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A Brief History of the Waters of Sharon Springs, New York, USA

Dawne Belloise

Sharon Historical Society

PO Box 398; Sharon Springs, New York 13459; 518-284-2839

dawne@roseboro.com

Belief in the curative powers of sulphur water is central to Sharon Springs’ history. For two centuries this belief shaped the village, its inhabitants, its structures and its fortunes. In its pursuit, an amazing variety of peoples - rich and poor, old and young, native and foreign - have come and gone. This belief, in and out of fashion many times, created a unique and curious legacy. What set Sharon Springs apart from other American spa resorts was its five different springs in close proximity to each other.

Local folklore says Native Americans discovered the healing qualities of the White Sulphur spring. Arrowheads, pottery shards and flint chips found nearby tend to support this view. In 1825 David Eldredge established the first commercial use of the springs and built a boardinghouse for his rapidly growing clientele. Visitors traveled on the new Erie Canal from Albany to Palatine Bridge, then another ten miles south by stagecoach to Sharon Springs. In 1836, they came by railroad which ran alongside the canal and starting in 1870, by rail service directly from New York City to the village. Still later, a bus terminal on Main Street opposite the White Sulphur Spring saw a heavy summer schedule of Greyhound Motor Coaches and charter buses through the 1960's.

Eldredge sold the land and springs in 1836. The new owners erected the elegant Pavilion Hotel, siting it on a ridge east of Main Street, a distance from its bathhouses, so as to offer a commanding view of the Mohawk Valley. John Gardner, one of the owners, assumed sole proprietorship of this genteel luxury resort hotel in 1841, ushering in Sharon Springs' golden era. Business thrived and construction boomed as massive hotels of exquisite design were built and residential homes were converted into palatial tourist houses.

With affluent Americans and wealthy foreign travelers coming to "take the waters," social and cultural life flourished with music and plays in the park and at the hotels. Oscar Wilde lectured and mingled with Pavilion guests named Vanderbilt, Grant, Roosevelt, Macy, and Van Buren. The romantic park-like setting made Sharon Springs a matchmaking destination, with sons and daughters brought in hope of finding a suitable marriage.

In the last decades of the 19th Century, the Spa saw a growing Jewish clientele. These were wealthy German Jews, some with considerable fortunes, who were accepted by the Spa’s elite Protestant patrons. At the same time, fashion increasingly favored a rival resort, Saratoga Springs. By the end of that century, amidst a flood of poor East-European Jewish immigrants, anti-Semitism was rising in America. Saratoga Springs openly discriminated against Jews, so Sharon Springs’ Jewish clientele did not follow the wealthy Protestants there.

By the 1920’s, Jewish guests of Eastern birth predominated. As Europeans, they valued the medicinal qualities of the baths, but they were different from the earlier, financially established German Jews. They spoke Yiddish and strictly observed their religious laws. In 1927, John Gardner’s son, Henry built a new, elaborate Beaux Art style sulphur temple to replace the Victorian era one and built the Imperial Baths to lure new clientele. He then organized the Sharon Springs Chamber of Commerce in 1930 specifically to attract Jewish tourists. The campaign was successful and Jewish businessmen purchased hotels and boarding houses, operating them as “Borscht Belt” Catskill resorts with entertainment and kosher kitchens.

However, the Gardners were later unable to financially maintain the fading Pavilion Hotel, and in 1941 they razed the building. It was a sad casualty of age, fashion, and economics. They sold their remaining properties in 1954: the baths, a nine-hole golf course, and their stately stone mansion. The buyer, Homer Spofford, had new ideas for restoring Sharon Springs as a resort and built the Spa Motel in sharp contrast to the outdated Victorian hotels.

Trends in tourism after the Second World War thwarted the village’s revitalization. Health resorts fell out of vogue, jet aircraft made overseas vacations possible, and foreign touring became inexpensive. Those still seeking the waters could go to Saratoga Springs, where the State now owned and subsidized the baths. Sharon Springs could not compete with Saratoga's active social scene, varied cultural offerings, and its famous racetrack.

Thousands of Holocaust survivors, mostly Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, came to Sharon Springs in the aftermath of World War 2. Once again there was a summer crowd staying for several weeks as part of a health regime, but as this post war clientele aged, fewer returned each year. Further, aged hotels had to comply with new fire, safety and building codes, financially impossible in a declining business climate. Therefore, many hotels were demolished, lost to fire or simply closed their doors to stand empty and deteriorating.

In the late 1970's, Spofford sold the White Sulphur Springs and baths to the Yarkonys. Mishu Yarkony and his wife, Rita, Romanian survivors of Nazi concentration camps, had already purchased the Adler Hotel in 1968. Later they added the Columbia and Washington Hotels to the White Sulphur Springs Company. Mishu Yarkony died in 1997 leaving the White Sulphur Springs Company to his wife and their son Alfred.

The winding down of the Cold War in the 1990's brought yet another clientele. Large numbers of Soviet immigrants who settled in New York City soon discovered Sharon Springs’ fresh air and mineral waters were less than a four-hour car ride away. The resort reminded them of the baths of their homelands and many became summer residents renovating empty boarding houses.

The turn of the 21st century brought signs of fresh activity. New interest in historic preservation attracted people appreciative of the village’s unusual collection of aged buildings. Some purchased and restored property, opening shops, cafés, and accommodations catering that catered to a heritage tourist clientele. Cultural and musical events reappeared. These new year-round residents widened Sharon Springs’ economic base and brought skills as computer and Internet service providers, writers and artists, theatrical performers, and home business operators.

If Sharon Springs' past is any indication, its future will be interesting, attract varied people, and continue to intrigue. Whatever happens, the White Sulphur Spring, as it has for thousands of years, will rise in the Village, tumble down Brimstone Creek, cascade into the Mohawk Valley and flow on to the Atlantic.

The Blue Stone Spring

Blue Stone Spring is just a few feet north and west of the White Sulphur Spring. Discovered in the early 1800’s, this spring was used extensively as a "lotion for inflammatory conditions of the eye" which led to its designation as "The Eye-Water Spring". In an 1870’s etching, the spring was encased in a stone sink basin with three spigots. Sometime in the 1940’s the stone was covered with a rustic river rock facing set in concrete. A bronze lion head replaced the spigots sometime in the 1950’s and the river rock was either removed or encased in cement.

The spring is still used today for eye treatments and a refreshing facial splash by the many visitors to the Sharon waters. It is part of the White Sulphur Temple Park, currently owned by Mr. Yarkony and open to the general public.

The Chalybeate Spring

In the 1854 "Analysis of Sharon Waters", Dr. S.F. Fonda writes of the Chalybeate Spring, "This spring has been recently discovered, and has been properly curbed by the intelligent and accommodating proprietor. " At that time, Leroy Eldredge was the proprietor of the Chalybeate Spring, which was situated on his Union Hall property. Pronounced as "ka-lib-e-at, it means impregnated with compounds of iron , or, water containing iron in solution. The iron water was said to be tonic and hematic. Its use was especially curative for anemia and according to Dr. Fonda, the waters "obtained a high celebrity for the relief of complaints peculiar to the female sex". The Chalybeate waters reputedly had enough iron salts to turn one’s teeth brown, nevertheless it was bottled and sold for its medicinal use. It is not known what the original temple looked like, or if Mr. Eldredge even erected a building over the spring.

Simple in its design, the octagonal Temple was converted into an apartment for summer use around 1960 by owner, Louis Berman and the Chalybeate waters were capped. The Ionic columns, soffit, fascia and trim, as well as the tongue and groove ceiling are all original and intact. The short walls of the temple are aggregate concrete and its foundation sits on the edge of Brimstone Creek about a block south of the White Sulphur and Magnesia Temples. Once part of a park complex in the 1920’s containing a large swimming pool and bath changing house, its pathways were bristling with activity. The pool was closed during WW II. The Chalybeate’s gazebo has been restored by the Sharon Springs Citizens Council of the Arts who also reverted the Temple’s grounds back into a park for public enjoyment complete with outdoor concerts. The Chalybeate waters, however, are still capped.

The Magnesia Temple and Baths

The most unique of all the Sharon Springs temples, the elaborately ornamental and domed Magnesia Temple was an exquisite example of the iron work construction of engineer D.D. Badger of Architectural Iron Works. It was built in a Renaissance Revival style in 1863 by H.J. Bang, who also owned the Fango Bath Houses and the Congress Hall Hotel. The Magnesia Temple was built at a time when iron buildings were gaining in popularity. Badger was a pioneer in the use of prefabricated construction and of his many works, the most notable in New York are, Vanderbilt’s original Grand Central Depot, the Singer Sewing Machine Co. Building, Hudson River Railroad Depot, Kemp Building, Gilsey House, E.V. Haughwout Building and the Watervliet Arsenal built in 1859. Most likely, the Temple’s pre- fabricated parts, columns, dome and all, were shipped up the Hudson, as was the Watervliet Arsenal, and delivered to Sharon Springs by rail where it was then constructed by Badger’s team. The carved inscription on the back of the stone lion head fountain inside the temple identifies the architect as “L. Burger,” who is listed in New York City directories from 1851-1871 as Louis Burger. The Sculptor was M. Kilb. The Temple was once part of the Congress Hall property and was proclaimed to have the most beautiful bathhouses and grounds in the village.

Henry Joseph Bang was born in Darmstadt, Germany about 1800 and arrived in the United States by 1855. He was a brewer and a New York restaurateur. After purchasing the land surrounding the magnesia springs in 1860, he began building Congress Hall. He also built a wood plane factory behind the Fango baths. Unfortunately for Mr. Bang, despite the splendor of his bathhouses and temple, the magnesia spring could not compete with the potency of the Pavilion Hotel’s sulphur spring, and he was unable to attract many bathers away from the Pavilion’s wooden bath sheds. In 1875, in the midst of a great depression, Congress Hall was totally destroyed by fire. The loss was devastating for him and his family and Bang died around 1879.

Currently, the Magnesia Temple is privately owned and is under restoration today, although its waters are no longer taken. Because the Fango and Magnesia Bathhouses were demolished many decades ago, not much is known about their use. Indeed, not many photographs exist of them, with interior pictures even more rare.

The Imperial Baths

John Gardner built an elegant, ninety-two room bathhouse on the grounds of the ones destroyed by an 1875 fire. He reopened in 1876. It was proclaimed that the White Sulphur Spring was not excelled by any sulphur spring in the country for its strength and mineral content. At a constant 48 degrees Fahrenheit, it was consumed by generations who sought its cures for everything from "malarial difficulties" to "biliary derangements".

Gardner also built the Inhalation House in 1884, as part of his continuing development of the spa. The patient would “inhale” the sulphur vapors through a cup fitted over the face. This reputedly helped with lung and bronchial ailments. Doctors would prescribe a regimented treatment specific to the patient’s ailment. This would determine the daily dosage of sulphur either in oral, topical or vaporized application. In the last four decades of the 1900’s, the building was used only as a spa related doctor’s office, as inhalation treatments were no longer prescribed.

Henry Gardner opened the Imperial Baths on the site of the Congress Hall hotel in 1927 to attract a “modern” clientele. The Victorian era sulphur bathhouses were still in use just west of the new building but he hoped to lure more bathers. The Imperial offered Nauheim baths (carbonated sulphur water), Scotch douches (sprayed sulphur water), mud packs, and massage. For ailments such as "cutaneous problems" and "arthritic conditions", the sulphur water was heated and piped into the slate bathtubs. After a twenty-minute soak, bathers were wrapped in warm sheets and required to rest on a cot in an adjoining room. This method of treatment changed little throughout the 20th century. In the 1960’s, one wing of the 1876 bathhouse was demolished. By the last decades, no longer in use, the remaining wing was collapsing.

Today, the Imperial Baths still operate to a small handful of mostly Eastern European clientele. The odiferous sulphur is now mixed with village water. The baths are open in July and August but are closed on Saturdays.