If walls could talk...

Sometimes, it’s better to simply avoid asking who once lived in your house. Sometimes, it’s better to think an anonymous family once occupied the dwelling. Sometimes, it better to not know your abode housed two of the Spa City’s most noted scoundrels.

Such is the case at the palatial early 20th century home built at 595 North Broadway along the wealth corridor of Saratoga Springs. The home was constructed by Harry Pettee in 1921, two years after he was chased out of the city mayor’s office and two years before he disappeared with more than $300,000 bilked primarily from local residents.

Pettee’s long-obscured legacy is now the subject of a television program scheduled to air on HGTV Friday evening, according to the Times Union. Hosts of the program “If Walls Could Talk” poured through the home and historical documents in an attempt to reinvigorate the bizarre circumstances under which Pettee built and later abandoned the mansion.

Pettee was among a long line of one-term mayors who just didn’t pan out for Saratoga Springs (see: Valerie Keehn, Michael Lenz). His popularity waned after his carbonation business nearly sucked the life out of the mineral springs located on what is now the Saratoga Spa State Park. He was forced to sell, was disgraced out of office and eventually fled the area for more posh accommodations on the Manhattan peninsula. He returned periodically until disappearing for good in 1923, having absconded with $500,000 of investor and family money. This part of the tale is told well.

Yet both the TU and the hosts of the nationally syndicated program missed the modern –and arguably more sordid –figure linked to this property. And one who bears an eerie semblance to Pettee in both tendencies and scruples.

The year was 1997, when a jogger happened to notice the stench emanating from the Seaman Farm off Old Ballston Avenue. She quickly traced the reek back to an open pit filled with thousands of black garbage bags that contained pet carcasses. Littered among mass burial were a few other trash bags containing medical waste, household refuse and junk mail listing the address of a naturalized Canadian living at Pettee’s old abode.

For more than three decades, Terence McGlashan claimed to make his living through the sale of veterinarian supplies and through contracting out animal creations. But instead of burning the carcasses, McGlashan simply dumped them off at the 500-acre farm and paid Ralph Seaman a sum of $2 for each body he dumped. State investigators later found four mass burial pits containing the rotting remains of more than 40,000 pets McGlashan had collected from 83 veterinarians across New York and New England. At the time, pet cremations cost upwards of $150, meaning he made quite a nice sum from his pet cemetery.

The story made national news and McGlashan, under the unwavering scorn of scorned pet owners and animal rights activists, admitted to the charges less than a year after they were lodged. He was sentenced to serve six months in county jail, fined $5,000, and ordered to pay $25,000 to local animal shelters. The furor over the incident also prompted a would-be arsonist to lob a pair of Molotov cocktails at Seaman’s barns after the case came to a conclusion.

Strangely, the link between McGlashan and Pettee extends beyond their simply building a fortune off of defrauding local residents. Prior to his disappearance, Pettee was known for his frequent sojourns to the Sunshine State. So often were his trips he became known as the “Palm Beach-going mayor,” according to local author Hollis Palmer. McGlashan fled to Orlando – where there just happens to be another Saratoga –perhaps compelled by the spirit of Pettee or maybe convinced by the homemade bombs Seaman was prone to receiving.

The entry on the TU blog suggests the HGTV producers carved into the floors of McGlashan and Pettee’s old homestead and surprisingly didn’t find the cash the latter disappeared with. No word on whether they found a new cache of animal carcasses. Needless to say, if the walls at 595 North Broadway could talk, the modern-day residents there should ask for an assessment reduction.