Winter around here is rough. Long days of gray nothingness interspersed with the white stuff that many New Englanders love. Many, excepting me. The long grey days are my preferred choice, as bleak as they may be. That is why I spruced them up this year with a little off-season road trip!
Leaving New England was my choice. I have spent an entire lifetime inside this little area. My home away from home has often been New York because it has so much to do and see.
So how did we get here? Where? Overthere!
Well, it so happens we have been tuning in to podcasts for a long time in our little and big sojourns around the United States. Recently a really interesting one piqued our interest b/c it was locally produced by a well-respected public radio station out of Boston University named WBUR. The podcast "Last Seen" was all about an art heist at the Isabella Gardner Museum in 1990 that to this day remains unsolved. Good podcast with a list of interesting suspects that were revealed. We found one, in particular, to be very interesting indeed. I'll hold off on the big reveal for a minute while I get our asses up to the NY locale that features him.
This trip was a return trip. I have been to the area travelled to many times, but the last was with spouse and son after we dropped our oldest son off at a SUNY College in the Catskills area over 10 years ago. Back then, we had vacationed at Desolation Lake in the Adirondacks with a fun-filled itinerary packed full of all kinds of lovely annoying activities, for we were traveling with a grounded 15-year-old.
The return trip was to capture a few sites we missed. For example, Saratoga Springs, NY
In Saratoga Springs we briefly stopped. We stopped to pay homage to Solomon, whom we knew little of on our last visit to SS ten years ago. Solomon also lived in Glen Falls, our destination for this trip. Thank you to director Steve McQueen for the powerful movie made in 2013 of this incredible story.
The Ludlow House, 687 North Broadway
Now the Masonic Lodge, this was the summer home of Henry/Harry Shattuck Ludlow, son of the inventor of the famous fire hydrant valve, Ludlow Valve. The yellow and blue version now in front of his home is not one of his designs. This little factoid just tickled me.
It’s one of those damn Mueller’s from a Southern plant! I hate finding those. Now I will be on the hunt for a Ludlow (I spent years looking for our 2 local to Western MA ones).
The Ludlow Story (from the archives at RPI):
The Ludlow Valve Manufacturing Company was founded by Henry Ludlow in 1861. Ludlow, a native of Nassau, NY, had graduated with an engineering degree from Union College in 1843. He started the company in Waterford, NY but it quickly grew and Ludlow moved it first to Lansingburgh, NY, in 1872, and then to Troy, NY in 1897. When the company moved to Troy it took over the facilities of the Rensselaer Iron Company (Rensselaer Iron and Steel Company) located on the Poestenkill River in South Troy. Ludlow Valve Manufacturing Company was locally managed by four presidents until the 1930s. The first president was Henry Ludlow and he remained in the position until the early 1890s . The company was one of the largest valve manufacturers in the country. Operations as Ludlow ended in the late 1960’s.
There was/is so much to view and photograph here, but since this really wasn't the final destination, we really needed to move on. This last house just struck me, so I include it here:
Joseph Drexel, who partnered with J. Pierpont Morgan to form the Drexel Morgan Bank, purchased the property in 1879. Drexel built a narrow-gauge railway from the intersection of North Broadway and Van Dam Street to Mount McGregor where he constructed a four-story hotel, the Hotel Balmoral. The Pink House is one of Saratoga's most recognized properties. This amazing home features 8 bedrooms, 5 full baths, gourmet kitchen, grand formal dining room, high ceilings with crown molding, and wood floors throughout. The fabulous wrap around front porch is the perfect spot for Summer entertaining. Sold last summer for $2.585 million!
We, like Solomon Northup, were moving down the road to a more suitable place, an everyman place, the working-class community, and mill town with an apropos name of Glens Falls, NY.
Glen Falls, NY
Here we were at our lovely pre-winter holiday break in Glen Falls, NY. Huh? What’s up with this grey day place. Why come here?
A little background info on what got us here.
First this place:
The Hyde Collection is one of the Northeast’s exceptional small art museums with distinguished collections of European and American art, and Modern and Contemporary art. It is a house museum, the middle house in a grouping of three. The Hyde house is a re-creation of a 15th-century Italian palazzo. The Hyde was inspired by the Gardner Museum in Boston, MA and is referred to in museum circles as "the mini-Gardner."
Next a word about the family:
The daughters of Samuel and Eliza Jane Pruyn grew up surrounded by the effects of their father’s generosity and admiring his philanthropic spirit. Mr. Pruyn, the founder of Finch Paper, made significant contributions to the community in education, the creation of a water system, and improved housing. The Pruyn daughters, Charlotte Pruyn Hyde (1867-1963), Nell Pruyn Cunningham (1876-1962), and Mary Pruyn Hoopes (1870-1952), stayed close throughout their lives, pursuing their love of the arts and carrying on their family’s legacy of giving. They built summer homes on a 7-acre plot overlooking daddy's papermill.
Some History:
1865-1880
Jeremiah and Daniel Finch, along with Samuel Pruyn, purchase the Glens Falls Company mill and form Finch, Pruyn Company. Soon after, they acquire the Wing Mill, where Finch sits today. The company manufactures lumber, canal boats, lime and prized black marble, which has the honor of being incorporated into the Washington Monument.
The view below is from the Pruyn family summer estates. The Pruyn sisters are the daughters of Samuel, a descendant from a long line of Dutch farmers from the Albany area.
Not a very pretty view is this one. But there it is, still operating over 100 years later. There apparently were extensive gardens in back of the 3 houses at one time, but these gardens have mostly vanished with time.
There are a few mistakes in this video clip: 1. The sisters are the Pruyn sisters, not Hyde, and 2. It is South Glens Falls that has the famous Cooper's Cave (as mentioned in James Fenimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans") not Glens Falls
The 2nd daughter, Charlotte is the progenitor of this almost unique house museum, which came second to the more famous Isabella Stewart Gardner house museum built in 1899 in Boston (a recreated 15th-century Venetian palazzo, which looks nothing like the Hyde).
Hyde Collection's Rembrandt has colorful history
Now on to the similarities to the Gardner House Museum of Boston:
Both had Boston architects, The Gardner had Charles Sears, The Hyde- Henry Bigelow.
Both had heists, Gardner’s for real in 1990 and still unsolved, Hyde’s not completed in 1980.
Both shared a common suspect, Boston area criminal Brian M. McDevitt!
THIS WAS THE IT! THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY. THE REASON FOR THE RIDE.
As we listened to that podcast about the Gardner heist, we couldn't believe our ears when we heard of this side-story about some gritty little mill town where some brazen kid from Swampscott, MA. I know some folks are just howling at the thought of a 20-year-old from SWAMPtown, MA coming up to Glens Falls, NY- impersonating a Vanderbilt from you guessed it- Saratoga Springs, NY, hooking up with the night manager at the swanky hotel in town and trying to rob the Hyde. This was incredulous to us. We just had to go check it all out.
So the story goes something like this:
Brian Michael McDevitt had somehow stolen over $100k from safe deposit boxes belonging to lawyers in the Boston area, took the ill-gotten booty up to Glen Falls, passed himself off as Paul Stirling Vanderbilt, who drove a Bentley and holed up at the Queensbury Hotel supposedly to write. How did he ever do it??? So many details we will never know (he died in 2004). What did people around town think? How did he convince the night manager at the Queensbury Hotel (Michael Brian Morey) to go along with him? So, so many questions.
Check out the podcast episode on this character for a bit (not much) more information:
Episode 8: Flimflammer
https://www.wbur.org/lastseen/2018/11/05/flimflammer
Brian M. McDevitt. McDevitt and an accomplice, Michael B. Morey, were arrested in December 1980 after their plans to rob the Hyde museum derailed.
They had hijacked a Federal Express van, knocked out the driver with ether and donned the courier company’s uniforms. They carried handcuffs and duct tape to bind the guards and tools to cut the paintings from their frames.
The plan unravelled when the van got stuck in traffic, preventing them from arriving at the museum before it closed.
Identified by the FedEx driver, McDevitt was convicted of attempted robbery and served time in prison.
McDevitt was publicly identified as a suspect in the Gardner case in a 1992 story in The New York Times and spoke to “60 Minutes” about it in 1993. sadly, the Swampscott, MA son of a guidance counselor died at age 43 perhaps taken to another life the answers to a few mysteries in this one. What a storied life!
Excerpt from the Boston Herald March 16, 2008:
“…The enigmatic McDevitt, who always denied robbing the Gardner, was convicted of five felonies in all, including a Boston safety-deposit theft of $160,000 in cash and bonds. He died on May 27, 2004, of apparent kidney failure."
Those who met him considered him unfailingly charming, articulate, and convincing.
Almost immediately after the art museum was robbed, McDevitt moved to California, where he passed himself off as an award-winning freelance screenwriter and secured a position in the Writers Guild, before being thrown out when his credentials were questioned. There were also doubts raised about business claims he made.
McDevitt attended but was eventually expelled from Bates College, where he drove an MG and passed himself off as a Vanderbilt – a falsehood he would also later use in Glens Falls.
He attended UMass-Boston in the 1980s.
“He always projected himself in a high way,” said Jeffrey Earp of Lynn, who graduated with McDevitt from Swampscott High. “He seemed to be on the path to great things. Then, surprise, he was in the news.”
The dude was quite the character all right. Here are mugshots of him:
An interesting story of his time out in Cali:
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-12/entertainment/ca-192_1_writers-guild
So next we drove to our sleeping destination and another key spot in the Hyde heist mishap
Over the years, the hotel underwent a number of expansions and upgrades, including the addition of a 56-room annex in 1929, a new cocktail lounge in 1934, and new guest rooms in 1973. Perhaps the biggest change in the hotel's history took place in 1985 when an indoor pool, additional meeting rooms, and banquet facilities were added.
In its heyday, the hotel attracted big names in entertainment, including Benny Goodman and Guy Lombardo. These stars would give performances in the hotel's ballroom, which served as a popular venue for such acts. Celebrities who have stayed at the hotel over the years include Mike Tyson, Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Bob Hope, Ozzy Osbourne, Kenny Anderson, and Ronald Reagan. Robert F. Kennedy famously visited The Queensbury in 1964 after being elected to the U.S. Senate.
We were here b/c the hotel attracted another big (albeit fake) name in 1980, Paul Sterling Vanderbilt. We, of course, were chasing after a good story. One we heard on a Podcast (Last Seen from WBUR).
The story was so good, the setting so almost unremarkable that we just had to go chase it. Yes, it was tied to the glorious (and monied) Saratoga Springs, but really, it played out in this gritty little mill town just down the road.
Speaking of down the road, the distance between here (where we and the culprit stayed) and the intended crime site (The Hyde) is less than a mile.
So here I stand in all this opulence and almost seated in the lap of luxury and I can not get behind the idea of an art theft caper hatched and almost pulled off by a 20-year-old from Swamscott, MA. Brian McDevitt, aka Paul Sterling Vanderbilt had already pulled off a theft that gave him the seed $$$ to purchase (rent?) a Bentley and take up residence here as he planned his next heist.
How did McDevitt strike up the deal with his co-caper, Michael Brian Morey, in 1980 the night manager here at Queensbury Hotel?
Little is known about this man. After the bumbling attempt as an art thief and sentence in the county jail, did he do his time and move on? I found 2 things about him:
1. He formed Champlain Stone, Ltd. in 1982 and is listed as still going at this business.
About Champlain Stone
Champlain Stone, Ltd., which began three decades ago as a one-man operation, has evolved to become one of the largest and most efficiently managed, American-owned natural stone quarries.
The firm offers seven unique granite products, quartzitic sandstone, dolomitic limestone and a myriad of decorative yet rugged fieldstones, as well. Products may be specified in "as is" condition or from a comprehensive offering of blends, allowing virtually limitless stone designs to be achieved.
2. Morey was involved in a court case involving the land his company was on:
MICHAEL B. MOREY ET AL. v. HELEN M. SINGS (06/13/91)
In this court case, the Glens Falls Caper is alluded to:
“Defendant's assertion that plaintiff is not entitled to the equitable remedy of specific performance by reason of the doctrine of "unclean hands" is wholly without merit. Defendant urges that because plaintiff was convicted of the crime of attempted robbery in the third degree in 1981, he should be precluded from pursuing his legal remedy under the contract entered into in February 1989.”
If you are wondering what Morey looks like now, here is a link to a you tube clip he is in:
...
and here is what he has to say about himself:
“A man with a dream and lot of resilience.”
The famous mural/cultural treasure of the Queensbury. The 13.5-foot by 10-foot mural depicts a scene from “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper was commissioned Griffith Baily Coale, an internationally recognized artist, to paint the mural for the hotel’s opening in 1926. Did Mr. Fake Vanderbilt sit by the fire in his smoking jacket and smoke from his Briar pipe?
This is the view from the room. It looks out onto the village square. It’s me trying to imagine the scene of almost 40 years ago. How in the world did this kid come up with such a kooky idea? Are criminal minds born that way? His parent was a damn guidance counselor at the local High School in Swampscott for gosh sake! I really could not wrap my head around it.
Brian Michael McDevitt, a noted con man who had attempted to rob similar paintings from the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York, a decade earlier. McDevitt, who was living in Boston at the time of the Gardner robbery, had devised an elaborate plan for the New York caper. He and the night manager of the Queensbury Hotel where he was staying, Michael Brian Morey, dressed themselves in Federal Express uniforms, hijacked a Federal Express truck, kidnapped the female driver, knocked her out with ether, and headed to the Hyde. The express mail carrier ruse was going to be their cover to get inside the museum.
The scheme was foiled when they became stuck in traffic, and the Hyde closed before they could get there. Police officers responding to the vehicle theft found an elaborate diagram of the museum in the truck, along with 14 pairs of handcuffs, duct tape, medical tape, and sharp instruments the pair admitted would have been used to cut the paintings from their frames. Mr. McDevitt, who was arrested by the police in Glens Falls in December 1980, was 20 years old at the time.
Convicted of unlawful imprisonment and attempted grand larceny, McDevitt served several months of a two-year sentence in the Saratoga County Jail at Ballston Spa, N.Y.
Try as I might, I could not find the story from the Albany newspaper, nor could I find out more about how Brian came to be in cahoots with the manager of this hotel, so I just went to bed in my lovely hotel room.
A few more Glens Falls, NY photos:
The right side of this picture is the end of the D.H. Cowles building. This end is now home to an upscale clothing store, Fountain Square Outfitters, described by one as “Perfect shopping venue for the liberal downstater,” whatever that means? I really do adore old mill towns, and I don’t care how they stay viable (ok, maybe I do a bit when spillover Berkshire summer folk take over places like Great Barrington or Lee, MA). Seems Glen Falls is hoping for the same with the Saratoga Springs crowds. The red brick building also now houses a high-end business: Northeastern Fine Jewelry. They have this to say about themselves: In 2017, Northeastern Fine Jewelry acquired Scoville's and continues the tradition of bringing beautiful fine jewelry to Glens Falls. Montgomery and Shirley Scoville founded Scoville Jewelers in 1952. Chris Scoville and his wife, Debra Vales joined the business about 40 years ago and bought it in 1985, and retiring in 2017. Northeastern Fine Jewelry is dedicated to providing the finest quality jewelry for a great value with unconditional devotion to customer satisfaction. Northeastern Fine Jewelry, as it is known today, humbly started in 1980 as The Northeastern Coin Gallery. In 1985, the business was incorporated and the name changed to Northeastern Fine Jewelry Inc. Since 1980, Northeastern has based its business on a simple creed; provide the finest quality jewelry for a great value with unconditional dedication to customer satisfaction.
I truly do not know who shops these shops. As we were here on 12/15/18, nary a customer was in sight.
Did you know there is a Glens Falls, South Glens Falls, and Hudson Falls?
We didn't. We drove around following the river, trying to find the other Boston architect Bigelow's building, which was the office building for Finch and Pruyn, Co. We never found that building, but we did find this lovely one:
This area of the Hudson River with its “falls” once served as a winter hunting ground for the regional Mohawk and Algonquian tribes. A cool fact: The trail known as the “Great Carry” (today the path of Route 9) was the area for portage between Glens Falls and Fort Edward.
On both sides of the bridge over the Hudson River between Glens Falls and South Glens Falls you'll find large manufacturing plants. On the South Glens Falls side is SCA Tissue North America (now essity). On the Glens Falls side is Finch Paper LLC.
The Mill’s History:
1864: Founded as Glens Falls Paper Mill Co.
1898: Acquired by International Paper Co., served for a time as the company's corporate headquarters.
Before World War II: Acquired by Scott Paper Co., abandoned after the war for over a decade.
1959: Acquired by Patrician Paper Co.
1978: Acquired by Crown Zellerbach.
1986: James River acquires the manufacturing plants owned by Crown Zellerbach.
1992: Acquired by Encore Paper Co.
2001: SCA Tissue North America (a Swedish conglomorate) acquires Encore Paper Co. for $92 million cash.
2017: Parent company splits the 2 sites owned into seperate entities. S. Glen Falls becomes essity.
This building literally sits on the edge of Main St. in S. Glen Falls (and across from Cooper’s cave). It is a gorgeous building that is now a part of essity, which you can see at the far left of the picture. essity is a Swedish company that operated as SCA Tissue before the name change. The Glens Falls Paper Company was incorporated in 1864 and operated a mill on the south side of the Hudson River in South Glens Falls. The firm was reorganized in 1882 as the Glens Falls Paper Mill Company. William E. Spier was President of the Glens Falls Paper Mill Company. Could not find any information on building though (like was the rock from local quarries??? Who was architect???)
A cool find in my search was information on a new hydroelectric plant that was going to be built in 1918 on the site of the old grist mill and adjoining the International Paper’s pulp mill. This building was done by the H.P. Cummings Construction Co. of Ware, MA (its a small world afterall).
A drive along Ferry Blvd., an attempt to follow the Hudson River and see its mils. No luck, but we did find the following:
The house was the home of Daniel Parks II, his wife Lydia, and their eight children. Daniels’ father settled on the south side of the Hudson River in 1766 on 900 acres of land he obtained after fighting in the French and Indian War. He and his son Daniel II built two houses and a sawmill between 1766 and 1773.
In 1820, two Benedict brothers bought 100 acres of the property, but in 1825, Daniel Benedict bought out his brother Sheldon’s interest, becoming the sole owner. Daniel paid more for his brother’s half than the original purchase price. It was during this time that the major additions were made, creating the High Georgian Style home. Daniel Benedict, a brick maker by trade, was recognized for his architectural skills in Glens Falls. Bricks for the house were made right on the property. Daniel Benedict sold the property in 1855, and it passed through several owners until Cornelius Bentley purchased it in 1866. I sure would have loved to sniff around for loose bricks, but I didn’t. In fact I took home no bricks from this mill towns visit.
https://youtu.be/fztrPQUwChE
Video of the dam
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/08/22/102019318.pdf
Article about the Hudson River Big Dam from 1903 (Spiers Dam)
Then pictures: Spiers Dam
International Paper Company
SCA Tissue North America (a Swedish conglomorate) in 2001
I got to go have a little mill fill adventure prior to foot surgery (which was going to seriously curb me for the winter break this year). I learned a few things I didn't know, explored some things I had never seen (a house art museum), and thoroughly enjoyed myself on another adventure.
Until the wanderlust comes again...
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