Saratoga County Historical Society at Brookside Museum - Broadway’s Shops in 1867

Broadway’s Shops in 1867

E.W. OUDERKIRK FURNITURE AND UPHOLSTERY
171 BROADWAY [NOW 431, PUTNAM MARKET]

A.S. HAYS CONFECTIONERY AND ICE CREAM SALOON
165 BROADWAY [NOW 425, IRUN LOCAL]

During work on the vast archive of the Saratoga Springs History Museum in 2016, a group of fifteen mounted photographs of Broadway businesses turned up in a box of random papers. There was no clear evidence of their provenance, but they may have been collected by photographer George S. Bolster (1913–1989). They carry no photographer’s stamp but a handwritten legend on one mount suggests they were taken by Patrick H. McKernon.

Born in Ireland about 1829, McKernon was in Saratoga Springs by 1860 when he was called an “artist.” In 1867 a reporter noted he “did a small business” and was considered honest; in the following year he had a studio at 130½ Broadway. The site is now 378 Broadway, occupied by the Funding Store. By 1876 he had moved to Fort Edward, but soon returned to Saratoga Springs.

The photographs provide us with an unparalleled look at the quotidian act of shopping in post-Civil War Saratoga Springs. From internal evidence we know they were taken in 1867 or 1868. All the businesses save one advertised in the Weekly Saratogian and/or the street directories. Many details were obtained from the R.G. Dun Credit Reporting Ledgers in the Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston.

Broadway’s Shops in 1867 is open in the Long Room during museum hours, Tuesdays – Sundays 12-4pm.