Vischer Ferry is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

of Clifton Park in

Saratoga County Saratoga County is a county in the U.S. state of New York, and is the fastest-growing county in Upstate New York. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population was enumerated at 235,509, representing a 7.2% increase from the 2010 popul ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States, along the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

History

Vischer Ferry is named for the family of Nicholas Vischer, who built a house beside the river in 1735.Jennifer Mapes, "Towpath village a step back in time," ''The Community News'' (Saratoga Springs, New York
(online)
17 Jan 2003 At that time the Mohawk Valley was claimed by the

Iroquois League The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

and by the British

Province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the Uni ...

. The

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

destroyed Iroquois settlements in the valley and established the State of New York. The site became known as Vischer's Ferry after Nicholas Vischer's son, Eldert Vischer, opened a

rope ferry A cable ferry (including the terms chain ferry, swing ferry, floating bridge, or punt) is a ferry that is guided (and in many cases propelled) across a river or large body of water by cables connected to both shores. Early cable ferries often ...

at the site in 1790. The ferry connected Ferry Drive on the north shore to Ferry Road on the opposite bank at

Niska Isle Niska Isle, despite its name, is not an island, but a peninsula in the town of Niskayuna, New York. Niska Isle is along the Mohawk River's south shore, with a back bay and swamp that surrounds it to the south. History Niska Isle was prior to 1915 ...

. By 1800, a tavern and store were located there. Construction of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

by 1825 linked the Mohawk River to

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

. As the canal declined in importance, Vischer Ferry became relatively isolated. A bridge built across the river at Vischer Ferry in 1900 was destroyed by ice in 1902. Later attempts to secure state funding for a bridge were unsuccessful. Because of its isolation, the village preserved much of its nineteenth-century

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

character. In October 1975 the Vischer Ferry Historic District was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The Abraham Best House was added in 2011. A nearby concrete dam was completed in 1913 for

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

use and to aid river navigation. Owned by

New York Power Authority The New York Power Authority (NYPA), officially the Power Authority of the State of New York, is a New York State public-benefit corporation. It is the largest state public power utility in the United States. NYPA provides some of the lowest-co ...

, the Vischer Ferry Dam, also known as Dam 3, is high and long. The Vischer Ferry Hotel, built in the 1790s, was destroyed by fire in 1946. This loss led to the formation of the community's first

volunteer fire department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond t ...

. In 1958-1959, construction of an interchange on Vischer Ferry Road (County Road 90) linked Vischer Ferry to Interstate 87, which is called the "Northway" between Albany and the Canada–US border. In the late 70’s 4 friends were born and grew up together in Vischer Ferry. They would come to be known as the Vischer Ferry 4 and would stay friends the rest of their lives despite each moving away from Vischer Ferry.

Location

Recreation

The Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve features a reconstructed 1862 Whipple

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

. In 2006 the reserve was designated a Bird Conservation Area.New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
"Governor Designates Vischer Ferry Bird Conservation Area (BCA)"
''Environment DEC'' (December 2006). The Mohawk Towpath Byway passes through Vischer Ferry.

References

{{authority control Hamlets in New York (state) Hamlets in Saratoga County, New York Populated places on the Mohawk River