Filley Boat Club
—There seems to be some question as to whether the Filley Boat Club will ever do any more rowing under its present membership and name.
“Village Notes.” Lansingburgh Courier. February 18, 1876: 3 col 1.
—The members of the Filley Boat Club have been excavating and making a commodious room under their house for the storing of their shells this season when not in use. The new deal is a good one, and shows the prosperity that the boys are enjoying. The crew for the four this summer and fall will make hot work for anything that comes up against them.
“Village Notes.” Lansingburgh Courier. May 5, 1876: 3 col 1.
The Filley boat club of this village and the Cohoes boat club will engage in a match game of base ball next week. The boats of the latter club not having arrived, base ball is the only alternative.
Lansingburgh Courier. August 25, 1876: 3 col 5.
Filley Boat Club. — W. S. Flack, President; Joseph McQuide, Secretary and Treasurer; Wm. Lee Church, Captain.
Weise, A. J. History of Lansingburgh from the Year 1670 to 1877. Troy, NY: William H. Young, 1877. 38.
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Organization Recalled By Copy of Constitution—Its Famous Four—Winner of Many Races—Some of the Officers and Members—The First Race—Memorable Trips.
[…] The Filley Boat Club was vividly recalled to mind to-day when one old member, now a business man of Troy, exhibited to another a copy of the constitution and by-laws of the organization issued in 1877 and which he had discovered while examining a package of old papers long since put in storage in the drawer of a desk. The pair began an exchange of reminiscences that started with a mind’s eye picture of the old boathouse, and included much of the history of the organization.
The house, it was recalled, was located at the northwest corner of River and Hoosick Streets, now First Avenue and [One Hundred] Thirteenth Street. It was a long, one-story frame structure, unpainted, with a basement for boats and a piazza extending the entire length along the west side that was nightly for years the scene of many pleasant gatherings. There races were rowed and won before and after the events and politics and questions of public moment discussed. At the north end was the meeting and sitting room comfortably furnished, and the apartment extending south from that was put to the same use as the basement, the housing of the eights, fours, doubles, singles and pair oared boats that made up the club fleet. The boats were taken from the house at the south end through openings equipped with large double doors and carried to the float on the west and moored in the river at the shore’s edge at the foot of the declivity on which the boathouse stood.
The house was built and furnished and tendered the club for its use by Mark L. Filley, from whom the organization took its name. He defrayed the entire cost, and was the first President of the club and its sponsor and backer a number of years. The site of the structure is now occupied by a dwelling and a boat livery.
Troy Times. June 19, 1914: 10-11.