200 Miles North of the Battery

I went quite close to the source of the Hudson four years ago . . . here.   But earlier this summer I stopped in Glens Falls, just because I wanted to see the falls.

Glens Falls as seen from the Route 9 bridge

Here’s more . . .

and more.

Glens Falls as seen from below the Route 9 bridge

And here’s looking down the Hudson from below the bridge, with Finch Paper to the left and SCA Tissue to the right.

Back to the Route 9 bridge, here’s the old central office, and click here for an interesting Finch Paper history.

But here’s the real nugget . . . the really interesting piece of history, and it’s UNDER the bridge.  Charles Reed Bishop, local boy orphaned by age 4, who tagged along with a friend with connections–William Little Lee.  At age 24, the two of them headed for San Francisco, and since this was 1846, that meant sailing around Cape Horn and stopping in Hawaii along the way.  Bishop stayed, became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and the rest of the story is here.

 

How’s that for an unlikely trajectory for a Hudson river boy AND information found under a bridge?   And about 50 miles south of here, in Troy, along the river’s edge is another plaque celebrating another Hudson river boy with an unlikely trajectory into the Pacific.

Photos by Will Van Dorp.