Paul Schneider Lecture

"This little jaunt turned out extremely agreeable..." was a very apt name for the Waterford Historical Museum and Cultural Center's final lecture to wrap up this year's winter lecture series.

After getting snowed out of our previous time slot, a great big thank you is in order for all those who made it to the lecture. We had a good crowd of interested learners and a spectacular lecture by Paul Schneider on early accounts of Waterford history.

Jumping into the diaries of these two Scottish immigrants required a bit of background to understand why these men came here and context for their observations. Luckily, Paul was able to do so with some great images to illustrate the history leading up to where these diaries begin.

The two men we followed through their daily entries were John Strachan who came to New York in 1819 and settled in Halfmoon in 1821 with his family on a plot of land that still has the buildings he had constructed on the property. The other, Alexander Stewart Scott, came to Halifax in 1815 and toured through Waterford as he sailed along the canals in 1826.

The burning of Buffalo by British forces during the War of 1812
in retaliation for the burning of York by American forces in 1813

Both men were Scottish immigrants who came with the wave of Scottish settlers -
~14% of Scotland's population - following the War of 1812. Most of the fighting for this war was in New York State and in Canada, namely along the Niagara Frontier and Lake Champlain. But the Napoleonic Wars also were ongoing for the British as they fought the French, with many looking for better economic opportunities by crossing the Atlantic.

The land in this area has always been desirable, as Paul spoke of with images of military roads that ran through here, early efforts at waterway management by the Western Inland Lock Company.

Travel books became popular with the construction of the canals, providing another reason for people to stop in Waterford for either business or sightseeing.

Strachan made a home for himself with a plot of land he'd managed to purchase, setting up a farm in which he planted several varieties of trees to make a profit.

A scan of one of Stachan's diary pages gives us a glimpse of his daily concerns, as he marks down plans for planting designs in addition to short-hand remarks about the weather and other small details.

Paul put together a great image using historical resources and Google maps to
plot out familiar points to help pinpoint the location of John Strachan's farm

Strachan made a note of some interesting events in Waterford - like the visit of General Lafayette when he made a tour of the United States in 1825, passing through Halfmoon and Waterford on July 1st of that year. He also had a humorous story regarding the misadventures of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad that passed his lands-

A sketch of one of the first Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad locomotive

The train with six cars and 300 passengers had an unscheduled delay when it crossed paths with a cow that had wandered onto the trains and damaged the locomotive, leaving Strachan very pleased with himself for not accepting the invitation to travel on one of the first trips the train made.


Some notable events that he didn't mention in his diary include the 50th Anniversary of the country, nor does he mention the passing of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

The route Scott would have journeyed along, with the red circles
marking stops along the way - including Waterford

Alexander Stewart Scott, however, did make a note of that event in his diary as he traveled along the canals. Paul mapped out the routes he had taken as he traveled through Waterford, making a remark on it being a neat little village and of a certain guest that his boat had picked up at this stop. General Van Schoonhoven travelled the canal with him for a brief time and seems to have been happy to give Alexander a tour of his own as they passed by landmarks like Bemis Heights as they passed through Saratoga.

He also noted what travel was like on the canal with his own humorous anecdote read to us by Paul. Packet boats were known for being a bit...cramped...when it came to sleeping conditions that passengers experienced if they stayed the night aboard one of these vessels. During one night, Alexander wrote of how he'd inadvertently smacked the man in the bed next to him with his hand. The sleepy man responded as though under attack, falling out of his bed and roughing up the nearest body next to him before coming to his senses, luckily without hurting anyone even though it had woken everyone on board the boat. Alexander wrote of how difficult it was for him to keep from laughing aloud and giving himself away as being at fault, especially whenever he saw the other man who'd managed to bruise his face with his abrupt fall from his sleeping cot.

As a law student, it was impossible for Scott not to make some comment on the law system he observed here, noting how Americans didn't seem to have the same decorum he was used to in British North America, with -to him -  improperly casual attire lacking the fine coats and wigs all lawmen wore. But, aside from the nitpicking of our courts, Paul read out one of his final remarks about his travels in America, which was a pleasant surprise to the Canadian. He'd come to New York expecting far worse apparently if his comment was how he found Americans not to be not that bad.

Thanks again to Paul for a fantastic lecture about his ongoing research concerning these individuals' stories, as well as the story around the journals too.

The Waterford Historical Museum and Cultural Center has photocopies of Strachan's journal and this research is a great help to supporting our endeavor toward preserving and teaching the past!

Thanks to everyone who came out to join us!