American Historic Towns.
Historic Towns of New England.
Edited by LYMAN P. POWELL. With Introduction by GEORGE P. MORRIS. Fully
illustrated. Large 8ᵒ, $3.50.
Historic Towns of the Middle States.
Edited by LYMAN P. POWELL. With Introduction by ALBERT SHAW. Fully
illustrated. Large 8ᵒ, $3.50
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
[Illustration: _The “Half-Moon” on the Hudson—1609._
_From a painting by L. W. Seavey._]
American Historic Towns
HISTORIC TOWNS
OF
THE MIDDLE STATES
Edited by
LYMAN P. POWELL
Illustrated
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
[Illustration]
PREFACE
In offering to the public the second volume of _American Historic Towns_
the editor desires to bring three facts to the consideration of the
reader.
1. This being the middle volume of a series dealing with the older towns
along, or near, the Eastern coast, it is hoped that the title _Historic
Towns of the Middle States_ will seem not inappropriate.
2. The plan which underlay the making of the first volume, _Historic
Towns of New England_, has in the main been followed. Each author has
invariably been chosen because of unique fitness for his special task.
The editor believes that in every case the enthusiasm of the native or
the resident will be found wedded to the perspective of the _litterateur_
or scholar. No effort has been made to harmonize divergencies in style or
judgment, for obvious reasons. The success of the first volume has set
the stamp of approval on the method of the series, and the editor is glad
to announce that a volume on the Southern towns will shortly follow this.
3. The chapter on Princeton first served as an address in 1894 before
the Historical Pilgrims on the last day of their Pilgrimage, which is
described in _Historic Towns of New England_, pp. iii.-v.
To the making of this volume many have contributed in various ways. The
editor is under special obligation to his wife, Gertrude Wilson Powell,
for such assistance as makes her really a co-editor of the volume. Dr.
Albert Shaw, and Mr. Melvil Dewey too have given freely of their counsel
and encouragement, and the editor is happy to acknowledge their great
kindness.
LYMAN P. POWELL
ST. JOHN’S RECTORY, LANSDOWNE, PENNSYLVANIA, October 17, 1899.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION Albert Shaw xv
ALBANY Walton W. Battershall 1
SARATOGA Ellen Hardin Walworth 39
SCHENECTADY Judson S. Landon 71
NEWBURGH Adelaide Skeel 107
TARRYTOWN-ON-HUDSON Hamilton Wright Mabie 137
NEW YORK CITY Joseph B. Gilder 169
BROOKLYN Harrington Putnam 213
PRINCETON William M. Sloane 251
PHILADELPHIA Talcott Williams 297
WILMINGTON E. N. Vallandigham 335
BUFFALO Rowland B. Mahany 367
PITTSBURGH Samuel Harden Church 393
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
Transcriber’s Note: The illustrations listed as “Seal of Tarrytown”
and “Seal of New York City” were not, in fact, printed in the book.
Illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph break, which may
be on a different page.
PAGE
THE “HALF-MOON” ON THE HUDSON, 1609 _Frontispiece_
From the painting by L. W. Seavey.
ALBANY
OLD CHART OF NIEU NEDERLANDT[1] 5
PLAN OF ALBANY, 1695[1] 11
OLD DUTCH CHURCH, ERECTED IN 1715 ON SITE OF ORIGINAL CHURCH
ERECTED IN 1656[1] 13
ST. PETER’S CHURCH ERECTED IN 1715. FORT FREDERICK IN THE
BACKGROUND[1] 15
From a water-color sketch in the British Museum.
MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER[1] 23
From the painting by Colonel Trumbull.
STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER[1] 25
From the painting by Ezra Ames.
VAN RENSSELAER MANOR-HOUSE, 1765[2] 26
SCHUYLER MANSION, 1760[1] 27
WEST SIDE OF PEARL STREET, FROM STATE STREET TO MAIDEN LANE, 1814[1] 31
VIEW OF ALBANY, 1899[2] 33
JOHN V. L. PRUYN 35
SEAL OF ALBANY 37
SARATOGA
SARATOGA LAKE, N. Y. 40
MAP SHOWING HISTORIC AND OTHER DRIVES IN THE VICINITY OF SARATOGA
SPRINGS 42
SARATOGA BATTLE MONUMENT, SCHUYLERVILLE, N. Y. 43
NORTH BROADWAY, SARATOGA SPRINGS, 1898 47
GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER 50
Bronze statue in niche of Saratoga monument, Schuylerville, N. Y.
CONGRESS SPRING IN 1820 52
KAYADROSSERA PATENT, WITH GREAT SEAL OF QUEEN ANNE PENDANT, 1708 55
Original in Saratoga County Clerk’s Office.
WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION, 1776 57
From tablet on Saratoga battle monument, Schuylerville, N. Y.
“OLD WELL,” FREEMAN’S FARM, BATTLE-GROUND, BEMIS HEIGHTS, SEPT.
19, 1777 61
GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN 63
CONGRESS SPRING, 1898 66
SIGN, “PUTNAM AND THE WOLF,” ON PUTNAM’S TAVERN, SARATOGA SPRINGS 67
Original sign in Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga Springs, N. Y.
SEAL OF SARATOGA 70
SCHENECTADY
COLONIAL HOUSE, UNION STREET 72
VIEW ON STATE STREET 74
“THE BLUE GATE” ENTRANCE TO UNION COLLEGE GROUNDS 77
GLEN-SANDERS MANSION, ERECTED 1714 82
FIRST REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH 87
ELLIS HOSPITAL 90
EDISON HOTEL 93
UNION COLLEGE, 1795 99
STATUE, SITE OF “OLD FORT” 100
“THE BROOK THAT BOUNDS THRO’ UNION’S GROUNDS,” UNION COLLEGE 103
ELIPHALET NOTT 105
President of Union College for sixty years.
SEAL OF SCHENECTADY 106
NEWBURGH
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURGH[3] 109
JOEL T. HEADLEY[4] 111
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH 113
ANDREW J. DOWNING[4] 116
HENRY KIRKE BROWN[4] 119
HEADQUARTERS OF MAJOR-GENERAL KNOX AT VAIL’S GATE[3] 123
CLINTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT LITTLE BRITAIN, NEAR NEWBURGH 124
CLINTON STATUE IN COLDEN SQUARE, NEWBURGH 126
THE WILLIAMS HOUSE[3] 129
MONUMENT ON TEMPLE HILL, NEAR NEWBURGH[5] 130
THE VERPLANCK HOUSE[5] 131
Baron Steuben’s headquarters, where the “Nicola Letter” was
written.
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT FISHKILL[6] 133
CHARLES DOWNING[4] 134
SEAL OF NEWBURGH 135
TARRYTOWN-ON-HUDSON
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TARRYTOWN 139
From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
THE POCANTICO RIVER 149
From a photograph.
OLD MANOR-HOUSE (“FLYPSE’S CASTLE”) AND MILL, TARRYTOWN 151
THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW 153
From a drawing by W. J. Wilson.
INTERIOR OF THE OLD DUTCH CHURCH, SLEEPY HOLLOW, PRIOR TO ITS
RESTORATION IN 1897 155
From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
MONUMENT TO THE CAPTORS OF ANDRÉ 159
From a photograph by F. Ahrens.
WASHINGTON IRVING 161
“SUNNYSIDE” 163
The home of Washington Irving.
THE JACOB MOTT HOUSE, WHERE KATRINA VAN TASSEL WAS MARRIED 165
Now occupied by the new Washington Irving High School.
SEAL OF TARRYTOWN 166
OLD SLEEPY HOLLOW MILL 167
NEW YORK CITY
FIRST SEAL OF THE CITY, 1623-1654[7] 170
MAP OF ORIGINAL GRANTS[7] 171
THE FORT IN GOVERNOR KIEFT’S DAY 174
PETER STUYVESANT 176
SEAL OF THE CITY IN 1686[7] 177
JOHN JAY 179
ALEXANDER HAMILTON 180
FRAUNCES TAVERN 183
THE STADT HUYS 191
STAINED-GLASS WINDOW IN “BOWLING GREEN OFFICES,” SHOWING GREEN
ABOUT 1760[8] 193
GOVERNMENT HOUSE[8] 195
FEDERAL HALL 196
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH 199
CITY HALL 200
GRANT’S TOMB, RIVERSIDE DRIVE 203
WASHINGTON ARCH 209
SEAL OF NEW YORK CITY 211
BROOKLYN
VIEW IN BROOKLYN IN THE OLDEN TIMES 215
DENYSE’S FERRY 217
The first place at which the British and Hessians landed on
Long Island, August 22, 1776. Now Fort Hamilton.
BUSHWICK TOWN-HOUSE AND CHURCH, 1800 223
SECTION OF MAP OF BROOKLYN, 1776 231
BROWER’S MILL, GOWANUS 233
The Yellow Mill is seen in the distance.
MONUMENT TO MARYLAND’S “400” 241
NAVY YARD 243
In foreground 5.5-inch breech-loading gun, with mount
and shield, taken from Spanish cruiser _Vizcaya_, after
destruction of Spanish fleet, July 3, 1898; also submarine
mine from Guantanamo.
FORT LAFAYETTE, NEW YORK NARROWS 245
BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM 246
HENRY WARD BEECHER 247
SEAL OF BROOKLYN 249
PRINCETON
THE LINE OF HISTORIC CATALPAS 253
A VIEW OF THE FRONT CAMPUS 255
JOHN WITHERSPOON 260
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS AT ROCKY HILL, N. J., NEAR PRINCETON 261
MORVEN 263
RICHARD STOCKTON, “THE SIGNER” 269
HALL IN THE MORVEN HOUSE 273
BATTLE OF PRINCETON. DEATH OF MERCER 277
From the painting by Col. J. Trumbull.
NASSAU HALL 287
PRESIDENT JAMES MCCOSH 293
SEAL OF PRINCETON 296
PHILADELPHIA
READING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 299
From an old French print.
THOMAS PENN 303
From a painting owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
copied by M. I. Naylor from the portrait in the possession of
Major Dugald Stuart.
SECOND STREET, PHILADELPHIA, SHOWING THE OLD COURT HOUSE ON THE
LEFT 305
From an engraving by W. Birch & Son.
FRANKLIN IN 1777 307
After the print reproduced from the drawing of Cochin.
THE PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY 309
The old building on Fifth Street, now demolished. From an
engraving by W. Birch & Son.
CARPENTER’S HALL, PHILADELPHIA 313
Wherein met the First Continental Congress, 1774.
THE PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL 315
From an engraving by W. Birch & Son.
INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, BEFORE 1876 319
THE MORRIS HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA 321
DR. WILLIAM PEPPER[9] 324
FRANK THOMSON[9] 326
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 331
SEAL OF PHILADELPHIA 333
WILMINGTON
PLAN OF CHRISTINA FORT, 1655 338
RESIDENCE OF THE LATE THOMAS F. BAYARD[10] 342
OLD SWEDES’ CHURCH 345
REV. ERIC BJORK[11] 348
BISHOP LEE 349
THOMAS F. BAYARD 351
SHIPLEY BUILDING[11] 354
OLD FRIENDS’ MEETING-HOUSE 356
HOUSE OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 359
CITY HALL 361
NEWCASTLE COUNTY COURT HOUSE 363
SEAL OF WILMINGTON 365
BUFFALO
JOSEPH ELLICOTT 368
Founder of Buffalo.
LAFAYETTE SQUARE 371
A GLIMPSE OF BUFFALO HARBOR 375
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH 379
MILLARD FILLMORE[12] 383
BEACON ON OLD BREAKWATER 386
DELAWARE AVENUE, SHOWING BISHOP QUIGLEY’S HOUSE 388
DR. JOHN CRONYN 389
WILLIAM I. WILLIAMS 390
SEAL OF BUFFALO 391
PITTSBURGH
AN EARLY RESIDENT OF PITTSBURGH 395
From the statue by T. A. Mills in the Carnegie Museum.
SUN-DIAL USED AT FORT DUQUESNE 398
THE EARL OF CHATHAM 403
From an oil painting in the possession of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania.
BLOCKHOUSE OF FORT PITT. BUILT IN 1764 406
PLAN OF FORT PITT 409
PHIPPS CONSERVATORY 415
THE COAL FLEET 419
CARNEGIE INSTITUTE 421
COURT HOUSE 425
SEAL OF PITTSBURGH 426
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
BY ALBERT SHAW
The designation “Middle States” has a negative, rather than a positive,
significance. In our later history, as well as in that of our colonizing
and federalizing periods, the term “New England” has had a definite
value for many purposes besides those of geographical convenience: and
it is equally true that “the South” has meant very much in our American
life besides a mere territorial expression. But the “Middle States” lack
the sharply distinguishing characteristics of the other groups. In more
senses than the strictly literal one, the two immense States of New York
and Pennsylvania, with one or two smaller neighbors, have occupied middle
ground.
If New York, on the one hand, has been somewhat closely related to
New England, Pennsylvania has had many neighborly associations with
Maryland and Virginia. New Jersey, meanwhile, has been a close link
between Pennsylvania and New York. The development of New England was
dominated in a marvellous way by a set of ideas, religious, political
and philosophical, that belonged to a certain phase of the English
Reformation. Virginia and other settlements to the southward had their
origins in a colonizing movement that was more typically representative
of contemporary English manners, views and ways of living. The
aristocratic system would have disappeared rapidly enough in the South
but for the gradual extension of an exotic institution,—that of African
slavery.
The Middle States had a more varied origin,—one that does not lend itself
so readily to the purposes of contrast and generalization. The Hudson,
called by the Dutch the North River, and the Delaware, which they called
the South River, were both entered by Henry Hudson, an Englishman in
the employ of the Dutch East India Company, in 1609; and apart from an
extremely limited settlement of Swedes on the west bank of the Delaware,
it was the Dutch who controlled the beginnings of European settlement
along the seaboard of what afterward came to be known as the Middle
States section. The Dutch colonization was not large, but it had a strong
and persistent influence upon the subsequent development of New York and
the region round about.
The gradual predominance in New York of men of English speech and
origin came about partly by infiltration from the New England colonies
and partly by direct migration from England. There resulted a natural
and harmonious fusion between the Dutch pioneers on the Hudson and the
English-speaking colonists. Various Dutch institutions survived long
after the English language had come into general use.
Before the grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn, the settlers on the
Delaware had been mainly Swedish, Dutch or otherwise from continental
Europe. William Penn’s colonists at the outset were largely English
Quakers, and some years later there arrived great numbers of Germans,
some French Huguenots, and a good many Scotch-Irish Protestants.
Thus, as compared with New England on the one hand and the Southern
colonies on the other, the Middle States had cosmopolitan, rather than
purely English, origins. This cosmopolitanism has remained, as a leading
factor in all their subsequent history. The spirit of compromise and
tolerance that had been developed in the middle section by the contact
of different nationalities was of incalculable value when the time
came for the co-operation of the thirteen colonies in the struggle for
independence, and in the subsequent formation of their federal union.
If the colony which developed into the Empire State, and that which came
to be known as the Keystone State, had occupied some other geographical
position than the one they held as a buffer between New England and the
South, the history of America might well have taken a wholly different
course. For there was almost as much difference in institutions, life
and points of view between the New Englanders and the Virginians of
Colonial days as between the New Englanders and the Canadian Frenchmen
across the St. Lawrence. But the transition from New England to New York
was easy, and involved no violent contrasts. There had been a steady
movement of population from the New England States westward across the
eastern boundary line of the State of New York. On the other hand, it
was comparatively easy for Maryland and Virginia to co-operate with
Pennsylvania. In so far, indeed, as population had extended back from the
tide-water districts into the hill country and the Appalachian valleys,
the settlement both of Maryland and Virginia had proceeded very largely
from Pennsylvania.
Thus the Middle States had a great mission to perform in uniting and
holding together the more extreme sections. In the development, after
the Revolutionary War, of the country west of the Alleghanies, this
harmonizing influence of the Middle States was very conspicuously shown
in the creation of the great commonwealth of Ohio, and only to a less
degree in the making of a number of other States in what has now come to
be called the Middle West—the region that produced men of the type of
Lincoln and Grant, and that joined with the old Middle States in later
crises to preserve the Union and fuse its elements into a homogeneous
nation.
No communities in the world lend themselves more profitably to the study
of history than these which are described in the present volume. Concrete
illustration aids no less in the study of history than in that of the
physical sciences; and these towns of the Middle States illustrate
not only the more recent tendencies that have marked the course of
human history, but also lead us back by easy stages to an insight into
conditions of an earlier time. For example, the survivals of the Dutch
_régime_ in New York quicken a sympathetic interest that greatly aids the
comprehension of the international career of the Netherlands. On the very
day when these remarks are written, the larger news of the world—that
which is history in the making—concerns itself with two widely severed
scenes of early Dutch colonization. From Paris comes the decision of the
Venezuela arbitration tribunal, involving principally the material and
legal facts as to the extent of Dutch exploration and settlement in the
same general period as the Dutch colonization of New York. The relations
of the Dutch and English in successions and exchanges of jurisdiction on
the northern coast of South America can only be understood in the light
of the history of the settlements at the mouth of the Hudson River.
In like manner the conditions of Dutch settlement in South Africa in the
middle of the seventeenth century are best comprehended in connection
with the story of contemporary Dutch colonization in America. The
Knickerbockers of New York and the Boers of the Transvaal are of common
origin,—a fact frankly recognized by the Holland Society of New York in
its expressions of sympathy with the Dutch element in South Africa in its
struggle against fate.
The history of the communities of Pennsylvania affords a convenient
initiation into much of the complex religious and ecclesiastical history
of Europe. Penn brought the Quakers and other fine English stock from the
middle and north of England for reasons that go to the very heart of the
English life of the seventeenth century. A little later the Protestant
Germans of the Palatinate came in great numbers, impelled by motives
to understand which is to find oneself essentially comprehending the
conditions of Church and State that so disturbed and harassed Western
Europe for a long period. Thus, to study the great city of Philadelphia
in its origins, its later accretions and its existing conditions, is to
find inviting avenues leading into many fields of historical inquiry both
of the new world and the old.
What single spot could one find anywhere that would more naturally
stimulate the study of political and economic history in the nineteenth
century than old Castle Garden at the lower end of New York City, through
which millions upon millions of immigrants have entered the Western world
to find contentment and prosperity? Many of these came from Ireland;
and the municipal life of New York City has been profoundly affected by
that fact. To answer the question why these people left Ireland and, in
leaving, why their destination was New York rather than some port in the
British colonies, is to review the history of the Irish land system, the
Irish Church and the political administration of Ireland for several
generations.
An enormous element of the present population of New York, as well as
of the country at large, is made up of a comparatively recent German
immigration, to understand which one must learn something of the German
revolutionary movement of 1848, the growth of German militarism and the
conditions under which educational progress in Germany has outstripped
the average material prosperity. Still more recently there has been a
huge immigration of Russian Jews, with local effects of a most marked
character in the city of New York. To know why these Jews have come is to
look into racial, political, and economic conditions throughout the great
empire of the Czar.
To study the main routes of communication in a region like our Middle
States is to gain an insight into the relations of physical conditions
to historical development that will be of no little use in the study of
other origins and remoter periods. It would be hard to exaggerate the
importance, for instance, of the part that the Hudson River has played in
the history of the Western Hemisphere since its discovery and settlement
by the Europeans. The route by way of the Hudson, Lake George and Lake
Champlain afforded in the early times the one interior passage to the St.
Lawrence from the settlements on our seaboard.
Much of the land adjacent to the river was granted in large tracts under
the Dutch system to patroons, so called, who were virtually feudal lords.
Upon some of these tracts there still survive various peculiarities of
the feudal system of land tenure. To know something of what feudalism
meant as respects the control of the land, the student might find a
worse method than to trace back the history of one of these Hudson River
estates to the period of the Dutch grant, in order to get so much nearer
to the survivals of the mediæval system in Europe.
At the spot where I live on the Hudson, and where I am now writing,
the environment is suggestive of almost three centuries of American
history. I look out upon the great stream which Hudson navigated in
the _Half Moon_ in 1609, and upon which sailing craft have been plying
almost continually ever since. I see great steamers passing where Fulton
first experimented with steam navigation. The highway near by is the
old Albany post-road, this immediate part of which was known as Edgar’s
Lane and was opened in 1644. This morning I heard the pleasant notes of
a coaching-horn, and looked out to see a stately four-in-hand on its way
to the city, a forcible reminder of at least a century and a half of
regular mail coaching on that same road. My home is a part of what was
the old Philipse manor; and at Yonkers, a few miles below, one finds the
manor-house, now in constant use as a municipal building. It was partly
built in 1682, and assumed its present dimensions in about 1745.
On this very ground, and on the hills lying to the eastward, Washington’s
army was encamped for a number of weeks in 1777, and near by is the
well-preserved colonial house where Washington and Rochambeau sojourned
for some time, and where the Yorktown campaign was planned. In the
river at this point, on several occasions, the British frigates made
appearance, the last of these being the final meeting between General
Washington and General Sir Guy Carleton, in May, 1783, on the suspension
of hostilities. A few miles farther up the road one comes to the lane
that leads to Washington Irving’s “Sunnyside,” with its tablet stating
that the house was first built in the year 1650.
With these older historical souvenirs in mind, I turn to the southward,
and there, as a reminder that the current of American history flows on,
and that our past is in no manner detached from the present and the
future, I see, standing out in bold relief on the horizon, the tomb
of General Grant, while anchored in the river lies the _Olympia_, the
flag-ship of Admiral Dewey, just now returned from adventures as fraught
with history-making results as was the presence of Hudson’s _Half Moon_
in this same river two hundred and ninety years ago.
The historical significance of the Hudson might be illustrated in some
such way at many another point upon its banks. The location of Albany
is particularly to be noted as one evidently intended by nature for an
important rendezvous. In the earlier period Albany and the Saratoga
district, and certain points of advantage in the Mohawk Valley, were of
great strategic importance. They were natural gateways, which had to be
held first against the Indians and Frenchmen, and afterward against the
British. Their later importance has had to do with canals, railroads and
the development of commerce.
But of Albany it must be said that it has also the distinction of being
one of the three or four chief law-making centres of the English-speaking
world. In no other way has the State of New York exerted so wide an
influence upon the country at large as in the working out of laws and
institutions which have been re-enacted almost without change by a great
number of the other States of the Union. Thus Albany has been a great
training school in politics and legislation.
Before the days of railroad building, the Erie Canal was the greatest
undertaking that this country had witnessed in the improvement of its
transportation facilities. This waterway connected the Great Lakes with
the Atlantic by way of the Mohawk and Hudson valleys; and among other
results of a far-reaching nature there followed the development of the
city of Buffalo, a commercial and manufacturing community founded in the
opening years of the nineteenth century, and destined in the twentieth
to achieve such growth and splendor as few men are yet bold enough to
anticipate.
We have seen in our generation fierce rivalry for the occupation of
Khartoum, at the head of Nile navigation, with one expedition succeeding
another until the final success of the English under General Kitchener.
The possession of Khartoum was known to carry with it the control of
the fertile Soudan beyond, as well as to affect the permanent mastery
of the valley of the lower Nile to the Delta. In some such manner the
French and English in the middle of the eighteenth century appreciated
the strategic importance of the point at the junction of the Alleghany
and the Monongahela rivers, where the Ohio took its start, and from which
navigation was unobstructed all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It was in
large part the struggle for the site of Pittsburgh that gave Washington
the military training and the large perception of the future of America
that fitted him for his great tasks of leadership. The development of
Pittsburgh and the opening of the Ohio furnish most instructive and
interesting chapters in the history of our country.
The quaint or curious or heroic beginnings must always have their
fascination; and it is likely enough that for a long time to come they
will take a little more than their normal or proportionate share of the
page of history. But real history is learning also to concern itself
with other things. The story of Princeton, now so largely that of
Revolutionary annals, will henceforth increasingly be the story of the
life and work of a great university. That of Pittsburgh will become in
expanding proportions the story of the development of the arts and crafts
and of manufacturing in this country, and of the struggle of skilled
labor for an ever-larger share in the advantages made possible by the
enormous increase in the volume of production. The story of Philadelphia
will, to an increasing extent, be that of the best housed and most
contented of all the great communities in the world, full of evidences of
private thrift and the domestic virtues, while exhibiting the paradox of
a relatively low degree of efficiency in matters of common concern like
municipal administration.
The historic towns of the Middle States are now engaged in the making
of history in ways very different from those of the Colonial and
Revolutionary periods, but in ways certainly not less important. But
their future will be the wiser and happier for a studious devotion to the
records of their honorable past, and they cannot be too zealous in the
perpetuation of the old landmarks.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HISTORIC TOWNS OF THE MIDDLE STATES
ALBANY
“This antient and respectable city.”—(_Washington, 1782._)
BY WALTON W. BATTERSHALL
Albany, unlike the proverbial happy woman, has not only age but a
history. Its age is indicated in its claim to be the second oldest
existing settlement in the original thirteen colonies. The claim is
fairly sustained, but we must remember that the alleged discoveries and
settlements of those nomadic times are a trifle equivocal. On the other
hand, the historical significance of Albany is based on two unquestioned
facts: for a century it guarded the imperilled north and west frontiers
of Anglo-Saxon civilization on the continent; for another century it has
been the legislative seat of the most powerful State in the Republic.
On the 19th of September, 1609, _old style_, the yacht _De Halve Maen_,
six months from Amsterdam, in command of Henry Hudson, dropped anchor
a few miles below the present site of Albany. Four days spent in the
exchange of civilities with the Indians and the taking of soundings from
the ship’s boat farther up the stream, convinced the speculative explorer
that the beautiful river among the hills gave no promise of a water path
to China, and the _Half-Moon_, freighted with wild fruits, peltries and
pleasant impressions, turned her prow homeward.
From the Dutch and also the English point of view, the English skipper
of the Dutch ship had discovered the river. It appears however that
in 1524 Verrazzano put a French keel, _La Dauphine_, far up the same
stream, to which he gave the name La Grande, and, some time after, French
fur traders built a rude _château_, or, as we would say, fortified
trading-post, on Castle Island, just off the hills of Albany. But the
France of Francis I. had no colonizing grip, and La Nouvelle France was
simply a name which stretched along the Atlantic seaboard on the French
charts of the sixteenth century.
On the return of Henry Hudson, his discovery was claimed by his patrons,
the Dutch East India Company. They named the river the Mauritius[13]
(Prince Maurice’s River), and the outlying country, known as Nieu
Nederlandt, had good report in Holland for its furs and friendly savages.
The Amsterdam merchants were alert, and other Dutch vessels, following
in the wake of the _Half-Moon_, pushed up the river to the head of
navigation. There they found on the west bank the Maquaas, or Mohawks,
and on the east bank the Mahicans, or Mohegans, with whom they had
profitable transactions.
To consolidate and protect their ventures, a group of merchants
petitioned the States-General of Holland for the exclusive privilege
of traffic with the aborigines on the river. The elaborate map of Nieu
Nederlandt which they presented with their petition was discovered in
1841 in the royal archives at the Hague, and a facsimile is now in the
State Library at Albany.[14] A license for three years was granted.
Thereupon, in 1615, the ruined _château_ on Castle Island was rebuilt,
equipped with two cannon and garrisoned with a dozen Dutch soldiers. In
compliment to the Stadtholder, it received the name of Fort Nassau.
This occupancy in force of Castle Island (now called Van Rensselaer
Island) was brief, for the spring freshets proved too much for even the
amphibious Dutch musketeers and traders, and it hardly can be called a
settlement.
It is an interesting fact, that the valley of the Hudson narrowly missed
the honor of being settled by the passengers of the _Mayflower_. Under
the November skies of 1620, that historic vessel, with its valuable cargo
of religious and political seed-corn, for several days had been beating
about the point of Cape Cod. Old Governor Bradford, with quaint spelling
and phrasing, tells the story of the mishap:
“After some deliberation had amongst them selves and with yᵉ
mʳ of yᵉ ship, they tacked aboute and resolved to stande for
yᵉ southward (yᵉ wind and weather being faire) to finde some
place aboute Hudsons river for their habitation. But after they
had sailed yᵗ course aboute halfe yᵉ day, they fell amongst
dangerous shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so farr
intangled ther with as they conceived them selves in great
danger; & yᵉ wind shrinking upon them withall they resolved to
bear up again for the Cape.”[15]
[Illustration: OLD CHART OF NIEU NEDERLANDT.]
Thus Plymouth Rock became the intellectual door-stone of the New World,
and the banks of the Hudson inherited one of the sad “might-have-beens”
of history. However, Douglas Campbell, in his trenchant and disturbing
book, _The Puritan in Holland, England and America_, has told us that the
distinctive principles of our American social and political life show, on
critical inspection, the Dutch hall-mark.
The America of 1621 was much more of a “dark continent” than the Africa
of fifty years ago. The adjective applies both to the skin of the
autochthons and the mind of the explorers. In the commercial circles
of Amsterdam, Nieu Nederlandt was supposed to be a part of the West
Indies. Therefore it was that the new company which was devised for its
exploitation and chartered in the year mentioned, took the name of The
Dutch West India Company.
Under its auspices, in March, 1624, the ship _Nieu Nederlandt_ sailed
from Amsterdam by the accustomed route of the Canary Islands for the
Mauritius River. She carried thirty families, chiefly Walloons, refugees
from Belgium who had settled in Holland, and a few Dutch freemen. Some of
the families were landed on Manhattan Island, but the majority proceeded
up the river and selected for their settlement the fat meadow on the west
shore above Castle Island. Under the shadow of the clay hill on which the
Capitol now lifts its masses of sculptured granite, they built rude huts
sheathed in bark, and a little log fort which they named Fort Orange. The
Indians were friendly and eager to barter, and enthusiastic reports were
at once sent over to Holland, with corroborative otter and beaver skins.
Two years after this settlement at Fort Orange, the Dutch West India
Company purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for sixty guilders in
high-priced goods and, planting a colony and fort on the south end of
the island, brought up the population of Nieu Nederlandt to two hundred
souls. The Company, desiring to stimulate colonization, in 1629 projected
the manorial or patroon system; a combination of feudal idea and Latin
name, _patronus_. Killiaen Van Rensselaer, one of the directors and a
rich merchant of Amsterdam, at once obtained an extensive grant of land
south of Fort Orange and, by the purchase of the land from the Indians
and the planting of a colony, became the patroon of Rensselaerswyck. He
never visited his “colonie,” but before his death in 1646, he had sent
from Holland over two hundred artisans and farmers, and included in his
manor a territory forty-eight by twenty-four miles, and also another
tract of sixty-two thousand acres.
Thus Albany began with a Dutch imprint, which to this day has given to
the city its distinctive mark. Forty years of Dutch sagacity and thrift
rapidly developed the colony. It was on the whole a prosperous period,
enlivened by chronic disputes between the garrison and the manor, and
disquieting rumors regarding belligerent Indians and the French. It
throws on a small canvas sturdy personages and stirring events. Brandt
Van Slechtenhorst, the stiff upholder of the manor claims against the
doughty Pieter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General; Domine
Megapolensis, the first Dutch minister; and the flitting figure of the
Jesuit missionary, Father Jogues with his hands mangled by the Mohawks
and kissed by the Queen of France, would make any canvas picturesque. To
take Washington Irving’s delicious bit of humor too seriously shows a
melancholy lack of humor.
Certainly the Dutch burghers of Albany did not take very seriously the
English occupation of Nieu Nederlandt in 1664. The seizure was colored by
an old claim of uncertain dimensions based upon the Cabot discoveries,
which for a long time had strained the relations between England and
Holland concerning colonial matters. The capitulation was bloodless,
and to Albany it brought little change, save that the English flag, in
place of the Dutch, fluttered over the ramparts of Fort Orange, which
took the name of Fort Albany in commemoration of the Scotch title of the
Duke of York, the new lord of the province. The great manorial grant was
confirmed, and in all its habits of thought and life the colony remained
Dutch. The happiest change and perhaps the most startling shock came
from the fact that the Duke of York, bigot as he was, broke the tradition
of the period and introduced in his province religious toleration.
The English came, but the Dutch remained. The old Holland stock on
the bank of the Hudson kept its root in the soil and has made vital
contributions to the American hybrid, which have had scant recognition in
our popular histories. The fact is, the Dutch were not given to writing
books. They had fought for their religion and motherland, and had held
them both against the assault of a powerful foe, but the recital of the
story they left to the more expert tongues and more eloquent pens of
Englishmen. Their type of character and social usage has proved its vigor
and worth by its quiet persistence and dominance in New York life of
to-day. In old Albany, even under English rule, ideas and customs which
had their birth behind the dykes of Holland were conspicuously in the
ascendant.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ALBANY, 1695.]
Albany became a city in 1686 by a judicious charter granted by Governor
Dongan. A diagram in the Rev. John Miller’s _Description of the Province
and City of New York_, published in London, 1695, gives us an idea of
the new-born city. It consisted of about a hundred houses surrounded by
a stockade, which was pierced to the north and south by narrow gateways.
Above the stockade the most conspicuous objects were the pyramidal roof
of the Dutch church at the foot of Jonker Street (now State Street),
surmounted by three small cannon, and, on the eminence at the upper end
of the street, the bastions of Fort Frederick, which had inherited the
responsibilities and honors of the dismantled Fort Orange.
For about forty years after the peaceful seizure by the English, the old
Dutch church, where the prosperous burghers worshipped, and a Lutheran
church of somewhat intermittent life but hospitable to outsiders sufficed
for the religious needs of the city. The officers of the garrison,
however, and probably most of the soldiers were Church of England men.
There was much in the service of the Dutch Church of that day which must
have suggested pleasant reminiscence. Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday
were festivals brought from Holland, and were duly celebrated in the
church and at the fireside. Queerly enough, in the accounts of Pieter
Schuyler, the deacon of the Dutch church in 1683 and the first mayor
of the city, we read that “the 13th of January was observed as a day of
fasting and prayer, to divert God’s heavy judgment from falling on the
English nation for the murder of King Charles, martyr of blessed memory,”
and that the expenses therefor were seventeen guilders.
[Illustration: OLD DUTCH CHURCH, ERECTED IN 1715 ON SITE OF ORIGINAL
CHURCH ERECTED IN 1656.]
But the theological coin of the Synod of Dort, whether acceptable or not
to the English, was more or less inaccessible, being hid in the napkin
of the Dutch language. Evidently there was need of an English house of
worship in Albany. In 1714, therefore, Governor Hunter issued letters
patent granting a plot of ground in Jonker Street below the fort for
a church and cemetery. The Common Council made protest. The point at
issue was a question, not of doctrine, but of municipal rights. They
issued notice to suspend the laying of the foundations. They arrested
the workmen. They petitioned the Governor. They sent a messenger by
express in a canoe to New York,—a journey in those days of such magnitude
that the church was well under way by the time the return voyage was
accomplished. Despite all obstacles, the work went on and in the course
of a year the first English church west of the Hudson was built. The two
churches, the Dutch at the foot and the English at the head of State
Street, were the chief ecclesiastical landmarks of eighteenth-century
Albany. Like rocks in a stream, they stood in the broad thoroughfare and
preserved the magnificent approach to the future Capitol.
[Illustration: ST. PETER’S CHURCH, ERECTED IN 1715, FORT FREDERICK IN THE
BACKGROUND.
(FROM A WATER-COLOR SKETCH IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.)]
Little as it was, Albany was the nest of important events and a maker
of history in those troublous days. Second to New York in size and
resources, it served as a wary sentinel and tremulous alarm-bell to the
exposed province. For well-nigh a century, all beyond it to the west
and north, except the hamlet of Schenectady and the French settlements
on the St. Lawrence, was wilderness and savages. It occupied a post of
the gravest peril and responsibility. We get a glimpse of the situation
and of the current history in the scene on that Sunday morning, the
9th of February, four years after the granting of the charter, when
Symon Schermerhoorn, shot through the thigh, told at the north gate of
the stockade his breathless story of the night attack and the horrible
massacre at Schenectady.
Between the hostile French in Canada and the little frontier city on
the Hudson roamed the tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, upon whose
friendship and fealty in large measure hung the destiny of the English
possessions. The stockade, thirteen feet high, would have been of little
account if that living bulwark of savage allies had yielded to the arms
or the bribes of the French. That the bulwark did not yield, that the
fealty of the Indians was won and, through every peril, kept unbroken,
was owing to the sagacity and honorable dealing of the government and
burghers of Albany. _The House of Peace_—this is the name which the
Mohawk sachem, at one of the council-fires, gave to the Albany of those
olden days, and, in the graphic phrase of his Indian oratory, he pictured
at a stroke its political value and place in history; for there, by
repeated formal treaties and habitual friendly intercourse, were riveted
the “Covenant Chains” which made the confederation of the Six Nations the
guardians of the feeble province.
There is a scene in _The History of New York_, by William Dunlap,
which is illustrative. The date is 1746 and the central figure is the
celebrated Col. William Johnson, Indian agent, whom George II. made a
“baronet of Great Britain.”
“When the Indians came near the town of Albany on the 8th of
August, Mr. Johnson put himself at the head of the Mohawks,
dressed and painted as an Indian war-captain. The Indians
followed him painted for war. As they passed the fort, they
saluted by a running fire, which the governor answered by
cannon. The chiefs were afterwards received in the fort-hall
and treated to wine. A good deal of private manœuvring with the
individual sachems was found necessary to make them declare
for war with France before a public council was held. The
Iroquois took to the 23d of the month for deliberation, and
then answered, the governor being present.”
During the French wars, Albany, from a military point of view, was
probably the most animated spot on the continent. It was the storehouse
for munitions of war and the rendezvous for the troops. English
regulars and provincial militia swarmed in and about the city. After
the unsuccessful campaigns of 1756 and 1757, the town was filled with
refugees, reciting the slaughter of the garrison at Fort William
Henry, and the murder and havoc wrought by the Indians in pay of the
French. Hundreds of loyal Indians, with their squaws and papooses,
encamped under the stockade. The houses and barns were filled with
wounded soldiers brought from the seat of war. In the pauses of the
campaigns, notwithstanding the horrible rumors and actual disasters,
the “dangerously accomplished” English officers made merry life in old
Albany, picturesque details of which are given in that charming chronicle
of colonial days, _Memoirs of an American Lady_ (Mrs. Philip Schuyler),
by Mrs. Grant of Laggan.
In the opening of the campaign of 1758 there was grief and consternation
in the province. Tidings came that Lord Viscount Howe had been killed
in a skirmish on the march against Fort Ticonderoga. The body of the
brilliant soldier was brought to Albany by his friend, Captain Philip
Schuyler, and was buried beneath the chancel of the English church. The
stone recently unearthed in the village of Ticonderoga, which bears the
inscription, evidently scratched by a knife or bayonet, _Mem of Lo Howe
killed Trout Brook_, probably marked the spot where Lord Howe fell. There
is abundant evidence that his body now lies beneath the vestibule of St.
Peter’s Church. The _Church Book_ of the parish contains the following
entry: _1758, Sept. 5th. To cash Rt for ground to lay the Body of Lord
how & Pall £5. 6. 0_.
In the following year, the fateful victory of Wolfe on the Plains of
Abraham gave Canada to England and ended the hard-fought duel between the
Latin and the Anglo-Saxon for the sovereignty of the continent.
Some years before this, the Stadt Huys, the old City Hall of Albany,
was the scene of a significant event which was the prelude of one
still more momentous. There in 1754 Commissioners from the several
provinces convened to renew the “Covenant Chain” with the Six Nations,
and to discuss the best methods for uniting and defending the colonial
interests. The foremost spirits and political prophets of the colonies
composed the assembly. Numerous Indian sachems, with their stately
bearing and barbaric splendor, decorated the scene of the deliberations.
The “Plan” adopted by the convention was not accepted by the Crown, but
it was the first attempt to articulate the idea of a colonial union, and
it bore two names, Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Hopkins, which in due
time were affixed to the Declaration of Independence.
Before the lightning flashed in the volley at Lexington, there were
centres of influence throughout the colonies breeding storm. Albany
was one of them. The heart of the old Dutch town was fired with the
indignations and enthusiasms of the time. There were tories of course,
but the temper of the city and the attitude of those who controlled the
situation are indicated by the fact that, when the Province of New York
had fairly opened the fight, the old fort on the hill was extemporized
into a tory jail.
As early as November, 1774, the freeholders of the city appointed a
_Committee of Safety and Correspondence_, which proved a vigorous
agent in propagating the war spirit and furnishing men and money for
the Continental army. The following names appear on its lists: John
Barclay, _Chairman_, Jacob C. Ten Eyck, Henry I. Bogert, Peter Silvester,
Henry Wendell, Volkert P. Douw, John Bay, Gysbert Marselis, John R.
Bleecker, Robert Yates, Stephen De Lancey, Abraham Cuyler, John H.
Ten Eyck, Abraham Ten Broeck, Gerret Lansingh, Jr., Anthony E. Bratt,
Samuel Stringer, Abraham Yates, Jr., and Cornelis van Santvoordt. In
the records of the committee occurs this significant minute: “Pursuant
to a resolution of yesterday, the Declaration of Independence was this
day read and published at the City Hall to a large Concourse of the
Inhabitants of this City and the Continental Troops in this City and
received with applause and satisfaction.”
At the beginning of, and all through the struggle for independence,
Albany was a strategic point of the utmost importance. The war-office in
London and the British commanders in the field recognized that it was the
key to the situation in the north. There is a passage in the oration of
Governor Seymour at the Centennial Commemoration at Schuylerville, the
actual scene of Burgoyne’s surrender, which condenses and interprets one
of the most important chapters in the history of the Revolution.
“It was the design of the British government in the campaign of
1777 to capture the centre and stronghold of this commanding
system of mountains and valleys. It aimed at its very
heart,—the confluence of the Hudson and the Mohawk. The fleets,
the armies, and the savage allies of Britain were to follow
their converging lines to Albany, and there strike the decisive
blow.”
As sometimes happens, the blow struck the striker. Col. Philip Schuyler,
the young officer who brought the body of Lord Howe to its burial,
was an ardent patriot and the most distinguished citizen of Albany.
On the recommendation of the Provincial Congress of New York, he had
been appointed by the Continental Congress a major-general in the
armies of the United Colonies and had assumed command of the Northern
Department. He was displaced in favor of General Gates, but he retained
the confidence of Washington, and it was he who planned and conducted
the campaign which resulted in the victory of Bemis Heights and the
surrender of Burgoyne. This event broke the formidable menace that hung
over the province and the colonial cause. The defeated British general
found himself in the hands of a courteous foe, and for several months he
meditated and mitigated his disaster amid the elegant hospitalities of
the Schuyler mansion in Albany.