Trolleys of Amsterdam Presentation Tonight at 6:30pm

Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Jerry Snyder to speak about the Trolleys of Amsterdam

The program will be held at 167 Fort Hunter Road at the Town of Florida Hall and Highway Department building.

Fort Hunter, NY – The trolley era arrived in Amsterdam in 1874 with horse drawn cars and less than two miles of track on downtown streets. By the time it departed a comparatively short 64 years later, streamlined aluminum bodied electric coaches were providing first-class mile-a-minute transport to nearby cities and towns throughout the lower Mohawk Valley. Join us to hear the story of the origin, development, and demise of our local part of a now all-but-forgotten transportation system whose abandonment may, in hindsight, well have been premature.

Jerry Snyder was born and raised in Amsterdam, NY where he attended Amsterdam schools, graduating from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1972. He then went on to graduate from Union College in 1976 with BS in Mechanical Engineering. Snyder was a Technical Service Engineer for Ingersoll-Rand out of Painted Post, NY (near Corning) and then worked at General Electric as an Engineering Supervisor/Principal Project Engineer until his retirement in 2014.

In 2003, Snyder discovered old postcards on E-Bay as an information source during a research project and began collecting them. His long-time interest in Amsterdam history, mostly from the engineering perspective in their industries, railroads and trolley systems and other infrastructure (dams, canal, bridges, power plants) lead him to become one of the founders of the Historic Amsterdam League in 2010, where he has served in various positions since, including president. Also in that year, he co-authored the Arcadia Publishing issued book titled Amsterdam in their Postcard History Series, showcasing about half of his collection. The book was co-authored with Amsterdam Historian Robert von Hasseln.

Please note that this event takes place off site at the Town of Florida Barn next to the Fort Hunter Library.  The program will be preceded by a brief Friends of Schoharie Crossing Meeting and is free to the public.