The ambitions of Albany and Troy for commercial supremacy in the nineteenth century illustrate clearly the varied pattern of the transportation history of the United States and furnish a striking example of intercity rivalry. Only a few struggles such as that between Tacoma and Seattle to become the eastern terminus of the transcontinentals can match the bitterness of the Troy – Albany feud.
This rivalry frequently attracted the attention of contemporary observers, one of whom was moved to comment that “the feuds of Montagu and Capulet, or the wars of the White and Red Roses, have been mere child’s play to the fierce hostility of the two cities.”
Whether it was the question of the proper terminal point of the Erie Canal, the establishment of a steamboat line, the control of railroad traffic from the seaboard to the interior, or most crucial of all, the construction of a bridge at Albany, the merchants of Troy and Albany were quick to assert their claims and equally quick to prevent their opponents from winning any advantage.
The prize which each city sought was control of the freight and passenger traffic which reached the Hudson River at the head of navigation. In the years following the Revolution this trade was little more than that originating in the sparsely-settled hinterland drained by the upper reaches of the Hudson River system. Later its value multiplied a hundred times.
The construction of the Erie Canal by 1825 and the building of the railroad net work across New York State opened up vast new areas in western New York and the Lake States which found the Mohawk and Hudson valleys the most convenient route to the seaboard. The quarreling and bickering which characterized the relations between the two rivals from the founding of Troy in 1787 to the decade of the Civil War revolve very largely around their efforts to divert this trade to their own warehouses and wharves.
Nature had not predestined any particular spot on the upper Hudson as the distributing center for the western trade as it had made New York City the natural entrepot for the traffic passing up and down the Hudson. It is true that Troy faced the mouth of the Mohawk, but the great falls at Cohoes formed an impassable barrier to navigation on the lower Mohawk.
Consequently it was Schenectady that became the terminal of Mohawk river traffic. From that city goods had to reach the Hudson by land carriage. Before the Erie Canal was built, Albany had no difficulty in retaining her virtual monopoly of the western trade. The canal, however, diverted the flow of freight to the artificial waterway following the course of the Mohawk.
As a result, Troy merchants were able to challenge their rivals on equal terms. The railroad even more than the canal freed travel and freight from the limitations imposed by topography. The efforts of Albany and Troy promoters to gain mastery over the rail connections to the west, north, east, and south provide a story fully as interesting, if less spectacular, as the struggles between the railroads of the west for strategic positions.
This intercity rivalry was in a limited and superficial sense a conflict between Yankee and Dutch. Troy was often cited as a model of Yankee enterprise. Albany long enjoyed a reputation as a stronghold of Dutch conservatism and stability. It must be noted, however, that the invasion of New Englanders penetrated Albany’s economic life at an early date and shortly after 1800 forced the old Dutch families to share political office.
It is admittedly dangerous to ascribe definite characteristics to racial groups. Certain it is, however, that the Dutch and the Yankees have shown unusual talents in the marts of commerce. Differences between the two so noticeable in agricultural practices and coming to the fore in such matters as the controversy over the New Hampshire grants and the selection of General [Philip] Schuyler during the Revolutionary War were likewise reflected in the rivalry between Albany and Troy.
No history of Troy or Albany would be complete with out some mention of the New England migration. Its importance in building up central and western New York is obvious. Not so obvious was its effect upon the older communities of the Hudson valley.
Yankee immigrants established commercial and shipping towns such as Troy and Hudson. Yankees swarmed into New York City where they secured control of the fields of merchandising and shipping as early as 1820.
Albany likewise felt the invigorating effect of Yankee enterprise. The rapid settlement of the undeveloped areas to the north and west of Albany greatly enlarged the hinterland of the capital city and its main rival, Troy.
The main current of the New England migration set in after 1783. The settlers came by land and by water. In the 179os many immigrants were seeking the new settlements in the Champlain country as well as the richer lands of central and western New York. Land hunger, discontent with the high taxes, political and religious conservatism of New England, and the manifold opportunities in New York were among the factors spurring on the migration.
Albany had monopolized the import and export trade of upstate New York during the colonial period. Her ships carried large quantities of furs, flaxseed, lumber, livestock, and salted provisions down the Hudson to New York and brought back rum, sugar, cloth, furniture, gun powder, linen, and merchandise of all kinds.
After the Revolutionary War the grain trade became more import ant and the fur trade declined. The inrush of thousands of immigrants into the upland regions both south and north of the Mohawk river was roughly matched by the increase in the population of Albany which tripled its numbers between 1790 and 1810.
To the storehouses of Albany the farmers brought ever-increasing amounts of wheat and potash on their sleighs. When the ice broke up in the river, fleets of sloops departed for the south carrying wheat, ashes, and foodstuffs. In 1795 the Duke de la Rochefoucault was told that ninety vessels, half of them owned by Albany shippers, served the city.
Six miles to the north of Albany, New England adventurers laid out the new town of Troy in 1787. Its citizens soon acquired a reputation for bold enterprise and civic pride which became the taunt and the despair of Albany merchants for the next half century.
The “Trojans” as they were frequently called, elbowed Lansingburg, their nearest rival, from its claims to the county seat and seized control of the lucrative trade with the upper Hudson and western Vermont. What the merchants lacked in capital, they made up in boldness and industry. In less than two decades the farm of Van Der Heyden, a notable family of colonial New York, had become a bustling city of three thousand inhabitants.
During the period prior to 1823, the year that saw the opening of the eastern section of the Erie Canal, the main interests of the merchants of Troy and Albany did not directly conflict with one another. Albany maintained her control over the western trade; Troy found her activities fairly well confined to supplying the Champlain country and western Vermont.
Albany merchants naturally resented losing this trade to their rivals as they did the attempts of Troy shipowners to lay down goods on the wharves at the cheapest rates. Nevertheless, Albany citizens could look to the future with confidence since the trade coming through the Mohawk gateway was capable of almost unlimited expansion whereas the trade coming down the upper Hudson valley would obviously reach its limits at a relatively early date.
On one issue the two cities saw eye to eye. Each wanted the state of New York and later the federal government to appropriate funds to improve navigation on the Hudson. Funds to cut through the overslaugh [a shallow sandy area where navigation was limited during low water] below Albany were matched by funds to deepen the channel between Albany and Troy.
If either expected to get aid, it found it wise to cooperate with its sister city. On one occasion Albany, Troy, and the two smaller towns of Waterford and Lansingburg, pooled their resources to build a steam dredging machine.
Opportunities for disagreement on river improvements were not entirely lacking. The Mayor of Troy charged in 1845 that Albany had tried to prevent the federal government from improving the river channel above Albany after the Erie Canal had been extended to the capital.
Canal Conflicts
Citizens of Troy and Albany were in the forefront of the drive to establish canals between the Hudson and great inland lakes to the west and to the north. Troy and Lansingburg were naturally interested in the water route to Lake Champlain whereas Albany urged improved navigation of the Mohawk river.
In 1792 the legislature responded favorably to Governor George Clinton‘s recommendations and incorporated the “Western Inland Lock Navigation Company” and the “Northern Inland Lock Navigation Company.”
The Northern Company, after wasting about $100,000, was soon dissolved. The Western Company was more successful although lack of experience and mismanagement resulted in the expenditure of an excessive amount of money.
The canal at Little Falls and other improvements permitted boats of ten or eleven tons to pass whereas formerly the largest boats had displaced a mere one and one-half tons. As a result there was a large increase in river traffic although the bulk of farm produce still reached market by wagon or sleigh.
All produce arriving at Schenectady either by land or river had to be taken overland to the Hudson. The road leading from Albany to Schenectady was in very poor condition. In 1792 the committee of the state legislature declared that this portage represented a “very heavy charge on the produce of the upper country” an observation which Elkanah Watson had already made the previous year.
Faced with a growing demand for better roads, the legislature made liberal grants of money raised by lotteries and other means. But the frontiersmen, the large landowners, and in particular the ambitious river towns were still not satisfied. The success of the Philadelphia and Lancaster turnpike in contrast to the failure of the navigation companies soon attracted public interest and the “spirit of turnpiking” spread throughout the state.
So great was the enthusiasm for turnpikes that by 1807 eighty-eight turnpike and bridge companies with an authorized capital of $5,566,750 had been incorporated. Although most stockholders were farmers, land speculators, merchants, and individuals interested in trade, city governments such as Albany helped finance certain companies with the same enthusiasm with which they later supported railroads.
Albany became the foremost turnpike center in the State. Eight turnpikes thrust outward from the city like spokes in a wheel. The Albany and Schenectady Turnpike Company, the first company chartered by the legislature, constructed a hard-surfaced road by 1805.
From Schenectady the Mohawk and Bridge Company built a toll road to Utica. This route up the Mohawk valley soon had a strong competitor in the Cherry Valley system of turn pikes.
Several toll roads from Massachusetts permitted travelers to approach Albany from the east, thus creating a through road from Lebanon Springs [New Lebanon in Columbia County] to Canandaigua in central New York as early as 1807.
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the turnpikes pushing westward from Catskill and Newburgh, two ports located on the west bank of the Hudson below Albany, gave the capital its strongest competition for the western trade and travel. Troy likewise built with great effort a road to Schenectady, but this road never succeeded in diverting any substantial amount of traffic from Albany.
Albany had the advantage of having controlled the land traffic for well over a century. Furthermore, Troy was located on the east side of the Hudson, a fact which complicated the task of transporting goods to the west. The efforts of Troy promoters to build a draw bridge across the river failed to receive the approval of the legislature in 1804.
Troy merchants, however, succeeded in building a turnpike northward to Granville [in Washington County] from where it was extended to Vermont. Despite the boast of the Troy Sentinel in 1824 that roads leading from the city to Schenectady, to Lebanon Springs, and to the fashionable watering places, Ballston and Saratoga, were shorter and better than those leading from Albany, the disagreeable fact remained that Albany and not Troy dominated land traffic.
The story of the steps by which the State of New York was induced to undertake what was at the time the colossal task of building a canal for more than three hundred miles across the State is well-known and needs no repetition. The citizens of both Troy and Albany took an active role in urging the construction of the Erie and Champlain canals.
Governor DeWitt Clinton and his associates were able to persuade the legislature to authorize construction in the spring of 1817. By 1823 the canal stretched from Rochester to the Hudson River. In the same year the Champlain Canal was opened for navigation from Whitehall on Lake Champlain to Fort Edward on the upper Hudson. Subsequently the canal was extended to Waterford.
The commissioners in selecting the eastern terminal of the Erie Canal were able to avoid most of the bickering that took place between Buffalo and Black Rock for terminal rights at the western end. They mollified the sensibilities of both Troy and Albany citizens by providing that the canal boats could enter the Hudson either through a sidecut at Troy or at the Albany basin.
This arrangement did not please the more violent partisans. Troy spokesmen charged that the extension of the canal from West Troy [now Watervliet], to Albany was a waste of money. Albany zealots later advanced the absurd proposal that the canal be rebuilt to cross the sand plains from Schoharie Creek directly to Albany thereby bypassing the business section of Schenectady and completely ignoring Troy.
Illustrative of the peevish attitude which the citizens of the neighboring cities so often displayed was Troy’s boycott of the official celebration which was held in Albany in 1823. It was with a certain malicious joy that Troy merchants secretly loaded and dispatched the Trojan Trader as the first boat to pass westward on the canal, while their rivals were listening to speeches by high dignitaries of the State.
Troy’s accessibility to the Erie and Champlain Canals, however profitable it may have been in regard to the business of forwarding freight, did not give her an equal opportunity to share in the passenger traffic. In this field Albany maintained her supremacy. The stages and steamboats continued to make the capital their main terminal. Well might the National Advertizer state in 1827, “Probably there is no point in the United States where so many public stages meet and find employment as at Albany.”
The enterprising citizens of Troy, who in 1825 were hailing the action of Congress in making their city a port of delivery, were hopeful of diverting the main flow of travel away from Albany. Most travelers passing either to or from the west pref erred to take the stage from Albany to Schenectady where they could continue to the west either by stage or by canal boat. Relatively few people made the trip by canal boat from Albany to Schenectady since it took a much longer time.
To attract passenger traffic Troy had to offer comparable service both on the river and on the land. The Troy Steamboat Company was organized and in 1824 built the palatial boat appropriately named the Chief Justice Marshall after the great jurist whose decision in the Gibbons case had freed the river from the steamboat monopoly. Turnpikes were constructed to Schenectady and to the north. Despite these efforts Troy was unable to challenge Albany’s long established control of the passenger traffic.
Railroad Wars
The success of the canal system tended to retard the development of railroads. The State jealously guarded its investment in the canals whose handsome revenues greatly simplified the problem of raising taxes. In addition to the politicians, a large body of private interests including shippers, canal boat operators, contractors, and employees opposed any threat to the canal.
Nevertheless, the peculiar advantages of the railroad especially in regard to the speedy transportation of passengers could not be denied. By 1853 both Troy and Albany enjoyed rail connections with Buffalo, Vermont, Boston, and New York. Needless to say, the race for strategic railroad connections exacerbated relations between the rival cities.
The first railroad in New York, the famous Mohawk and Hudson, paralleled the route of the first turnpike. George Featherstonhaugh of Duanesburg, Schenectady County, had observed the value of railroads in England and in 1825 he secured the support of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the leading citizen of Albany for a line between Albany and Schenectady.
The argument advanced by Albanians that Albany build a railroad in order to prevent Troy from outstripping the capital immediately stirred a Troy editor to urge Troy citizens to construct a similar railroad to Schenectady. Late in 1825 it was announced that a formal application would be made to the legislature for exclusive rights to construct a railroad between the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.
Although the main financial support came from capitalists in the New York city area, the enterprise naturally attracted much local support especially in Schenectady where the completion of the Erie Canal had practically destroyed the important forwarding and transshipment business.
Despite their skepticism concerning the practicability of railroads, editors in Troy were quick to promote similar projects and in particular to denounce the “exclusive” feature as a threat to Troy’s future actions.
Shortly after the Mohawk and Hudson proposal reached the legislature, a petition for a road between Troy and Schenectady was presented. What effect this maneuver had on the legislature cannot be ascertained. The act of 1826 chartering the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, however, did not contain the clause conferring exclusive privilege.
After considerable delay the Mohawk and Hudson began operation in August 1831. Even before it had been completed, the legislature granted a charter to the Saratoga and Schenectady Railroad Company which rapidly built its line to the famous watering center.
By 1833 two trains a day left Albany for Schenectady where they met cars leaving for Saratoga Springs over the Mohawk bridge. The success of the railroads seemed to confirm beyond question Albany’s control of the passenger traffic to the west and to Saratoga.
Citizens of Troy looked upon the Mohawk and Hudson with mingled feelings of fear and envy. The road from Saratoga Springs to Schenectady threatened to divert from Troy some of the northern trade. The proposal that this line be continued on to Whitehall naturally aroused further hostility in Troy.
Furthermore, the fact that travelers from the west bound for Troy found it more convenient to reach Troy by way of Albany seemed to emphasize the subordinate position of Troy. The lure of profits, however, was probably even more influential than fear in stimulating citizens of Troy to join the state-wide agitation for railroads.
Influential Troy citizens intensified their demand for rail connections with both Saratoga Springs and Schenectady. In 1831 they organized the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad with a capital of $300,000. The charter granted the company the right to build a line from Troy to Ballston Spa by way of Waterford.
It seems clear that the original intention was to cross the Hudson over the Union bridge at Waterford, but an attempt to negotiate an agreement fell through. Consequently the directors overrode the wishes of their members coming from Troy and built a bridge at Troy.
In later years Troy spokesmen, who were fighting the erection of the Albany bridge, stoutly insisted that the citizens of Troy had never endorsed or supported the erection of this bridge. As late as 1841 the infuriated citizens of Lansingburg and Waterford were petitioning the legislature to tear down the bridge at Troy as an obstacle to navigation on the upper Hudson.
In 1835 the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad reached Ballston Spa where it met the Schenectady and Saratoga. The management of the latter road refused to cooperate. It refused to accept through freight or through passenger tickets. The Troy promoters complained bitterly of discrimination.
Suddenly their opportunity came. A New York broker who held a controlling interest in the Schenectady and Saratoga agreed to sell his holdings to Richard Hart and other Troy capitalists. Albanians woke up to discover that Troy and not Albany could and did dictate railroad service to the Springs.
This coup in addition to their previous activities caused Philip Hone to comment that the “Trojans are the most enterprising, persevering, go-ahead set of fellows in the world.”
Gratifying as this maneuver was to their pride, the “Trojans” cherished still more ambitious plans. Troy capital tried to influence the newly-constructed Utica and Schenectady road. But the most significant move was to organize in 1836 the Schenectady and Troy Railroad with a capital of $500,000. This railroad was to enjoy the distinction of being one of the few steam railroads financed, constructed, and operated by a municipal government.
In 1837 the legislature agreed to permit the city of Troy to borrow up to $500,000 in order to invest it in the stock of the Schenectady and Troy. The move attracted little comment at the time largely because it differed only in degree from the widespread procedure of granting public aid to railroads. The citizens of Troy were determined to use any method of raising funds since they hoped to become the center of the extensive railroad network which was being projected and in part constructed in the 184os.
In 1840 work got under way stimulated by the prodding of the Mayor of Troy and by the loan of $100,000 by the State. In late 1842 trains were using the road from Troy to Schenectady. Albany citizens looked with alarm upon this new route since it threatened to supplant the Mohawk and Hudson. The equipment and roadbed of the latter were in poor condition.
Furthermore, the company was particularly handicapped by the fact that it had to use inclined planes to pull trains out of both Albany and Schenectady. Immediately a campaign got under way to eliminate this evil. The removal of the planes and the relocation of the Albany terminus nearer the docks was not accomplished until 1843.
The attempt of Troy to secure a large share of the passenger traffic to and from the west fell far short of expectations. The main difficulty was the refusal of the Utica and Schenectady company to grant it rights equal to those granted to the Mohawk and Hudson.
Troy backers tried several stratagems to remedy the situation. An attempt to capture control of the Utica and Schenectady met with failure. In 1846 Troy capitalists joined hands with certain interests in Utica in order to build a railroad on the south side of the Mohawk River.
In the petition to the legislature the Schenectady and Troy made charges that it had received unfair treatment from the Utica and Schenectady, charges which were denied by the latter. The majority of the Senate committee approved the proposal, but the bill failed to pass.
Troy remained dissatisfied. In 1849 her spokesmen proposed a bill which would prohibit any of the railroads forming lines from Troy or Albany to Buffalo from entering into contracts whereby “any inequality shall be created or occasioned as between the Albany and Schenectady Railroad Company and the Schenectady and Troy Rail road Company, as competing lines of railroad for the business.”
Admitting that in 1848 the Troy line had handled only 58,222 through passengers as against 236,889 for the Albany line, the Senate committee nevertheless urged that no regulation interfere with “unrestrained competition.” This was small comfort to “Trojans” who said that they were at the mercy of the superintendent of the Utica road.
The ill success of their railroad in regard to revenue, underlined as it was by the necessity of laying heavy taxes to make up the annual deficits, led to agitation for its sale. The feeling was widespread that the Schenectady and Troy was a white elephant. Some defense was made although it was frankly admitted on all sides that the road was poorly managed. Finally in July 1852 a group of taxpayers petitioned the Common Council to sell the road at any price.
The circumstances surrounding this sale warrant further scrutiny than can be given here. The committee of the Common Council sold the road on March 1, 1 853, to Edwin Morgan, president of the Hudson River Railroad.
Almost immediately thereafter the Troy and Schenectady was absorbed into the New York Central which was created in 1853. Russell Sage, on the threshold of his career, was a key figure in the sale. He was one of Troy’s directors of the railroad; he became its president under Morgan’s regime. In a confidential letter to Morgan, Sage evinced great optimism as to future earnings and stated that Morgan could free himself of the stranglehold which the Mohawk and Hudson had on traffic coming to the east.
Sage wrote “you could control not only Passengers but he thought 3/4 of the freight, and if you choose, might compell the Albany and Schy R. to pay no dividends or they could not pay any. Suppose we should put the fare to 25c/, they would be compelled too, or else we should get nearly all the travel.”
The new owners of the Troy and Schenectady soon aroused the citizenry of Troy to anger. In 1854 a Troy editor denounced the management of the Central as “outrageous” and “maliciously designed to incommode, rather than commode the public.”
The Central provided that the morning express to the west should leave the Troy depot just ahead of the arrival of the New York express. Erastus Corning, dominant leader of the Central, promised to remedy the situation, but in 1856 the same complaint arose.
The Mayor and the Common Council of Troy wrote to the Board of Directors of the New York Central charging neglect of their city. Despite all its efforts and maneuvers Troy had been unsuccessful in diverting passenger traffic from its old channel at Albany.
On the east bank of the Hudson as well, Troy and Albany were waging a bitter struggle to become the terminal for the railroads striking across from New England and up from New York. Rivalry reached a high point in the years following 1841 when the Western Railway of Massachusetts made connections with Greenbush across the river from Albany. Albany had very largely financed the Albany and West Stockbridge Company which met the Western Railway near the state border and its citizens were determined not to permit Troy to reap the benefits of the trade from New England.
A major factor in spurring on the Albany and West Stockbridge Railroad was the completion in 1838 of the line from Hudson, New York, to connect with the Western Railway. Albany viewed this road with deep suspicion.
Her citizens were particularly disturbed at the prospect that the New England and western trade would pass through Hudson, cross the river to Catskill and then follow the Catskill and Canajoharie route to the west. This last railroad was a speculative venture which soon went bankrupt despite a state loan of $300,000.
To answer this threat, Albany promoters determined to build their own road to meet the Western Railway at West Stockbridge. At first, plans included the construction of a tunnel under the Hudson near Castleton. In fact, the Albany city council agreed in 1834 to subscribe one million dollars for the tunnel, but the project soon died.
In 1836 the Albany and West Stockbridge company received a charter and immediately there got under way a movement to have the city subscribe to the stock. In October of that year the corporation of Albany lent $250,000 for this purpose. Again in 1839 the citizens in a special election voted another $400,000. Speakers at the public meetings held in every ward and letters to the editors urged the necessity of bringing to the capital this vital railroad line. In 1840 the Western Railway took over the venture and constructed the line to Greenbush in 1841.
The completion of this railroad awakened the business men of New York to the danger that Boston merchants would seize the major part of the western trade. To counter this move, promoters in the metropolis redoubled their efforts to construct a line up the east bank to Albany.
Since its incorporation in 1831 the New York and Harlem had made little progress beyond the Harlem river. The New York and Albany chartered in 1832 and intended to parallel the river likewise failed to attract much support until the decade of the forties when several attempts to whip up enthusiasm were made.
The success of the Harlem company in securing a recharter in 1845 permitting it to extend its road to Albany stirred the river towns to action. In 1851- 185 2 both the Harlem and the Hudson River railroads reached Greenbush.
The leaders of Troy realized that if their city could get rail connection with New York and Boston they would have their rivals at a disadvantage since passengers coming to Albany had to undergo the inconvenience, expense, and danger of crossing the Hudson by ferry boat.
At first, they organized a Troy and West Stockbridge company, but it never progressed beyond the talking stage. Their next move was to build in 1840-1841 a line from Troy to Greenbush where they hoped to meet the trains coming over the Western Railway.
This action outraged Albany c1t1zens. It seemed unfair for Albany to pour over one million dollars into the railroad only to have their hated rival profit thereby. The Common Council issued a remonstrance to the legislature protesting this action and five thousand citizens signed the appeal.
This controversy over the Troy-Greenbush line was only part of a greater issue; namely, control of the through rail road traffic between the west and Boston. In 1841 the legislators faced an important decision. If Albany secured the right to build a bridge, railroad traffic would definitely flow through the city. If Troy succeeded in making connections at Greenbush, railroad traffic would cross the bridge at Troy and thus bypass Albany.
The legislators showed considerable skill in postponing the question without unduly antagonizing either city. They refused to charter the Albany bridge, but they likewise refused to permit Troy to take advantage of the newly-constructed line to Greenbush.
Not until $250,000 had been actually expended to construct the New York and Albany railroad south of the north line of Columbia County could the Troy-Greenbush spur be used. Prior to 1845 when the legislature finally agreed to incorporate the Troy and Greenbush railroad company the lack of a charter prevented this company from condemning along the route a small parcel of land which a Troy editor charged was held by Albany citizens.
Troy leaders likewise hoped for a direct line to Boston. The rapid construction of the Boston and Greenfield railroad to a point near the New York border stimulated the “Trojans” to secure a charter for the Troy and Boston railroad in 1 848. The agitation for this road stressed the argument that Albany was lurking in the background ready to take away Troy’s control of the Vermont trade.
One editor commented, “if we do not conduct to our city the two roads branching off at Eagle Bridge, one to Vermont and the other to Boston, most assuredly, our neighbors, the Albanians, will conduct the road to their city,… Albany is preparing to throw a long arm around us, to lasso the trade and travel of the North and the East.”
This charge was no empty threat since Albany interests had organized the Albany Northern which was to run north along the west bank of the Hudson to a point three miles above Waterford where it would strike east to reach Eagle Bridge. To charges that this railroad was a duplication of existing facilities, an Albany editor answered that the capital city needed a route to the North that would not be under the control of Troy interests.
In 1853 the Albany Northern reached Eagle Bridge to which the Troy and Boston had already built the previous year. From Eagle Bridge travelers could reach Boston via Bennington or they could go north over the Rutland and Washington which likewise opened for operation in 1852.
Bridging the Hudson
Bitter as the rivalry had been for control of railroad routes, it was relatively mild as compared to the outburst of passion engendered by the proposal to build a bridge at Albany. Not only would such a bridge give to Albany a decided advantage in regard to rail transportation, but it also threatened to undermine Troy’s valuable forwarding business by obstructing the navigation of the Hudson.
It is easy to understand, therefore, why Troy citizens fought every bridge proposal that was advanced in 1814, 1831, 1835, 1841, 1845, 1854, and 1856 with the same energy and vehemence that they had always displayed in promoting their own ventures.
As early as 1814 petitions for a bridge had reached the legislature. Troy citizens immediately swung into opposition. Surprisingly enough, the Albany Common Council denounced the measure. With a solicitude for its neighbor not ordinarily displayed between the two rivals, the Council declared that the bridge would ruin the merchants of Troy, Waterford, and Lansingburg.
Undoubtedly interests nearer at home such as ferry boat operators and wharf owners were more influential in persuading the Council to take this stand than any altruistic desire to help Troy. The Assembly committee handed down an unfavorable report on the bill.
Attempts to revive the proposal in 1831 and 1835-1836 aroused little interest in Albany. Not until the railroad had definitely proven its utility and revealed its future greatness as a carrier of freight as well as passengers could the drive for a bridge hope to win public and legislative support.
Before that time had arrived, few people wished to jeopardize the abundant profits which the vast increase in water transport both on the canal and the Hudson assured the merchants of Troy and Albany. One significant index was the reluctance of the legislature to sanction a bridge in 1835-1836 in contrast to it approval of a tunnel under the Hudson.
The first full-fledged campaign for a bridge coincided with the completion of the railroad from Boston to Greenbush in 1841. The fact that Troy was rapidly constructing its line to Greenbush intensified the desire of Albany citizens for a structure that would enable the cars of the Mohawk and Hudson to cross the river.
The Assembly committee on roads and bridges did not evade the issue. For over a month distinguished counsel appeared before it to advocate or attack the proposed bridge. A bill was drawn up authorizing a capital of $300,000 and designating Erastus Corning and other individuals as directors. The clause providing that all directors must be citizens of either Albany or Greenbush was probably inserted to forestall any Troy move to capture control of the corp oration.
The arguments and the strategy employed by both sides did not change in any substantial degree between 1841 and 1856 when the bridge advocates finally persuaded the legislators to approve the measure. The main argument advanced for the bridge was the necessity of freeing traffic from the dangers, delays, and inconveniences involved in crossing the Hudson especially in times of high water and ice flows.
It was argued that because of the high cost of transshipment New York would lose business to other seaports which enjoyed uninterrupted connections with the interior. This argument took on added significance after the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, and other rail roads completed their lines to the Ohio Valley. Testimony in 1841 revealed that some three hundred teams crossed the Hudson daily. By 1856 one estimate was that Albany ferry boats carried 3,771 passengers a day in addition to 448,000 tons of freight.
Fully one-half of the effort of the bridge advocates was devoted to the task of denying that a drawbridge would interfere with navigation. Ship captains and engineers were called upon to testify that drawbridges had not obstructed traffic on the Charles or the Hackensack rivers.
Opponents of the bridge drew up a long list of specific evils which they asserted would destroy the commerce of Troy. They insisted that passing through the draw would so delay and so hamper the steamboats, towed barges, rafts, and sailing vessels that it would place Troy shippers under an insuperable handicap. The bridge-tender of the Troy bridge declared that it took thirty minutes for a vessel to pass the draw.
Furthermore, masted vessels would have to be pulled through the draw when the wind was unfavorable. Steamboats towing barges down the river would find great difficulty in navigating the draw without having the barges strike the piers. Large rafts made up near Troy would not be able to pass. Moreover, the cost of making up rafts below Albany, where the swell of the steamboats would complicate the task, would be much greater.
Opponents pointed out that the river at Albany was already so crowded with vessels that it would be inadvisable to narrow the passage still further by erecting a bridge. In 1856 four thousand citizens of Albany joined the opposition and relied mainly on this argument.
Pages of testimony contradictory in nature were taken in 1841 as to whether the piers would create shoals and sand bars. Witnesses from Troy stated that the Troy bridge had this effect. Other witnesses insisted that dredging would certainly eliminate bars and shoals even if properly constructed piers failed to prevent them from forming.
Troy partisans denied the right of the bridge company to obstruct and impede the navigation of a national waterway. The edge of this argument was somewhat dulled after the highest court of New York had upheld the bridge at Troy against the attack of villages farther upstream.
Another argument advanced was that ferry service was adequate to handle all existing traffic. Furthermore, the number of vessels passing the draw would be so great that the bridge would have to be open most of the time. Consequently passengers would actually lose more time than they did by using the ferry.
To single out the various economic groups favoring or opposing the bridge actively or passively would be as difficult a task as to unravel the tangled skein of New York politics in this period. Certain obvious facts stand forth.
Canal interests both economic and political looked with suspicion toward any favors to their rival, the railroad. Steamboat interests naturally opposed the bridge as they did the construction of the Hudson River railroad. Ferry boat operators and their associates in the business of trans shipping goods to and from the canal and railroad in Albany and Greenbush had an obvious interest in stopping a bridge.
On the other hand, certain shippers, real estate owners in favored places, the traveling public, and in particular, investors in railway companies vigorously supported the bridge.
Troy partisans exaggerated the amount of traffic passing up the river whereas Albany spokesmen naturally stressed the growing number of passengers and volume of goods using the railroads. The canal kept bringing an increasing quantity of goods to tidewater throughout the period before the Civil War.
The 750,000 tons of 1835 had increased to 2,223,743 tons by 1854. In contrast the rail road in 1854 brought only 328,186 tons to Albany. Despite this disparity the ultimate victory of the steam railway over canal and river boat was becoming apparent by 1850.
The weapons employed by both factions show consider able resourcefulness. Editorials, letters to the press, petitions, lobbies at Albany, and public meetings were the main devices. Editors and city officials spearheaded the drive for or against the bridge.
In 1845 the Mayor of Albany invited the legislators to the river bank where a demonstration showed that sloops and steamers could pass through a space seventy feet wide. The Mayor of Troy was no less active in behalf of his city. He castigated Albany for its “grasping and monopolizing spirit.”
Remonstrances from the common councils of both cities were often sent to the legislature. Lawyers and engineers appeared before the legislative committees in behalf of municipal and private interests. Albany newspapers delighted to ridicule the dinners which Troy leaders sponsored on public occasions. The Troy press indignantly denied the charge that they had regaled visiting legislators with “mackeral soup” and “fricasee herring.”
The rivalry between Albany and Troy attracted considerable attention throughout the State. Each faction tried to enlist outside aid and proudly reprinted editorials appearing in other papers. No particular pattern either political or sectional is discernible in the attitude of outsiders.
Editors in New York City lined up on either side as did the newspapers of western New York. No doubt, most of this editorial comment was unsolicited, but the attempt of the Albany bridge committee to secure support from New York papers by offering twenty-five dollars for publicity infuriated Troy citizens. The flurry of letters appearing in widely-scattered papers was undoubtedly “inspired” by the rival organizations.
Their failures in 1841 and 1845 discouraged but did not deter the advocates of the Albany bridge. In 1852 they succeeded in securing the endorsement of the Assembly committee, but no further action was taken. Again in 1854 another vigorous but unsuccessful drive was launched. Two years later the bill passed the legislature after a hotly-contested debate. One correspondent described this struggle over the Albany Bridge bill as “the most exciting subject which has been before the Legislature in ten years.”
After 1853 Troy leaders found it politically expedient to concentrate their attacks on the New York Central. Many people throughout the State looked with hostility toward the huge corporation which like the Camden and Amboy in the neighboring state of New Jersey was accused of exerting a corrupt influence. Troy spokesmen conjured up a spectre of a “Monopoly Monster” which could secure a transportation stranglehold if it built the Albany bridge.
Throughout the debate and thereafter, Troy leaders frequently charged that the company had bribed the legislators.101 Despite parliamentary maneuvers and denunciations by the “Trojans” the Albany bridge received its charter in 1856. The political allies of the New York Central, led by Thurlow Weed, were able to enact into law the growing public demand that railroad traffic should not be delayed and hampered.
Defeated in the legislature, the opponents continued their struggle in the courts. They hoped that the bridge would be found an unconstitutional interference with the navigation of the Hudson. The suit encountered many delays and Troy failed to secure a favorable verdict.
The New York Central in cooperation with the Western Rail way and the Hudson River Railroad thereupon began to construct a bridge two thousand feet long at Albany. The opening of the bridge in February 1866 was the occasion for renewed criticism by Troy editors who fondly predicted that the bridge would eventually do their rival more harm than good.
One interesting result of the completion was the division among the Troy citizens. The Troy Daily Times stated that the city should accept the inevitable and give up further legal attacks on the bridge. The only beneficiaries, it was claimed, were the lawyers who had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the fight. Despite this plea the Common Council and the Board of Trade of Troy unanimously decided to continue the contest against the bridge. Fighting the bridge was “a part of the religion of their lives.”
The original bridge did not prove satisfactory. In 1868 the legislature authorized the company to erect a new structure. One clause in the act provided that the Common Council of either Troy or Albany could force the removal of the old wooden bridge. The Hudson River Bridge Company had to deliver a bond of $600,000 in order to guarantee its removal within nine months after a new bridge had been erected.
The construction of the bridge in 1866 marks the end of open hostility between Albany and Troy. Ill will gradually subsided as the causes for friction were eliminated. Troy citizens became reconciled or resigned to the fact that the main rail traffic between east and west would pass through Albany.
Furthermore, they found ample opportunities to use their excess energies and enterprise in manufacturing. In this field rivalry was not with Albany but with many manufacturing centers throughout the northeast. Industrial achievements more than offset any loss as a commercial and transportation center.
The legacy of decades of suspicion continued to prevent cordial relations for many years, but the passage of time gradually softened the feeling of ill will.
Nevertheless many “Trojans” still cherished fond hopes of outstripping Albany in size and in wealth. As late as 1889 the centennial historian felt compelled to gratify civic pride by predicting that Troy would eventually catch up with Albany.
He noted with satisfaction that Troy’s manufactures had already exceeded in value those of Albany whereas the debt was considerably less than that of the capital city. Troy’s centennial bard was likewise reflecting the attitude of his fellow citizens when he exaggerated Albany’s distress and dismay at the news of Troy’s founding.
At Albany it awakened
The Dutchman from their sleep
And with prophetic terror
Their flesh began to creep
The rivalry between Albany and Troy clearly illustrates the major developments which were transforming the transportation of the United States in the years between the Revolution and the Civil War.
It likewise reveals that intangible factors such as individual enterprise and civic pride can influence in no small degree the location and development of transportation facilities.
The advocates of the Albany bridge no less than the backers of the Schenectady and Troy railroad were determined to surmount the limitations of topography and to direct the flow of commerce. Their rivalry is an interesting commentary on our transportation history.
Born in Utica in 1914, Dr. David Maldwyn Ellis was, at the time he authored this essay, an instructor of history at the University of Vermont. His first book, Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region (1946), won the Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association. Subsequently, he produced nine more books about New York State as well as numerous articles, encyclopedia entries, edited volumes, forwards and book reviews. Dr. Ellis died in 1999 at the age of 85.
This essay first appeared in the journal New York History, Vol. 24, No. 4 (January 1943).
Illustrations, from above: Map of the vicinity of Albany and Troy, 1851 (NYPL, see more detailed version here); a sloop, row boat with fishermen, and hay barge on the Hudson River (Hudson River Maritime Museum); Popple Map 1733 showing Saratoga, Albany and Schenectady and surroundings; “View of Troy from the Watervliet Arsenal,” 1838; detail from an 1857 map showing the entrance of the Erie Canal at the north end of Albany; Troy’s first bridge across the Hudson River shown in the close-up of a birds eye engraving with the west end already converted to steel trusses; 1853 map of New York canals, railroads, rivers and county borders; 1855 map of railroads in the Capital District; and the 1866 Albany railroad bridge over the Hudson River.
