THE

TROJAN SKETCH BOOK.

TROY FOR FIFTY YEARS.

BY DAVID BUEL, JUN.

It seems to be an instinct of our nature to look back upon the scenes of our earlier life, and retrace the steps by which our bodies and minds have advanced to maturity, from the period of infancy and childhood. A kindred feeling leads us very naturally to trace from their small beginnings, the places in which our lot has been cast. Our country furnishes more instances than any other of towns and cities springing into existence, and attaining great importance within the generation of their founders. Our highest antiquity in this great Republic, reaches back but little more than two centuries. The cities which can claim even that relative antiquity, are very few. Among the number, is the neighboring city of

Albany. History informs us, "that (perhaps) in 1614 the first rude fort was erected (probably) on the southern point of Manhattan Island," and "that in the next year (1615) the settlement at Albany began on an island just below the present city." There is some reason to believe that the beautiful plateau which now forms the site of our own city, was explored in 1609 by the great Navigator, who, first of Europeans, discovered the noble River whose silvery stream will waft his name to unborn ages. We learn from the authentic records of his voyage, that Hudson "went sounding his way above the Highlands, till at last the Crescent, (the ship in which he made his voyage,) had sailed some miles beyond the city of Hudson, and a boat had advanced a little beyond Albany." This boat probably ascended to the rapids which commenced at the northerly bounds of this city, where ordinary tides spent their force and the navigation was interrupted. For above a century after Hudson's memorable voyage, the territory now embracing the site of the city, probably formed part of the hunting grounds of the Mohawk Indians.

In the year 1720, a grant of 490 acres, extending along the Hudson from the Poestenkill to Meadow Creek, and comprehending the original allotments of the city, was made in fee by the proprietor of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to Derick Van Derheyden at the annual rent of

three bushels and three pecks of wheat and four fat fowls. It does not appear that this spot had attracted much attention until three or four years after the termination of the Revolutionary War, when one or two individuals from the Eastern States, observing its favorable situation, persuaded the Dutch proprietors of the soil to lay out a portion of their lands into town lots. When the first surveys were made, the place was not known by any fixed name. A letter written by one of the earliest adventurers* in the fall of 1786, is dated at "Ferry Hook." Several letters written by the same person between the months of April and September, in the year 1787, are dated at "Rensselaerwyck," a town which embraced one third of the whole county. In the fall of 1787, the name "Van Derheyden," as a designation of the embryo village, began to be used by the settlers; and that name is found in the leases of lots granted at that period.

At the period when the settlement of Troy commenced, the population of Albany probably did not amount to 4000; although it had been incorporated as a city more than a century. But the establishment of our Federal Government in 1789, gave a new impulse to the country. The spirit of enterprise spread rapidly over our land. The "New State," as Vermont was then called, was speedily occupied by imigrants from the older *Mr. Benjamin Covell.

Eastern States. The enterprising sons of New England, sagacious to discover, and prompt to occupy positions which promised commercial advantages, readily saw that a town established at the head of natural, ordinary navigation on the banks of the Hudson, would, after some struggle, outstrip the "New City," which had been improvidently located above the rapids. Nor did those sagacious men believe that a town so favorably situated at the distance of six miles from Albany, would be wholly overshadowed by that ancient city. The earliest surveys and allotments were made between the years 1786 and 1790. The middle allotment, of which Mr. Jacob D. Van Derheyden, (known in his life time as the Patroon of Troy,) was the proprietor, comprehended the territory between Division and Grand Division-streets. The southerly allotment, of which Matthise Van Derheyden was the proprietor, extended from Division-street to the Poestenkill. The northerly allotment, of which Jacob I. Van Derheyden was proprietor, was north of Grand Divisionstreet. The farm house of the Patroon was on ground now occupied by the National Hotel, corner of River and Ferry-streets. That of Matthise still stands at the corner of River and Division-streets-but its Gothic roof and other characteristics of its Dutch original, have been made to give place to more modern forms. The adventurers, who had persuaded the quiet occupants of

the Van Derheyden farm houses to lay out part of their farms into village lots, erected one or two slight buildings in the year 1786. The earliest settler was Mr. Stephen Ashley, who came here shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, and kept a tavern for two or three years in the farm house of Matthise Van Derheyden.

No dwelling house was erected by immigrants before the year 1787. In the month of August of that year, Dr. Samuel Gale, the elder, immigrated from Guilford, Connecticut, with his family, with the intention of settling at Lansingburgh; but owing to the difficulty of obtaining a dwelling house there, he stopped at the late Jacob D. Van Derheyden's, and determined to make this the place of his residence. He soon set about the erection of a dwelling house and store a little south of the Upper Ferry-which were completed in the following season. He was for several years the principal physician, and a prominent man in the enterprise of building up the new village.

An intelligent and respectable citizen, who imigrated to this place in the spring of 1789, states that at that time, five small stores and about a dozen dwelling houses had been erected. The appellation of Van Derheyden was in the latter part of the year, (1789) changed for a more classic Its existence as a village may be properly dated from the year 1790: since which, a period of fifty years has recently elapsed. In the brief re

name.