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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02214 6911
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
NEW YORK
ITS HISTORY TO THE CLOSE
OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
HISTORIAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF HON. AUSTIN A. YATES COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
LATE DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND COUNTY JUDGE OF SCHENECTADY COUNTY; ATTORNEY TO THE STATE INSURANCE DEPARTMENT; MEMBER OF ASSEMBLY; MAJOR IN THE VOLUNTEER FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE WAR OF THE REBELLION AND SPANISH AMERICAN-WAR.
Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and. knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain; These constitute a state.
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK HISTORY COMPANY 1902
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1575686
INTRODUCTORY.
This story of Schenectady is very little more than a compilation of the work of other archival authors. It could not well be other- wise. The annals of the historic old county have been wonderfully preserved, comparatively easy of access, through the work of foriner writers, wlio have exhibited remarkable industry, and in some in- stances, the most thorough erudition. Giles F. Yates, writing under the non-de-plume of the "Antiquarian," in the Schenectady Reflector, of which he was editor in the '30's, gathered some charmingly interest- ing bits of history, tradition and romance. They are like pretty vistas in the scenery of the by-gone, but, they were, as they were only intended. to be, material for the local columns of his paper in a city, that, in those days, taxed ingenuity and often imagination, to find anything local to write about. This matter was incidentally connected with the history of the bloody wars of Frontenac, and with the complica- tions of New Netherland politics, which were about as bad as those of Manhattan are now. The awful devastations of the French and Indian wars, in the little frontier post, hamlet, village and city, are well and sadly known. But all that was known was scattered and fragmentary, made up of paragraphs and items in the school books of elementary history, in which the city had always a fleeting prom- inence, owing to its long, and to unpracticed tongues, its unpro- nounceable names, a schoolboy terror in its orthography, a strain on the music of speech with the blood-curdling picture of the "Burning of Schenectady in 1690," over every mantel-piece; full of thrilling story, as is almost every city street, country road, and acre of Old Dorp, Niskayuna and Rotterdam, its people have seemed, until the latter half of the last century, abundantly content with legend and tradition.
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iv
INTRODUCTORY.
We have no Dutch Heroditus or Livy, Thucydides or Pliny to preserve for the coming generations, heroes, martyrs and statesinen of one of the most historic localities of New York state. The edu- cated immigrant, or the comparative stranger within our gates of sufficient culture to thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the quaint folk talk of the valley, the rapidly disappearing old gabled architecture, and the grand record of the brave and resolute Dutclimen of Colo- nial and revolutionary days. He is invariably attracted by the abun- dant material for history, romantic and thrilling, and of the abun- dance of solid truth for strange fiction. The old Mohawkers were content to hear and repeat the jumble of tradition and history, fact and fancy, recitals of the actual occurrences that filtered through the song and story of the generations, to whom it was a serious and often an appalling reality. The oft-told tale was well enough known, often enough repeated by the oldest inhabitant, present in a commu- nity that rarely ever travelled, to satisfy all the historic needs of the valley.
There were enough to lift their voices for the local audiences that cared to listen to the story that began in the nursery. There seemed to have been no local genius, interested, ambitious or industrious enough to come down to business with the pen of a serious, pains- taking and accurate historian. Yates did much to charm the para- graph reader of the newspaper. The Hon. John Saunders, a de- scendant of a grand old family, a graduate of Union, a most inter- esting writer, has, in his "Early Settlers of Schenectady," indulged himself and delighted his readers with patriarchal reveries of the early days of the last century, authentic tradition, handed down to him from the frontier Glens, that is of absorbing interest to a race of Holland blood and language that is fast passing away. The Judge never pretended to be a historian, was only, in fact, a most deliglit- ful narrator of fireside story, and family lineage, and as such his work is invaluable.
So it is to the comparatively new importation of industrious brain that we owe the preservation of the history of this old county.
The more than twice told tale, somewhat tedious to the old resi- dent, has the charin of novelty to the cultivated gentleman, who
V
INTRODUCTORY.
enters afresh upon the valley as rich in reminiscence as it is rare in the beauty of its scenery.
Pierson, the historic pioneer in the family annals of Albany and Schenectady, became deeply interested in the lives and work of the now famous men who formed a town to fight heroically in its defense, and to perish in its ashes or survive to send out into a great state the names of inen who, in pulpit, and law courts, and on hat- tlefields for King and Colony, have contributed splendidly to the renown of the foremost state of the Union.
Jonathan Pierson was a wonder. His industry and power of research were remarkable. A professor of chemistry in Union Col- lege, knowing and teaching all that was known or could be taught. He was treasurer and secretary of its Board of Trustees. One who follows him on his journey through the musty records of Ancient Churches, the old Paris and English Documents of the State Library, and sees the evidence of his tremendous labor, strewn all along the pathway of his toilsome journey, wonders how or when he found the time to do the work that looks like the achievement of a life- time of indefatigable industry. Schenectady, one of the most pro- gressive cities in the state to-day, owes Pierson a debt of gratitude, as the world owes the patient and tireless inen who have disentombed the ancient towns from the burial of Vesuvius.
Following Pierson, came his heavy debtors, Sanders and McMur- ray. Of the charming idyls of the one, the only one to the manor born, we have already spoken. McMurray, an army officer and a military instructor at Union, has rendered us infinite service in the form of the most comprehensive work, the most complete History of Schenectady yet written. There is much that is new in his discov- eries, all is certainly valuable.
The Hon. Judson S. Landon has yielded to the fascination of the place and theme, and has brought to elucidation the strange situation which seems to have made Schenectady the battle ground of the French and English. It has produced traditions born of the solid learning of the historian. His article in Putman's publication of "Historic Cities," and his paper "Why Schenectady was Burned in 1690," lets in a flood of light on the historic causes of the city's
vi
INTRODUCTORY.
origin, its sad youth, and its national prominence in Colonial and foreign wars.
Dr. William Elliot Griffes, while pastor of the First Reformed Church, imniediately acknowledged the charm of the association of Schenectady, with much that was heroic in the characters of the Holland burgher. In the pulpit and on the platform, and in the literary world in which he has recently taken such eminent rank, he has heralded the grand tolerance of that Church of Holland, often a martyr, never a bigot or persecutor or that has tortured or killed for opinion's sake. Through the whole land he has proclaimed the heroism and bravery of the burgher who never quailed before the enemy of his faith, and who united with his valor a forbearance and magnanimity that won the love and the confidence of his Indian foe or neighbor.
Men born on heights which shadow the picturesque or pastoral beauty of the world's scenery, may not cease to admire, but become so used to the panorama that they cease to note it. The scenery along the valley of the Mohawk in the kaleidescope color of Autumn foliage, startled Henry Ward Beecher into expressions of rapture, and as he crossed "The Street of the Martyrs" in a palace car, passed in sight of the Buykendahl, the scene of the massacre of 1748 under Towereune, where the valley narrows into the highway of nations, passed by the stone mansions of Guy and Sir John Johnson, by the shrine of "Our Lady of Martyrs," consecrated to the memory of that heroic Jesuit Missionary inartyr, Father Jogues, the homestead of the patriot Fondas, Oriskany, and the monument to Herkimer and Fort Stanwix, where St. Leger was held back till Burgoyne was whipped at Saratoga. The great divine thrilled with the recollection of all he had read and heard of the land of story and song.
Now, we of this day, long used to the journey, rush through all this avenue of scenic beauty, with a pipe in the smoking car, or a book in the day coach, too familiar with the sights of the great valley to glance out of the window.
Years ago, on the "Role Baum," that overlooks the precipices of the Plaut, and towers above Youta Pusha, the hill that from Union
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INTRODUCTORY.
College looks like the iron clad prow of a battle ship, with a group of under graduates, the writer looked down on a scene of pastoral beauty, that swept over a score of cities and villages, and over tlie hill tops and mountain peaks of four states. Turning to the farmer living in the stone house, from whose windows all the streets in Schenectady can be traced, and where with a strong glass, time can be read on the clock of the Reformed Church, we expressed our envy of his mountain home. He was a bright man, far from a dul- lard, but there was no answering enthusiasm, for without looking up he stolidly followed his plow with a listless acquiescence in his re- mark, "Yes, folks say it is a sightly place, but I'm so used to it I don't notice it any more," and he kept his eye in the furrow, that produced his bread and butter. The artistic element in his nature, if he had any, had been exhausted long ago. There was nothing left but the practically bucolic.
So we old Mohawkers have lived on the site, and amid the scenes of one of the most legendary valleys on earth, and have heard it all, seen it all, from childhood. It is the immigrant that becomes our novelist for it is all charmingly new to him.
We Dutchmen of old, from old Peter Stuyvesant down, abhorred the Yankee, and the prejudice of the Mohawk Dutchman was the most stolid of them all. The repulsion was natural, not entirely unreason- able. The New Engandler was smart, the burgher was only honest. Jonathan said that Clausha was either asleep, or not good for any- thing, after 4 p. in., of any day. Clausha retorted that it must have been in the dewey eve when the Yankee sold him wooden hans, and condemned shoe pegs sharpened at the other end for oats.
The restless eagerness of the Down Easter disturbed the taciturn Hollander who, secure in the conviction of his own honesty and that of his old neighbors, distrusted that glibness to which his race fell easy victims. In olden time the interloper was received because he could not be kept away, but his probation was long before he met a warm welcome by the Dutchman's fireside.
All is not only changed now, but we have become debtors to those who more than a generation ago were strangers inside the old barricade. It is not the descendant of the old Roman who is un-
viii
INTRODUCTORY.
earthing the buried splendors of Pompeii, but the men of learning from other lands. The Yankee horde is upon us, overflowing us, but it is a welcome throng. They bring trade, business and pros- perity with an electric touch.
More than all, they have brought a learning and culture no greater than that which we had in the old time, but so impressive with his- toric surroundings, but they have been impelled to write, and write with recorded accuracy and charming enthusiasm.
History was made here by Bradts, Schermerhorns, Swarts, Vielies, Bankers, Tellers, Yates, Van Slycks, and all the great arıny of Van unpronouncables, and their heroism and adventures gave the Ancient City its renown. But Pierson and McMurray, Griffes and Landon, are the record savers of the old days. To these industrious, able and erudite chroniclers the writer owes lasting obligation, for without their work, this vista, cut out of the great picture, could not have been put in its modest frame.
SCHENECTADY COUNTY:
ITS HISTORY TO THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY.
The Mohawk was the mnost magnificent specimen of an Indian that America produced. As far back as tradition and history go, this tribe was easily the master of all that surrounded it. Their domain extended through the whole length of the Mohawk Valley, the Northern and Western part of New York, and a portion of North- western Pennsylvania. The bravest, the brightest, the mnost eloquent, warlike and cruel, of all Indian organizations, they were yet the only nation that ever became the white man's steady, firm and faith- ful friend. Their names, as Christian communicants, are on the records of the Reformed Church. The bodies of their dead, until scattered by the march of sanitary science in the laying of water, sewer and gas pipes, lay under our feet. Their blood flows in the veins of all descendants of the Van Slycks, the Bradts, the Vielies and of Jonathan Stevens.
Along the Mohawk they had five castles, one namned Minemial, after one of their chiefs, and situated on an island at the mouth of the Mohawk, below Cohoes, one at Schenectady, one at the outlet of Schoharie Creek, now called Fort Hunter, one at Chaughnawaga, and one called Canajoharie, in the town of Dannbe, Herkimer County.
After the settlement of Schenectady and the apportionment of the
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
lands among fifteen original proprietors, no burials were made within the quadrangle bounded by Ferry, State, Washington avenue and Front streets. The number of Indian skulls, tomahawks, and sav- age implements, exhumed in past years, show conclusively that, be- fore the white man camne, there was a populous settlement of red mien on the spot now covered by the city.
Less than twenty-five years ago, a lad living at No. 26 Front, fired with emulation by the finding of skulls and bones by a comrade, went out under the big tree, yet standing there, to dig for Indians. The derisive smiles which followed him in his quest, were changed to expressions of astonishment as he turned a wonderfully preserved skeleton, facing the east, with tomakawk and arrow heads beside the bones. Subsequently, on digging for sewerage, skulls and bones enough to stock a small cemetery, were tossed by every spadeful.
There are other evidences of Indian occupation. An ancient path coming from the direction of Niskayuna, once wound around the brow of the hills that but a half century ago, battlemented the east- ern half of the town. Traces of it may yet be seen across the front of Prospect Hill, curving around southeasterly towards the cemetery enclosure.
Previous to the coming of the white inan the valley from Free- man's Bridge to Rotterdam Junction was cultivated by the Mohawks and in harvest time was fairly gilded with the tassels of Indian corn.
The locality was called by every possible variation of pronuncia- tion of the name that has at last settled down into Schenectady. It was a well known spot. The great flats of Rotterdam from Centre street to beyond the first lock west of the city, was known as Scho- nowe. Van Corlear, in 1643, describes the whole territory as that Schoonste, "loveliest land that the eyes of inan ever beheld." The namne the county now bears is said to have a beautiful origin, Schoon (beautiful) Acten (valuable) deel (portion of land,) making the sound Schoon Acten deel, changed and twisted by the different Na- tionalities that have been busy with the name. But this pretty deriv- ation is only conjecture. The name in ancient papers and records is spelled seventy-nine different ways, but all the orthography with its marvellous combination of letters produced the sound of Schenec-
como. Elles
3
FOUNDING OF THE CITY.
tady. Governor Stuyvesant wrote it as we spell it now as early as 1663, two years after the original patent. The name is undoubtedly of Mohawk Indian origin and belonged originally to the land lying around Albany. Four years after the charter, it settled down from Corlear, as the settlement was originally called, to Schenectady.
White men well knew the spot in 1642. Van Curlear, returning from one of his errands of mercy to the Mohawks, who listened and heeded him because they loved him, wrote to the Patroon Killian Van Rensselaer, "that a half day's journey from the Colonie, Town of Albany, on the Mohawk River, there lies the inost beautiful land that the eye of inan ever beheld." Any inan who has stood on Youta Pusha Berg, Prospect Hill, over Landon Terrace, or Schuyler- berg, midway between the Troy and Albany turnpike, east of Bran- dywine avenue, cannot fail to understand the rapture of the Dutch- man.
In the forties one could easily understand what was the lay of the land when it was said to be the Mohawk Village of Connochaiegu- harie. The name was an Indian description of the great masses of floodwood which were left every Spring on the flats. The deposit was then as now, often immense, but the name is comprehensive enough to include the whole pile.
Major McMurray has described its ancient appearances. The old township of Schenectady embraced a territory of 128 square miles, a portion of the Mohawk valley, sixteen miles long and eight miles wide. The western half is an irregular plateau elevated 400 or 500 feet above the Mohawk, a spur of the Helderberg, passing north into Saratoga County. The eastern half is a sandy plain, whose general level is 300 or 400 feet lower. The river, running through the middle of this tract, in a southeasterly direction, forms the most beautiful and striking natural object in its landscape. At the westerly boundary where it enters the town, it flows through a nar- row valley, whose sides though covered with foliage, are too steep for cultivation. From the hill "Towereune," the valley widens gradually to Poversen and Maalwyck, where the hills sink down into the great sand plain. Until the river reaches the city of Schenectady, it is a constant succession of rapids, and its general
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
course is southeast. Here it makes a great bend, and flows with a deep sluggish current northeastward to the Aal Plaats, the eastern boundary of the town. The tributaries of the Mohawk within the town are sınall and unimportant streams; those at the west end flow- ing from the slates, are nearly or quite dry in summer, while those at the opposite end, fed from the sand, are constant spring brooks. On the north side of the river are the following brooks: Chuckte- nunda, (stone houses) at Towereune, and coming east in succession are Van Eps Kil, Droyberg, Verf, or color (paint) creek, called by the natives Tequatsera, Jan Mebie's Kil, Creek of the lake in Scotia, Cromme Kil and Aal Plaats Kil. On the south side are Zandige Kil, the sloot, Right Brugse Kil, Plaats Kil, Poenties Kil, William Tellers. Killetje, Zand Kil, Coehorn Kil and Symon Groots Kill. But of these streams, few are of sufficient size and constancy now to serve as motor power.
With the exception of a little limestone in the extremne western limits of the town, all the rocks found in place, belong to Hudson shales and consist of alternate layers of blue slate and sandstones, some of which are used for building purposes.
In the west half this geological formation is most abundant, and the soil there is a clayey loam, underlaid with clay or hard pan. The immediate valley of the river where it breaks through the range of hills is narrow, and is composed chiefly of drifts of at least two elevations. The highest called the "stone flats," raised twenty to thirty feet above the water, consists of coarse gravel and boulders, and is chiefly found on the north side of the river. The opposite bank is " lower plain of sand and gravel."
The eastern half of the town has no hills worthy of the name; its general level perhaps 100 feet above the Mohawk, and the prevailing soil is a fine sand, underlaid with clay except in the extreme easterly limits where the clay loam again prevails.
Besides this there is found in the bends and eddies of the river, and upon the low islands, an alluvial deposit which is constantly enriched by the annual floods. This constitutes the widely known " Mohawk Flats," which though cultivated by the white inan for more than 200 years, have lost little of their unsurpassed fertility.
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EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
In the early period of the settlement no other land was tilled. Hence they called the land arable land, or bouwlandt, all else being denominated woodland and little valued. In addition to their fertil- ity, these flats presented another advantage to the first settler-they were mainly free from wood and ready for the plough and seed. For ages they had been the native's corn land, while the adjacent forest furnished him with flesh and the river with fish.
The great sand belt which passes across the town south to north, was once covered with a heavy growth of pines, while the high lands lying north and west of it produced the usual varieties of hard woods. Nothing could have been inore charming to the eye of the first white inen traveling up the Mohawk to Fort Hunter, than the flats skirting the river banks, clothed in bright green of the Indian corn and other summiner crops of the red inen.
The site of the village of Schenectady was admirably chosen. No other spot in the neighborhood of the bouwlandt offered such facilities for a village. From the eastern end of the "Great Flat " there makes out from the sandy bluff which surrounds it a low narrow spit, lying upon the east, north and west sides the Mohawk river and Sand Kil. The extreme point, only about 1,200 feet wide, was chosen for the site of the future city-a warmn dry spot, easily fortified against an enemy and sufficiently elevated to be safe from the annual overflow of the Mohawk river. This little flat contains but 175 acres, and it was the site of an earlier Indian village. Tradition has it that it was a foriner seat or capital of the Mohawks, whose numerous dead have been, from time to time, found buried along the Benne Kil.
If we inay believe tradition, Schenectady had already been occu- pied by the white man many years when Van Curler first visited it in 1642. In fact it has been claimed to be little if any younger than Albany.
That a few fur traders and bosloopers early roved among the Mohawks, married and raised families of half-breeds, cannot be denied ; indeed there are respectable families in the valley to this day, whose pedigree may be traced back to these marriages. But
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SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
that the white man made any permanent settlement on the Mohawk west of Albany before 1662, there is no good reason for believing and, in view of the opposition of Albany and the Colony, improbable.
In the summer of 1661 Arent Van Curler, the leader of the first settlement, made formal application to Governor Stuyvesant for per- mission to settle upon the "Great Flat " lying west of Schenectady.
The foundation and establishment of Schenectady is alınost uni- versally credited to Arent Van Curler, indeed it was at first known as Curlear. He was only one of the founders, however. He never lived there, had no hand in the establishment of the early govern- ment of the hamlet, or in its subsequent development. But he was the man who obtained the original patent, and who had a long and discouraging battle before he secured it from the cautious Stuyve- sant.
Nor was he the first white man to appreciate the natural advan- tage of the place. The evidence of Bible entries, corroborating tradition, shows that Jacque Cornelise Van Slyck, (the half-breed son of Cornelise Van Slyck and his wife, a Mohawk chieftian's daugh- ter) also Alexander Lindsay, Glen and Jolın Teller, a nephew of Glen's wife, were here as early as 1658. Cornelise Antonise Van Slyck, father of Jacque Cornelise, married Alstock at Mohawk Castle, was adopted into the tribe, and was known, with Arent Cornelise Viele as one of the two great interpreters of the Indian language. Cornelise Antonise Van Slyck could live anywhere among the Mohawks whose fidelity and devotion followed the family down, deeding the land to his sons Martin, Maurice and Jacque Cornelise. To the latter in 1658, Van Slyck's Island, between what is now known as the Frog Alley river, and the Benne Kil.
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