Brian Altonen, MPH, MS

Ballston and Saratoga

Introduction

The two most popular geological formations in New York, outside the immediate New York City setting, are Niagara Falls and Saratoga Springs.  Niagara Falls was a common stopping point and tourist site discussed in the earliest journals and diaries published by travelers passing through New York between 1750 and 1825.  Saratoga due to its heated mineral springs was the second most popular site, with a popularity that grew substantially once this area was modified by the addition of permanent living structures.

Saratoga history was preceded by the history of a similar site with mineral springs known as Ballston Spa.  This town was named after its first major residence to promote the medicine springs, Reverend Eliphalet Ball, a Protestant Minister who decided to settle close to these springs once his responsibilities and occupational requirements to the church in lower New York were completed.

During the earliest years of settlement in this region, water sources like springs, artesian wells, and creeks, ponds and falls with cold, brisk mountain water were considered very important natural resource.  Many of these were felt to have medicinal virtues.  The earliest claims to such healing waters were made for the springs in Westchester County during the late 17th century as this tract of land came into the possession of the Filipse family.  Further up the Hudson River, the numerous water forms documented along mountain edges and cliffs were considered valuable sources of health cold waters.  Artesian springs located adjacent to local fields and deep within the forests were used to promote the sale and settlement of most of those lands for which descriptions were published in the local newspapers.  By the 1790s, claims about these natural resources were common to descriptions published in local newspapers whatever their deeds were up for sale.

By the time 1800 came around, a typical description of properties and claims made concerning the health of this land made mention of local springs and healthy water bodies.  Such claims were typical due to the belief that disease was very much a consequence of the environment. The growth of the knowledge of chemistry in the 1800s however led to some new protocols for discussing and marketing the various springs.  Whereas certain internal characteristics possessed by a person were often attributed to poor health states, such as a person’s inheritance, temperament, and body features and form, much of disease was attributed to local, environmental features related to one’s exposure to the local weather and climate, the local topography and its effects upon the generation of miasma and effluence, and a variety of local anomalies and regularly occurring natural disasters such as violent thunderstorms, earthquakes, flooding, tornados, and even eclipses. But when it came to chemistry, its was the chemical make-up of springs that made them seem healthy during the early 1800s.    According to a study of Saratoga Water by Livingston, Saratoga produced the best chalybeates of the region, a unique type only found at Saratoga.   Such arguments about the acids, alkali, minerals and salts of water springs turned each and every spring into a potential source for medicine.  Due to the geology of the Hudson Vally, these medicines were located in each and every county, mountain range and unique rock formation in the region.  With this philosophy, the value of some of these lands almost doubled within a year.  The medical journals made this popular and professional philosophical movement happen.

Publication History and Popularity

A review of the publications on Saratoga Springs published during the colonial years, on up to 1875, revealed the following:

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A number of details are noted in the chronology of Saratoga.  The earliest years focused on the Ballston Springs popularized by Rev. Ball.  The springs at Saratoga would not become popular until the post-colonial period, after which it became more important culturally and economically for the region than Ballston Spa.

Only a few sightings and description of Ballston are noted for the earliest years of the period reviewed.  These are obviously underestimates of the actual social and public knowledge out there about Saratoga, but probably represent a fairly reasonable relationship whien compared with the numbers of later publications cited by the author of the reference for this work around 1880.

1792 marks the official beginning of the period when Ballston Spa became popular for medicinal purposes.  Prior to this period, this location served as a medical treatmetn due msotly to popular culture beliefs.    Valentine Seaman’s publication on Ballston included a chemical study of the waters, and is the first time a focus on water chemistry became the way local waters were tested for their potential therapeutic and pharmaceutical values.

Even though knowledge of the scientific properties of Ballston waters became common following Seaman’s publication, it wasn’t until 1819 that any serious attempts to document the chemistry of water were initiated and engaged in as a regular part of the local public health research, when two chemical reports on the water of Saratoga Springs were published.

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Based upon 5-year counts of publications, there is a continuous rise popularity of Saratoga Springs based on publication counts from the year 1800 forward.   Three peak periods can also be recognized: 1840, possibly 1855, and 1870.

Notice also the very small peak in articles published between 1790 and 1805.  These were the initiators of this popular health culture movement.

Soon after the Revolutionary War had ended, a review of Loudon’s Packet, once again being published in New York City, demonstrated the perpetual interest people had in the land and the value of its unique water bodies and springs.  Loudon’s Packet contained an advertisement announcing the opening of New Harlem Springs.  This “public bath” like facility was built on the sloping land that drained into the Harlem River at the Northeast corner of Manhattan Island.  Just a few years later, around 1802, just several hours up the river in Poughkeepsie there were the springs on Pine Street.  These were artesian water leaving the sandy-gravelly soil that formed much of the shoreline of the Hudson, about 500 to 2500 inland towards the east (now in the south edge of the city proper).  This water, due to its freshness and clarity was labeled as health promoting and its use offered to the public for use.  Wooden tubs were built and advertisements posted in the local newspaper–Political Barometer (see Political Barometer owner Helen Wilkinson’s notes at Adriance)–inviting anyone in need of its salubriousness to simply visit and make use of the new facilities constructed.  A few years later, New Ballstown was formed on the edge of the Hudson, a place where dozens if not hundreds of small trickling rivulets made their way down to the river, and where one of these rivulets came directly out from the heart of a cliff behind the local hotel.   It was this owner of this land and business (now replaced by the Train Station), who used this spring to market his hotel.

The second peak in the above chronological bar chart–1820–represents the truth birth of the Saratoga Industry business.   It took another 20 years for Saratoga to  be almost completely in control of this local medical market.  One other set of springs in the immediate vicinity seemed equally important at times–New Lebanon Springs, located quite close to the Shaker Village of the same name (the history of which is covered separately.)

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APPENDIX

Publications Data

The original source for this data is  the Appendix in William L Stone’s Reminiscences of Saratoga and Ballston  (accessed at a page in rootsweb.ancestry.com).