Following the old railway from Valatie to Electric Park

Before beginning our walk along the route of the Albany and Hudson electric railway, we looked at a timetable from February, 1906. Trains left Albany (24 State Street, opposite Post Office) daily at 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:30 p.m.

Trains left Hudson (N.Y.C. Passenger Station) daily at 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:10 p.m.

Locals stopped at all 17 stations, which were no more than one to three miles apart, except for six miles between Hudson and Stottville and four miles between North Chatham and Nassau. The cars took two hours to traverse the entire route, which is not surprising considering the frequency of the stops.

The following stations were listed in the timetable:

Albany
Hudson
Stottville
Stockport Center
Rossman
Stuyvesant Falls
Kinderhook
Valatie
Niverville
Electric Park
North Chatham
Nassau
Garrisons
East Schodack
East Greenbush
Clinton Heights
Rensselaer

An express train left Hudson at 9:30 a.m. and returned from Albany at 4:30 p.m. daily, making stops at Stottville, Kinderhook, Valatie, Electric Park, and Nassau, and stopped if signaled at Stockport Center, Roseman, Stuyvesant Falls, Niverville, North Chatham, East Schodack, East Greenbush, and Clinton Heights.

We decided to walk the route in stages, starting in the middle at Valatie. Directly behind the Valatie depot can be found a dirt road which follows the powerline that marks the entire route. This can also be accessed from Rathbone Avenue, behind the Cumberland Farms store.



Nearly hidden in the woods, about a hundred feet from the depot, are the ruins of Nathan Wilde's 1828 mill. The dam which once supplied waterpower to the village's many industries is now broken, and the water rushes from the mill pond down toward Kinderhook creek a few hundred feet to the south.

One of the first artifacts of the railway that we found was a spike, one of many scattered when the rails and ties were torn up sometime after 1929.




A little further on, we saw evidence that National Grid has been hard at work felling trees which threaten the lines. After we passed the Ichabod Crane Schools property, we found the road crew and had an interesting conversation about the old route and took a look at the electric line maps that the crew used.



Our pleasant stroll was interrupted when we found that the railway bridge over Valatie Kill had long since been destroyed. This required extensive backtracking and we went to Niverville on the other side of the creek. Here the route remains very visible and we headed toward the location of Electric Park, two miles away, according to the timetable.


The amusement park, opened by the railway company by 1901, was on the shores of Kinderhook Lake, which was formed by a dam across Valatie Kill. The lake is surrounded by private homes and summer camps, and is not accessible to the public except by a state fishing site at the dam on route 28.

On Electric Park Road, by the side of the lake, we met a woman walking her dog who pointed out the location of the park's carousel in the middle of a pond. She said that when the water was low, the pilings on which the carousel stood are clearly visible.



She also directed us to a stone archway that was once part of Electric Park.



We imagined the happy throngs who poured through this arch a hundred years ago, amid the music of the carousel and the dance hall. There is an interesting little history of the park, published in 1990 by The Kinderhook Lake Corporation, Box 53, Niverville, NY 12130, and also available at the Columbia County Historical Society. According to the book, which contains many photos of the park in its heyday, the carousel and a roller coaster were built on piles in the lagoon. There were also two ferris wheels, a bowling alley, a bathing beach, and a chute into the lake similar to those found in water parks today.

Alcohol was prohibited at Electric Park, but boats were rented, which could be rowed out to taverns on two nearby islands. The theater "began by featuring opera but soon changed to refined vaudeville shows, in keeping with the lighter entertainment of the park."Then we remembered the terrible tragedies within the first few years of the park's existence which took seven lives and left scores injured.

It is easy to be nostalgic for a past of carousels and crackerjacks, not to mention carbon-free transportation, but the reality is that our pleasures are often mixed with pain and loss, a hundred years ago no less than today. Within the first few years of the park's existence, two wrecks on the electric train line took seven lives and left scores injured, and in both cases on weekends when crowded and frequent trolleys carried hundreds to Electric Park from Albany and Hudson.

An old postcard of Electric Park

Update May 12:

Last year the Town of Kinderhook formed a Trail Committee to pursue development of recreational trails in the town, including a section along the National Grid right-of-way between Valatie and Niverville, the section described in this article. The trail would require rebuilding the old railway bridge across Valatie Kill, pictured above.

A public information session on the proposed trail will be held at the Ichabod Crane Middle School Learning Center on May 19, 2009 at 7:00 pm.


Update June 5:

Governor Patterson’s office issued a press release on April 2, 2009 announcing funding of more than $81 million in federal funds for non-traditional transportation projects. These funds derive from the Obama administration’s recently passed Transportation Enhancement Program (TEP), with some additional funds allocated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

The initiative will provide $552,936 for the Kinderhook Recreational Trail, Phase II, in the Town of Kinderhook, Columbia County, which will encompass the section of the old Albany & Hudson route described in this entry of Upstate Earth.

Waterpower in Valatie

Kinderhook Creek in Valatie

When the first Dutch settlers came to this corner of Columbia County in New York state around 1650, they took advantage of the ample water power to establish mills for the grinding of grain and production of lumber. In the early 1800s the industrial revolution initiated in New England came here when the English-born Nathan Wild built cotton mills on the Valatie and Kinderhook Creeks. Valatie became one of the first American factory towns, dominated by Wild's mills and the mansion that he built near the confluence of the Valatie and Kinderhook Creeks. These early mills and factories directly transferred the energy generated by falling water to looms and other machinery.

The unskilled work force was largely composed of young women drawn from the desperately poor farms and villages of New England and New York. The raw cotton was produced on plantations in the slave states and shipped north to towns like Valatie for processing into fabric.

The dam on Valatie Creek

Near the ruins of an old mill is a dam on Valatie Creek where many potential kilowatts of power rush through a gap in the broken stonework. A close look at this dam suggests that it may have been built on an earlier Dutch structure. The lower levels, which have been exposed due to the effects of time and persistent tree roots, reveal unmortared and unshaped field stones which may date back to the first European presence.

Unmortared field stones at base of Wild's dam may
go back to an earlier Dutch dam on the site.

The stone walls of an early mill can be found on the west bank of Valatie Creek adjacent to the dam. Presumably, this is one of Wild's first mills or at least its site. Edward Collier (1914) reports that William P. Rathbone built a wadding factory on the site of Wild's Valatie Creek mill in 1866, and this may be the Rathbone mill.

The ruins of a mill on west bank of Valatie Creek

According to Collier, author of A History of Old Kinderhook, Nathan Wild built the mill later known as the Beaver Mill on the site of a 1712 sawmill erected by Johannes Van Deusen. After a fire in 1851, this mill was rebuilt and enlarged, passing through several owners before it was destroyed by fire during the blizzard of 1888. The foundations are easily seen from the Beaver Cotton Mill Lookout.

Ruins of the Beaver Cotton Mill, seen from

the overlook on route 203 in the center of Valatie.

A few hundred feet away the ruins of Wild's second mill lie beneath the Valatie Medical Arts building. Not surprisingly, health care is now the biggest employer in an aging region where so many once prosperous industries have closed down.

Although the mill has vanished, the housing that Wild built for his workers can be found on nearby River Street. The apartment-style building has long been vacant, and its interior shows signs of serious decay.

Housing for mill workers on River Street (1850)

Interior of mill worker housing

Also on River Street is Gimp Mill, the last knitting mill to be built in Valatie (1896) and also the last to close (1995)

Gimp Mill

Happily, the old mill building is still in active use by Energy-Onix, Inc, a manufacturer of broadcast transmitters whose website boasts:

Manufactured in the United States
USA Quality
USA Factory and  Sales Support

Since its founding in 1987 by Bernard Wise, Energy-Onix has provided over 750 AM, FM and Short-wave transmitters to broadcasters throughout the United States and the world. Energy-Onix transmitters are "On The Air" in Central and South America, Mexico, Iceland, Turkey, Africa, Greece, Australia, the Philippines, Korea and other international locations including 'Radio-7' - the first commercial radio station in Moscow, Russia. Energy-Onix's export activities have earned the Governor's Export Achievement Award (NY) and have been recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Two hundred years ago, waterpower led to the growth of manufacturing in such towns as Valatie. Many of these early industries switched to steam and later hydroelectric power before succumbing to the nationwide collapse of manufacturing over the past three or four decades. The renewable energy that could have kept this region self-sustaining indefinitely now flows untapped down our local streams, while we buy nearly all our manufactured goods from foreign countries.

The success of a company like Energy-Onix, Inc., however, is a hopeful sign that strong, innovative American companies can compete in a globalized economy.

Update June 5, 2009

According to ccScoop, Columbia County’s Home of the Web: “A group of residents and elected officials want to take “green” to the next level in the Town of Kinderhook, allowing residents and others to create their own electricity and share it with their neighbors. The Kinderhook Power Authority Task Force, which met for the first time in April, is working toward the goal of creating a district in the town that would be incorporated in a power authority district.”

This is certainly good news and offers the hope that the plentiful waterpower now rushing over the two falls in Valatie will be tapped in the foreseeable future.

Wasted waterpower at the broken dam in Valatie