1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hoosick Falls

HOOSICK FALLS, a village of Rensselaer county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Hoosick, 27 m. N.E. of Troy, on the Hoosick river. Pop. of the village (1890) 7014; (1900) 5671, of whom 1092 were foreign-born; (1905) 5251; (1910) 5532; of the township (1900) 8631; (1910) 8315. Hoosick Falls is served by the Boston & Maine Railroad, and is connected by electric railway with Bennington, Vermont, about 8 m. E. The falls of the Hoosick river furnish water-power for the manufacture of agricultural machinery by the Walter A. Wood Mowing and Reaping Machine Co., which dates from 1866, the business having been started in 1852 by Walter Abbott Wood (1815–1892), who was a Republican representative in Congress in 1879–1883. Other manufactures are knit goods, shirts and collars and paper-making machinery. Hoosick Falls was settled about 1688 by Dutch settlers—settlers from Connecticut and Massachusetts came after 1763—and it was first incorporated in 1827. Three miles N.E. of the village, at Walloomsac, in the township of Hoosick, the battle of Bennington was fought, on the 16th of August 1777.