Skeletons, Politics & Pigeons

Skeletons, Politics & Pigeons!

By Don Rittner

The southeast corner of Third and State Streets, now called Barker Park has an interesting but odd history. While looking at the small park, one would never guess that it was the final resting home of some of Troy’s earliest settlers, and where many of the city’s 19^th century political decisions were made. You see it was originally a village burial ground, and later the site of Troy’s first City Hall.

On May 10, 1796, Jacob D. VanderHeyden, the original owner of the land deeded to the village trustees of Troy a plot to be used as a public burial ground. It covered all the land from Third Street running east along State to the alley and south to the First Baptist church. More than 200 people were buried there before the city forefathers decided it was a good place for a city hall, 80 years later.

The city at the time was using part of the Athenaeum building, which was built in 1845 by the Troy Savings Bank, on First Street (now a parking lot). On May 7, 1869, the "City-Hall Company of the City of Troy" was created and authorized a committee to locate and purchase a site to build a new city hall. The original capital was increased so the Troy Savings Bank could contribute from their funds to provide rooms in the new building for banking. Moreover, the bank was to jointly own the building with the city, an arrangement that certainly would not fly today. This idea was dropped when the trustees of the bank decided to build the beautiful building they have on First and State Streets.

In 1875, there was a move and petition drive to buy the Athenaeum building from the bank, but Mayor Edward Murphy, Jr. opposed it, and recommended the purchase of the Third Street burial ground instead. The Common Council ignored the mayor, and approved the purchase of the First Street building on April 1. Murphy didn’t appreciate the April Fools joke and vetoed it two weeks later on the 15^th. The Third Street Burial ground was finally selected on June 8 and the VanderHeyden heirs were paid $10,000 to give up any rights to the land, even though the original VanderHeyden donated it in the first place. A month later the city hired architect Marcus Cummings to design the building.

Before any construction could take place the city had to move 208 people buried in the old cemetery and it took almost a month to complete (July 12-August 1). Most of them were relocated to Oakwood Cemetery. A few of the graves between city hall and the church were left including the grave of Platt Titus who died in 1833 and had operated the Troy House (now senior citizen housing on First & River) for about 30 years. Apparently the unmoved graves were covered over with sod. There is a small monument between the back of the Catholic church and the First Baptist fence that appears to indicate that in 1937 the rest of the graves were dug up and reburied at Oakwood. The stone says the graveyard was abandoned in 1873, which may account for Murphy wanting to buy it in the first place. It also says the graveyard began in 1743, which is earlier than reported?

The new city hall building was occupied in October, 1876. It was an impressive structure, 150 feet long and 83 feet wide built of Philadelphia pressed brick. A clock was placed in the tower in August 1885 and was illuminated at night by a special automatic gas device attached to a timer. In addition, a 6000-pound fire bell was placed in the tower in 1887, cast by Troy’s Jones Bell Foundry Company. Strangely, there are very few photographs of the interior of the building. Many exist of the exterior including the one shown here, courtesy of the Rensselear County Historical Society, and several were taken when the building burned, under suspicious conditions, on October 28, 1938.

According to former Trojan Stuart Peckham, after the fire and before the site was converted to a park, a promoter built a small bungalow on the sidewalk and sold tickets for it. Eventually it found its way to Elmgrove Avenue across from Emma Willard’s athletic fields. After the site was cleaned up and landscaped, it was named Barker Park, after C.W. Tillinghast Barker, a Troy industrialist, according to local historian Carl Erickson.

Stuart Peckham also tells me that kids use to refer to the park as "A-Hernia Park," after the mayor of the time, John J. Ahern. He also remembers that in 1942 a miniature Japanese Submarine was exhibited there. I suppose as a rallying cry during the war?

I remember the park as a kid in the 60’s, but we called it "Pigeon Park." Thousands of pigeons made the park their home. They were well fed too. "Jim the Peanut Man" had a cart on the corner where you could buy fresh roasted peanuts or popcorn for a dime. Park visitors would hold out their hands while the pigeons cooed and wobbled their way to grab the goodies. I remember one elderly woman who we called the ‘pigeon lady’ because she was literally covered with pigeons — on her head, shoulders, arms, lap, etc. I’ll leave it to your imagination!

In the early part of the 1960’s, St. Anthony’s Catholic Church decided to abandon the beautiful wooden structure on the corner of Fourth and State Streets. They convinced the city to give or sell them half of the eastern part of the park so they could build the present church there in 1964. That also meant the removal of the great cast iron fountain that sat in the center of the park (you can see it in the photo courtesy of RCHS).

During the 60’s and 70’s, the park became a peaceful hippie hangout and presently you could say the "park" is in need of a good makeover!

It’s time to take back the park and make it a people place once again. An integral part of rejuvenating Troy is to get families to shop, eat, and play downtown. My suggestion is to change it to a real children’s park with wooden representations of Troy steamboats; perhaps a small Burden Water Wheel that could serve as a Ferris wheel, where kids can sit in the ‘buckets;" a little Dutch house; slides; and other fun things. A kid’s park would encourage families to come to downtown again. While dad is watching the kids in the park, mom can shop (or vice versa). All that activity would make the kids hungry so it would help our downtown eatery’s too! Oh yeah, if there are any remaining gravestones found on the site, they should be restored with a fence placed around it and an interpretive sign.

Yes, building a new park will require capital, but I predict there will a great deal of local donations coming to the city in the form of design, materials, and manpower. What do you think?

Got history? Contact Don at drittner@aol.com or P.O. Box 50216, Albany, NY 12205. Don is the author of Images of America-Troy (Arcadia Press) and is president of The Learning Factory.