Rooming house
A rooming house called a "multi-tenant house", is a "dwelling with multiple rooms rented out individually", in which the tenants share bathroom and kitchen facilities. Rooming houses are used as housing for low-income people, as rooming houses are the least expensive housing for single adults, with rents in the $300-$425 CAD range. Rooming houses are owned and operated by private landlords. Rooming houses are better described as a "living arrangement" rather than a specially "built form" of housing. While there are purpose-built rooming houses, these are rare. A study of rooming houses in Ottawa, Ontario in 2016 found that "many units are in poor condition", with issues such as mould, cockroaches and broken locks. An article about Montreal rooming houses stated that the units contain bedbugs and "faulty plumbing". In one Ottawa study, more than 50% of the occupants in rooming houses were found to have mental health diagnoses. A 1998 study of Toronto rooming house residents found that they had poorer health than the general population and low incomes.
A study of 295 residents from 171 rooming houses in Toronto found that "residents aged 35 years and older had poorer health status than their counterparts in the Canadian general population" and the residents had a "high prevalence of ill health", with the worst-off residents living in the poorest-maintained and most substandard rooming houses. An article about rooming houses in Montreal stated that rooming houses are the "last stop before the street" for low-income people at risk of homelessness. Not all rooming houses are legal, inspected units, as landlords rent out unlicensed rooms. In Winnipeg, four branches of city government regulate rooming houses: a licensing branch, a business branch, a "livability" living standards bylaw and the fire prevention branch; the livability standards bylaw requires at least one bathroom for 10 residents. Despite efforts by the city of Toronto to regulate rooming houses, there is an invisible, unregistered rooming house sector, which are advertised online or on bulletin boards in suburban basements which are subdivided into rooms.
Increasing regulation of rooming houses can lead to a decline in the number of rooming houses that are available, as landlords may choose not to apply for and pay the fees for a city licence, complete the needed safety requirements. In 2018, the city of Ottawa created rules to limit the number of bedrooms in newly-built houses, to prevent the creation of houses with five to eight bedrooms, which can become illegal rooming houses, colloquially known as "bunkhouses". In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, the provincial government have funding programs that provides financial assistance to owners and landlords of rooming houses that serve low-income people. Prior to the 1920s, commercial rooming houses were former boardinghouses. After the US Civil War, boarding houses became less common, declining from 40% of rental listings in 1875 to 10% in 1900, less than 1% by 1910. One reason for this change was that in the decades after the 1880s, urban reformers began working on modernizing cities. By the early 1930s, urban reformers were using codes and zoning to enforce "uniform and protected single-use residential district of private houses", the reformers' preferred housing type.
In 1936, the FHA Property Standards defined a dwelling as "any structure used principally for residential purposes", noting that "commercial rooming houses and tourist homes, tourist cabins, clubs, or fraternities would not be considered dwellings" as they did not have the "private kitchen and a private bath" that reformers viewed as essential in a "proper home". The FHA rules called the existence of stores, offices or rental housing as "adverse influences" and "undesirable community conditions", which reduced the investment and repair support provided in any neighbourhood that deviated from the preferred single family home use. Land use reformers passed zoning rules that indirectly reduced rooming houses: banning mixed residential and commercial use in neighbourhoods, an approach which meant that any remaining rooming house residents would fid it hard to eat at a local cafe or walk to a nearby corner grocery to buy food. Non-residential uses such as religious institutions and professional offices were still permitted under these new zoning rules, but working class people were not allowed to operate their businesses.
By 1910, commercial rooming houses began to resemble an "inexpensive hotel", with multi-story buildings 25 to 40 years old, with the owners using the house as an income property. The operators former boarding house managers, were getting out of the business of providing meals; this enabled the owner to convert the shared dining room and parlour into additional rental rooms and stop paying for the preparation of meals. There were sixteen to eighteen rooms, with either central heating or tiny in-room heating stoves. A single bath
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the portion of the American state of New York lying north of the New York metropolitan area. The Upstate region includes most of the state of New York, excluding New York City, the Lower Hudson Valley, Long Island, although the precise boundary is debated. Major cities in Upstate New York include Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. Before the American Revolutionary War, Upstate was populated by Native Americans and was home to the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy; the region saw many battles between the Continental Army and the Iroquois, several treaties drawn up after the war ceded much of the land to settlers of European descent. It is rural with rugged terrain; the development of Upstate New York was spurred by the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, which eased the transport of goods between the port of New York City and inland cities along the Great Lakes. As a result, Upstate became a hotbed for manufacturing, giving birth to such firms as General Electric, IBM, Xerox, it welcomed a large influx of immigrants.
Since the mid 20th century, American de-industrialization has contributed to economic and population decline Upstate, the region is considered part of the Rust Belt. Unlike the New York metropolitan area, Upstate New York contains vast areas of rural land; as a result, Upstate supports a strong agriculture industry, is notable for its milk and other dairy products, its fruit production, winemaking. New York City is dependent on the natural resources of Upstate for a variety of services, including the city's water supply and electricity; the region is home to several popular tourist and recreational destinations, including Niagara Falls, the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains, the Finger Lakes. There is no clear official boundary between Downstate New York; the most expansive definition of the term Upstate New York excludes only New York City and Long Island, which are always considered to be part of Downstate New York. Another usage locates the Upstate/Downstate boundary further north, at the point where New York City's suburbs segue into its exurbs, as the exurbs do not fall within the US Census' urban area.
This latter boundary places most, but not all, of Westchester and Rockland Counties in Downstate, while putting the northwestern edge of Rockland County as well as the northernmost quarter of Westchester County in Upstate. Yet another usage follows the U. S. Census definition of the New York metropolitan area prior to 2010, which included Westchester and Putnam Counties; this was the definition used by the plaintiffs in the federal redistricting case Rodriguez v. Pataki. In New York State law, the definition of the Upstate boundary varies: while Westchester is always considered downstate under state law, some definitions include Rockland and Putnam Counties in the downstate region, others include Orange and Dutchess Counties. Ulster County, and, in the largest state-defined extent of downstate, Columbia County, are sometimes included; the division line between the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York places Sullivan County and Dutchess County in the Southern District, Ulster and Columbia Counties in the Northern District.
Within New York State, surveys have had difficulty determining a consensus. In a 2016 poll of New York voters in which respondents were asked to choose among four definitions of where Upstate begins, three were about common, selected by between 25% and 30% of respondents each: north of New York City, north of Westchester County, north of Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County. An informal 2018 poll found the Hudson Valley region is the most disputed area regarding whether it is Upstate or Downstate. Residents of Upstate New York sometimes prefer to identify with a more specific subregion, such as Western New York or Central New York. A number of businesses and institutions in the area have "Upstate" as part of their name. Examples of this include the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, the Upstate New York Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation serving 31 of New York's 62 counties, the VA Healthcare Network Upstate New York, which includes all of New York State northward and westward from Kingston, New York in Ulster County.
Other organizations in New York with "Upstate" in their name include the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association, the Upstate Correctional Facility, the Upstate New York Club Hockey League, the Upstate New York Synod, the Upstate Citizens for Equality. The other regions of New York State are culturally and economically distinct from the New York City area and in many ways from each other. Most of New York State is characterized both by agricultural and forested rural communities, by small and medium-sized cities and their surrounding suburbs located along major transportation corridors; the state's major metropolitan areas outside of New York City are Buffalo, Albany-Schenectady-Troy, Syracuse, each of whose population exceeds 500,000. The different regions of New York State are influenced by and have affinities with other adjacent regions. Western New York has cultural and economic ties to the other Great Lakes states as well as Southern Ontario; the Capital Distr
Clay pigeon shooting
Clay pigeon shooting known as clay target shooting, formally known as Inanimate Bird Shooting, is the art of shooting a firearm at special flying targets, known as clay pigeons or clay targets. The terminology used by clay shooters relates to times past, when live-pigeon competitions were held. Although such competitions were made illegal in the United Kingdom in 1921, a target may still be called a "bird", a hit may be referred to as a "kill", a missed target as a "bird away". Clay pigeon shooting has at least 20 different forms of regulated competition called disciplines, although most can be grouped under the main headings of trap and sporting; the English Sporting discipline has the sport's biggest following. While the other disciplines only use standard targets, in Sporting anything goes. Targets are thrown in a great variety of trajectories, speeds and distances and the discipline was devised to simulate live quarry shooting, hence some of the names used on sporting stands: springing teal, driven pheasant, bolting rabbit, crossing pigeon, dropping duck, etc.
Disciplines in this group include English sporting, international sporting, super sporting sportrap, Compak sporting. This discipline can have an infinite variety of "stands". English sporting is the most popular form of clay shooting in the UK, a course or competition will feature a given number of stands each of which has a predetermined number of targets, all traveling along the same path and speed, either as singles or doubles; each stand will feature a different type of target. International sporting gives a much greater variety of targets in terms of trajectory and speed, is shot by squads of six competitors in rounds of 25 targets at a time. Super Sporting is a hybrid of the two preceding varieties. There are other formats such as Compak sporting and sportrap in which five cages are surrounded by a number of traps, shooters fire a specific combinations or singles from each stand according to a program displayed in front of the cage; this is a new shotgun game that offers sporting clays and FITASC target presentations on a skeet/trap or open field.
This is possible by using a movable support system that carries the release buttons from 6 to 9 traps and the dual safety screen in any place on the field. As a result, the shooter can shoot in safe conditions upon target presentations in varying range and varying angles. Targets are thrown either as singles or doubles from one or more traps situated some 15 m in front of the shooter, are going away from the firing point at varying speeds and elevations; the most common disciplines in this group are: Down-The-Line Single Barrel Double Rise Automatic Ball Trap Olympic Trap Double Trap Universal Trench Helice Also known as DTL, this is a popular trap shooting discipline. Targets are thrown to a distance of 45 to 50 metres at a fixed height of 2.75 m and with a horizontal spread of up to 22 degrees either side of the centre line. Each competitor shoots at a single target in turn, but without moving from the stand until all have shot five targets, they all move one place to the right, continue to do so until they have all completed a standard round of 25 birds.
Scoring of each target is 3 points for a first barrel kill, 2 points for a second barrel kill and 0 for a miss. Variations of this discipline are single barrel, double rise, handicap-by-distance; as its name indicates, this is one of the disciplines which form part of the shooting programme at the Olympic Games. A trench in front of the shooting stands conceals 15 traps arranged in five groups of three. Shooters take turns to shoot at a target each, before moving in a clockwise direction to the next stand in the line. Targets for each shooter are thrown upon his call and are selected by a shooting scheme that ensures all competitors receive the same target selection, but in an unpredictable randomised order to the extent that there will be one straight, two left and two right targets for each stand from any one of the three traps directly in front of him/her. Olympic trap targets are set to travel 76 metres at the top of trench level marker peg, unless the terrain is dead flat, at varying elevations and with a maximum horizontal angle of 45 degrees either side of the centre line.
Scoring is on the basis of one point per target killed, regardless of whether this is achieved with the first or with the second barrel unless it is a final where the top six scorers shoot off as a single barrel event, regardless of local club grades if any. A simpler and cheaper to install variation of this discipline is known as automatic ball trap where only one trap is used and target variation is obtained by the continuous oscillation of the trap in both horizontal and vertical directions in order to give the same spread of targets as in Olympic trap; the targets are thrown to a maximum of 76 metres. Known as Bunker Trap, International Trap A variation on the theme of trap shooting, sometimes known as five trap. Five traps are installed in a trench in front of the shooting stands, all set at different angles and speeds, upon the call of "Pull!" by the shooter any one of the five machines, selected at random, will be released. Horizontal angles can vary from 0 degrees to 45 degrees either side of the centre line and target distance is between 60 and
Political machine
A political machine is a political group in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses, who receive rewards for their efforts. The machine's power is based on the ability of the boss or group to get out the vote for their candidates on election day. Although these elements are common to most political parties and organizations, they are essential to political machines, which rely on hierarchy and rewards for political power enforced by a strong party whip structure. Machines sometimes have a political boss rely on patronage, the spoils system, "behind-the-scenes" control, longstanding political ties within the structure of a representative democracy. Machines are organized on a permanent basis instead of a single election or event; the term may have a pejorative sense referring to corrupt political machines. The term "political machine" dates back to the 20th century in the United States, where such organizations have existed in some municipalities and states since the 18th century.
Similar machines have been described in Latin America, where the system has been called clientelism or political clientelism in rural areas, in some African states and other emerging democracies, like postcommunist Eastern European countries. Japan's Liberal Democratic Party is cited as another political machine, maintaining power in suburban and rural areas through its control of farm bureaus and road construction agencies. In Japan, the word jiban is the word used for political machines; the Encyclopædia Britannica defines "political machine" as, "in U. S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state". William Safire, in his Safire's Political Dictionary, defines "machine politics" as "the election of officials and the passage of legislation through the power of an organization created for political action", he notes that the term is considered pejorative implying corruption.
Hierarchy and discipline are hallmarks of political machines. "It means strict organization", according to Safire. Quoting Edward Flynn, a Bronx County Democratic leader who ran the borough from 1922 until his death in 1953, he wrote " the so-called'independent' voter is foolish to assume that a political machine is run on good will, or patronage. For it is not only a machine, and in any organization as in any army, there must be discipline."Political patronage, while associated with political machines, is not essential to the definition for either Safire or Britannica. A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives—money, political jobs—and, characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity. Political machines started as grass roots organizations to gain the patronage needed to win the modern election. Having strong patronage, these "clubs" were the main driving force in gaining and getting out the "straight party vote" in the election districts.
In the late 19th century, large cities in the United States—Boston, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis—were accused of using political machines. During this time "cities experienced rapid growth under inefficient government"; each city's machine lived under a hierarchical system with a "boss" who held the allegiance of local business leaders, elected officials and their appointees, who knew the proverbial buttons to push to get things done. Benefits and problems both resulted from the rule of political machines; this system of political control—known as "bossism"—emerged in the Gilded Age. A single powerful figure was at the center and was bound together to a complex organization of lesser figures by reciprocity in promoting financial and social self-interest. One of the most infamous of these political machines was Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party machine that played a major role in controlling New York City and New York politics and helping immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise up in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s.
From 1872, Tammany had an Irish "boss". However, Tammany Hall served as an engine for graft and political corruption most notoriously under William M. "Boss" Tweed in the mid-19th century. Other historians note that Tammany Hall, although known, was not the most wicked, instead referring to the Republican party machine in Philadelphia. Lord Bryce describes these political bosses saying: An army led by a council conquers: It must have a commander-in-chief, who settles disputes, decides in emergencies, inspires fear or attachment; the head of the Ring is such a commander. He dispenses places, rewards the loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes, negotiates treaties, he avoids publicity, preferring the substance to the pomp of power, is all the more dangerous because he sits, like a spider, hidden in the midst of his web. He is a Boss; when asked if he was a boss, James Pendergast said I've been called a boss. All there is to it is having friends, doing things for people, later on they'll do things for you...
You can't coerce people into doing things for you—you can't make them vote for you. I never coerced anybody in my life. Wherever you see a man bulldozing anybody he don't last long. Theodore Roosevelt, before he became president in 1901, was involved in New York City politics, he explains how the machine worked: The organization of a party in our city is much like
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a passenger ship used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Liners may carry cargo or mail, may sometimes be used for other purposes. Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called liners; the category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, not transportation, is the prime purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers; some shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners". Ocean liners are strongly built with a high freeboard to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean. Additionally, they are designed with thicker hull plating than is found on cruise ships, have large capacities for fuel and other consumables on long voyages; the first ocean liners were built in the mid-19th century.
Technological innovations such as the steam engine and steel hull allowed larger and faster liners to be built, giving rise to a competition between world powers of the time between the United Kingdom and Germany. Once the dominant form of travel between continents, ocean liners were rendered obsolete by the emergence of long-distance aircraft after World War II. Advances in automobile and railway technology played a role. By 2015, the only ship still in service as an ocean liner is the RMS Queen Mary 2 after RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was retired in 2008. Of the many ships constructed over the decades, only nine ocean liners made. Ocean liners were the primary mode of intercontinental travel for over a century, from the mid-19th century until they began to be supplanted by airliners in the 1950s. In addition to passengers, liners carried cargo. Ships contracted to carry British Royal Mail used the designation RMS. Liners were the preferred way to move gold and other high-value cargoes; the busiest route for liners was on the North Atlantic with ships travelling between Europe and North America.
It was on this route that the fastest and most advanced liners travelled. But while in contemporary popular imagination the term "ocean liners" evokes these transatlantic superliners, most ocean liners were mid-sized vessels which served as the common carriers of passengers and freight between nations and among mother countries and their colonies and dependencies in the pre-jet age; such routes included Europe to African and Asian colonies, Europe to South America, migrant traffic from Europe to North America in the 19th and first two decades of the 20th centuries, to Canada and Australia after the Second World War. Shipping lines are companies engaged in shipping passengers and cargo on established routes and schedules. Regular scheduled voyages on a set route are called "line voyages" and vessels trading on these routes to a timetable are called liners; the alternative to liner trade is "tramping" whereby vessels are notified on an ad-hoc basis as to the availability of a cargo to be transported.
The term "ocean liner" has come to be used interchangeably with "passenger liner", although it can refer to a cargo liner or cargo-passenger liner. Beginning at the advent of the Jet Age, where transoceanic ship service declined, a gradual transition from passenger ships as mean of transportation to nowadays cruise ships started. In order for ocean liners to remain profitable, cruise lines have modified some of them to operate on cruise routes, such as Queen Elizabeth 2 and SS France. Certain characteristics of older ocean liners made them unsuitable for cruising, such as high fuel consumption, deep draught preventing them from entering shallow ports, cabins designed to maximize passenger numbers rather than comfort; the Italian Line's SS Michelangelo and SS Raffaello, the last ocean liners to be built for crossing the North Atlantic, could not be converted economically and had short careers. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution and the inter-continental trade rendered the development of secure links between continents imperative.
Being at the top among the colonial powers, the United Kingdom needed stable maritime routes to connect different parts of its empire: the Far East, Australia, etc. The birth of the concept of international water and the lack of any claim to it simplified navigation. In 1818, the Black Ball Line, with a fleet of sailing ships, offered the first regular passenger service with emphasis on passenger comfort, from England to the United States. In 1807, Robert Fulton succeeded in applying steam engines to ships, he built the first ship, powered by this technology, the Clermont, which succeeded in traveling between New York City and Albany, New York in thirty hours before entering into regular service between the two cities. Soon after, other vessels were built using this innovation. In 1816, the Élise became the first steamship to cross the English Channel. Another important advance came in 1819. SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, she arrived in Liverpool, England in 27 days.
Most of the distance was covered by sailing. The public enthusiasm for the new technology was not high, as none of the thirty-two people who had booked a seat on board boarded the ship for that historic voyage. Although Savannah had proven that a steamship was cap
SS Belgenland (1914)
The Belgenland was built in 1914 and served as a freighter and World War I troopship for the White Star Line under the name SS Belgic. Because she was needed for the war effort, she was hastily finished with only two smokestacks and a superstructure only one deck high. Used for carrying cargo, in 1918 she was given accommodations for up to 3,000 troops, her gross tonnage was listed at 24,547. The doomed liner Justicia was a near identical sister ship, it was intended to be the world's largest liner, with a length of 1,000 ft and a gross tonnage of about 80,000 tons, named Cevic. During construction, it was modified and renamed Belgic, she remained in her troopship guise until April 1921. There were no berths available at any of the shipyards. Harland & Wolff had a free berth, in March 1922 she was towed to Belfast, where work on her reconstruction began in earnest, she was given to the Red Star renamed Belgenland. She was the second Red Star ship to be given this name, she was given a superstructure four decks in a third smokestack.
Her tonnage was increased to over 27,000 gross tons, making her Red Star’s largest and most luxurious ship. She remained on her route for a decade, spent time on extensive world and winter cruises. On 4 December 1924 she embarked on a 133-day world cruise — one of the longest attempted by a luxury liner at the time - advertised as "The Largest Ship to Circle the Globe". One of her most famous passengers was Albert Einstein. Returning to Germany on board her in 1933, he found out. Einstein left the ship at Antwerp, sailed on another Red Star Liner Westernland, he returned to the United States and vowed never to return to Germany. In the 1920s, White Star line stewardess, Violet Jessop, famous for surviving the RMS Titanic and HMHS Britannic sinkings, sailed on Belgenland on two round the world cruises while employed by Red Star; the Depression hit the Belgenland hard. At first, she was reduced to sailing on short cruises and one day excursions from New York, charging $4 a passenger. Laid up in the winter of 1932-33, she made only three voyages the following summer, they were Mediterranean cruises.
The millionaires who took her lengthy and expensive cruises were now unable to do so. She made a few more cruises from London, she was laid up again in September at the Port of London; the Atlantic Transport Company renamed her Columbia. She was placed with their subsidiary, Panama Pacific Line and placed on their New York City — California service via the Panama Canal; this venture failed and another attempt was made to place her on the New York – West Indies route, stopping at Miami and Havana, but this too failed. She was once again laid up, this time permanently. On 22 April 1936 she sailed from New York to the United Kingdom, was sold for scrap, her scrapping commenced on 4 May of that year at Bo'ness Scotland; the First Great Ocean Liners in Photographs, 1897–1927, by William H. Miller Pictorial Encyclopedia of Ocean Liners, 1860–1994, by William H. Miller Cruising Ships, W. H. Mitchell and L. A. Sawyer, Doubleday, 1967 Albert Einstein's fateful Belgenland voyage SS Ceric/SS Belgic on titanic-white starships
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the U. S. state of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District; the city is one of the three major centers for the Albany Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 1,170,483. At the 2010 census, the population of Troy was 50,129. Troy's motto is Ilium fuit. Troja est, which means "Ilium was, Troy is". Today, Troy is home to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest private engineering and technical university in the US, founded in 1824. Due to the confluence of major waterways and a geography that supported water power, the American industrial revolution took hold in this area making Troy reputedly the fourth wealthiest city in America around the turn of the 20th century. Troy, therefore, is noted for a wealth of Victorian architecture downtown and elaborate private homes in various neighborhoods.
Several churches boast a concentrated collection of stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Troy is home to the world renowned "Troy Music Hall" the "Troy Savings Bank Music Hall" dating from the 1870s, said to have superb acoustics in a combination of restored and well preserved performance space; the area had long been occupied by the Mahican Indian tribe, but Dutch settlement began in the mid 17th century. The patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer called the region Pafraets Dael, after his mother; the Dutch colony was conquered by the English in 1664, in 1707 Derick Van der Heyden purchased a farm near today's downtown area. In 1771, Abraham Lansing had his farm in today's Lansingburgh laid out into lots. Sixteen years Van der Heyden's grandson Jacob had his extensive holdings surveyed and laid out into lots, naming the new village Vanderheyden. In 1789, Troy adopted its present name following a vote of the people. Troy was incorporated as a town two years and extended east across the county to the Vermont line, including Petersburgh.
In 1796, Troy became a village and in 1816, it became a city. Lansingburgh, to the north, became part of Troy in 1900. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Mohican Indians had a number of settlements along the Hudson River near the confluence with the Mohawk River; the land comprising the Poesten Kill and Wynants Kill areas were owned by two Mohican groups. The land around the Poesten Kill was called Panhooseck; the area around the Wynants Kill, was known as Paanpack, was owned by Peyhaunet. The land between the creeks, which makes up most of downtown and South Troy, was owned by Annape. South of the Wynants Kill and into present-day North Greenbush, the land was owned by Pachquolapiet; these parcels of land were sold to the Dutch between 1630 and 1657 and each purchase was overseen and signed by Skiwias, the sachem at the time. In total, more than 75 individual Mohicans were involved in deed signings in the 17th century; the site of the city was a part of Rensselaerswyck, a patroonship created by Kiliaen van Rensselaer.
Dirck Van der Heyden was one of the first settlers. In 1707, he purchased a farm of 65 acres. An early local legend that a Dutch girl had been kidnapped by an Indian male who did not want her to marry someone else gained some credence when two skeletons were found in a cave under Poestenkill Falls in the 1950s. One skeleton was Caucasian with an iron ring; the other was male. The name Troy was adopted in 1789 before which it had been known as Ashley's Ferry, the region was formed into the Town of Troy in 1791 from part of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck; the township included Grafton. Troy became a village in 1801 and was chartered as a city in 1816. In 1900, the city of Lansingburgh was merged into Troy. In the post-Revolutionary War years, as central New York was first settled, there was a strong trend to classical names, Troy's naming fits the same pattern as the New York cities of Syracuse, Utica, Ithaca, or the towns of Sempronius, Manlius, or dozens of other classically named towns to the west of Troy.
Northern and Western New York was a theater of the War of 1812, militia and regular army forces were led by Stephen Van Rensselaer of Troy. Quartermaster supplies were shipped through Troy. A local butcher and meat-packer named Samuel Wilson supplied the military, according to an unprovable legend, barrels stamped "U. S." were jokingly taken by the troops to stand for "Uncle Sam" meaning Wilson. Troy has since claimed to be the historical home of Uncle Sam. Through much of the 19th and into the early 20th century, Troy was not only one of the most prosperous cities in New York State, but one of the most prosperous cities in the entire country. Prior to its rise as an industrial center, Troy was the transshipment point for meat and vegetables from Vermont, which were sent by the Hudson River to New York City; the Federal Dam at Troy is the head of the tides in the Hudson River and Hudson River sloops and steamboats plied the river on a regular basis. This trade was vastly increased after the construction of the Erie Canal, with its eastern terminus directly across the Hudson from Troy at Cohoes in 1825.
Troy's one-time great wealth was produced in the steel industry, with the first American Bessemer converter erected on the Wyantskill, a stream with a falls in a small valley at the south end of the city. The industry first used iron ore from the Adirondacks. On, ore and coal from the Midwest was shipped on the Erie Canal to Troy, there processed before being sent on down the Hudson to New York City; the iron an
