Stoll Brewing Company: Troy New York

 This small study of local upstate New York brewing started last fall on a small secondary road in the Town of Schodack New York in Rensselaer County.  Graw Road to be exact which is barely a one lane road in the southern part of the town near the Columbia County border. I was digging at an old burned out barn foundation once located  on that road.  The barn which was burned as part of a South Schodack Fire Dept. drill in 1975 still has foundation stones and I believe dates back to the early 20th Century. I discovered an old piece of bottle glass , somewhat charred but still  in legible condition. The glass a mild aqua color had an raised emblem of what appears to be an eagle in flight. I also discovered near by part of the bottle neck. Same color. Kept it in the bag and as time permitted over the winter I attempted to discover the origin and or use of the bottle fragment. After some Google and a search through antique bottle books at our local public library along with a trip to a dealer in the Central New York area to view a complete bottle I believe I can say with 95% certainty that this bottle was from The Stoll Brewing Company of Troy New York. Let me run down some history for you.

1. Stoll was founded by a Jacob Stoll in1855 and it was in operation until 1920 at the time Prohibition was enacted. They made a soda called Stollo for a time but closed circa 1923.

2. The Stoll name goes way back in America , the first mention seems to be when a Stoll landed in New Amsterdam in the 1650's.

3. This brewery was typical of America in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Numerous small breweries doted the landscape. In the New York capital region alone back then one might find Stanton which served a bock seasonal bock beer and a half & half. Wagner Bros beer and a Mahoney's Creme Ale.and in Albany Dobler just to name some.

4. At least into the early 20th century they got their hops from central New York. Delivered on the Erie Canal waterway. Cooperstown was a major hops growing region untill a crop disease wiped out much of the production around the turn of the 20th century. I have found hops growing wild in the Canastota and Skaneateles region of central New York which may very well be from that era of  cash crop farming.

5. Beer was brewed in local areas mainly because most beer does not age well. Fresh beer was best when it came from a local brewer.

6. Now the question arises , what kind of beer did the Stoll family brew. For this I have a first person  source. Peter Stoll who was an English teacher in my home town  of Schodack NY at Maple Hill High School from circa 1968 to  1975. He was a great grand nephew of the brewing family. I and a couple of high school friends knew Peter on a semi friendly basis and even knew him somewhat socially in the summer of 1970. If my memory serves me correctly he told us that they brewed a classic German Pilsner. It had  more of a hop taste  because extra hops were added in formulation as a preservative. Remember refrigeration was mainly from ice in that time period.

7. Upstate NY had a fairly large number of German and Slovak immigrants and breweries often served their cultural tastes. Schenectady NY had a taste for instance for a more Polish or Slovic beer with companies like General Electric hiring these groups.

8. The brewery was located at 42 Spring Street in Troy which according to my GPS is now Spring Road. I have traveled there in early March. It is now a tree lined area with no sign of foundations.or building.

9. The bottle has an eagle on it flying over a beer barrel. The barrel has an S embossed on it. The words The Stoll Brewing Company is embossed over the eagle and Troy NY  under the barrel.

10. Stoll like the majority of breweries never came back from Prohibition. Their brew master had died in the late twenties and the exact  formulation has no doubt been lost to time. Even recently the formulation for brewing Schlitz beer which was once the most popular beer in America in sales was lost and had to be reformulated after only a few yrs of non-production.
  Generally speaking  , mainly the larger brewers came back Anheiser Bush being a prime example.

11. Of course we have come full circle in a real sense. Now in America  we once again have many small micro breweries. Serving a diverse taste of the public. From The Brooklyn Brewery to The Pump House Brewery in Albany a distinct  and diverse beer or ale is being created. We have returned.

 So my thanks to Peter Stoll  wherever he is. R.P. Kunicki for his Brooklyn Hops growing knowledge. Canastota NY county historian.

The Beatles: A Day In The Life: 1967: WPTR Radio Bootleg Story

 Last Sunday while watching the latest episode of Mad Men which takes place in 1966 they finally play a Beatles song....Tomorrow Never Knows. News reports say Lions Gate Productions payed one quarter of a million dollars for the rights to use this song. The song was perhaps the most radical and different of  any of the Beatles song book. But hearing that song for the first time in yrs sparked a latent trivial memory from a distant adolescence. It was circa February 1967. Music rumors of a new and very different record album being produced. in England by the Beatles and George Martin. At that time no one really can remember from whom came a bootleg copy of a long and unusual Beatles production.....It was called A Day In The Life. About 7 stations in America obtained this copy. One such station was a major 50,000 watt AM station WPTR in Troy NY. Without much fanfare it began playing primarily in the night time hours and then filtered down to occasional day play. It seemed odd at the time that no one else was playing it. But it was The Beatles. And it was a different R&R song. A taste of something to come from lets face it the most important  group of the second half of the 20th Century.  After about two weeks of play it suddenly disappeared as quietly as it had appeared. What I was to discover later was The Beatles and more importantly their lawyers had discovered the bootleg was being played on select stations. Cease and desist threats issued and the bootleg rendition was gone. Of course the song would be on Sgt. Peppers issued in June of the same year.  My thanks to H." Skip" Peters former DJ for some additional information on this subject. A happy trivial memory of time past and when The Beatles ruled much of popular music.

Secret Society : Oarsmen Society

 I like to explore a number of topics , one area of interest I have worked on in the last seven yrs has been discovering more about a small college secret society called by the deceptive name Oarsmen Society. . Deceptive because it has little or nothing to do with the sport of competitive rowing. I do have a family member who is associated with the group and have been able to dig from that point. There are a number of such societies the most well known and most speculated on is of course Skull and Bones of Yale. Past Presidents and captains of industry have been members. Shrouded in secrecy it goes on as have others with names like Scroll & Key. So what follow are a few basic facts I have uncovered by my various searches.

1. It was started by 3 students and a couple of facility at post war Cornell University circa 1947.

2. It was an essentially a brotherhood designed to give aid  and underpinnings to a selected student body of essentially post war GI's and others entering on the GI Bill after the return from the recent war.

3. It provided a support type environment and as the small society evolved a philosophic base for ones life actions.

4. All most all the original group had Masonic or similar ties within their family ties.

5. What evolved after 3 or 4 yrs was a small compact society with a ritual for entering and various social forms for continuous membership while attending college.

6. One of their social events is a monthly dinner usually held on a Sunday.

7. You enter in your Junior yr and continue into the Senior or post graduate yrs.

8. Somewhere in the later 1950's their general outlook of living was codified. The Book as it is sometime referred to was written oddly by a long deceased actor  named Jack Carson. He is perhaps best known for being in the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He played Paul Newman's older brother. For a good fee he codified a basic philosophy on conducting ones life. A functional take on life and potential conduct. I have not seen it all but it has lines in it such as"that distant sound you hear is the onrush of time." I was told it was about 25-30 pages.

9. At some point in the early 60's they expanded by facility from Cornell to select other colleges or universities. This has ebbed and flowed over time but the best I can fathom is there are chapters at St. Lawrence University , Mount Holyoke College with a few members at Williams and at one time Colgate.

10.  They were all male into the late 70's when females began to be admitted on an on again off again basis for a few yrs.

11. They ran into recruitment problems in the late sixties and all most ceased to exist but with a financial gift from 2  members they were able to continue. A trust was set up by a C.C. Nott at the Bank of New York upstate division in Albany which in some form exists today. Nott it is rumored is a Bonesman.

12. Ones membership is apparently lifelong , once an Oarsmen all ways an Oarsmen. 

13. There are upon occasion reunion type dinners held about every 3 yrs usually in NYC.

14. Oarsmen may very well have ties to other groups such as S&B.

15. One small "suggestion" that members carry on is that on the second Thursday evening in February during the dead of winter between 10:00pm and 1100pm ones takes a small moment to review the past yr and their lives. Contact a former member , have an honest talk. Or just spend some quiet personal time thinking it all over.

16. They acquired a Latin Motto somewhere in the 1950's probably from Jack Carson. Simply....Animo non Astutia. They also have a symbol which is 3 circles in a triangle shape , it was apparently based on a DeMedici family symbol They also apparently borrowed a number symbol from Skull & Bones 322. It goes back to Greek legend it is told.

17.. Membership roles are held closely but it is a strong rumor that one member is Erin Burnett currently of  CNN. Apparently there is atleast one current member of congress that maintains a quiet membership.
 
 So that is what my research has turned up , a slow but interesting journey. My thanks to my nameless sources  , you know who you have been.

Archaelogy of Conversation

 One can dig up a variety of items or research a topic that can help one piece together what life and a society was about. Even in a short time frame like 30 yrs a culture can turn over and forget quickly what was once important. So I have come to a moment that now puzzles me. I was talking with a woman today who was manning an information booth at our library. It was funded by a local hospital and was handing out literature about having family dinner time. The actress Jamie Lee Curtis among  others have done public service announcements on this topic. You can Google this area , there is a large body of research on this simple but important social topic. The basic message..........sitting down to have family dinners is important to develop everything from language skills to being less prone to drug abuse. It appears from talking with the nurse manning the table that this simple function has become a lost American art. Busy lives etc has caused a large decline in this once common ritual of American and for that matter developed world life.  Fascinating. And as I think more about it  , I seem to remember a richer more complex conversational life. I have commented on this topic in the past. Honestly I had better conversations in my Junior and Senior yrs in a place called Maple  Hill High School than I often have now. I have begun to genuinely feel that a certain beauty has slowly left my life. Decent conversation , a talk that makes me think anew or gains me a new in site into a problem. Now it seems to have spilled over into society that numerous studies from universities from Yale to Syracuse  have researched the topic in depth.  What this research might not show is I think some people really miss those now more rare moments. Dinner with ones parents or conversations in high school.. And I must say there were people once in my life that I had strong differences with THAT I LOVED. Uncles , aunts , cousins , friends. I truly wish I could take my tools of archaeology and   rediscover lost conversation. It would shine a light on what was and the difficult road my country is now on. I realize this is one of the blogs I write which will receive little attention compared with several others I have posted the last couple of years. Sometimes one blogs because one needs to say something to feel better and I now do.

Reaching Back To Older Hero's

 Had a long week. Returned to my hometown of Schodack N.Y. to attend a funeral. My cousins husband. A simple funeral , at his request he was buried with a pack of cigarettes {that's hard core} and little talk of God at the funeral , also at his request. If he was one thing he was consistent. But he left me something. He knew of my interest in history and archaeology. He left me an odd piece from the past. A plague from the late forties or early 50's. On it was something called The Lone Ranger Creed. A cereal box prize. I guess he wanted to leave me something of how he actually thought. I will not bore you with it's substance , if you want you can Google it. But this must have meant something to him. The Lone Ranger was a hero of old time radio and for the most part the black & white TV era. He was a good 20 yrs older than me so I suspect this was from the radio days. So , later as I drove back home to 11509 a bit weary  I thought about this keep sake he left me to ponder. He knew I like playing detective with objects and artifacts I find along the way. Well......as of late we have detoured a bit in society towards some of the older style of hero's. The revival of Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey and Jude Law. Johnny Depp is currently filming a remake of the Lone Ranger for Disney. After that Depp is scheduled to play the detective hero of the 30's and 40's The Thin Man. Yes Nick and Nora Charles will be back on screen in a couple of short yrs. The latest 007 flick is being filmed  as I write this. A friend of my daughter told her of seeing some of the filming in London. Bond started out in the early 50's.  Of course a personal favorite The Saint is in the process of being revived for a new TV series and or movie. Personal favorite because the author Leslie Charteris knew my aunt socially in Ocala Florida. The Saint goes back to 1928 the rest  , the 1930's or for Holmes 1890's. So , some hero's are hard to kill , there was even a Green Hornet movie last year though not well received. The Hornet goes back to the 30's.  So does this piece of cereal box history mean something other than an e-bay item for the collector. Well.....?  Well considering that old geezers are not the demographic movie makers are going for maybe it says that these characters are the cultural template from which we all have sprung. Some may feel at home or easy with this template. It may also simply say a good story is still a good story no matter how distant the cultural references may be. But what ever this trend may or may not mean.......I will be taking my older Grand kids to see the Lone Ranger , will attend for over the 20th time a James Bond opening night this November. Drag the long suffering wife to see the The Thin Man because she is all to well aware of my enjoyment for that genre of detective flick and await the return of a man known for a halo over his not all ways honest head. The gift is now in my file cabinet among some of my other collections of  various artifacts. It will be there for some time to come.

Amsler's Ice House Castleton N.Y. 12033

 One of the problems one can come up against when researching various history topics is you run out of time. All the people that remember ice houses as a going concern are long gone. People that even remember where such shells were located  have declined greatly as well.  Such is the case with Amsler's Ice House located off Ransom Avenue in my hometown of Castleton N.Y. So with what I know from brief interviews and personal observation this is what I know. Amler's Ice house was located off Ransom Avenue next to the land bought for the Castleton Union School , now the Castleton Elementary  School. It was a smaller ice house and served the uptown section of Castleton above the Hudson River area. It was built inside of a hill which gave it a sunken appearance.  The Amsler family had a small store across the street from the ice house. It had 2 doors one facing Ransom Avenue the other a side entrance. As a kid we hung around the old barn looking structure , as remembered by various people inside were collapsed old pallet type structures. The earth inside had a dusky chalk type feel , probably from old saw dust used as a basic form of insulation for the ice. It was torn down in the late 60's or early 70's because it was considered by the Town Fathers to not only be a danger from collapse but rather ugly. As old barn type structures built from that era it was not easily wrecked. Once down it provided more room for the phone company bld  expansion which was located directly in back of that piece of property. It is now a landscaped piece if property where one would not guess an ice house once stood. The Ransom Avenue  school driveway runs next to where it was. Families like the Amsler's and the Hudson's made a good living from this piece of old technology. General Electric's first refrigerator was built circa 1911. Ice slowly lost it's hold on kitchens across America and as well memories of Ice Men making deliveries from these old structures.My thanks to Beverly Ingalls of Clifton Park and Checker Block of Schodack Landing N.Y. for their memories.

Hai Karate: A Visit With The Past

 When one does a blog which often concerns itself with the past I have sometimes been given suggestions or various items which people think might make an interesting topic. These range from an interesting looking rock that looks like a duck to a recent gift from my cousin , a bottle of old Hai Karate aftershave { pronounced High Karate} discovered in a discard box in her garage. Yes this icon from youthful memory. This aftershave was made from appx the late 60's to early 80's. Made by as it says on the bottle , the Leeming Division of Pfizer Corporation zip code 10017. Yes the same people that brought us Viagra brought us this green liquid. Most likely some that used this aftershave back then use Viagra now.It's that old.  Anyway I have not yet opened it , so that is what I am going to do now.  Be right back................still holding.............................................................BLAU...............OK , what to say? I did not like it for one. A base tone of aluminum with some citrus is how I best can describe it.  It is quite possible that the age of this aftershave has altered the experience , circa late 60's bottle after all according to my cousin. The question also arises , did I once smell like this. Yes , I received a bottle for Christmas in 1969. Memories have come flooding back. My last High School Christmas in my hometown , the 60's ending , a wedding attended in March of 1970 which I had no memory of until just now.  High School graduation has just come to mind and an old high school flame as well as Donna Blasch my college sweet heart . This budget aftershave bought by my parents probably in a drug store in or near Castleton NY has stirred a few memories. It also reminded me of my mother who hated the 60's and could not wait for them to be over and for her son to get a hair cut.  One of her self improvement gifts this no doubt was. At least , I did not smell like Old Spice I remember was one of my reactions. Yet for some , this is probably an Icon from the past. I imagine Brut or Jade East is the closest hangovers from that era if you wish to indulge in memories induced by smell. As for this bottle , it is being donated to an animal league in the 11509 zip area that deals with the feral cat problem in our area. They have an ebay account that they use to fund their activities and have told me they welcome this gift that really sells well on ebay. Amazing!  If you wish to indulge further you can Google the name and see some of the old commercials. But to those that might obtain this or another bottle I can only repeat the words of the commercial..........Hai Karate.......Be Careful How You Use It.