Keeseville: Layers of history

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Richard Frost
Richard Frost
Richard Frost

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April 4, 2009

By RICHARD FROST, A Day Away The Press Republican Fri May 14, 2010, 07:19 PM EDT

As winter yields to warmer weather, I can finally put away the Nordic Trak and begin exercising outdoors.

Adirondack trails are still too muddy, but it's a good time to do some walking around town.

Adding a sense of history to walks makes them more enjoyable, as I've tried to demonstrate in my most recent book, "One Foot Forward: Walks in Upstate New York." A lengthy stroll around Keeseville continues in that spirit.

Last summer, I joined a tour led by Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) Executive Director Steve Engelhart. It didn't take much to see that the rapids of the Ausable River led to Keeseville's initial settlement. Along with water power, there was ample forest for lumbering, sandstone to be quarried from the riverbed and iron from nearby Arnold Hill and Palmer Hill.

Gristmills and sawmills came first. A woolen mill, the Adirondack Twine Company and a brewery followed. By 1864, there was enough demand for fine wood products that R. Prescott Furniture, Sash, and Blind Manufactory became established. And there was Keeseville's most unique contribution, the manufacture of horse nails.

HORSE NAILS
Start at Riverside Park. Only part of a stone wall and the circular opening where the flume spilled out remain from the former five-story Prescott complex. When sashes, blinds, doors and architectural ornamentation became unprofitable, the firm switched to fine furniture. Forays into wooden radio and television cabinets let Prescott survive decades longer. Low-slung stone buildings across the river held the Ausable Horse Nail Company. Once, nails were cut laboriously by hand; they were so valuable that abandoned homes would be burned just so these slivers of metal could be saved. Then came the issue of horseshoes.

Enter Daniel Dodge, an ingenious Keeseville blacksmith. He sought a machine for stamping nails that would be sturdy, consistent and cheap for daily use. In 1862, he gained his patent and opened the Eagle Nail Company along the Ausable River.

Dodge not only produced nails; he built the production machinery itself. His firm, renamed the Ausable Horse Nail Company, supplied other manufacturers and became a major economic driver for the village.

All was well, at least until automobiles came along. The factory closed in 1910.

BRIDGES AND CHURCHES
Let's turn to bridges for a minute. Walk to the pedestrian Swing Bridge, a suspension bridge dating to 1888. The name came from one of its forerunners' tendency to sway so much. There's still a bit of undulation as you walk across.

Keeseville has two other notable spans. Just upstream is an open truss bridge held together with pins. Downstream is the Stone Arch Bridge (1842), on which Main Street crosses the river. It's a work of beauty with its finely laid sandstone and contrasting colors. From my vantage point on the Swing Bridge, looking toward the rapids, the former nail works, and the Stone Arch, it could have still been 1860.

Cross the pedestrian bridge to an 1835 stagecoach inn. Climb stone steps embedded into a hill; you'll emerge onto Pleasant Street. A left turn leads to Daniel Dodge's 1860 home. Then walk down Liberty Street, past an impressive Greek Revival home to the village green.

Once this was surrounded by schools and churches. Keeseville Academy no longer stands, but you'll find District School No. 8, the village's oldest, a compact brick structure.

To the north sits the 1825 Baptist church, which, when outgrown, was sold to the French Catholic congregation. Eventually needing a larger place, the Catholics moved the building to its current location, just in front of Keeseville's Old Burying Ground. On the old site, in 1901, they built St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, with its twin 125-foot towers. Across the street is the former Keeseville Central School. Built as a Works Progress Administration project during the 1930s, it was succeeded by Ausable Valley Central School in 1972.

GREEK REVIVAL
Continue down Main Street to its intersection with Pleasant. Here are some of Keeseville's most notable houses. The Kingsland brothers, successful entrepreneurs who built wagons and sleighs, and owned iron mills in Keeseville and Ausable Chasm, commissioned similar floor plans for Greek Revival homes across the street from each other. A third Greek Revival home in the neighborhood was built for Silas Arnold, whose wealth began with his Arnold Hill mine.

All three houses were constructed by Seneca Perry, Keeseville's foremost builder. Perry became known for his fine workmanship, including cornices, doors and other features. One specialty (not visible to the walker) was the freestanding spiral staircase. Several still stand in Keeseville homes.

Perry's son Isaac assisted him until deciding to study architecture in New York City. Isaac went on to considerable fame as the architect for many armories in the state and for leading completion of the long-delayed capitol building in Albany.

Farther down Main Street are an 1885 Queen Anne house, the handsome Richard Keese II Home built in 1823 for the son of a banker and former Congressman; and the village's oldest building, dating to 1815.

The imposing stone First Congregational Church (1852), with its square clock tower, was transformed into a Masonic Lodge in 1910. The Grange Hall across the street once served as shipping office for the Ausable Horse Nail Company. The former horse-nail factory headquarters behind the Grange is being renovated into headquarters for Adirondack Architectural Heritage.

WHAT IF?
I finished with a stroll along Front Street. Typical late 19th-century downtown features include the Mould Block's fashionable cast-iron facade, shipped from New York City. Two mid-19th-century churches anchor the corner of Front and Clinton streets. The older (1835) Irish Church of the Immaculate Conception stands on a hill at Front and Spring.

Every community has its layers of history, with its evolving economic base and changing residential trends. Think about the "what-ifs." Had the internal combustion engine not burst onto the scene, Keeseville, with its horse nails, might have become analogous to what Akron was for tires. Without the advent of plastics, Prescott Mill might still employ hundreds in the manufacture of wooden furniture.

Times change. So do communities. Appreciation of local heritage gives a sense of place in a rapidly evolving world. Spend A Day Away wandering Keeseville — or your own hometown.

Adirondack Architectural Heritage will commemorate the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial with guided village tours in May and June, including one in Keeseville May 9. Call 834-9328 for information.

Friends of the North Country published the engaging walking tour booklet "A Thoroughly Wide Awake Little Village." Call 834-9606 for further information.

E-mail Richard Frost:
rbforiole@aol.com