A Saratoga Story Told in The Grand Irish Seanchaí Storytelling Tradition | Part 1
Written by Eamon Ó’Coileáin (Ed Collins)
[From the 2025 Holiday Magazine]
Dr. Thomas Clark Durant by Mathew Brady. Photo courtesy of The National Archives.
Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, 19th century tycoon, wore so many mantles in life: a physician, although one who never practiced medicine; college professor; businessman; prairie wheat trader; dubious financier and money broker; land speculator who was a force for building the first bridge across the Mississippi River; northern profiteer during The Civil War as a smuggler of southern cotton; stock manipulator and swindler – a central figure in the notorious Crédit Mobilier scheme that triggered The New York Sun front-page headlining “King of Frauds” exposé; scandalous vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad that joined the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869 to create The Transcontinental Railroad, and in his later years, arguably the man who opened up the Adirondack Mountains to “vacationers” and “The Great Camps.” It’s his Adirondack business ventures that should capture the interest not only of present-day Saratogians, but importantly of those of us who can boast proudly of Irish heritage and the role the Irish played in delivering “The Adirondack Experience” to visitors of our great Adirondack Park. Make no mistake, Thomas Durant was not of Irish heritage, but he profited greatly from the Irish and their entrepreneurship, ingenuity, hard work, commitment to family values, muscle and sweat.
By 1840, two different railroad passenger services linked New York’s Capital Region of Schenectady-Albany-Troy, and thus all the Great Northeast, to Saratoga Springs, creating a bustling society gathering place for thousands as a health destination for its mineral springs on the edges of the gentle southern slopes of the Adirondack mountainous landscape. And it was here in what later would become today’s City of “Health, History and Horses” that the traditional Irish love of horse racing served as a critical catalyst in developing a gateway into the Adirondacks, leading to a surge of travelers deep into the mountainous region and thus a burst in economic recreational activity that survives, in great measure, today.
Irishman John Morrissey. Photo courtesy of
Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Irishman John Morrissey, born in County Tipperary, Ireland, came to Saratoga in 1861 on one of those trains and opened a gambling house on what was then Matilda Street (Woodlawn Avenue today). He became good friends with many moneyed families, including Cornelius Vanderbilt – the patriarch of the very familiar Saratoga Springs and Adirondack name. In 1863, Morrissey expanded his business enterprises by purchasing 125 acres of land and building a grandstand, giving birth to the “Saratoga Race Course.” It is thought to be the oldest organized sporting venue still operating in America! With his gaming house and standard-bred race track combined with the village’s train terminus running from New York City up through the Hudson Valley and the state’s Capital Region, Morrissey helped make Saratoga Springs a stopover attraction and major gateway for the wealthy seeking to go farther into the Adirondacks. Railroad magnate Thomas Durant, of English descent, took note of this Irishman’s entrepreneurial spirit in luring wealth to Saratoga, and, like the coal that powered Durant’s Union Pacific locomotives, it fueled an idea for increasing his wealth.
Adirondack Company's Rail Road
Time table, 1870.
Image courtesy of the Jon Patton Collection.
Classic Adirondack Buckboard
Photo courtesy of the Adirondack Experience
Horses, wagons, buckboards, carriages, stagecoaches, ox carts and the like were the main modes of traveling into the Adirondacks for most of the 19th century. Dr. Durant, during his early involvement in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, was also at that time eyeing the Adirondacks for its investment potential in mining and logging. He eventually purchased over half a million acres in the mountainous region. Realizing the lure of Irishman Morrissey’s social attractions in Saratoga and its train hub, he had thoughts of using the bustling village as a key link for constructing new railroad tracks into the Adirondacks and perhaps all the way to the border with Canada.
Thomas Durant turned his full attention to pursuing wealth in the Adirondacks after essentially being forced out of the Union Pacific Railroad in early 1869 for siphoning enormous funds from it into his own personal accounts through what was known as the Crédit Mobilier scandal. Fresh from that dishonorable removal, Durant wasted little time in building the first railroad into New York’s northern wilderness region, the Adirondack Company Rail Road (later to become the Adirondack Railroad). Durant employed Irish hands and backs to help clear land and lay tracks from Saratoga Springs first to The Glen in the Town of Johnsburg in 1869 and then to North Creek in 1871, a total rail run of 60 iron-track miles. Ironically, Durant’s tracks in The Glen ran near the Adirondack birthplace of celebrated photographer Mathew Brady, son of Irish immigrants Andrew and Julia Brady. Mathew Brady grew up to study under famed portrait artist William Page in Saratoga Springs, be acclaimed the greatest photo-historian of the 19th century and credited as the “Father of Photojournalism,” and photographed Durant for posterity. The Adirondack Company Rail Road initiated daily routes to The Glen and then to North Creek, providing a farther launching point for recreation into the Adirondacks and boosting the hospitality trade that developed to accommodate those seeking the “Adirondack Experience.”
Original Adirondack Company Rail Road Headquarters, 117 Grand Ave., Saratoga Springs, circa 1927. Photo courtesy of the George S. Bolster Collection, Saratoga Springs History Museum.
And the headquarters for the Adirondack Company Rail Road?
Why, Saratoga Springs of course! The building at 117 Grand Avenue continued to operate as a railroad building throughout much of the 20th century until the 1960s when it became a family residence. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to the tireless efforts of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. Today it is a commercial property. The Foundation invites us all to “... stop at the intersection of Franklin Street, Grand Avenue, and Congress Street, imagine it is 1890 and a locomotive has just pulled up along the side of the building and what it must have been like to look out the large arched windows in anticipation of an exciting journey north to the Adirondacks.”
Read Simply Saratoga SPRING, due out in March for more of this great tale!