Hannah and Storm Coach & Saddlery Hardware, 427 Main St. (1860)
By Bill Kleppel
Like newspapers and maps, village and city directories were once vital references for everyday life. From a historical perspective, these relatively modern conveniences are now being erased, in real time, by the explosion of the Information Age.
For some people, this is a sad state of affairs. These handy and ever-present tools from yesteryear are being pummeled out of existence by the evils of cyberspace.
Here’s a special message for you boomers and other “olds” out there. The changeover is inevitable. Deal with it. It’s over!
Thankfully, dire circumstances like this one are perfect reasons for people like me to be employed.
The Local History Rooms at the Adriance Memorial Library are in the process of scanning the Poughkeepsie City directories from 1846 to the present. Perusing these tomes of paper with printed ink on them gives a great perspective of the burgeoning development of Poughkeepsie (and/or its demise) throughout the past 150 years. Now, with the advent of high end scanners and digital cameras, these historic jewels won’t be sullied and destroyed by grubby little fingers! These books are literally crumbling into dust whenever they are touched.
Cannon’s Patent Adjustable Dumb Waiter (1881)
An old adage for a bad novel is, “It’s as dull as reading the phone book.” Yet, scrolling through these directories (many old enough not to have phone numbers in them) can be used as a portal to transport oneself back into nineteenth century Poughkeepsie.
Year by year, you can chart the effects of the Industrial Revolution in the city from its proliferation of stores, factories, hotels, restaurants, saloons, medical services, and the architecture it was all housed in. If you walked down Main Street or any major thoroughfares during the 1850s, 1860s, or 1870s, you would encounter familiar establishments such as grocery stores, book stores, and bars. You would’ve also come across horses and carriages, livery stable services, and steam printing shops; telegraph companies, stove dealerships, and iron work factories.
J.P. Ambler School Books (1881)
Walker’s Daguerean at 294 Main Street was a shop that specialized in the earliest innovations in photography. One of the studio’s frequent customers was Samuel F.B. Morse1. You could’ve entered Morgan L. Farnum’s Druggist & Chemist Store on 297 Main Street or Moses Dame’s on 267 Main Street for their assortment of drugs, medicines, cough lozenges, paints, oils, hair tonic, dye, rat poisons, writing ink, glue, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, morphine, and opium!2,3 If you chipped a tooth from something you bit into at the Railway Candy Store (95 Main Street), the man to see was Dr. Charles H. Roberts, the dentist at 258 Main. Street.
Charles H. Roberts M.D., 258 Main St. (1855)
With all the present technological wonders at our fingertips, I’m still so impressed by the artists and engravers who created many of the advertisements listed in these directories. The meticulous details needed to create these incredible images took time and an amazing amount of detail. Zoom into many of these ads, and you’ll see things that most likely weren’t apparent to the eye of the average nineteenth century reader.
Platt & Schram (1855)
The Buckeye Mower and Reaper (“The Premium Machine of America”) manufactured by Adriance, Platt & Co. is one of the main reasons why the very library I sit in today exists. One hundred thousand dollars of the company’s fortune was donated by the children of John P. and Mary Adriance for the construction of this library.4
Adriance, Platt & Co., South Water St. (1872)
Some of the most researched materials we have in the Local History Rooms are our directories. For genealogists, it can pinpoint exactly when family members lived at a certain address, as well as when they left it. Writers who want to authentically base historical fiction stories can place their readers in a time and place that actually existed. Scholars and local historians working on myriad subjects can research how citizens lived their day to day lives, and what essentials were necessary to lead them.
Schrauth’s Sons (1906)
The directories downloaded into the Main and Market section of the Poughkeepsie Public Library website can bring the past flooding through your devices. It’s also provided to you for free (though yes, you need to pay some sites to view this material).
So enter here if you’d like to go time traveling into a Poughkeepsie that is quite different from our present day city existence. https://mainandmarket.poklib.org/digital/collection/directories/search.
Daniel, Briggs, & Dubois (1860)
References
1) Walker, S.L. “Walker’s Daguerreotypes!!” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Poughkeepsie Eagle, 1 Sept. 1855, www.newspapers.com/.
2) “Drugs and Medicines.” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Poughkeepsie Eagle, 22 Dec. 1855, www.newspapers.com/.
3) “Jayne’s Alternative Expectorant.” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Poughkeepsie Eagle, 19 June 1852, www.newspapers.com/.
4) Butler, Shannon. “Adriance Memorial Library.” Poughkeepsie Public Library District, 19 Oct. 2023, poklib.org/adriance-memorial-library/.
Images
Underhill’s City of Poughkeepsie Directory. Underhill, 1855.
Lent’s Poughkeepsie City Directory. David B. Lent Jr., 1860.
Vail’s Poughkeepsie City Directory. John P.A. Vail, 1872.
R.V. LeRay’s Poughkeepsie City Directory. R.V. LeRay, 1881.
John Bradley’s House Directory of The City of Poughkeepsie. John Bradley, 1906.