Death of Shell and his Son. Cessation of Hostilities. Departure from Fort Plain. Albany. 1781. Hendrick Hudson were carried into Canada, and they asserted that nine of the wounded enemy died on the way. Their loss on the ground was eleven killed and six wounded, while not one of the defenders of the block-house was injured. Soon after this event Shell was fired upon by some Indians, while at work in his field with his boys. He was severely wounded, and one of his boys was killed. The old man was taken to the fort, where he died of his wound.' During this summer the Tories and Indians went down upon Warwasing and other portions of the frontier settlements of Ulster and Orange counties. These expeditions will be elsewhere considered. The irruption of Ross and Butler into the Johnstown settlement in October, and their repulse by Colonel Willett, have been related. With that transaction closed the hostilities in Tryon county for the year, and the surrender of Cornwallis October 19, and his whole army at Yorktown, in Virginia, so dispirited the Loyalists that 1781. they made no further demonstrations, by armed parties, against the settlements. Attempts, some of them successful, were made to carry off prominent citizens." The Indians still hung around the borders of the settlements in small parties during 1782, but they accomplished little beyond producing alarms and causing general uneasiness. Peace ensued, the hostile savages retired to the wilderness, a few of the refugee Tories, tame and submissive, returned, and the Mohawk Valley soon smiled with the abundance produced by peaceful industry. We left Fort Plain toward noon, and reached Albany in time to depart for New York the same evening. Columns of smoke were yet rising from the smouldering ruins of a large portion of the business part of the city lying near the river, south of State Street; and the piers along the basin, black and bare, exhibited a mournful contrast to the air of busy activity that enlivened them when we passed through the place a few weeks before. I have been in Albany many times; let us take a seat upon the promenade deck of the Isaac Newton, for the evening is pleasant, and, as we glide down the Hudson, chat a while about the Dutch city and its associations, and its sister settlement Schenectady, and thus close our FIRST TOUR AMONG THE SCENES OF THE REVOLUTION. The site of Albany was an Indian settlement, chiefly of the Mohawk tribes, long before Hendrick Hudson sailed up the North River. It was called Seagh-negh-ta-da, a word signifying the end of the pine woods, or beyond the pine woods. Such, and equally appropriate, was also the name of a settlement on the Mohawk, at the lower end of the valley, which still retains the appellation, though a little Anglicised in orthography, being spelled Schenectady. From the account given in Juet's Journal, published in the third volume of Purchas's Pilgrimages, of Hudson's voyage up the river, it is supposed that he proceeded in his vessel (the Half Moon) as far as the present site of Albany, and perhaps as high as Troy. But he left no colony there, and the principal fruit of his voyage, which he carried back to the Old World, was intelligence of the discovery of a noble river, navigable one hundred and sixty miles, and passing through the most fertile and romantic region imaginable. This 1 Stone's Life of Brant. 2 The most prominent Tories engaged in this business were Bettys and Waltermeyer. We have noticed in another chapter the attempt of the latter to abduct General Schuyler. Among the prisoners thus made by these two miscreants, from Ballston, were Samuel Nash, Joseph Chaird, Uri Tracy, Samuel Patchin, Epenetus White, John Fulmer, and two brothers named Bontas. They were all taken to Canada, and, after being roughly treated, were either exchanged, or became free at the conclusion of the war. 3 Henry or Hendrick Hudson was a native of England. While seeking a northwest passage to Japan and China, he explored the coasts of Greenland and Labrador in 1607-8. After returning to England from a second voyage, he went to Holland and entered the service of the Dutch East India Company, who fitted out the Half Moon for him to pursue his discoveries. It was during this voyage that he sailed up the river which bears his name. The next year (1610) he was sent out by an association of gentlemen, and in that voyage discovered the great bay at the north called Hudson's Bay, where he wintered. In the spring of 1611 he endeavored to complete his discoveries, but, his provisions failing, he was obliged to relinquish the attempt and make his way homeward. Going out of the straits from the bay, he threatened to set one or two of his mutinous crew on shore. These, joined by others, entered his cabin at night, pinioned his arms behind him, and with his sons, and seven of the sick and most infirm on board, he was put into a shallop and set adrift. He was never heard of afterward. Dutch East India Company, they sent out men to establish trading posts in the country. 1610. These traders ascended the river and built a blockhouse on the north point of Boyd's Island, a little below Albany; and it may be said that in 1612 Albany was founded, for in that year the first permanent trading post was established there. Next ed in 1614, and the place was named, by the Dutch, Beaverwyck, or Beaver town, from the circumstance that great numbers of beavers ceived the name of Albany, one of the titles of James, duke of York, the brother of Charles II., afterward King James II. of England. The first permanent settlement that was made at Albany (the traders resorting thither only in the autumn and winter) was in 1626, and from that time until 1736 many respectable Dutch families came over and established themselves there and in the vicinity. Among them occur the names of Quackenboss, Lansing, Bleecker, Van Ness, Pruyn, Van Wart, Wendell, Van Eps, and Van Rensselaer, names familiar to the readers of our history, and their descendants are numerous among us. The first stone building, except the fort, was erected at Albany in 1647, on which occasion "eight ankers" (one hundred and twentyeight gallons) of brandy were consumed.' About this time the little village of Beaverwyck was stockaded with strong wooden pickets or palisades, the remains of which were visible until 1812. The government was a military despotism, and so rigorous were the laws that quite a number of settlers left it and established themselves upon the present site of Schenectady, about one hundred years since. A small church was erected in 1655, and the Dutch East India Company sent a bell and a pulpit for it, about the time when its first pastor, Rev. Gideon Schaats, sailed for Beaverwyck. It became too small for the congregation, and in 1715 a new and larger edifice was erected on its site. This stood about ninetytwo years, in the open area formed by the angle of State, Market, and Court Streets. 1657. Albany had become a considerable town when Kalm visited it in 1749. He says the people all spoke Dutch. The houses stood with the gable ends toward the streets, and the water gutters at the eaves, projecting far over the streets, were a great annoyance to the people. The cattle, having free range, kept the streets dirty. The people were very social, 1 Eight curious pieces of ordnance were mounted upon the ramparts of Fort Orange, called by the Dutch, according to Vander Kempt, stien-gestucken, or stone pieces, because they were loaded with stone instead of iron balls. These cannon were formed of long stout iron bars laid longitudinally, and bound with iron hoops Their caliber was immense. The fort does not seem to have been a very strong work, for in 1639 a complaint was made to the Dutch governor that the fort was in a state of miserable decay, and that the "hogs had destroyed a part of it." This picture is copied from a painting said to be from life, now in the possession of the Corporation of the city of New York, and hanging in the "Governor's Room," in the City Hall. It was in the old Stadt House, and was in existence in Governor Stuyvesant's time. 3 Letter of the commissary, De la Montagnie, to the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam (New York). Kalm's Description of Albany. Its Incorporation. Destruction of Schenectady. Colonial Convention. Walter Wilie. and the spacious stoops, or porches, were always filled at evening, in summer, with neighbors mingling in chit-chat. They knew nothing of stoves; their chimneys were almost as broad as their houses; and the people made wampum, a kind of shell on strings, used as money, to sell to Indians and traders.' They were very cleanly in their houses; were frugal in their diet, and integrity was a prevailing virtue. Their servants were chiefly negroes. In 1777, according to Dr: Thatcher (Military Journal, p. 91), Albany contained “three hundred houses, chiefly in the Gothic style, the gable ends to the streets." He mentions the "ancient stone church," and also "a decent edifice called City Hall, which accommodates gen erally their assembly and courts of justice." It also had "a spacious hospital," erected dur ing the French war. It was incorporated a city in 1686, and was made the capital of the state soon after the Revolution. Albany was an important place, in a military point of view, from the close of the seventeenth century until the hostilities, then begun between the English and French colonies, ceased in 1763. It was the place where councils with the Indians were held, and whence expeditions took their departure for the wilderness beyond. It never became a prey to French conquest, though often threatened. In the depth of the winter of 1690 a party of two hundred Frenchmen and Canadians, and fifty Indians, chiefly Caughnawaga Mohawks, sent out February 8, by Frontenac, menaced Albany. They fell upon Schenectady at midnight, mas1691. sacred and made captive the inhabitants, and laid the town in ashes. Sixtythree persons were murdered and twenty-seven carried into captivity. The church and sixty-three houses were burned. A few persons escaped to Albany, traveling almost twenty miles in the snow, with no other covering than their night-clothes. Twenty-five of them lost their limbs in consequence of their being frozen on the way. Schenectady, like Albany, was stockaded, having two entrance gates. These were forced open by the enemy, and the first intimation the inhabitants had of danger was the bursting in of their doors." Informed that Albany was strongly garrisoned, the marauders, thinking it not prudent to attack it, turned their faces toward Canada with their prisoners and booty. The settlement suffered some during the French and Indian war, but it was rather too near the strong post of Albany to invite frequent visits from the enemy. It is said that Schenectady was the principal seat of the Mohawks before the confederacy of the five Iroquois nations was formed. One of the most prominent events that occurred at Albany, which has a remote connection with our Revolution, was the convention of colonial delegates held there in 1754. For a long time the necessity for a closer political union on the part of the English colonies had been felt. They had a common enemy in the French, who were making encroachments upon every interior frontier, but the sectional feelings of the several colonies often prevented that harmony of action in the raising of money and troops for the general service which proper efficiency required. It was also evident that the Indians, particularly the Six Nations of New York, were becoming alienated from the English, by the influence of French emissaries among them, and a grand council, in which the several English colonies might be represented, was thought not only expedient, but highly necessary. Lord Holderness, 1 Wampum is made of the thick and blue part of sea clam-shells. The thin covering of this part being split off, a hole is drilled in it, and the form is produced and the pieces made smooth by a grindstone. The form is that of the cylindrical glass beads called bugles. When finished, they are strung upon small hempen cords about a foot long. In the manufacture of wampum, from six to ten strings are considered a day's work. A considerable quantity is manufactured at the present day in Bergen county, New Jersey. Walter Wilie, who was one of a party sent from Albany to Schenectady as soon as the intelligence reached that place of the destruction of the town, wrote a ballad, in the style of Chevy Chase, in which the circumstances are related in detail. He says of his ballad, "The which I did compose last night in the space of one hour, and am now writing, the morning of Friday, June 12th, 1690." He closes it with, "And here I end the long ballad, The which you just have redde; Proceedings of the Colonial Convention. Names of the Delegates. Plan of Union submitted by Franklin. the English Secretary of State, accordingly addressed a circular letter to all the colonies, proposing a convention, at Albany, of committees from the several colonial assemblies, the chief design of which was proclaimed to be the renewal of treaties with the Six Nations. Seven of the colonies, namely, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, responded to the call, and the convention assembled at Albany, in the old City Hall, on the 19th of June, 1754.1 James Delancy was chosen president of the convention. The chiefs of the Six Nations were in full attendance, their principal speaker being Hendrick, the sachem afterward killed near Lake George while in the service of the English. The proceedings were opened by a speech to the Indians from Delancy; and while the treaty was in progress, the convention was invited, by the Massachusetts delegates, to consider whether the union of the colonies, for mutual defense, was not, under existing circumstances, desirable. The General Court of Massachusetts had empowered its representatives to enter into articles of union and confederation. The suggestion was favorably received, and a committee, consisting of one member from each colony, was appointed. Several plans were proposed. Dr. Franklin, whose fertile mind had conceived the necessity of union, and matured a plan before he went to Albany, now offered an outline in writing, which was adopted in committee, and reported to the convention. The subject was debated "hand in hand," as Franklin observes, "with the Indian business daily," for twelve consecutive days, and finally the report, substantially as drawn by him, was adopted, the Connecticut delegates alone dissenting.' It was submitted to the Board of Trade, but that body did not approve of it or recommend it to the king, while the colonial assem blies were dissatisfied with it. "The assemblies did not adopt it," says Franklin, "as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it, and in England it was judged to have too much of the democratic." The Board of Trade had already proposed a plan of their own -a grand assembly of colonial governors and certain select members of their several councils, with power to draw on the British treasury, the sums thus drawn to be reimbursed by taxes imposed on the colonies by the British Parliament. This did not suit the colonists at all, and Massachusetts specially instructed her agent in England "to oppose every thing that shall have the remotest tendency to raise a revenue in America for any public uses or serv The following are the names of the commissioners from the several states: New York.-James Delancy, Joseph Murray, William Johnson, John Chambers, William Smith. Rhode Island.-Stephen Hopkins, Martin Howard. Pennsylvania.-John Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Richard Peters, Isaac Norris. The committee consisted of Hutchinson of Massachusetts, Atkinson of New Hampshire, Pitkin of Connecticut, Hopkins of Rhode Island, Smith of New York, Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Tasker of Maryland. 3 The plan proposed a grand council of forty-eight members-seven from Virginia, seven from Massachusetts, six from Pennsylvania, five from Connecticut, four each from New York, Maryland, and the two Carolinas, three from New Jersey, and two each from New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The number of forty-eight was to remain fixed, no colony to have more than seven nor less than two members; but the apportionment to vary within those limits, with the rates of contribution. This council was to have the general management of civil and military affairs. It was to have control of the armies, the apportionment of men and money, and to enact general laws, in conformity with the British Constitution, and not in contravention of statutes passed by the imperial Parliament. It was to have for its head a president general, appointed by the crown, to possess a negative or veto power on all acts of the council, and to have, with the advice of the council, the appointment of all military officers and the entire management of Indian affairs. Civil officers were to be appointed by the council, with the consent of the president.-Pitkin, i., 143. It is remarkable how near this plan, submitted by Franklin, is the basis of our Federal Constitution. Coxe, of New Jersey, who was Speaker of the Assembly of that province, proposed a similar plan in his "Carolana" in 1722, and William Penn, seeing the advantage of union, made a similar proposition as early as 1700.— Hildreth, ii., 444. This name is differently spelled by different writers. Pitkin, in his text (vol. L., p. 142), writes it Trasker, and in the list of delegates in his appendix (429) it is Trasher. Williams, in his Statesman's Manual, has it Abraham instead of Benjamin. I have followed Pitkin. Early Patriotism of Massachusetts. Albany in the Revolution. General Schuyler's Mansion. Return to New York. ices of government." This was the first proposition to tax the colonies without their consent, and thus early we find Massachusetts raising her voice as fearlessly against it as she did twenty years afterward, when her boldness drew down upon her the vengeance of the British government. 1777. During the Revolution, and particularly after the British took possession of New York city, Albany was the focus of revolutionary power in the state. There the Committee of Safety had its sittings; and, after the destruction of the forts in the Highlands, and the burning of Esopus (Kingston), it was generally the head-quarters of the military and civil officers in the Northern Department. There the captive officers of Burgoyne's invading army were hospitably entertained by General Schuyler and his family at their spacious mansion, then "half a mile below the town." The house is still standing, at the head of Schuyler Street, a little west of South Pearl Street, upon an eminence some thirty feet high in front, and completely imbosomed in trees and shrubbery. Within it the Baroness Reidesel was entertained, and there occurred those events mentioned by her and Chastellux, which I have noticed in a preceding chapter (pages 91 and 92). It was the scene, also, of the attempted abduction of the general by the Tory, Waltemeyer, when he robbed the patriot of his plate in 1781, mentioned on page 223. There La Fayette, Steuben, Rochambeau, and other foreign officers of eminence were entertained, and there the noblest of the land, as well as distinguished travelers from abroad, were frequent guests during the life of the owner; and its doors were opened as freely when the voice of poverty pleaded for assistance as when the great claimed hospitality and courtesy. SCHUYLER'S MANSION.1 We arrived in New York on the morning of the 1st of September. The air was cool and bracing, the day was fine, and the lately-deserted streets and shops were thronged with mingled citizens and strangers plunged as deeply in the maze of business as if no forgetfulness of the leger and till had occurred while babbling brooks and shady groves wooed them to Nature's worship. There I rested a few days, preparatory to a visit to the beautiful valley "On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming!" This view is from Schuyler Street. The edifice is of brick, having a closed octagonal porch or vesti bule in front. It was built by Mrs. Schuyler while her husband was in England in 1760-1. The old family mansion, large and highly ornamented, in the Dutch style, stood nearly upon the site of the present City Hall, between State and Washington Streets. It was taken down in 1800. |