19th century bicycling — Philadelphia to Lake George

Five members of the Penna Bicycle Club of Philadelphia made an overnight stop at the Rockwell House hotel in Glens Falls, having traveled all but 90 miles of the way on bicycles.

Their choice of sites to visit indicates they made have been executives.

“Yesterday afternoon the party visited the Glens Falls Paper Co.’s mills and other places of interest in this vicinity. They express themselves as delighted with Glens Falls and its surroundings,” The Morning Star of Glens Falls reported on July 11, 1890. “Today they will wheel to Lake George, where they will recreate for a few days before starting out on their homeward journey.”

In other stories of the 19th century bicycle craze collected from northern New York historic newspapers:

• “L.B. Baker and J.D. Hart of Mechanicville passed through Glens Falls yesterday en route for Lake George, where they will recreate for a few days,” The Morning Star reported on July 21, 1890. “They made the journey on bicycles, covering the distance from Mechanicville to this village in seven hours and twenty minutes.”
• “Fred Chambers and Alonzo Miller wheeled (from Glens Falls) to Greenwich yesterday and returned after dinner, spending eight hours on the trip. They found the roads in excellent condition and were not at all troubled with dust,” The Morning Star reported on Aug. 11.
• “Costly bicycles are making their appearance in this place,” the Glen’s Falls Republican quipped on July 13, 1880. “It may be fashionable for physicians to visit their patients on the locomotion-assisted devices before long.”
• “Glen’s Falls seems to possess a number of persons who can ride a bicycle two rods (33 feet) and not fall off,” the Glen’s Falls Messenger reported on Oct. 27, 1880. “One young gentleman, Eugene Ashley, took a spin to Lake George on a chestnut excursion one day last week, gathering a peck of the ‘fruit’ and traveling twenty miles in about five hours.”
• This bicycle manufacturer published quite the impressive calendar.

“One of the most valuable business calendars that has come to our desk is that issued by the Pope Company, manufacturers of the Columbian bicycle,” The Morning Star reported on Dec. 13, 1890. “The calendar is in the form of a pad, with 366 leaves — one for each day and one for the entire year. The lower portion of each leaf is left blank for memoranda. The pad rests upon a stud, containing pen rack and pencil holder, and when on the desk the date leaf is directly and constantly before the eye, making it almost impossible to overlook the memoranda.”