Continued from May 23, 2012
[1829]
Mr. and Mrs. James Stuart continue their
exploration of 1829 Troy, New York, climbing toward the summit of Mount Ida
(most locals call it Ida Hill). He commends the view of the city, river and
countryside, commenting that the land, covered in pine and cedar, was
considered until recently to be infertile, but similar land nearby in
Kinderhook has proved to be quite productive when managed well and manured
properly.
Partway to the top their climb is interrupted by a
fence, so they head for a cottage to request permission to continue further.
The tenants prove to be fellow Scots who, like Stuart, arrived last year, but
several months earlier. The Stuarts chat for a while with the Craigs, who had
found work superintending the farm on the hillside for the owner shortly after
their arrival here. It can't be an easy job, since the hill is mainly formed of
clay - although Stuart doesn't mention the latter fact - but the Craigs are
making a go of it. Later in the century the unstable clay will result in
several landslides, reducing the overall size of the hill somewhats.
Sometime before exploring the hill, excuse me,
mountain, and heading north to Lansingburgh, our Scotsman has made a few real
estate inquiries and discovered that a 65 x 25-foot tenement building has
recently sold for $4,000. Untempted, he and his wife climb back into their
carriage and, after short ride, cross the Hudson on the twenty-year-old Union
Bridge, an 800-foot covered wooden affair that had originally cost $20,000.
Later it would also be known as the Waterford Bridge. They head inland a few
miles to view the falls at Cohoes, which they missed seeing last year during
their brief ride on the Erie Canal. He mentions seven locks in three-and-a-half
miles and he should know - they had convinced him then that canal travel wasn't
for James Stuart.
On his visit to Albany last year Stuart found the
rooms at the Eagle Hotel to be rather meagrely funished, so he decides on a
change, putting up at the boarding house run by Leverett Cruttenden, further
uphill on Capitol Sqaure, where Lafayette had stayed five years earlier. Good
enough for a marquis it proved equally satisfying to Stuart, who mentioned,
"comfortable accommodation . . . and as good a tea and supper as we had
seen anywhere." Best of all, "I was asked . . . for the first time in
the United States, whether we preferred to sleep on a mattrass or feather
bed."
Cruttenden stops by to chat with Stuart, who
describes his host as, "a frank, John Bull-looking personage, very fond of
Scotch songs and of Burns's poetry." Like the good Scotsmen they are, they
discuss local prices, "A goose sometimes to be had for a shilling
Sterling, and a turkey for two shillings."
The next morning Stuart - probably with future
publication of his travels in mind - has a quest to take up again, his current
holy grail, this year's annual report on Auburn Prison. Following the Ossining
bookseller's suggestion he pays call on the office of the state's secretary of
state. The great man (whom Staurt neglects to identify by name) is apparently
not there, but a clerk fields Stuart's request. Albany's reputation for
complicating the simplest of matters is not unearned; Stuart is told that all
the copies have been given away. We'll follow up on his mission next time.
© 2012 David Minor / Eagles Byte
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