The Name Game

The Name Game

By Dr. Paul Loatman Jr., City Historian

Once a story gets "legs," it takes on a life of its own and there's no killing it, even if it has no basis in fact. I have often heard the claim made that our fair city derived its mellifluous name from the large number of railroad mechanics who settled here. There are some serious problems with that claim, however, not the least of which is that "Mechanicville" had earned its moniker long before the railroad ran through this, or in fact, any town. "Mechanicville" was a term commonly used to locate our community as early as 1812. The first railroad in the United States was not even built until twenty years later. Additionally, the only "mechanics" listed in local census records throughout most of the nineteenth century had nothing to do with the iron horse. Most of them worked in the textile mills and foundries, or were independent craftsmen. So what at first seems to provide a plausible explanation can't hold water in explaining the origins of the name "Mechanicville." How then did we get our name, a name, by the way, which grated on the cars of local residents so much that they proposed changing it to the more elegant sounding "Beverwyk" in the early twentieth century. Part of the solution to our mystery lies in etymology, the study of the origin of the meaning of words, and part of it must remain a mystery accepted on faith, just like our religion teachers told us when we asked those "innocent questions" in Sunday school.

When four families settled on the south side of the Tenendehowa Creek in 1764, they found themselves on the Van Schaick Patent in the town of Halfmoon, while their fellow Connecticut migrants put down roots northward in the town of Stillwater. In the ensuing decade, they received permission to erect a gristmill along the fast flowing creek, a fact noted by Lord Tryon in his 1779 survey of "His Royal Majesty's Lands" in New York province. As it turned out, when the good Lord and His Royal Majesty, George III, lost their influence hereabouts in the 1780s at the end of the Revolution, this expanding rural settlement on the creek had been dubbed "The Borough," or "A Borough of Halfmoon." A little more than a decade later, William Lawrence built a woolen mill on the island formed by the two sprouts of the Tenendehowa, the southern one flowing as it does today; the northern one entering the Hudson above Mill St. Sometimes indelicately referred to as "the Devil's Half Acre," this little mill center began to become known as "Mechanicville" to distinguish it from the agricultural borough just to the south around the time of the War of 1812. This, again, was more than twenty years earlier than the building of the first railroad in the United States, and more than seventy-five years before Mechanicville became a significant rail center. The "mechanics" referred to in the name were independent craftsmen who owned their own tools, fixed machinery, and generally were adept at keeping textile looms and other equipment in good working order in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Their "ville" probably was so designated in a pejorative sense because, unlike their surrounding farm neighbors, they did not own property, a fact which disqualified them from voting until the 1820s.

Although "The First Map of Saratoga County," dated 1829, listed both the "Borough" and "Mechanicville" as separate neighboring communities, within a short time, the entire area became known as "Mechanicville" as the industrial arts gained dominance over those of agriculture in the locale. Two noted English travelers whose journals were published independently of each other in 1836 support this fact. Freeman Hunt reported finding "a flourishing little manufacturing center" here, while Tyrone Power (whose grandson would become a famous American movie star a century later) commented in his memoirs about "Mechanicsville [sic], a bustling thriving place with a considerable population ... of young girls who are operatives ... congregated in a lovely neighborhood." He noted that most of these residents worked in local textile mills, probably young farm girls attracted from the surrounding countryside.

Even though our municipality was not incorporated as a village until 1859, census records for both Halfmoon and Stillwater refer to "Mechanicville" as an unincorporated village in their respective townships long before that. (By the way, advocates of returning to village status today should consider the possibility that we would once again be subject to not just one, but two, different town boards.) The Stillwater enumerator in 1855 jumped the gun when he listed his returns for "the Village of Mechanicville" four years before that status became official. Thus, there was a long history of people identifying themselves as residents of "Mechanicville" prior to its incorporation and, by the way, long before the railroad became a major player in the local economy. By the time the Boston and Maine completed building its transfer yard here in 1912, local folks had had a good century of practice calling themselves residents of Mechanicville.

One other aspect of our community's name needs to be resolved: is our "ville" singular or plural? Personally, I immediately dismiss as "not serious" anyone who is so gauche as to add the superfluous "s" to our esteemed name, but my wife warns me that I should be more tolerant. After all, there are four other Mechanics-villes or burghs in the United States, and they seem to take no offense. But, our city never adopted the pesky "s," even if it wasn't for lack of trying by some people. In the late nineteenth century, the local post office and occasional mapmakers pluralized our name, apparently taking their cues from other Mechanicsvilles wound the country. However, in 1902, the US Board of Geographical Names officially excommunicated the "s" from our name, a move which merely recognized reality according to the no-nonsense local editor, Farrington L. Mead of The Saturday Mercury, who contended that no damn "s" had ever had the right to pollute the good name of "Mechanicville." For those who don't like a good argument, you can take the weasel way out of this nomenclature dilemma by following the tack of the North Dakota city fathers and just call the place "McVille." At my rate, just count your blessings and be glad you don't live in a place called "Beverwyk."