Ken Gottry - Cambridge NY History

Photos, stories, and presentations about Cambridge's past & present

I love my hometown. I love the old photos and postcards, but what I really like are the stories. My dad was an historian. I'm not. I am a raconteur. I try to be as historically accurate as possible, but as my wife will tell you, I never let facts get in the way of a good story.

 

In addition to collecting, organizing, and sharing the past, I also try to record the present. My hope is that 100 years from now, someone will say "Thanks, Ken Gottry, for showing me what Cambridge was like in the 2000s" the same way I thank people who did the same around 1900.

 

When you see a set of small images that indicates a photo album. Click on any photo to drill down.

 

All content on the web site is accessed by the menu. You can now also do text search. If you have any questions or comments, please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Enjoy, Ken 15-Sep-2016

 

 

Lecture series were a major form of entertainment in the late 1800s. The photo shows Ackley Hall on the south side of West Main Street where Samuel L. Clemens (better known by his pen name, Mark Twain) lectured on 13-Jan-1870 at the age of 34.

Below is a recount of his visit based on the letters he wrote to his fiancé, Olivia (Livy) Langdon. The letters were published by the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. All letters to Livy are signed “Sam’ while letters to others are signed “Mark”.

The following letter was written on 14-Jan1870 from Troy, the next stop on his lecture tour. I have interjected comments from footnotes and from our local history files using the markings “[ed:]”

 AckleyHall

Northern Turnpike,built 1799-1804, goes from Lansingburgh, through Cambridge, to Granville. It was the major highway to get from NYC to Canada. Its stagecoach traffic fostered the economic development of the East End and West End of Cambridge

This is a story of

  • privatization
  • big business vs. big government
  • outsourcing
  • influential lobbyists
  • Fake News
  • voting irregularities
  • corrupt public officials
  • State lotteries to fund public projects
  • poor infrastructure in sparsely populated areas
  • widening gap between the Have’s and Have Not’s

 

Sounds like 2018, but this was 1790 the Turnpike Era

 Northern Turnpike Milepost AckleyRoad 2016 04 21

 

Norman Rockwell lived in nearby West Arlington, VT from 1939 to 1953. He often visited the Cambridge area looking for models for his paintings of American life. This presentation discusses some of our local models who found fame in a Rockwell painting and on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. 

That's my parents, Ken & Charlotte Gottry, in Walking to Church that appeared on the cover of the magazine on April 4, 1953. That's also a Cambridge fire hyrdrant in the photo. You'll have to watch the presentation to get the story on that.

WalkingToChurch