Once a bustling community, hotels, mills and shops, stagecoaches, wagons, and drovers with their herds and flocks of animals crowded the streets of this small community along the Great Western Turnpike during the westward expansion of our country.
Esperance, a town in Schoharie County, New York, has a rich history that reflects the broader story of settlement and development in upstate New York. Organized in 1846 and named after the earlier village of Esperance, the town’s name is derived from the French word for “Hope.” The township encompasses the village itself, incorporated in 1818, the hamlet of Sloansville, and the northern section of Central Bridge.
The village of Esperance sits on land that was once part of the Jacob H. Ten Eyck Patent, granted to four patentees in 1769. Additional territory within the town comes from the Stone Heap Patent and Old Schoharie Patent. Serious settlement of the village of Esperance and areas along current Route 20 would not begin until after the Revolutionary War. Nearby settlement on the east shore of the Schoharie Creek in the adjacent James Duane Patent would begin earlier, about 1767, while settlement of the Central Bridge area would begin with Kniskern Dorf as early as 1717. Kniskern Dorf was one of the early Palatine German settlements in what is now known as Schoharie County. Settlement of the Ten Eyck Patent and the village of Esperance would accelerate with the construction of the Great Western Turnpike.
The State of New York built an improved highway and a bridge over the Schoharie Creek at the current village Esperance in 1793. Initially this gave the area the name State Bridge. After a flood destroyed the bridge in 1798, the Great Western Turnpike Co. was organized in 1799 and was allowed to collect tolls after replacing the bridge and maintaining the state highway. When the first post office was established, the name was changed to Schoharie Bridge in 1805. After the replacement bridge was completed by Theodore Burr to positive reviews, he was later engaged in the construction of the covered bridge at Esperance built over the Schoharie Creek and opened in 1812. Theodore Burr, noted as the father of American bridge building, designed it as a toll bridge to be operated by the Great Western Turnpike Company. The bridge saw revenue of over $1000 a month, with pennies being charged for tolls. As Westward migration increased, over 700 teams passed over the bridge each day. Five hotels and five stores catered to the traveling public in Esperance village alone.
Decline came as the Erie Canal, and then the railroads took traffic off the Turnpike. However, with advent of the automobile, the Turnpike became part of US Route 20 and traffic was heavy once again. Finally, when trucks could no longer squeeze through, the State of New York built a new iron bridge in 1930 and the oldest covered bridge in New York State was demolished. An even newer bridge was constructed in the 1990’s.
The former village of Esperance schoolhouse, now the Esperance Historical Society Museum and Library, is located on land granted to the village of Esperance in 1820 by General William North "as a public square, and as a site of such meeting houses, school houses, of the accommodations of said inhabitants". The building was dedicated as a school in 1878 and served the community for 90 years until it closed its doors in 1968. The schoolhouse building reopened its doors again in 1970 as the museum. The schoolhouse building replaced an earlier school built in 1814. The public square, now called The Commons, is still maintained by the village for public use and includes the museum, a carriage barn which houses larger museum artifacts, a local history research library, the still active Presbyterian Church and Sheldon Jackson Hall, a gazebo/bandstand and a playground.