Hoosac Valley Farmers' Exchange
Empire Mill and Coal Company mill, 2022.
Through the centuries, farmers have organized to help each other become educated in best practices and purchase needed supplies at the best prices. As the 20th century began, this practice accelerated. In 1920, the NYS Dairyman’s League, the NYS Farm Bureau Association, and the NYS Grange joined to form the Grange League Federation (GLF). The Federation had hundreds of farmer members in Rensselaer County. In 1925, about a dozen men in the Schaghticoke area got together and incorporated the Hoosac Valley Farmer’s Exchange (HVFE), establishing a store and mill on the site of the Empire Mill and Coal Company, at the south end of Main Street in the village of Schaghticoke.
The prime mover behind the store was Dr. George Little, who was both the local doctor and a farmer, raising prize dairy cattle. Empire had been in business since 1896. Before that, the site was a paper mill and a plaster mill, the latter dating from at least 1850. The mills had been powered by the falls of the Hoosic River until 1907, when General Electric Company built a hydroelectric dam and power plant and converted Empire plus the Cable Flax and Woolen mills to electric power. The store was conveniently located next to the railroad tracks, allowing easy shipment of grain and milk.
The new store sold Grange Lead Federation products. The photo (left) is of a 1926 Schaghticoke Sun newspaper ad. Though GLF specialized in milling grain in Buffalo and then transporting bagged feed, HVFE continue to grind corn for farmers, adding a cob crusher at the start. This made the business different from any of its competitors and attractive to more customers. Throughout its history, HVFE has always aimed to have a broad customer base.
HVFE added a frozen food locker in 1944. The accompanying ad (below left) is from 1960. Instead of having a home freezer, people could rent one of about 400 lockers. HVFE also provided butcher services, primarily for beef, but also for pork, venison, and the occasional bear. Nelson Betts was the first butcher. Part of the cooling for the freezer plant came from water cycled in from the Hoosic River. Woods Turkey Farm in Melrose rented many of the lockers. The plant closed in 1967, when NYS regulations demanded many expensive changes with a short timeline for implementation.
HVFE concrete block store.
In 1950, HVFE built a new concrete block store, across the street from the mill and adjacent to the food locker. The photo (below right) is a modern view of that store.
Agway was formed in 1964 from a merger of GLF and the Eastern States Farmers Exchange. Just two years later, John Halford arrived as the manager. He had trained in a couple of area Agway stores. In 1973, Agway encouraged its managers to buy the stores and become independent operators. John did this, financing the purchase through the new Union National Bank in Schaghticoke. Agway itself filed for bankruptcy in 2002, but the HVFE continued, though it still carries Agway products and provides bulk feed to farmers, with custom application of fertilizer, plus grinding of corn for feed.
In 2021, John Halford sold the business to Maureen and Eric Mayer of Copses Farm in Schaghticoke. He had built a new store a couple of years earlier, but never opened it. The Mayers completed and opened the new store, on Madigan Road in the town of Schaghticoke, in April 2022. The photo (below left) is of the new store.
In reorganizing the stock after the purchase, the general manager, Justin Frisino, found some old business records in the attic of a barn on the property and contacted the Hart Cluett Museum. County Historian Kathy Sheehan and Schaghticoke Town Historian Chris Kelly retrieved some of the records, which date from about 1925 to 1965, for its Dean P. Taylor Archive.
The collection includes day books and receipts, allowing for insight into the customers, employees, products, and activities of the HVFE over the years. The earliest cash book begins with an inventory of Empire Mill and Coal when HVFE took over in 1925. It included calf meal, seed (timothy, alfalfa, red clover), 2 platform scales, cans of fly spray, motor oil, Eddy plow shares, tractor magnetos, bales of binder twine, several wagons, a potato digger, steel posts, 48 bags of oyster shells, 82 bags of salt, gallons of roof paint, and office furniture, including a typewriter and a mimeograph. During 1927, charge and cash sales ranged from $2,500 to $5000 per month each. The employees were all local folks.
Madigan Road store.
The bills paid by HFVE to vendors show the scope of its business. Most vendors were local, but a few specialty items came from other states. The store also purchased advertising in the premium book of the Rensselaer County Fair — the Schaghticoke Fair — and a yearly membership in the Farm Bureau. Some of the receipts are in the gallery below.
HVFE is just one of the businesses in Rensselaer County connected to agriculture- both in the past and the present. Detailed examination of the collection adds to the story of Cultivating Community: Agriculture in Rensselaer County, on display at the Hart Cluett Museum though 2022.
Blog post and research by Schaghticoke Town Historian and HCM Trustee, Christina S. Kelly