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Fish House, NY, Broadalbin, NY (2026)

11/19/2025

POSTCARDS FROM THE PAST
So a kind neighbor gave me a treasure trove of old letters and postcards and greeting cards that had been in the Marvin house before it was burned down in 1996. ( This house was the original house of Dr Langdon Ithiel Marvin, the first doctor of Fish House.) It was moved in 1929 to higher ground. I had been meaning to research the Marvin house and family so this was my “sign”.
The letters were mostly addressed to Barbara Marvin Riker Mandos who lived from 1908 to 1988. I started collecting information on Barbara, who was really one of the last Marvins in Fish House. And as I dove deeper into her life and accomplishments I was so impressed with all that she did in her life. I wanted to know more and reached out to a person on ancestry who had also been doing research on Barbara from the Riker side. She is from the Netherlands and seems as addicted to genealogy as I am! I have so much more research to do before I will publish about Barbara but until then…
In this collection of correspondence there were these very cute postcards and greeting cards. Some quite small compared to present day cards. So I am posting some photos of them.
I have been able to trace Barbara Riker Mandos up to around 1972 and then I think she retired from teaching. Now I am trying to find out if she lived in the Marvin house from 1972 to her death in 1988. If anyone out there can help me with these blank years, please reach out!
Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

11/14/2025

PLEASE, LABEL YOUR PHOTOS!
Years ago I worked at a thrift store. An old photo album had been donated, it was filled with photos from around the 1880's, the kind that were on a hard cardboard base with the people looking so stern because they were not allowed to move while the camera was processing the film. It was a fascinating look into the past, but there were no labels, no hints as to who the people were in the photos, not even a last name. I didn't want to throw it out, the thrift store had no use for it, so eventually it went into the dumpster. It broke my heart.
My grandmother loved doing family research. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps, but I was young and not interested. Long after she passed, I inherited all of her old papers and research and photos. Eventually I started to work on my family genealogy. At times it was very challenging. I was looking at photos of my ancestors and so many of the photos were not labeled. There is one large photo of a big family reunion with more than twenty people in the photo. Some of the names were written on the back..but not all. And then there was one that identified the person as "the rascal of the family". All well and good if you lived back then, but totally not helpful one hundred years later!
I love to come across old photos when I research Fish House, NY.
Just recently a neighbor gave me a photo collage of four people. Two of the photos were labeled, two were not. What was their story? With the information that was on the back, I dove into ancestry.com hoping to find out why this photo collage was found in an old house in Fish House. Rev. Ed. Haggett and Aunt Lizzie were the two labeled photos. I found the Reverend Hackett quickly on ancestry, but throughout his whole life, he lived in Maine! Why were his photo here in New York? As for the other two people in that collage, I have no clue. History lost.
So please, if you have old family photos, label them. Maybe one of your descendants will come across them and wonder who they were, so leave some bread crumbs!
The days of finding old photos in attics is fast coming to an end. We are now almost all digital, but please, still label.

PS -if anyone knows these four individuals, message me.

One frustrated historian!
Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

11/13/2025

MASSIVE CENTURY-OLD COVERED BRIDGE MET DEMISE 95 YEARS AGO AT GREAT SACANDAGA RESERVOIR

COVERED BRIDGE AT FISH HOUSE ENDS CENTURY CAREER IN GALE

SWEPT FROM MOORINGS ON SACANDAGA RESERVOIR, IT DOES DUTY BY INCREASING METHODIST CHURCH FUNDS.

By FRANCIS P. KIMBALL

MONDAY JUNE 9, 1930

The old covered bridge at Fish House, whose planking rattled for more than 100 years with the passage of vehicles, from ox carts to motor trucks, has joined the rest of the Sacandaga Valley in oblivion.

Early in the Legislative session, Assemblyman Burton L. Esmond of Saratoga County launched a drive for the passage of a bill that would have saved the historic bridge from the waters of the Sacandaga Reservoir as a relic of the pioneer days. He proposed that the bridge be removed to a shoreline park before the flooding of the valley began.

The bill did not pass. Now storms on the great new reservoir, which spreads through the Sacandaga Velley, have scattered the bridge to bits.

Wrecked in Gale.

Residents of Northampton on June 1, during the high wind, saw the bridge torn from its fastenings and go crashing into ruin. The driftwood from the structure scattered along the shoreline.
Many of the pieces came ashore in front of the new cottage developments that are going up around the reservoir. When the storm died down members of old families in the neighborhood gathered to see the ruins and many sought pieces of planking as relics of the ancient bridge.

Simon Shufelt, young son of the Methodist minister at Northampton, saw an opportunity rise from the storm. Although the bridge was irreparably gone, he knew that the memory of the structure that had served the valley faithfully since 1818 would remain. He collected a number of the hand shewn wooden pins that held the old bridge together, shellacked them, and put the legend in gold letters on the pins.

“Fish House Bridge, 1818-1930”

Pins sold to Aid Church.

The pins were placed on sale at the Northampton grocery store for the benefit of the church. They have had a rapid sale among the newcomers in the valley, seekers of sites for summer camps, who are giving the road to Northampton the heaviest traffic it has had in generations.

Three days ago a large section of the bridge was floating near the Northampton shore, but was gradually drifting toward Conklingville, where the dam was built. The structure was collapsed and resembled a tangled raft. It is expected the wreckage will be removed by boatmen employed by the Hudson River Regulating District board to keep the lake clear of obstructions.

The bridge at Fish House, now known as Northampton, was considered one of the oldest in the United States in continuous use. It was built by a young contractor from Saratoga County when the Sacandaga Valley was becoming more thickly settled, soon after the end of the War of 1812.

Fine Bit of Old Engineering.

From that day until two months ago, the bridge stood intact, in daily service. Its spans were constructed by warping timbers, hewn out of the neighboring forest lands. It was fastened together by wooden pins and had been called an unusual example of wilderness engineering.

When Assemblyman Esmond undertook to have the state save the bridge, the Hudson River Regulating Board directed it to be anchored with chains to the stone spans on which it rested. This was done the day the gates were closed in the Conklingville dam. It was known that the rising waters in the reservoir would set the bridge afloat and would isolate it at a considerable distance from the new shoreline at Northampton.

It was swinging from its chains when the high winds came. The gale turned up white caps on the new reservoir and after several hours of pounding the bridge gave way. Timbers taken from the bridge show the marks of the woodsmen’s axes and are still solid and strong after 112 years of duty.

11/10/2025

BEACON LIGHT OF FISH HOUSE

The hamlet of Fish House had a water tower located out near the Sacandaga River behind the Hascy House (which was the last house before the covered bridge.) . The water tower provided pressured water to the town of Fish House. When it was inevitable that the valley was going to be flooded and a lake would be formed, Northampton (Fish House) established the Northampton Improvement Association. Eugene Faille was the president of the association. One of their first decisions was to start the construction of a light house that would guide boats at night and be able to be seen as far as Cranberry Creek and Mayfield. They decided to use the concrete base of the old water tank. They improved the concrete base and by May of 1930 the tower was up to 50 feet tall. The plans were to have the tower be 100 feet tall with a 1500 watt lamp that had a 180 degree prism lens. They spent $500 for this project. It was the goal of the residents of Fish House to “make their town an outstanding place on the shores of the new reservoir.” The tower was never finished. During the winter of 1930-31, the ice that formed on the new lake destroyed the tower and the project was never completed.
This past Saturday, November 8th, with the water level being so low and the weather being so nice, my daughter and I walked out onto the old road bed that led to the covered bridge. At the very end of the exposed land we came across two square concrete holes, one was in better shape than the other. They were located in the approximate location of where the beacon tower would have been. It is my assumption that they were part of the concrete base that was to be the beacon light. Perhaps if the water level continues to drop, there will be more of the base exposed.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

10/31/2025

GEORGE ANDREW MORRISON SR.
George Andrew Morrison Sr was born in 1823 in Stockport, NY. In 1844, when he was 21, he married Julia A. Rhoads. By the time George was 26, in 1850, he had moved to Northampton, NY. His occupation was blacksmith.
George and Julia had 7 sons and 2 daughters. Their son, Romeo, died at the age of 3 and is buried in the Fish House Presbyterian Cemetery. George was the Northampton blacksmith from 1850 to 1870. In 1863, at the age of 42, he fought in the Civil War. By 1878 he and his family had moved to Cedar Creek, Delaware where he continued to be a blacksmith.
George died in 1890 at the age of 66, having outlived three of his children. His wife Julia lived until 1917, at age 92. After her husband George died, she lived with her daughter, Julia and her son in law, George Clendaniel.
If you look at the 1860 map of Northampton, they list George Morrison as a blacksmith and C. Harmon as a wagon maker. Both those shops were next to each other on the old road that led out of Northampton to Broadalbin. Our home is close to the where the blacksmith shop was, which would explain the many horseshoes we have found over the years.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

10/23/2025

SMITH/MAUS SAWMILL OF FISH HOUSE

As you walk along Cty. Hwy 110, just north of Ryder Road, there is a small creek that goes under 110. If you look down on the lake side, you will see an old foundation built with large rocks. A few steps from that foundation, closer to the lake is a corner of another foundation. This is all that is left of a sawmill that was built in 1900.
J. Henry Smith, known as Hank, was a Fish House merchant that ran the old brick store. When he was 61, Hank decided to get into the lumber business. He bought forested land from the Touhey farm, south of Fish House. He then built a sawmill on the banks of this small stream. His business specialized in hardwood flooring. It was very successful because that is when several beautiful houses were being built in Fish House. But then Hank Smith died in 1908 and the sawmill closed.
In 1910, a man called George H. Maus bought the Smith sawmill. All I knew of Maus, as an historian, was that he was one of the first to sell his buildings to HRBRRD. I decided to dig deeper to find out who this man was. George Maus was born in Utica in 1867 but soon after, his family moved to Amsterdam. At 12 he became an orphan. He attended public school and then went into the tea business as a salesman. He became quite the expert in the tea market and decided to go to Japan to learn more. It was in Japan where he learned about bamboo and realized how useful bamboo could be. He returned from Japan in 1905 and started a bamboo business in Amsterdam. His bamboo business became known worldwide, with branches not only in New York but in Chicago, China and Japan. He visited Japan and China frequently and became known as “the Bamboo King”. Maus's main office was located at 35 Hamilton street where he owned several warehouses. Maus also owned a beautiful house on Guy Park.
How did George Maus end up in Fish House? Maus owned a broom factory that had burned down around 1909. It might have been the reason that Maus decided to buy Smith’s old sawmill. According to John Bennis, who wrote, “Northampton, A Town Nearly Drowned”, George Maus added a wood lathe and the mill made posts, railing spindles and more. The sawmill did really well and as you can see on the 1924 map shown below, there were several buildings on the George Maus property. Supposedly in 1927, George Maus saw the HRBRRD putting in elevation stakes as they figured out the high water levels for the future lake. Maus apparently was one of the earliest to sell his land. The sawmill was torn down in the winter of 1929-30. A photo below shows the sawmill still standing and behind it is the Sumner House that was moved its present location in 1929.
George Maus died in 1936, but his son in law, C.A. Platt and his grandson, George Maus Platt continued the business. The grandson, George Platt, started the Gold Medal Products as part of the Maus corporation. It specialized in bamboo fishing rods but GMP also had multiple products based on bamboo.
If you can find a copy of the John Bennis book, it is a fascinating read. It was published in 2001. Bennis died in 2009. I am very grateful for all the research he did. He also wrote the book, Edinburg, A Town Divided.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

10/19/2025

Before the rain arrives I thought I would wander into the center of what used to be Fish House. With this year being so dry and the water level so low, you can see and walk on the old road bed that led out to the covered bridge. You can also see the foundation of what was the brick store and traces of other foundations,possibly that of the Smith store and maybe even part of the Fish House Hotel. Tree stumps that belonged to the trees that lined the beautiful road are visible. If you venture out, wear good shoes as there is lots of broken glass and porcelain and rusty remnants of unrecognizable things. Be respectful and enjoy the history of this area.
Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

10/10/2025

THE STORY OF THE SMITH STORE
Fay Smith was born 1804, in Mayfield, NY. In his twenties, perhaps looking for a job, Smith arrived in Northampton, NY where his uncle, John Fay, had built a brick store in 1809. (If you extended Cty Hwy 109 and Old Fish House Road, the Fay store would be at that corner.). Smith met John Fay’s daughter, Matilda Fay. They married in 1828, Matilda was only 18. It is quite possible that Smith helped his uncle, John Fay, run the corner store as John Fay’s sons were still quite young. Fay Smith and Matilda had one son, Charles Fay Smith, in 1829, but sadly Matilda died less than two years later. Fay Smith then married Jane Shottenkirk in 1834, they had five children and continued to live in Northampton, NY.
Fay Smith opened up his own store next to the Fish House Hotel on what they called, East Main Street. That part of the street is now under water and what remains above water is called Old Fish House Road.
When did Fay Smith open up his store? The early census records can be challenging as they give so little information. The 1830’s census had Fay and Matilda Smith listed near the Grinnell family, and they lived on East Main Street. So it is quite possible that Fay opened up his store around the time he married Matilda n 1828. The 1840’s census confirms that Fay Smith is into retail because it lists his occupation as being in “commerce”. In 1845, Fay Smith was appointed post master. This indicates that he had his own store. Postmasters were store owners and they were appointed based on who was in political office at that time. The 1855 census lists Fay Smith as a merchant, living in a wood frame building.
Before the Civil War, there was no federal paper money. In 1862, Fay Smith printed up bearer notes for his store so customers could pay him with those. Fay Smith died in 1864. The Smith store, run by Fay Smith for over 30 years, was then sold out of the family. But even though several families owned it after 1864, history books still referred to it as the old Smith Store. Below is a timeline for the Smith Store after 1864:
* The Humphrey family owned the
store from 1865 to 1894.
* John T. Moore bought the store in
1895 and ran it until 1906.
* Harry G. Noyes bought the store in
1906 and ran it until 1920 before
moving to Galway to open another
store.
* Delbert W. Noyes, Harry’s brother,
took over the store in 1920 and ran it
and a brick store until his death in
1924.
* Delbert’s widow, Kathryn Paul
Noyes, continued to run the old
Smith store until 1927.
. * John W. Stead bought the store in
1927, even though he knew the
valley would soon be flooded.
* April, 1930 - John W. Stead moved
the store up to Cty. Hwy. 110.
The building was turned 90
degrees so what used to be
the side of the store became the
front.
* John W Stead added gas pumps
and also a service garage
behind the store.
* 1960 - John W. Stead died. His
son, George continued
to run the store for a few more
years before closing it.
* 1972 - the store, which had been
closed for almost a decade,
was sold and the new owner
converted it into a private home.
It is still a home today.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

09/28/2025

The fall weather is a perfect time to wander through old cemeteries. If you are of the mindset to clean some gravestones you only need a few items and a little bit of scrubbing
1- a soft bristle scrub brush
2- a water source, a gallon water sprayer is perfect
3- D2 Biologic and a spray bottle
NOW THE FIVE STEPS TO A CLEANER GRAVESTONE
First- spray the gravestone with water and scrub, then rinse it off. Get as much dirt and green growth off as possible
Second- Spray with D2 Biologic and wait ten minutes
Third- spray the gravestone with water and scrub, you will see suds
Fourth- Rinse the gravestone with water thoroughly
Fifth- Spray D2 Biologic on the gravestone and leave it, the D2 will do the rest of the work. The gravestone will continue to improve over the course of weeks.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

09/23/2025

SACANDAGA PARK CAROUSEL

On this rainy Tuesday morning, I was scrolling through a favorite website, Old Fulton NY Postcards, and reading newspaper clippings from 1929. Normally I concentrate my history research on Fish House, but a small clipping caught my eye. “William Abrams of Piseco has purchased from the F. J. and G. Co. the carousel which was located on the Midway at Sacandaga. Mr. Abrams will move the carousel to Piseco and will operate it next year.”
The carousel had been built in 1902 by the Gustav Denzel Company of Philadelphia. It featured many varieties of animals, combining jungle animals, mythological animals along with horses and chariots. The famous carver, Daniel Mueller, made many of the animals.
Sacandaga Park, located where the Sport Island Pub is today, was a very popular amusement park. It had a lots of rides as well as a theater. The carousel was housed in its own barn like building and was run by a steam propulsion system.
Mr. Abrams was an engineer for the carousel when it was at the Sacandaga Park. He moved it to his private campground on Piseco Lake. The carousel was located on Abram’s Beach and was operated in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Piseco Lake Life
In 1952, the Shelburne Museum of Vermont purchased the carousel. The museum took the carousel apart and moved it to Vermont. It planned on running it as a carousel. But the quality of the Denzel animals were so great that they decided to put them in a gallery exhibit. The animals were carefully restored and you can see many of them today in the Shelburne Museum Circus Building.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton

09/21/2025

As the water level goes down, parts of Fish House reveal themselves. A cedar stump and the foundation to the brick Stead Store.

09/19/2025

Fish House’s Gilded Age Houses

The small hamlet of Fish House was located near the banks of the Sacandaga River. It’s first settler, Godfrey Shew, built his home in 1762. The hamlet attracted more settlers and it became known as the gateway to the Adirondacks. Hunters and fishermen would come and stay at the Fish House Hotel. The town slowly grew.
Between 1870 and the early 1900’s, America experienced a time of economic expansion and industrialization. This time is referred to as The Gilded Age. Wealthy people from downstate started to spend their summers in Fish House. The Sinclair family ,from New York City, made their money with Schenley Whiskey and Sinclair Oil. They built a beautiful brick mansion near the center of Fish House. . Harvey Hascy, a wealthy business man from Hempstead, Long Island made his money with brushes. He had patents that improved paint brushes. In 1900 he had a house built on the road to the covered bridge of Fish House. Alanson Sumner, born in Edinburg, NY, became a wealthy lumber merchant in Albany, NY. When he died in 1874, he left his sizable estate to his two daughters, Sarah and Emily. In 1900, the two sisters had a Victorian house built in the center of Fish House, they called it Sunnyside. They spent their summers there.
What happened to these beautiful homes when they flooded the Sacandaga Valley in 1930?
The Hascy house was moved up to higher elevation, near the end of Sunset Lane. It was later torn down.
The Sinclair house? There was a small newspaper clipping (Gloversville, Morning Herald, December 17, 1929) that said the Sinclair brick mansion was taken down and moved to Tribes Hill. Was it rebuilt? This historian has yet to find out. If anyone knows what happened to this house, please contact me. Another news clip from the same newspaper, stated that they burned down the trees in front of the Sinclair house.
The Sumner home, Sunnyside, was also moved. By 1920, both of the Sumner sisters had died, but their cousin, A. Page Smith, a lawyer, was their executor. Smith held onto the house for years. In May of 1929 he sold the land the house sat on to New York State. Then he sold the house to a fellow lawyer, John W. Searle. who had it moved up near where Ryder Road is today.
A lawyer saved the house, a lawyer moved the house and today a lawyer owns this beautiful house.

Joanne Blaauboer
Deputy Historian of Northampton
www.northamptonnyhistory.weebly.com

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