Rich Resources Now Available Online

We are now living in a post-phonebook era. Too many people have cell phones, whose numbers are not listed, and if we are looking for goods and services, we are more likely to turn to the internet instead of letting our fingers do the walking through the yellow pages. But before there were phone books, there were city directories--compendiums of information about the people and businesses in a given location. The directories listed not only the addresses of the people in the community--both home and business--but also their occupations. This example, encountered some years ago in the Hudson city directory for 1913, is among my favorites.

I believe someone with the occupation of "fresco painter" would have painted signage on the sides of buildings, like this example, uncovered at 623 Warren Street a year or so ago. 

City directories are also rich sources of information about the businesses that existed at different periods in history. Below is an example of the advertisements that appeared in the Hudson city directory for 1870.

 

The very first Hudson directory was published in 1851, after a concerted effort, involving an ordinance passed by the Common Council, to get the owners or occupants of properties in Hudson to place numbers on their buildings "for the accommodation of strangers." Prior to that, the location of houses and businesses was indicated by their proximity to a well known building or landmark. For example, a newspaper advertisement for E. Simpson, Physician and Surgeon, told prospective patients, "His house can be found a few doors above the Mansion House, and nearly opposite the Presbyterian Church." 

The History Room at the Hudson Area Library has an impressive collection of Hudson city directories, and the staff and volunteers are now in the process of scanning the increasingly fragile volumes and making them available to users online. So far, six directories have been digitized, including the very first one for 1851-1852 and the invaluable one for 1888-1889, the year all the numbers on the west-east streets changed. In this directory, addresses on Warren Street are given with the new number--what the number will become with the introduction of 100 blocks--in parentheses. 

Although the numbering on every west-east street would change, the changes were noted in the directory only for Warren Street, for then as now it was the major commercial thoroughfare.

To explore the history of Hudson as told by its city directories, click here.