Burden Iron Works Museum and Albany Shakers

Grave of unknown soldier from war in 1804

Gift shop at Shaker Museum

Today we went to visit the Burden Iron Works Museum. I did not enjoy this as much.. The man was incredibly sexist.. His jokes were so dry and unnecessary. I mean, really, you're talking to a group of women from an all girls college and you're going to make sexist jokes? That was ridiculous. I felt uncomfortable and I did not want to listen to anything he was saying. And on top of that,he was jumping around giving so much information it was hard for us to keep track and understand what he was telling us. 

Burden Iron Works tour

I did learn that building the Burden Iron Company costed almost a million dollars in today's currency and this place was used as an office for Burden Iron Company until it was sold to the Republic Steel Corporation in 1940. Troy was the birthplace of the industrial revolution and its water power dates back to as early as 1664. I found the story about Burden suing another man for stealing his patent interesting. It was the largest patent sue ever. And I remember when he said they wanted to preserve the big water wheel in Burden's factory but it fell down and they just blew it to pieces for scrap metal. And I at least I got to hit one of the bells, that was kind of fun and I'm glad he didn't tell me to hit it like a man cause I would've lost it at that point.

After that museum tour, we had lunch in Prospect Park. We had some lunch under a nice shady tree and the wind was really cool, so it was nice to relax. Afterwards we went on the fleep-flops and we also took a little hike in Troy to see this nice waterfall. and lake. 

Picture of the famous bell

Then we went to visit the Shaker's settlement and museum. It was a historical site where the Shakers lived and practiced their religion.They were nicknamed "shakers" because of the shaking quick dancing they did during their worships. I find this particular religion interesting because women were had the right to have leadership roles. These group of people were known for practicing celibacy and their communal simple lifestyles and the belief in the equality of the sexes. During the tour, we went into this really cool barn and saw a few animals. The cat was my favourite part of the tour even though the cat wasn't really part of it ha-ha!

Outside of Shaker settlement at the museum