TEKAKWITHA'S UNCLE AND FORT ORANGE; OR THE BEGINNINGS OF ALBANY.
Cholenec, the more concise of the two contemporary biographers of Kateri
Tekakwitha, in speaking of her early life says: "She found herself an
orphan under the care of her aunts, and _in the power of an uncle who
was the leading man in the settlement_." This brief expression gives us
an intimation both of the character and the rank of Tekakwitha's
formidable Mohawk uncle. He was stern, unbending, fierce; and like many
another chief reared in the Long House, was proudly tenacious of the
customs of his race. He was often on the worst of terms with the French
blackgowns because they interfered with the beliefs and manners of his
people; but always on the best of terms with the Dutch traders, who, in
exchange for the rich furs brought in so plentifully to Fort Orange,
supplied the Mohawks of Gandawague (or, as the Dutch wrote it,
Kaghnuwage) with muskets, iron tomahawks, pipes, tobacco, copper
kettles, scissors, duffels, strouds for blankets, and more than all, the
keenly relished, comforting "fire water."
The influx of liquor to the Iroquois castles led to reckless debauches,
fast following in the track of the small-pox, which stalked with
unchecked violence through the Long House in 1660. During the course of
the following year an important transaction took place between the
white settlers on the Hudson and the Indians along the Mohawk, or
Maquaas Kill. "A certain parcel of land," to use the words of the old
deed, "called in Dutch the Groote Vlachte (Great Flatt), lying behind
Fort Orange, between the same and the Mohawk country," was sold by
Mohawk chiefs--Cantuquo (whose mark was a Bear); Aiadane, a Turtle;
Sonareetsie, a Wolf; and Sodachdrasse--to Sieur Arent van Corlaer, July
27, 1661. "A grant under the provincial seal was issued in the following
year, but the land was not surveyed or divided until 1664." The Indian
name of the Great Flatt was Schonowe, and the new village of white
settlers which soon sprang up on the south bank of the Mohawk was called
Schenectady by the Dutch and English; though the French, who did not for
some time learn of its existence, first knew this little outpost of Fort
Orange by the name of Corlaer,[19] the earliest settler.
This founding of Schenectady was an event of deep interest to the
Mohawks of Gandawague. It brought the dwellings of the white race closer
than ever before to their own stronghold, almost in fact to the very
door of the Kanonsionni, or People of the Long House. The settlers began
at once to rear their wonderful wooden palaces, for such they must have
seemed to the simple children of the forest. The wild banks of the
Maquaas Kill had hitherto shown no prouder architecture than the long
bark houses of the Mohawks, which nevertheless were much in advance of
the wigwams or tents of the roving Algonquin tribes. The Indians of
Gandawague must have hastened down in their canoes to watch the building
of Schenectady, and listened with interest and curiosity to the strange
buzz of the newly erected sawmill. These were already familiar sights
and sounds, however, to Tekakwitha's uncle, for he had long been in the
habit of trading with the Dutch and knew their ways. He often journeyed
as far as their trading-house at Fort Orange. Let us follow in the
footsteps of this Mohawk chief as he starts once again on the trail that
leads eastward from Gandawague with furs he has been hoarding for some
new purchase. Let us pass hurriedly on beyond the new abode of his
friend Corlaer, and we shall then see the sights that greet him as he
approaches the homes of the traders who dwell beside the Hudson,--or
Cahotatea, as the chief of the Turtle Castle would call the great North
River in his own language. He has other Indians of his nation with him.
These Mohawks, says the first Dutch dominie, in the account he gives of
them, have good features, with black hair and eyes, and they are well
proportioned; they go naked in summer, and in winter they hang loosely
about them a deer's, bear's, or panther's skin, or else they sew small
skins together into a square piece, or buy two and a half ells of
duffels from the Dutchmen. Some of them wear shoes and stockings of
deer's skins; others of plaited corn-leaves. Their hair is left growing
on one side of the head only, or else worn like a cock's comb or hog's
bristles standing up in a streak from forehead to neck; some of them
leave queer little locks growing here and there. Their faces are painted
red and blue, so that they "look like the devil himself," continues the
worthy Megapolensis. They carry a basket of bear's grease with which
they smear their heads, and in travelling they take with them a
maize-kettle and a wooden spoon and bowl. When it is meal-time they get
fire very quickly by rubbing pieces of wood together; and they cook and
devour their fish and venison without the preliminary cleaning and
preparing considered necessary among civilized folks. When they feel
pain they say, "Ugh! the devil bites," and when they wish to compliment
their own nation they say, "Really the Mohawks are very cunning devils."
They make no offerings to their good genius or national god,
Tharonyawagon; but they worship the demon Otkon or Aireskoi, praying in
this way, "Forgive us for not eating our enemies!" and in hot weather,
"I thank thee, Devil, I thank thee, Oomke, for the cool breeze." They
laugh at the Dutch prayers, the dominie tells us, and also at the
sermon. They call the Christians of Fort Orange cloth-makers
(_assyreoni_) and iron-workers (_charistooni_).
These uncouth travellers from Gandawague, among whom is the uncle of
Tekakwitha, are fast nearing the homes of these same cloth-makers and
iron-workers. Let us hasten to overtake them, and find our way with them
into the settlement of Rensselaerwyck. You who dwell in New York State
and you who travel through it, come with us now to visit old Fort Orange
and the little town of Beverwyck! You above all who love to trace your
lineage to the staid old Dutchmen of New Netherlands, come! Let us see
the homes of these grandsires whose names appear so often in the record
and ancient annals of our oldest chartered city. Come, too, you sons of
English colonists, and see the flag of England float strangely in the
Hudson River breezes while they are still loaded with the cumbrous
sounds of the Low Dutch language! We will stay and see the laws of
England put an end to queer old wordy wars between the stately Dutch
patroon Van Rensselaer and Peter Stuyvesant, the doughty old
Director-general, last and greatest of the four Dutch governors,--the
one called "Wooden Leg" by Indians, and "Hard-headed Pete" by Dutchmen;
though the poets say he had a _silver leg_, and the artists love to
paint him with a gallant flourish as he stumped it down the street
beside some pretty, quaintly dressed colonial belle. His were the days
of knee-breeches and gigantic silver buckles, of ruffles and queues, of
broad, short petticoats bedecked with mighty pockets, and of scissors
and keys that hung from the belt,--the days of demure tea-parties and
hilarious coasting-parties, of negro slaves and of sugar-loaf hats. As
for weapons of war, the muskets they carried were strange and clumsy
arms, with long, portable rests and "two fathoms of match," which the
soldier must needs have with him, besides the heavy armor and the queer
tackle for ammunition. No wonder that the wearers of such gear dreaded
wars with the nimble savages!
Rip Van Winkle, after sleeping twenty years, awoke to painful changes;
he was sadly out of date. It would surely then be cruel, even if we had
the power, to wake old Peter Stuyvesant and the people of his day from
full two hundred years of slumber in our graveyards just to criticise
their dress and talk. Let us rather go to sleep ourselves and dream
about them. Take a good strong dose of unassorted, crude, colonial
history interspersed with annals, and the necessary drowsiness will
surely follow. Have you tried it? Are you sure the spell is not upon you
now, having stopped to look at Stuyvesant, and heard the dominie
describe the Mohawks? The smoke of pipes and chimneys is at hand, for
here we are at old Fort Orange in the times of Tekakwitha. Let us look
about, before the power to do it fails us out of very sleepiness. We
find ourselves within a wall of stockadoes. The chief and his friends
from Kaghnuwage are undoing their packs of furs near the northern gate
of the town. We stand in Albany, at the corner of Broadway and State
Street,--but no! those names are not yet in vogue. We are in Beverwyck,
at the point where the long, rambling Handelaer Street, running parallel
with Hudson's River, crosses the broad, short Joncaer Street, which
climbs some little distance up the hill. Before us is the old Dutch
church. It stands by itself, at the intersection of the two streets,
fronting south. It is a low, square, plain stone building, with a
four-sided roof rising to a central summit surmounted by a small cupola
or belfry containing the famous little bell just sent over from Holland
by the Dutch West India Company; on this belfry is upreared a saucy
little weathercock. The south porch or vestibule is approached by a
large stone step before the principal door. If the church were not
locked, we might take a look inside at the carved oaken pulpit with its
queer little bracket for the dominie's hourglass. The burghers
subscribed twenty-five beaver-skins to buy that pulpit, and a splendid
one it was. It soon came sailing over the sea in a plump Dutch ship.
The patrons of the colony finding the beaver-skins much damaged when the
package was opened at Amsterdam had added seventy-five guilders
themselves towards the purchase, besides presenting the bell outright.
When Dominie Megapolensis first arrived in the colony, "nine benches"
were enough to seat the whole congregation; but that was a generation
ago. Now it has increased; and the church, which was then a wooden
structure near the old fort by the river, has been rebuilt. The Van
Rensselaers, the Wendels, the Schuylers and the Van der Blaas have the
leading pews; they have already sent to Europe for stained glass windows
blazoned with their family arms. Having seen the church, let us walk up
Joncaer (State) Street to the dominie's. We pass through the
market-place, which is out in the middle of the open, grassy space, on a
line with the church. We stop a moment to look at the house of Anneke
Janse, the heiress, and then move on to Parrell (Pearl) Street. There,
on the northeast corner of Parrell and Joncaer Streets, gable end
foremost, stands the comfortable abode of Dominie Schaats, which is the
pride and envy of the town. Every part of this, the first brick house in
the New World, is said to have been imported from Holland,--bricks,
woodwork, tiles, and also the ornamental irons with which it is
profusely adorned,--all expressly for the use of the Rev. Gideon Schaets
(or Schaats), who came over in 1652. The materials of the house arrived
simultaneously with the bell and pulpit in 1657.[20]
From Schaats' house we see, instead of a solitary "old elm-tree" on the
opposite corner, many trees of different kinds, one in front of each of
the straggling houses on either side of Joncaer Street; and by the age
of the tree one can tell pretty well the order in which the different
settlers arrived and began to domesticate themselves. This was no sooner
done than the inevitable shade-tree was planted to overshadow the
dwelling, and beneath this tree they bring the cow each evening to be
milked. Around every house is a garden with a well; and the stoop at the
front door is supplied with wooden seats or benches. There old and young
gather in the evening when the day's work is over.
The upper half of the front door remains open all day in summer, while
the lower half bars out the stray chickens and dogs. It is opened now
and then, however, to let the children in and out, and once in a while a
buxom _vrouw_ leans out to chat with a passer-by, or perhaps to scold
the little ones or to bid them beware of straying near the trading-house
for fear of encountering a tipsy Indian. This trading-house is outside
the wall of stockadoes, or upright posts, encircling the town. The
traders of Beverwyck are all obliged "to ride their stockadoes,"--that
is to say, to furnish the pine posts, thirteen feet long and one foot in
diameter, for repairing the wooden wall. This duty falls alike on every
inhabitant, at the command of the burgomasters and schepens. They are
furthermore bound to take turns in drawing firewood to the trading-house
for the use of the Indians when they come there from the Maquaas country
loaded with packs of furs.
Above Dominie Schaats' house and on the same side of Joncaer Street is
the Corps de Garde, a small block fort where a few soldiers are
stationed. There the progress of our walk is checked by the stout wall
of stockadoes. One of the six gates or openings, however, is near at
hand, leading out on to the road to Schenectady. We wish to see more of
the place, and are at a loss to find our way; so we accept the kindly
offered guidance of a little Schuyler lad, named Pieter, who stands
talking to one of the soldiers. Already in his boyish days this
public-spirited Albanian takes an active interest in the military
defence of the place. He knows where all the cannon are placed, and can
tell us how they propose to improve the fort and barracks on Joncaer
Street. He takes us out by the Parrell Street gate to a road leading
southward toward the hamlet of Bethlehem. After the boy has shown us the
mills on the Bever Kill (Buttermilk Creek) from which the village of
Beverwyck was named, he takes us down to old Fort Orange by the
river-side.[21] It has been a snug little fort in its day, built of
logs with four bastions, each mounted by two guns for throwing stones,
while in the enclosure stands a large cannon on wheels close to the old
trading-house of the West India Company. Since the new one has been
built, this is used as the vice-director's house. It is twenty-six feet
long, two stories high, constructed of boards one inch thick, with a
roof in the form of a pavilion covered with old shingles. The space on
the second floor is one undivided room directly under the roof without a
chimney, to which access can be had by a straight ladder through a
trap-door.[22] Here the magistrates administer justice. This is for the
time being the court-house of Beverwyck.
[Illustration: OLD ALBANY.--DOMINIE SCHAATS' HOUSE.
(_Corner of Joncaer and Parrell Streets._)]
Fort Orange at the time of our visit is falling to decay; Fort
Willemstadt, on the contrary, the military post at the head of Joncaer
Street, is increasing in importance. Near Fort Orange is the great
pasture or common where the cows of the burghers are grazing, and there,
a short distance below the fort, we see the ferry-boat travelling slowly
across the river to Greenbosch. We have caught sight of several deer and
wild turkeys on the outskirts of the town, and we have passed several
patriarchal "negers" (as the magistrates of Fort Orange spell the word):
and here comes the special property of Pete Schuyler in the shape of a
black boy of his own age, who is followed by a troop of sturdy children,
some of whom are the brothers and sisters of our young guide. There, to
be sure, are Guysbert, and Gertrude (who is destined to wed Stephanus
van Cort) Alida (who will add to her own name of Schuyler the name of
Van Rensselaer and afterwards Livingston);[23] while toddling after
these juvenile belles of Fort Orange come Brant and Arent, their
brothers, and still there are others to come. These are the numerous
children of Philip Pietersen Schuyler, who came over in 1650, and of his
fair _vrouw_ Margritta van Slichtenhorst. This good couple were married
with great formality before Dominie Schaats arrived, by Antoni de
Hooges, the secretary of the colony, whose nose has been immortalized in
the Highlands of the Hudson. Their son Pieter, our little guide, is to
be the first mayor of the city of Albany; while the distinguished Philip
of a later date will carry the name of Schuyler to a height of glory
that will linger round the shaft of the Saratoga monument at
Schuylerville for ages to come, and make it glow with an added beauty!
But while our thoughts are thus running away with us from Fort Orange, a
farmer, Teunis van Vechten, coming from Greenbosch with supplies for the
Beverwyck market, offers the children a ride into the town, which they
accept with a shout. This rouses us from our reverie, and we follow the
merry load as they jog along the country road from Fort Orange to the
nearest gate in the stockade (about where the street now called Hudson
Avenue crosses Handelaer Street, or Broadway). With a crack of the
farmer's whip they drive rapidly down into a sort of ravine, cross the
Rutten Kill[24] on a bridge, and ascend the opposite slope. The farmer
soon passes the door of the Dutch Reformed Church, where our ramble
began, and turning into Joncaer Street pulls up his horses at the
market-place. The children scamper back across the Rutten Kill to the
Schuyler store on Handelaer Street, opposite Beaver Street, and pass on
down to the grassy river-side behind it, where a sloop is moored. Their
father is there overseeing the men who are loading it with beaver-skins
and other goods. The day's work is nearly over. The sunlight is fading
from the hill-tops across the river. All will soon go in to supper. If
we were not too tired we might in a few moments walk the whole length of
Handelaer Street towards the north gate. In that case we would have a
peep now and then through the half-open curtains of the scattered
houses; for see! they are beginning to light up for the evening meal. In
passing along we would probably startle the dogs from their kennels in
the gardens, and hasten the farewells of the lovers who linger on the
front stoops in the gathering dusk. Then issuing by the north gate
(where Steuben Street comes into Broadway), we might go by moonlight to
the Patroon's house, between which and Beverwyck are corn-fields where
the burghers grow corn for their slaves and also for their horses, pigs,
and poultry. We would then be not far from the Patroon's mills, where
all the settlers are in duty bound to go, and not elsewhere, to have
their sawing and grinding done. These mills are on the Fifth, or
Patroon's Kill, counting from the Norman's Kill near Kenwood.
We must not leave the neighborhood of Fort Orange and Beverwyck until we
have been to a trading-house just outside of the stockade (Pemberton's
was used for such a purpose at one time, and also the Glenn House).
There we shall have an opportunity to listen to some such conversation
as the following between a Dutch trader and an Indian.[25] Let us
suppose that the trader on this occasion is one of the enterprising
burghers whom we encountered during our walk on Joncaer Street, and the
Indian a Mohawk warrior in the company of Tekakwitha's uncle, who, as we
have seen, travelled from Gandawague for the purpose of bartering his
furs at Beverwyck.
"_Indian._ Brother, I am come to trade with you; but I forewarn
you to be more moderate in your demands than formerly.
"_Trader._ Why, brother, are not my goods of equal value with
those you had last year?
"_Indian._ Perhaps they are; but mine are more valuable because
more scarce. The Great Spirit, who has withheld from you
strength and ability to provide food and clothing for
yourselves, has given you cunning and art to make guns and
provide scaura (rum), and by speaking smooth words to simple
men, when they have swallowed madness, you have by little and
little purchased their hunting-grounds and made them
corn-lands. Thus the beavers grow more scarce, and deer fly
farther back; yet after I have reserved skins for my mantle and
the clothing of my wife, I will exchange the rest.
"_Trader._ Be it so, brother; I came not to wrong you, or take
your furs against your will. It is true that the beavers are
fewer and you go farther for them. Come, brother, let us deal
fair first and smoke friendly afterwards. Your last gun cost
fifty beaver-skins; you shall have this for forty; and you
shall give marten and raccoon skins in the same proportion for
powder and shot.
"_Indian._ Well, brother, that is equal. Now, for two silver
bracelets, with long pendent ear-rings of the same, such as you
sold to Cardarani in the sturgeon month last year,--how much
will you demand?
"_Trader._ The skins of two deer for the bracelets and those of
two fawns for the ear-rings.
"_Indian._ That is a great deal; but wampum grows scarce, and
silver never rusts. Here are the skins.
"_Trader._ Do you buy any more? Here are knives, hatchets, and
beads of all colors.
"_Indian._ I will have a knife and a hatchet, but must not take
more. The rest of the skins will be little enough to clothe the
women and children, and buy wampum. Your beads are of no value;
no warrior who has slain a wolf will wear them.[26]
"_Trader._ Here are many things good for you which you have not
skins to buy; here is a looking-glass, and here is a
brass-kettle in which your woman may boil her maize, her beans,
and above all her maple sugar. Here are silver brooches, and
here are pistols for your youths.
"_Indian._ The skins I can spare will not purchase them.
"_Trader._ Your will determines, brother; but next year you
will want nothing but powder and shot, having already purchased
your gun and ornaments. If you will purchase from me a blanket
to wrap around you, a shirt and blue stroud for under-garments
for yourself and your woman, and the same for leggings, this
will pass the time, and save you the great trouble of dressing
the skins, making the thread, etc., for your clothing, which
will give you more fishing and hunting time in the sturgeon and
bear months.
"_Indian._ But the custom of my fathers!
"_Trader._ You will not break the custom of your fathers by
being thus clad for a single year. They did not refuse those
things which were never offered to them.
"_Indian._ For this year, brother, I will exchange my skins; in
the next I shall provide apparel more befitting a warrior. One
pack alone I will reserve to dress for a future occasion. The
summer must not find a warrior idle.
"The terms being adjusted and the bargain concluded, the trader
thus shows his gratitude for liberal dealing.
"_Trader._ Corlaer has forbid bringing scaura to steal away the
wisdom of the warrior, but we white men are weak and cold; we
bring kegs for ourselves, lest death arise from the swamps. We
will not sell scaura; but you shall taste some of ours in
return for the venison with which you have feasted us.
"_Indian._ Brother, we will drink moderately.
"A bottle was then given to the warrior by way of a present,
which he was advised to keep long, but found it irresistible.
He soon returned with the reserved pack of skins, earnestly
urging the trader to give him beads, silver brooches, and above
all scaura, to their full amount. This, with affected
reluctance at parting with the private stock, was at last
yielded. The warriors now, after giving loose for a while to
frantic mirth, began the war-whoop, and made the woods resound
with infuriate howlings.... A long and deep sleep succeeded,
from which they awoke in a state of dejection and chagrin such
as no Indian had felt under any other circumstances. They felt
as Milton describes Adam and Eve to have done after their
transgression."
The news of a massacre of white settlers at Esopus (Kingston), by the
River Indians or Mohegans, June 7, 1663, when Tekakwitha was seven years
old, caused great excitement both at Gandawague and at Beverwyck. Fort
Orange was put in a thorough state of defence, the treaty with the
Mohawks was renewed, and three pieces of artillery, loaned by Van
Rensselaer for the protection of Beverwyck, "were placed on the church."
"Nevertheless so great was the alarm that the out-settlers fled for
protection to the fort called Cralo, erected on the Patroon's farm at
Greenbush, where they held night and day regular watch."
A year later, in 1664, at the time when the juvenile betrothal of
Tekakwitha, already mentioned, took place at Gandawague,--that having
occurred, as we are told, when she was eight years old,--an entirely new
order of things was brought about in the Dutch colony. The new
settlement of Arent van Corlaer at Schenectady, the house where her
uncle traded at Fort Orange, and the hamlet of Beverwyck, together with
the whole of the New Netherlands, passed over into the hands of the
English. Henceforth, instead of appealing to their High Mightinesses the
Lords States General of Holland for redress of grievances, the settlers
of the State of New York were to bow to the decisions of his Majesty
King Charles II., who then sat securely on the throne of England, four
years having elapsed since the downfall of the Commonwealth.
This change in the colony from Dutch to English rule was accomplished
quietly and peaceably, to the great disgust and indignation of the
warlike governor, Peter Stuyvesant, who was ready to buckle on his heavy
armor, take up his sword, and fight the "malignant English," were they
as ten to one. But the settlers were matter-of-fact farmers and traders,
lovers of peace, caring little for glory and not overmuch for their
far-away fatherland. So long as their commercial, domestic, and
religious rights were respected, they were willing enough to do homage
to King Charles. So in 1664, New Amsterdam, into whose harbor, said a
boastful inhabitant, as many as fifteen vessels were known to have
anchored in the course of one year, became New York, taking its name
from the title of the king's brother, afterward James II. Beverwyck,
which had grown up under the guns of Fort Orange, was henceforth to be
called Albany; and an English governor took the reins of colonial
government from the hands of Peter Stuyvesant. The British flag floated
gayly over fort and vessel, and before many years had passed it was
found necessary to employ an English schoolmaster in Albany, and later
to build an English church[27] on Joncaer Street.
When young Pieter Schuyler was still learning his lessons in Dutch at
Fort Orange, and the little Tekakwitha was stringing her wampum beads at
Gandawague,--while her uncle journeyed frequently back and forth from
the Mohawk castle to the trading-post on the Hudson, stopping sometimes
at Schenectady to see his friend Corlaer, and taking his family with him
now and then to fish at the mouth of the Norman's Kill (near the place
called Tawasentha[28]),--unsuspected preparations for a surprise were
going forward in Canada. A war-cloud was gathering in the north, soon to
break with terrible effect on the three Mohawk castles, and to startle
the Governor of the Province of New York into a protest against the
advance of armed troops of King Louis XIV. of France into the colonial
dominions of his Majesty Charles II. of England. These dominions had
been so recently acquired by the English King that the French at Quebec
thought they still belonged to the States General of Holland.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Corlaer, or Van Curler, a brave and worthy man, was the most
influential settler at Schenectady, and on excellent terms with the
Mohawk Indians. He had visited them in 1642, on purpose to secure, if
possible, the ransom of Father Jogues, and had manifested great sympathy
for him in his captivity.
[20] See Annals of Albany, vol. i. p. 288. The dominie's house here
mentioned has since given place to the shop which is on the north-east
corner of Pearl and State Streets. The house used by Megapolensis, who
was at Beverwyck from 1642 to 1649, and who concealed Father Jogues from
the Indians, was where Shield's tobacco-factory now stands, close to the
site of old Fort Orange, and a little south of it. It was built entirely
of oak, and was purchased on the arrival of Megapolensis for a hundred
and twenty dollars.
The patroon's first dominie wearied of his frontier work at Fort Orange,
and went to live at New Amsterdam in 1649. Dominie Schaats was appointed
to succeed him in the ministry of the church at Beverwyck, where he
officiated from 1652 to 1683.
[21] Fort Orange stood on Broadway, close to the modern steamboat
landing of the "People's Line." A bi-centennial tablet, surrounded with
iron pickets, marks its northeast bastion. It extended back (across the
freight-tracks that now mar its site) to Church Street.
[22] See O'Callaghan's History of New Netherland, vol. ii.
[23] Alida married Robert Livingston, who was "secretary of Albany"
under Pieter Schuyler, the first mayor; she was the great-grandmother of
Robert R. Livingston, the first Chancellor of New York State.
[24] This creek, with its ravine, has entirely disappeared in the
grading of the modern street.
[25] The dialogue here given is from Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of American
Lady." Mrs. Grant describes a later period of Albany history; but the
way of trading with the Indians was about the same her day as at the
time of Tekakwitha.
[26] "The Indians have a great contempt, comparatively, for the beads we
send them, which they consider as only fit for those plebeians who
cannot by their exertions win anything better. They estimate them,
compared with their own wampum, as we do pearls compared with paste."
[27] This first English church was not far from the spot where St.
Peter's Episcopal Church, on State Street, now uprears its beautiful
square tower with projecting gargoyles. The original structure, however,
stood out in the centre of the street, while the site of the present
church was occupied by the earthworks and buildings of the second fort.
[28] See Appendix, Note C.