The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time

Preface

Although written two hundred and sixty years after the occupation of the site of the city of Albany by the first settlers, this work presents a number of facts contradicting certain statements respecting that event and others preceding it. It will be seen in the first chapter that Henry Hudson, the English navigator, was not the discoverer nor the first explorer of the river which now bears his name. The Grande River, as the Hudson was first geographically designated, was discovered in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, who had been commissioned to make discoveries of new countries by Francis I., king of France. Shortly afterward it was ascended to its navigable height by French seamen trading for furs with the Indians living on its shores.

The title of the French to the discovered territory was perfected by occupation. Early in the sixteenth century they built, as it appears, two forts, one on the island where the city of New York is, and another on Castle Island, near the site of Albany. When the first vessel conveying emigrants from Amsterdam, Holland, to the country of the Grande River reached the mouth of the noble stream, the officer of the French barque, anchored there, not only declared the fact of the previous possession of the attractive domain by his countrymen but peremptorily forbade the occupation of this part of New France by the Dutch usurpers.

IV PREFACE.

Remarkable as it is true, the greater number of the first settlers of Albany were Walloons, — French people. Hitherto the year 1623, instead of 1624, has erroneously been given as the date of the planting of the first colony on the site of the city of Albany.

The peculiar prominence of Albany as the councilplace of the Indians and the English governors of the American provinces in the colonial period; its peculiar geographical position as the military gate-way of the country during the Indian and French wars and during the revolutionary struggle ; its selection as the place of the convocation of the first provincial congress which formulated a "plan of a proposed Union of the several colonies ;" these and many other important facts make its history notable and attractive.

The writer regrets that his subject-matter was by agreement limited to a certain number of pages, and that he was compelled to condense much of it into abridged statements.

In ending the task of writing this, the first history of the city of Albany, I deem it a conscionable duty to pay a friend's tribute to the memory of Joel Munsell, deceased, the assiduous and painstaking compiler of the "Annals of Albany" and the "Collections on the History of Albany." His unrequited industry evidently merits a public memorial from the citizens.

It is a pleasure to remember personal courtesies. To Henry A. Homes, LL. D., the librarian of the General Library of the State of New York, to his assistant, George Rogers Howell, to Stephen B. Griswold, the librarian of the Law Library, to Berthold Fernow, keeper of the French, Dutch, and English records in the State Library, to W. Bayard Van Rensselaer, Theodore Town- ^end, and J. H. Van Antwerp of Albany; to Horatio Sey-

PREFACE. V

mour, LL. D., ex-governor of the State of New York, of Deerfield, Oneida County; to Dr. T. M. Coan of New York City; to DeWitt Clinton, librarian of the Young Men's Association Library, and to William H. Young of Troy; I am under many obligations for official services and desired information,

Arthur James Weise.

Troy, N. Y., August 2, 1884.

Chapter I. Page

Discoveries and explorations. Giovanni da Verrazzano enters the bay of the Grande River. The French ascend the stream to its navigable height. Henry Hudson's voyage. The French chateau on Castle Island. Organization of the West India Company. . . I-IV

Chapter II

Sailing of the Walloons and Dutch freemen to New Netherland. The site of the colony. Fort Orange. The Wilden. Van Kreickebeek's partisanship. The patroons. The charter of exemptions and privileges. .......... 18-36

Chapter III

Kiliaen van Rensselaer. The territory of Rensselaerswyck. First settlers. Leases of land. Officers of the manor. The fur trade. Shell-money of the Indians. The patroon's instructions. . . 37-52

Chapter IV

The call of the Rev. Joannes Megapolensis, jr. Sketch of the Mohawk Indians. Father Jognes's captivity. Beeren Island fortified. The church at Fort Orange. Petrus Stuyvesant's directorship. " Wooden Leg's dogs." The burgerlijke oath. . . . . . 53-93

Manners and customs. Houses. Furniture. Occupations. Shops. Inns.

Church-going. Festival days. Funerals. Marriages. . . 184-196

Chapter X

Charter of the city. The municipal officers. Rules and regulations.

French invasion. Military preparations. . . . 197-215

CHAPTER XL

A French project. The city to be attacked. Captain Bull's visit to Albany. Jacob Leisler's usurpation. The province disturbed. The massacre of the inhabitants of Schenectady. . . . 216-251

The capital of the state of New York. Erection of a public building. A large fire. A new state-house built. The first steamboat on the Hudson. Albany in 1813. 424-457

Chapter XX

The city's wealth and prosperity. Celebration of the opening of the Erie canal. The Mohawk and Hudson railroad. The public schools. The new capitol. .... ... 45S-48C

ADDENDA.

Historical summary, 487-492

Churches, 493-606

Newspapers, 506-510

Changed names of streets, 512-513

Census, 514

Free and Accepted Masons 513-514

Independent Order of Odd Fellows, ..... 514

THE HISTORY OF ALBANY.

Chapter I. Discoveries And Explorations

1524-1623.

On a bright day near the end of April, 1524, a number of aborigines fishing in the lower bay of New York descried a strange object floating toward them from the sea. Much excited by the apparition, the amazed savages rapidly rowed to the neighboring islands to apprise the inhabitants of the extraordinary spectacle. Hundreds of inquisitive, fascinated faces were soon turned toward the mysterious thing. At first a wild speculation assumed it to be an unknown aquatic monster, then a less fanciful one conjectured it to be a large house drifting in from the sea. The slowly moving body was closely watched by the wondering crowds. As it approached they saw that it was an immense boat, filled with people and propelled by wind-expanded cloths hung before poles rising high above its curiously shaped hull. The novel craft having found a suitable riding-place in the spacious haven cast her anchor in the sight of the excited natives, who, with loud shouts of dehght, witnessed the first mooring of a European ship in this discovered roadstead. ^

The anchored vessel was the French ship, La Dauphine, with a crew of fifty men, commanded by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an experienced navigator. Having been commissioned by Francis I., king of France, to seek a western sea-route to India and to make discoveries of new lands, he had sailed from the port of Dieppe late in the year 1523. Verrazzano had descried, on the eleventh of March, 1524, {old style,) the coast of North America, on the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude. He had afterward explored the coast southwardly for fifty leagues, and then had turned and sailed northwardly, frequently going ashore to survey the country and to acquaint himself with the habits of the friendly natives.

Eager to learn whether the bay in which his ship was anchored were not a part of a navigable strait through which he might sail to Cathay, in Eastern Asia, Verrazzano ordered the ship's boat to be manned, and began the first exploration of the mighty river that poured its flood into the bay through the channel now called the Narrows. The gazing savages, seeing the boat moving toward the upper bay, hastened with renewed exclamations of delight to the nearest shores to inspect more closely the unknown visitors. Here, partly clad with barbaric dresses of skins, birds' feathers and decorative wampum, the dusky-colored aborigines, with frequent signs and various calls, manifested their friendliness toward the explorers, who, in mid-stream, rowed by them.

Entering the upper bay of New York, described by the delighted navigator as a most beautiful lake formed by the descending waters of the great river, Verrazzano

1 Vide The Rev. John Heckewelder's paper concerning an Indian tradition of the first arrival of Europeans in New York Bay. Collections of the New York Historical Society. Second series, vol, i. pp. 71-74.

perceived it to be an excellent harbor for the largest vessels, and the surrounding country an attractive region diversified by hills, in which he thought valuable minerals might be found. Here the inquisitive Indians steered their canoes toward the boat, and, rowing around and about it, gazed at the fair faces and European dress of the strangers with the greatest curiosity and admiration. Suddenly a violent gale of wind from the direction of the sea warned the circumspect navigator of his remoteness from the Dauphine, and he ordered the boat to be rowed to the distant ship, not a little displeased by the sudden termination of his pleasurable exploration of the beautiful bay.

On the return of the explorers to the ship her anchor was weighed and the Dauphine put to sea, sailing northwardly as far as the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, where she stood for France, and early in July arrived at the port of Dieppe, From this place, Verrazzano sent a letter to Francis I., dated on the eighth of the month, describing the New Land ' ' never before seen by men either in ancient or in modern times," which he had discovered and explored for more than eleven hundred miles. ^

In consequence of these discoveries, the northern part of the continent, extending along the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was called by the French, La Nouvelle France (New France). The valuable furs of the beaver, otter, marten, and other animals of the nev/ country induced certain French capitalists, merchants, and ship-owners to send a number of vessels to different parts of its coast to barter with the natives

1 Parts of the coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, Cape Breton Island, and Nova Scotia had been discovered and explored by the Cabots in 149*7 and 1498. Gaspar Cortereal, in 1500 and 1501 had inspected parts of the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland.

for peltry. Some of these barques sailed to the beautiful bay discovered by Verrazzano, and explored the Grande Eiver, as the Hudson was then called, to the height of its navigation. Here the friendly savages received the French fur- traders with a large-hearted hospitality, which greatly contributed to the success of the first ventures of these speculative Europeans. To enlarge and protect the exclusive traffic begun so advantageously with the aborigines of the different villages near the confluence of the two rivers, now known as the Mohawk and the Hudson, the French undertook to build, about the year 1540, a fortified trading-house or castle on the long, low island, lying in the little bay, on the west side of the Grande River, near the site of the city of Albany, Unfortunately before the building was completed, the island was inundated by the flood of a great freshet. The partly erected walls of the chateau and the environing earthworks were so much damaged by the rushing water tha-t they were never repaired by the French, nor was the island any longer deemed habitable by them. These trading ventures of the French to the Grande River, during the sixteenth century, made them well acquainted with the topographical features of the adjacent country. On many of the maps of La Nouvelle France made during this period the noble stream is plainly represented from Sandy Hook to its navigable limits.^

The exploration of the Grande River by Henry Hudson in 1609, was suggested to the English navigator by information derived from published descriptions and maps of New France. It was confidently believed by many persons that in North America a navigable passage could be found through which vessels could pass to the Indian Ocean and sail to the Molucca or Spice Islands. Spain,

1 About one hundred and seventy-five miles from the ocean.

England, Portugal, and France, in turn, had already sent their great sea-captains across the Atlantic to search for such a water-way to the East. Magellan, in 1520, found the strait which now bears his name and through it the ships of Spain passed to the Moluccas. ^ Certain wealthy commercial companies in the United Netherlands, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, fitted out ships and sent them to explore the ice-girdled ocean north of Europe for a navigable route to Asia. These perilous enterprises did not accomplish the purposes of the Dutch capitalists. Still the hope of finding a sea-path to the Orient stimulated other voyages of discovery in the same frigid field of the eastern hemisphere.

An exploration of the Arctic Ocean, north of Novaya Zemlya, it was thought would result in the discovery of an open polar passage to Northern Asia, where a navigable channel could be found by which vessels might sail southward into the interior of the continent. For the purpose of learning whether this conjecture were true the speculative managers of the Dutch East India Company engaged Henry Hudson to command a vessel to be manned and equipped for the undertaking. ^ He set sail from Amsterdam, with a crew of twenty men, Dutch and English, on the twenty-fifth of March, 1609, {old style,) in the yacht, De Halve Maen, (The Half Moon,) of forty lasts or about eighty tons burden. Leaving the

1 Vide The discoveries of America to the year 1.525. By Arthur James Weise. New York, 1884. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

2 Hudson was unacquainted with the Dutch language, and he therefore employed Jodocus Hondius, a learned Hollander, to act as his interpreter in his conferences with the directors of the East India Company. Hondius assisted him in making the following contract with the Amsterdam chamber, to which instrument he and Hondius signed their names :

"On this eighth of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and nine, the directors of the East India Company of the chamber of Amsterdam, of the ten years' reckoning, of the one part, and Mr. Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted by Jodocus Hondius, of the other part, have

Sagueual

COPY OK A PART oF GtRARD MEKLAI..R ;, mah ..k

THE WORLD, MADE AT DUISBURG IN 1 569.

Texel, the English navigator steered northwardly, and, after doubling North Cape on the coast of Norway, stood for Novaya Zenilya. On this last course Hudson encountered a barrier of ice which compelled him to relinquish the purpose he had in view. Unwilling to return to Holland without making an attempt to reach India by sailagreed in manner following, to wit : That the said directors shall in the first place equip a small vessel or yacht of about thirty lasts [about sixty tons] burden, with which, well provided with men, provisions and other necessaries, the aforenamed Hudson shall, about the first of April, sail, in order to search for a passage by the north, around by the north side of Novaya Zemlya, and shall continue thus along that parallel until he shall be able to sail southward to the latitude of sixty degrees. He shall obtain as much knowledge of the lands as can be done without any considerable loss of time, and if it be possible return immediately, in order to make a faithful report and relation of his voyage to the directors, and to deliver over his journals, log-books and charts, together with an account of every thing whatsoever which shall happen to him during the voyage, without keeping any thing back ; for which said voyage the directors shall pay to the said Hudson, as well as for his outfit for the said voyage as for the support of his wife and children, the sum of eight hundred guilders ; [about three hundred and twenty dollars ;] and, in case (which God prevent) he do not come back or arrive hereabouts within a year, the directors shall further pay to his wife two hundred guilders in cash ; and thereupon they shall not be further liable to him or his heirs, unless he shall either afterward or within the year arrive and have found the passage good and suitable for the company to use ; in which case the directors will reward the aforenamed Hudson for his dangers, trouble, and knowledge in their discretion, with which the before-mentioned Hudson is content. And in case the directors think proper to prosecute and continue the same voyage, it is stipulated and agreed with the aforenamed Hudson, that he shall make his residence in this country with his wife and children, and shall enter into the employment of no other than the company, and this at the discretion of the directors, who also promise to make him satisfied and content for such further service in all justice and equity. All without fraud or evil intent.

" In witness of the truth, two contracts are made hereof, of the same tenor, and are subscribed by both parties and also by Jodocus Hondius, as interpreter and witness,

" Dated as above. " Dirk van Os.

"J. Poppe.

"Henry Hudson.

"Jodocus Hondius,

" witness."

Vide Henry Hudson in Holland. By Henry C. Murphy. The Hague, 1859. pp. 34-36.

ing in a different direction, he gave his officers and crew the choice of two proposals :

"The first was to go to the coast of America at the fortieth degree of latitude, mostly incited to this by letters and maps which a certain Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and in which he showed him a sea by which he might circumnavigate their southern colony [in Virginia] from the north, and from there pass into a western sea. The other proposal was to seek the passage by Davis's Strait." ^

Hudson's men preferred to make the first voyage, partly influenced by what had been suggested in the communications of Captain John Smith, and partly by a desire to avoid the lower temperature of the more northern region of the continent. The so-called Western Sea, which it was thought Hudson could reach by sailingthrough some unexploi-ed passage extending to it from the Grrande River, is exhibited on the map of America made by Michael Locke, the English cartographer, in 1582. ^ On this fan- shaped chart it is designated Mare de Verrazana 1524 (Sea of Verrazzano 1524). North of it the Gi'ande River is represented as an outlet of the St. Lawrence River. ^

The Half Moon, having taken on board a supply of fresh water at the Faroe Islands, sailed westward toward

3 Locke's map, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, was used by Richard Hakluyt, the English collector and publisher of voyages and travels, to illustrate his work entitled : Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America. London, 1582. Vidf The discoveries of America to the year 1525. By Arthur James Weise. New York, 1884. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

3 As late as the year 1625, the Dutch explorers of the Grande River were ignorant of its course beyond the height of its navigation. Joannes de Laet, the Dutch historian, remarks : "Judging from appearances, this river extends to the great river St. Lawrence, or Canada, for our skippers assure us

Newfoundland. On the third of July the yacht came among some French vessels taking cod on the fishing banks. Sailing southward, the explorers approached the peninsula of Virginia, ' ' in latitude 37° 45', " says Van Meteren, the Dutch historian, writing two years after the voyage. ' ' They then held their course along the coast until they reached, in latitude 40° 45', a good entrance between two headlands. Here they discovered and entered, on the twelfth of September [1609, old style,'] as beautiful a river as could be found, very wide and deep, with good anchorage along both shores. They ascended it with their large vessel as high as 42° 40', and went still higher with the ship's boat.^ At the mouth of the river they found the natives brave and warlike, but beyond, up to the highest point of the stream, friendly and hospitable, having great numbers of skins and furs, as those of martens and foxes, and many other commodities, birds, fruits, and even white and blue grapes. They treated these people civilly and brought away a little of whatever they found among them.*'

When the Half Moon, on the warm afternoon of the nineteenth of September, cast her anchor and swung with the tide, near the site of the city of Albany, the observing Indians, well aware from their intercourse of nearly a century with the seamen of France what would be most acceptable to the officers and men on the strange

that the natives come to the fort [Fort Orange, the site of Albany] from that river, and from Quebec and Tadoussac." — Nieuwe Wereldt ofte beschrijvinghe van West Indien. Door Joannes de Laet. Tot Leyden, 1625. boek iii. cap. ix. Vide Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series, vol. i. p. 399.

1 The Dudley Observatory in the city of Albany, about three-fourths of a mile north of the Capitol, is in -1:2° 39' 50" north latitude, and in 3° 15' 26" east longitude from Washington ; and in 73° 44' 49" west longitude from Greenwich.

2 Belgische ofte Nederlantsche oorlogen ende geschiedenissen beginnen de van 't jaer 1595 tot 1611. boek xxx. fol. 32*7. Vide Henry Hudson in Holland by Henry C. Murphy. Appendix, pp. 62-65.

vessel, hastily carried to their canoes clusters of wild grapes, a few pumpkins, some otter and beaver skins, and rowed to the yacht. Having reached her deck they readily bartered their commodities for beads, knives, hatchets, and other things.

Hudson, desiring to know whether he could sail farther northward, sent his mate and four men the next day to take soundings. They went up the river two leagues and found the depth of the water to be two fathoms, and the channel very narrow. On the third day while the carpenter was on land making a fore-yard, Hudson invited several Indian chiefs to partake of some wine and strong liquor in the cabin of the Half Moon. These were freely imbibed by his guests and in a short time the Indians were tipsy and one drunk. A merry chief had his wife with him, but she with womanly propriety demeaned herself so modestly that her behavior was admiringly observed by Hudson and his officers.

On the afternoon of the fourth day a delegation of Indians visited the vessel and presented Hudson with a quantity of tobacco and some wampum. One of the number made an oration, on the conclusion of which the savages placed a large platter of venison before the navigator who courteously eat a part of the cooked meat. The delighted Indians then bowed reverently before him and left the vessel.

Late that night Hudson's mate and four of the crew returned from the upper part of the river where they had been during the day taking soundings. At the distance of about eight leagues from the vessel's anchorage they had found the water quite shallow and not deep enough for the draught of the Half Moon. This report satisfied Hudson that Captain John Smith's expectations of his finding a navigable passage to India in that direction were false, and he therefore determined to return to Holland. At noon on the _^twenty-third of September, the yacht's small anchor was weighed, and the Half Moon sailed down the river on the homeward voyage. On the fourth of October she left the lower bay at Sandy Hook, and stood for England. On the seventh of November she arrived at Dartmouth, from which place Hudson sent the report of his voyage to the East India Company.^ Giving little consideration to the English navigator's description of the^physical features and chief j)roductions of the country of the Grande^ River, the money-making managers zealously furthered the company's commercial interests in other parts of the world.

Some of the Dutch seamen who had made the voyage with Hudson wisely inferring that a venture to the Grande River for furs would profitably remunerate those investing money in such an enterprise, advised certain merchants of Amsterdam to send a vessel to the river to procure a cargo of peltry. This advice induced a number of capitalists to fit out a ship, which, in 1610, sailed to the river and obtained a large quantity of furs, which were sold in Holland at high prices. Several similar ventures were afterward made which were highly profitble in their returns.

While trading with the "'Maquaas," ^ at the height of the river's navigation, the Dutchmen learned that the French had been coming for many years to traffic there for furs. Besides giving the Dutch, traders this information the friendly aborigines showed them the ruins of the chateau on Castle Island. The sagacious Hollanders, having inspected the dilapidated castle, took measurements

1 p^idc Purchas his Pilgrimes. London, 1625. part iii. pp. 593, 594. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. vol. i. pp. 139, 140.

2 The " Maquaas " were also called " Maikans," and " Mahakuaas," by the Dutch. These Indians are more familiarly known as the Mohawks.

of its walls and outworks, thinking, perhaps, that the structure might be made serviceable to them should they at any time occupy the country.

To obtain the license and protection of the government of the United Netherlands the merchants and skippers interested in these voyages petitioned the Lords States General to be permitted exclusively to visit and traffic with the natives of this part of America. In their prayer they set forth that after great expense, risk, loss of vessels and other reverses during the year 1614, they had discovered, with five ships, " certain new lands situate in America, between New France and Virginia, being the sea-coast between the fortieth and forty-fifth parallels of north latitude, and now called Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland)." ^ With this petition they presented an embellished map ( caerte ) representing the territory of Nieu Nederlandt. ^ Inconsiderately the so-called discov-

1 Nieuwe Wereldt. De Laet. boek. iii. cap. vii. Holland documents in the General Library of the State of New York. vol. i. pp. 39-46. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series, vol. i. p. 291.

2 This highly elaborated map, in the General Library of the State of New York, in Albany, bears the inscription : " The original carte figurative, of which the above is an accurate fac-simile, was found on the 26th of June, 184:1, in the loket-kas of the States General, in the royal archives at the Hague. It was annexed to the memorial presented to the States General, on the 18th August, 1616, by the 'Bezuindhebbers van Nieuiv Nederlandt,' praying for a special octroy according to the placaat of 27 March, 1614 ; and is referred to in the memorial as shewing the extent of the discoveries made by schipper Cornells Hendricxx. of Munnikendam, in a small yacht of 8 lasts burden, named the Onrust which the memoralists had caused to be built in New Netherland. Copie d'aprh I' original par P. H. Loffelt. La Haye. Juillet, 1841. The Hague, 2*7 th July, 1841, J. Romeyn Brodhead, agent of the State of New York."

Although subscribing his name to this statement, Brodhead afterward wrote as follows : "I think, however, that it was actually prepared two years before, from the data furnished by Block immediately after his return to Holland, and that it was exhibited to their high mightinesses for the first time on the 11th of October, 1614. The charter granted on that day to the directors of New Netherland expressly refers to a ' Figurative map prepared {getratisfigeert) by them,' which described the sea-coasts between the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of latitude. This the parchment map clearly does.

erers of this part of New France inscribed the following information on the chart, immediately above the site of the city of Albany. "But as far as one can understand from what the Maquaas [ Mohawks ] say and show, the French come with sloops as high up as to their country to trade with them. ^

The site of the ruins of the French chateau, on Castle Island, which the Indians had shown the Dutch traders, was also represented on the map. They called the fortification Fort Nassau, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, the stadtholder of the United Provinces, and placed the following descriptive memoranda near it : ' ' Fort Nassau is fifty-eight feet wide between the walls in the quadrangle ; the moat is eighteen feet wide." — " The house inside the fort is thirty-six feet long and twenty-six wide."^

The ignorance of the Dutch settlers of Albany respecting the nationality of the builders of the fort on Castle Island gave currency to various conjectures. By some it was assumed that the Spaniards had built the

It, moreover, defines New Netherland as lying between New France and Virginia, according to the description in the charter. The map was probably presented a second time on the 18th of August, 1616, when the directors of New Netherland exhibited their memorial for a further charter, to which it was attached." — History of the State of New York. By John Romeyn Brodhead. New York, 18.53. vol. i. Appendix. Note. p. 7.56.

"This map" says Brodhead, "is undoubtedly one of the most interesting memorials we have. It is about three feet long, and shows very minutely the course of the Hudson River from Manhattan to above Albany, as well as a portion of the seacoast ; and contains likewise curious notes and memoranda about the neighboring Indians, the work, perhaps, of one of the companions of Hudson, * * * made within five years of the discovery of our river, its fidelity of delineation is scarcely less remarkable than its high antiquity." — John Romeyn Brodhead's address before the New York Historical Society, Nov. 20, 1844. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. 1845. p. 16.