Sharon Springs, New York

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sharon Springs is a village in Schoharie County, New York, USA. The population was 547 at the 2000 census. The name is a combination of town and the important springs found by the village.

The Village of Sharon Springs is in the northwest part of the Town of Sharon on Route 10.

Sharon Springs, Kansas is its namesake.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 External links

[edit] History

Thanks to its sulphur, magnesium, and chalybeate mineral springs, Sharon Springs grew into a highly fashionable spa during the 19th Century. At its height, it was patronized by members of the Vanderbilt railroad family, Oscar Wilde (who gave a lecture at the now-demolished Pavilion Hotel on 11 August 1882), the social arbiter Ward McAllister, foreign diplomats such as the ambassadors of Chile, Portugal, Belgium, and Peru, and multimillionaire Cuban sugar planters such as Tomas Terry (the paternal grandfather of the French designer Emilio Terry).

The most famous of the springs in the village, then as now, was the so-called Gardner Spring, which was owned by the owner of the Pavilion Hotel. As reported in the New York Times on 30 August 1875, "So prodigious is the amount of sulphur-gas in the Gardner Spring that the waters of this creek are rendered as white as milk, and the stones are covered with a thick deposit. All the objects which have been thrown into the stream from above -- old shoes, tin pails, and other things of a similar nature -- become transmuted by the mineral. Some of them become a snowy white, and others are turned to a deep black. The green weeds that grow upon the sides and bottoms of such creeks are here perfectly white, and at first one can hardly tell their nature, but mistakes them for long films of the sulphur deposit."

According to an article published in The New York Times (26 August 2000), Sharon Springs lost its fashionable Social Register set to the horse-racing attractions of Saratoga Springs. Wealthy Jewish families of German origin, who were unwelcome at Saratoga due to the prevailing social bias of the time, filled the void and "made Sharon Springs a refuge of their own." Eventually, these families moved on to other, more modern resorts, and the village began to fade economically. Other factors that exacerbated the village's early 20th century decline were Prohibition (which reduced the need for the local hop harvest) and the opening of the New York State Thruway (which routed traffic away from the area).

As the cited New York Times article went on to explain, "After World War II, Sharon Springs got a second wind from the West German government, which paid medical care reparations to Holocaust survivors, holding that therapeutic spa vacations were a legitimate part of the medical package." In the summer of 1946, one of the busboys at the Spanish Colonial Revival style Adler Hotel was Edward I. Koch, the future mayor of New York City.

[edit] Geography

Sharon Springs is located at 42°47′41″N, 74°36′57″W (42.794783, -74.615946)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 4.7 km² (1.8 mi²), all land.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 547 people, 204 households, and 130 families residing in the village. The population density was 115.4/km² (299.5/mi²). There were 270 housing units at an average density of 57.0/km² (147.8/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 97.62% White, 0.73% African American, 0.18% Native American, and 1.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.83% of the population.

There were 204 households out of which 30.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.9% were married couples living together, 6.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.8% were non-families. 29.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.42 and the average family size was 3.03.

In the village the population was spread out with 23.4% under the age of 18, 5.7% from 18 to 24, 27.1% from 25 to 44, 20.5% from 45 to 64, and 23.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 89.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.0 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $37,969, and the median income for a family was $45,000. Males had a median income of $36,563 versus $28,125 for females. The per capita income for the village was $24,664. About 8.5% of families and 12.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.4% of those under age 18 and 4.3% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] External links

Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 42.794783° -74.615946°
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA

	Schoharie County, New York
County seat	Schoharie
Cities	None
Villages	Cobleskill \| Esperance \| Middleburgh \| Richmondville \| Schoharie \| Sharon Springs
Towns	Blenheim \| Broome \| Carlisle \| Cobleskill \| Conesville \| Esperance \| Fulton \| Gilboa \| Jefferson \| Middleburgh \| Richmondville \| Schoharie \| Seward \| Sharon \| Summit \| Wright
Hamlets	Gallupville \| Livingstonville \| Sloansville