Walden and Maybrook

by Marc Newman

Overview

The villages of Walden and Maybrook are located within the town of Montgomery, halfway between New York City and Albany. During part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Walden was considered the Knife Capital of the United States; three companies specialized in producing pocketknives, penknives, and switchblades. At the same time, Maybrook was known as the Gateway to the East; it had the largest railroad-switching terminal connecting rail service from the interior of the country to the New England states. The two villages depended upon each other: Walden manufactured the goods, and Maybrook shipped them to market.

With carefully selected photographs and detailed text, Walden and Maybrook traces the history of the two villages from the Colonial era to the mid-nineteenth century. The book contains some two hundred images, many of which have never before been published. Highlighted are the hardworking individuals who helped the villages prosper-the knife makers, polishers, grinders, and hefters, the prominent businesspeople of Chesnin & Leis Clothing and Brook May coats, and the railroad personnel who worked at the roundhouse, the engine house, and the coaling trestle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738509563
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	11/12/2001
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,055,718
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

Research historian Marc Newman is also the author of Potomac Diary: A Soldier's Account of the Capital in Crisis, 1864-1865 and numerous other works. For Walden and Maybrook, he has gratefully borrowed from the collections of the Walden Historical Society and the Maybrook Railroad Historical Society & Museum, as well as those of scores of families throughout his community. He has skillfully combined them with meaningful narrative to tell the story of several generations who helped develop two closely linked, successful, New York State villages.