Rotterdam
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Schenectady County Historical Society
Niskayuna has been compiled by volunteers of the Schenectady County Historical Society and depicts the town’s history through photographs of its homesteads, businesses, and community places.
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Rotterdam - Schenectady County Historical Society
Rotterdam.
INTRODUCTION
Situated near the eastern end of New York State’s Heritage Corridor at what is known as the Gateway to the West,
the town of Rotterdam is closely linked with the early development of Schenectady. In 1661, Arent Van Curler from Nykerk, Holland, and 14 other proprietors cleared and settled the area that became the city of Schenectady. At that time the present town of Rotterdam served as the outlying farmlands and wood lots for the settlers. With few exceptions, these settlers made their homes in the Stockade in Schenectady but went to their farmlands during the daytime. One of these exceptions was Elias Van Guysling, who c. 1670 built a house on the Great Flats on the outskirts of the city. This house stood until the late 1940s. Very shortly after Van Guysling had settled, Daniel Janse Van Antwerp applied for a patent of 165 acres of land in the Woestina area, near present-day Rotterdam Junction, and was granted it in 1680. He built the stone house known as the Mabee Farm, which he sold to his business partner Jan Pieterse Mabee in 1705. Arent Bradt, another of the first settlers of Rotterdam, was the grandson of one of the original proprietors of Schenectady. When his father died in 1713, Bradt inherited a piece of property on the Second Flat, and c. 1736, he built the Bradt house, which still stands on Schermerhorn Road. Other families continued to settle the lands now occupied by Rotterdam. Some of the family names include Crawford, Gregg, Pangburn, Putnam, Rynex, Van Eps, Vedder, Veeder, and Wemple. Even so, the area remained a fairly empty wilderness well into the 18th century.
The lands now known as Rotterdam became Schenectady’s Third Ward when that city was incorporated in 1798. Rotterdam retained that status when the county of Schenectady was chartered in 1809. During this period, a council of aldermen and assistants from each of the four wards governed the city of Schenectady. The Third Ward, Rotterdam, and the Fourth Ward, Glenville, were the largest wards, but as farming communities they were quite thinly populated. Meanwhile, the city of Schenectady had expanded very rapidly during the Revolution and the period of westward expansion that followed. It became a commercial boatbuilding and trading center. Because of conflicting interests, the farmers from the Third and Fourth Wards seldom agreed with the urban-oriented council members from the other two wards. As a result, in May 1819, the city council recommended that the Third and Fourth Wards be separated out as towns, and on December 31, a petition to the state legislature was drafted. The legislation was passed on April 14, 1820, the final day of the legislative session, creating the town of Rotterdam. In 1821, Peter Becker became the first supervisor and was later returned for two more terms.
As the Erie Canal was being built, between the years 1820 to 1825, towns and villages fortunate enough to be located along the waterway grew and prospered from the trade it spawned. Many of the town’s residents were employed as lock tenders and towpath walkers, who checked the structure for leaks, made repairs, and maintained it. There were also those whose shops, hotels, and farms served the canal and profited by it. The Erie Canal ran eight miles through the town along the Mohawk River and the River Road (Route 5S). There were three canal locks in Rotterdam: one opposite the end of Schermerhorn Road, another about one mile farther west, and the third at the end of Lock Street in Rotterdam Junction. Spaffords Gazetteer for 1825 listed at that time 2 churches and 7 school houses.
The schools were in session eight months of the year, teaching 273 pupils at a cost in public money of $211.50. It also listed the town as having four gristmills, four sawmills, three textile mills, a satin factory, a paper mill, and two oil
mills. The population was 1,529 and included 29 slaves and 78