He calculated the maximum power of the wheel at 482 horsepower, but said in normal operation it produced 282 horsepower. He said the wheel operated at 84% efficiency.

How Sweeney managed to have his article on the water wheel published in 1915, the year he graduated, is not clear. His senior thesis was “The design for hydraulic development using the old state dam in Cohoes, New York,” but he wrote an article on “The Old Burden Water Wheel” for the May 6, 1915, issue of the RPI student newspaper The Polytechnic. After graduation Sweeny ran his own consulting engineering company before becoming chief engineer for the South Carolina Public Service Company.

The Burden Iron Company ceased operating at the site powered by the big water wheel in 1895 and moved all production to the steam-powered mill built along the Hudson in 1862. The water wheel was decommissioned but remained standing for nearly 20 years. It collapsed in 1914 and was demolished in the 1930s.

The Burden water wheel is widely viewed as the inspiration for the first Ferris wheel, constructed for the 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago, where it was a huge success. The designer of the Ferris wheel, George Washington Gale Ferris, graduated from RPI in 1881.

We wish to thank Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Archives and Special Collections for their assistance with this article.

The Blue Factory on Blue Factory Road

A few miles west of Troy there is a road in the Town of Poestenkill puzzlingly called Blue Factory Road. What was this factory that gave its name to the road? It turns out that for about 100 years on this road there was a factory that made a blue chemical dye, or more specifically, Prussian blue.

Blue Factory Road, Poestenkill, New York

The operation seems to have begun in the early 19th century. Why it was started on a backwoods farm in Poestenkill is not known. It had several owners before Samuel Davis, formerly an employee, took over the business about 1820. The business was inherited by his son and then his grandson, and continued until the mid-1920s. The Davis family also farmed.

Prussian blue was used as a textile dye, for finishing patent leather to give it a high shine, and for layout dye in machine shops. Although it would seem logical that Prussian Blue would have been used to dye the Civil War uniforms of Union soldiers (the color and timing are correct), there are no records to confirm this. It appears that the factory’s production was shipped to an agent in New York City for resale.

According to a 1914 story in the Troy Daily Times, “There is no other establishment of the kind in this section and but few in the country and it may therefore be regarded as one of the many industries particular to Rensselaer County. … The output of the Davis plant is considered second to none in the market and the blueing is in great demand.” A 1904 report by the New York State Department of Labor said that the factory “turned out annually $4,500 worth of Prussian blue.”

The manufacturing process for Prussian blue is not obvious and it is probable that the founders of the factory had some knowledge of chemistry or previous experience making the product. Prussian blue is a compound of iron and cyanide. One of the intermediate steps involved heating an obnoxious mixture of potash with animal parts (blood, flesh, hooves, hides, leather) and leaching out a solution called blood lye that was basically a solution of potassium cyanide. (This is not a process that would have been welcome in a city environment.) A second intermediate product was iron sulfate. The raw materials – potash, animal parts, and iron from pyrite – were all available locally.

Today, the original house once occupied by the Davis family still stands on Blue Factory Road. The factory building is long gone, but some rocks on Poestenkill Creek are still dyed blue by discharges from the factory.

This article draws on an article retired chemist Ronald Bailey wrote for the Beechwood Senior Living Newsletter and from Carl Johnson’s article on the Blue Factory posted on the Hoxie local history website.

Museum to Open for the Season May 1

The Burden Iron Works Museum will open for the season on May 1. The visiting hours will be Wednesday through Friday, noon to 4 pm. The admission fee remains $10 for adults, with children free. The museum will remain open into December. If it becomes necessary to close the museum due to construction work, this information will be communicated via our website and Facebook page. We look forward to seeing you!

Newsletter - Spring 2025