Industry on the Waterfront

On Monday, Gossips recalled the controversy over the oil refinery proposed for Hudson's waterfront in 1984. At the time, a local historian on the other side of the river came upon an article in an 1841 issue of Rural Repository about Hudson's "first oil refinery": the Sperm Oil & Candle Factory. The article was reprinted in the Catskill Daily Mail on February 1984, with the suggestion "'Twas ever thus." John Cody recently discovered the item from the Daily Mail in his files and shared it with Gossips. Click on the image to enlarge it.