Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 226

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452

USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations > Part 226

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The privileged West India Company was char- tened in 1621, with extraordinary powers of sovereignty and trade, and two years after erected Fort Orange, where Albany now stands. Here was the chief seat of the Indian trade, and where, in the business season, in June, July and August, the natives gathered in great numbers with their peltries. Until 1630 the two chartered companies above mentioned claimed and practically had a monopoly of the Indian traffic. Van Rensselaer, who had obtained possession of about 700,000 acres of land around the fort in that year, claimed not only a share of the profitable beaver trade, but also the land on which Fort Orange stood. Not only did this result in the loss of a large revenue to the West India Company, but it was also found that the servants of the company made private ventures of their own, so that by 1639, when trade was nominally thrown open to all, the income of the company had very much diminished.

In 1652 Stuyvesant established a court at Fort Orange and Beverwyck. With this court came municipal rights, excise, taxes, civil officers and all the privileges thereto belonging, among which was claimed the monopoly of trade with the Indians.

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF SCHENECTADY.

Every burgher (for outsiders were denied this privilege) who could purchase an anker of brandy or tub of beer, claimed and used his rights to trade for beaver and often forestalled the market by send- ing runners up the Mohawk to purchase the natives' peltries. Such was the condition of the Indian trade when the first settlement was made at Sche- nectady in 1662.

The people of Fort Orange, plainly seeing that the location of Schenectady would make it a for- midable rival as a trading center, took precautions to defend their own market and protect themselves from competition.

When the settlers of Schenectady applied for a patent to their territory, called by the Indian title the " Great Flatt," from the Governor and Council, it was granted only on the condition that they " pro- mise not to carry on or allow to be carried on at the aforesaid Flatt or thereabout any the least hande- ling (trade) however it may be called." This arbi- trary prohibition, though for a time apparently acquiesced in by the people, outraged their sense of justice and right. It soon began to be reported that these trade regulations were disregarded at Schenectady. Gov. Lovelace in 1669 issued an order prohibiting such trade, and in 1671 issued orders to Capt. Sylvester Salisbury, Commander of the fort at Albany, to search the houses in Schenec- tady whose occupants were suspected of trading with the Indians. But proclamations and orders against the offending town seemed unavailing, as neither the orders of the Council nor proclama- tions of the Governor served to effectually restrain the people from engaging in traffic with the Indians.

Albany was chartered as a city in 1686, before which time, though claiming a monopoly of the Indian trade, the magistrates were powerless to pass ordinances for its regulation, but operated through the Governor and Council.

Immediately after the granting of the charter, however, the common council passed ordinances claiming for such city the sole monopoly of the trade with the Indians, and prohibiting any traffic with the Indians outside of the walls of Albany. But these exclusive ordinances did not have the effect of confining the trade to the city of Albany. Much legal difficulty grew out of this attempted enforcement, until the year 1727, when the arrest and conviction of a citizen of Schenectady, sus- pected of Indian trading, was contested in the Supreme Court, which legal contest resulted in the final acquittal of the suspected persons and freeing Schenectady from the authority of those hateful ordinances that had fettered its trade for more than fifty years.

After 1727, by the decision of the highest court in the province, trade was made free. With free trade came traders, and the flow of emigration be- gan to go westward. Settlements were made on the upper Mohawk and along the Schoharie, which greatly increased the volume of trade at Schenectady. Better roads were made from Albany to the foot of navigation in this city, as aiding to the impediments in the lower Mohawk. Schenectady was always the best place of departure, while the distance from

Albany was little, if any, greater than points lower down the stream.

Up to about the year 1740 the early settlers used the largest sized Indian bark canoes for transport- ing their merchandise. They were very light, and capable of carrying considerable cargo. One or two men, sitting in the bottom, propelled the little vessel by paddles, and at rifts or shallow places waded, and pushed or pulled it over. When water failed them, or the falls could not be over- come, the boat and cargo were carried around the portage, when navigation was again resumed. As there were many rifts or rapids in the Mohawk river to be overcome, navigation at this period was attended with great difficulties. The first of these impediments was a few miles above Schenectady, and was called Sixth Flat rift. Proceeding west, in succession came Fort Hunter rift, Caughnawaga rift, Keator's rift, the latter having a fall of ten feet ; Brandywine rift, at Canajoharie, short but rapid ; Ehles rift, near Fort Plain, and the Little Falls, so called in comparison with the larger falls at Cohoes. At Little Falls there is a descent in the river of forty feet in the distance of half a mile, up the current of which no boats could be forced ; so it became a portage, or carrying point, for both boats and merchandise, which were transported around the rapids on wagons, and when relaunched and reloaded, pushed on again.

Gov. Burnett, one of the Colonial Governors of New York, in a report to the Lords of Trade, during the period of canoe navigation, estimated the number of canoes regularly engaged in the fur trade which came to Schenectady from 1716 to 1720, at about 30, and from 1720 to 1724 at about 323.

As settlements grew in the western part of the State the volume of trade increased to such an ex- tent, that about the year 1740 the Indian canoe was superseded by the small batteau, a wooden vessel strongly braced with ribs, sharp at both ends, and generally manned by three men. They were pad- dled or poled, or towed by men along the bank or shallow places.

Batteau.

Simms says, in his history of Schoharie County, speaking of the battean : "These boats were forced over the rapids in the rivers with poles and ropes, the latter drawn by men on the shore. Such was the mode of transporting merchandise and In- dian commodities toand from the west for a period of fifty years and until after the Revolution. A second carrying place in use at an early day was at Fort Stanwix, from the boatable waters of the Mohawk to Wood Creek ; thence passing into Oneida Lake the batteau proceeded into the Os- wego River, and thence to Oswego on Lake Onta- rio, and to Niagara, or elsewhere on that lake, or the St. Lawrence, as they pleased to venture," and

NAVIGATION.

after being carried around the Falls of Niagara to Chippewa, went uninterruptedly on to Detroit, their usual limit, and sometimes even to Macki- naw.

But after the Revolutionary War the tide of emi- gration set strongly westward, and that energetic population required increased facilities for trans- portation and communication with the great Hud- son River and their old homes in the East, and elsewhere.

Gen. Philip Schuyler, who at this date was Sur- veyor-General of the State of New York, succeeded. with the aid of many citizens of Schenectady and its vicinity, in forming a corporate body, known as the Western Inland Navigation Company. This company was empowered to improve the channel of the Mohawk from Schenectady, and build canal and locks to Lake Ontario and to Seneca Lake.

A canal was built at Little Falls, 4, 752 feet long, of which 2,550 feet went through solid rock. Upon it were five locks, with a total rise of 443 feet. A canal 1 4 miles long was constructed, with a lock at Wolf's rift, German Flats, while another canal at Rome, 12 miles long, connected the Mohawk with Wood Creek. On Wood Creek four locks were built, with a total depth of 25 feet. The chambers of the locks were 74 by 12 feet, and al- lowed boats of 32 tons to pass, but other impedi- ments limited boats to a burden of 10 to II tons. This work of the Inland Navigation Company was finished in 1797, and cost $400,000, of which the State paid $92,000. The great cost required high tolls. In 1808 the company gave up its rights west of Oneida Lake, and sold out to the State in 1820 for $152,718. 52.

These improvements opened not only a direct water communication from Schenectady to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, but permitted the use of larger and more serviceable boats.

To meet the demands of an increased trade, made possible by better facilities, a boat called the Durham was constructed, a craft which carried a fair cargo, and which held its own until the Erie Canal sounded the death knell of the Mohawk river as a navigable stream. This style of boat is said to have been first used on Long Island.

" The Schenectady Durham," says Prof. Pear- son in his history of the Schenectady Patent, "was the pride of the place, and extensive boat-yards were employed in construction and repairs of these crafts, which were roughly treated by the boulders on the many rifts and landing places.

This gallant craft was constructed something in shape like the modern canal boat, broad, flat-bot- tomed and straight-sided, with easy lines at bow and stern to help her flotation on striking a rapid. Her carrying capacity ranged from eight to twenty tons. A mast was placed near the bow and equipped with square sails.

When wind and tide were favorable these Durham boats sailed easily, but owing to the crookedness of the channel and its shallowness, this was only for very short distances. The main reliance was on the pole or tow-line.

In the cut a boat is seen forcing a " rift," and the crew (usually numbering five or six men) are wad- ing and pushing the craft through the pass. Light boats could go from Schenectady to Fort Stanwix and back in nine days, but the larger boats required fourteen days to make the trip.

Durham Boat.

As the country grew in population, and more especially after the Revolution, the traffic on the river grew to immense proportions. A stone tram- way was built at enormous cost by the Albany and Schenectady Turnpike Company, to ex- pedite the hauling of goods to the harbor on the Binne Kill, which in time was lined with batteaux, and as late as 1812 as many as fifty Durham boats would lay in this port, loading or discharging cargoes.

Most of these boats used on the Mohawk and western waters were built at Schenectady. It formed one of the most important business interests of the place.

The boat-yards were located on what is termed the Strand street on the river, then much wider than now, owing to encroachments and other causes. It was no uncommon sight, says Judge Sanders, in his history of this county in the war of 1812, to see from twenty-five to one hundred boats on the stocks at the boat- yards, extending from near the Mohawk bridge to North street.

The boats that conveyed the army of General Wilkinson down the St. Lawrence were all built at this place, the oak forests of our common lands furnishing the requisite material. The principal boat builders were the Van Slycks, Marselises, Veeders and Peeks.

Time has wrought so many changes in this city that it seems difficult to picture the scenes of busy activity, with the extensive wharves, freighting establishments, and storehouses which lined the Main Binne Kill previous to the year 1819. At this date a destructive fire occurred, which com- pletely destroyed this portion of the city, which never again recovered its business, mercantile or commercial importance, for the contemplated con- struction and subsequent completion of the Erie Canal removed the business seat of our city to its present location.

"Previous to the fire of 1819," says Judge Sanders, " the Mohawk river above the bridge was

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF SCHENECTADY.

a broad, deep stream, upon which Durham boats, carrying sails like an Albany sloop and from eight to twenty tons of freight, glided, often under full sail, to or from our then deep and commercial Binne Kill, the miniature golden horn of our city."

At this wharf were the warehouses of the freight- ing firms of Yates & Mynderse, Jacob S. Glen & Co., Stephen N. Bayard, Walton & De Graff, Lusher & McMichael. Some idea of the bus- iness done may be gathered from the fact that 300 families derived their support by carrying in wagons the freight from the storehouses in Sche- nectady to the City of Albany.

The first daily line of boats used for carrying passengers was established by Eri Lusher, in 1815. They were constructed after the model of the Dur- ham boat, with cabin in midship, carefully cush- ioned, ornamented and curtained, expressly calcu- lated for and used to carry from twenty to thirty passengers at a time. They ran between Sche- nectady and Utica, making the passage between the two places down the river in about thirteen hours, and up the river, with favorable winds and high water, within two days.

But we are now coming to the period when the completion of the Erie Canal, the greatest work of internal improvement in the interest of commerce ever accomplished in this country, began to play an important part in the commercial interest of Schenectady. It was commenced in 1817, but was not completed until the year 1825.

It is a fact not generally known that the route of the canal through this city is entirely different from the course as first laid out by the projectors. The original route was along the Binnekill, near the business portion of the city. Work had even been commenced upon it when, mainly through the personal efforts of Resolved Givens, proprietor of a hotel which stood near or on the site of the present Givens Hotel, the canal commissioners were per- suaded to change the course to the present route. Resolved Givens was the father of William C. Givens, of this city, and a man of considerable in- fluence at this date. The construction of the canal through the central part of the city, together with the destructive fires already mentioned, decided the fate of the lower part of the city as a business center, and this section lost forever the commer- cial importance it had enjoyed for so many years.

Navigation on the canal has not undergone much change since the early part of its history. The boats of to-day are very similar in appearance, al- though much larger than those used in the early days of canal navigation. As first constructed, the canal was about forty feet wide and four feet deep, but in 1835 the work of enlargement began, which was not completed until 1862, costing over $36,- 000,000. The present dimensions of the canal are seventy feet in width and seven feet in depth. These improvements in the channel of the canal have permitted the use of boats at the present day of the carrying capacity of 300 tons, while the original boats were only able to carry about ninety tons.

The motive power remains substantially the same as when the canal was first opened, most of the boats being propelled by the use of horses. Steam power has only been used since a compara- tively recent period, and although it is a sub- ject of much discussion among canal men, and great improvements have been made, it is a system of canal navigation not generally used.

The completion and successful operation of the Erie Canal gave rise to similar ones elsewhere, and was of vast benefit to the whole country, and to- day, notwithstanding the rapid transportation of merchandise by our great systems of railroads, it continues to be the channel of a wonderful outflow of the agricultural products of the West to the sea- board, and the inflow of the merchandise from the Atlantic ports to the interior.

Until the completion of the railroad the Erie Canal was much used for carrying passengers. Boats used for this purpose were called packets. Even before the entire canal was finished portions of it, as completed, were used. As early as May 31, 1824, a boat named Schenectady commenced to make trips fromn Albany to Schenectady; leaving Albany in the morning at nine o'clock, It reached Schenectady about noon, and then would start on a return trip on the following morning.

The traveling done on the packet boats was an important feature of the early navigation of the canal, and a great number of boats were usedsex- clusively for this purpose along its entire length, yielding a large income. Up to the year 1857 these boats were built and used upon the canal for this purpose, but since this date they have been entirely discarded, having been completely super- seded by the railroads.

Since 1857 the canal has been used exclusively for carrying merchandise, and during the year 1872 (the year before the great depression in the busi- ness of the country began) the value of the prop- erty that was transported on the canal was $168, - 000,000, notwithstanding a two-track railway carrying an immense amount of freight was laid parallel to it in its entire length.

The future of this great thoroughfare, of such untold benefit to the early development of this country, cannot be foretold in this period of rapid growth of our vast western territory. But it would seem that the slow method of canal transportation must be improved by new and more rapid meth- ods of locomotion or ultimately give way to the demands for a more speedy transportation.

STAGE LINES.

In the early history of this country, means of. communication and facilities for traveling from one place to another were attended not only with great expense, but with difficulty and danger. Until the completion of the Erie Canal, and the limited facilities the Mohawk offered, traveling to and from Schenectady was done by the slow, te- dious and wearisome stage coach.

Communication from New York to the interior prior to the revolution was a matter of the greatest difficulty, and only attempted in cases of most urg-

NAVIGATION.

ent necessity, usually taking three weeks to make the round trip. So slender were the facilities and resources of the country that the first mail ever re- ceived at Schenectady was on the 3d day of April, 1763, more than one hundred years after the pat- ent was granted.

Probably the first regular stage started by a Schenectadian was run by Moses Beal in May, 1793. It ran from Albany to Schenectady, Johns- town and Canajoharie once a week. The fare was three cents a mile. The success of this enterprise was so great, that John Hudson, keeping the Schenectady Coffee House, on the southwest cor- ner of Union and Ferry streets, now the property of Madison Vedder, Esq., soon afterward estab- lished a line of stages to run from Albany to Sche- nectady three times a week. John Rogers, of Ballston, ran a line from that place to connect with it, by which a regular communication was first established for the convenience of those who visited the springs. The fare was one shilling to Schenectady; those that continued through were charged three-pence per mile.

In 1794 there were five great post routes cen- tering in Albany -- the first to New York, the second to Burlington, Vermont; the third to Brook- field, Massachusetts; the fourth to Springfield, Massachusetts; the fifth route was by the way of Schenectady, Johnstown, Canajoharie, German Flats, Whitestown, Old Fort Schuyler, Onondaga, Aurora, Scipio, Geneva, Canandaigua, and subse- quently extended to Buffalo. The mail on this route was carried once in two weeks. Thomas Powell, Aaron Thorpe and Asa Sprague, of Sche- nectady, were leading proprietors of this last route, under whose management its business grew to im- mense proportions, "so much so," says John San- ders, "that during the war of 1812, it was no un- common sight to witness from eight to twelve stages on the Scotia dyke, leaving or entering Sche- nectady at one time; and in one instance the writer counted fourteen in a continuous line."

The fare from Schenectady to Canajoharie was fourteen shillings, returning twelve shillings, av- eraging four cents per mile. Four cents was the average fare per mile on this route.

In 1795 John Hudson ran two stages, one of four horses and the other of two, daily. between Albany and Schenectady, and in March of the next year Ananias Platt went upon the same line, mak- ing four trips a day. At this time there were four public places on the stage line between Schenectady and Albany: Truax's, four miles from Schenecta- dy; Down's, nine miles; McKown's, eleven miles; and Humphrey's, fourteen miles.

In 1823, Thomas Powell, of this city, com- menced running daily stages from Schenectady to Troy, fare seventy-five cents each way. From a Schenectady newspaper of May 1; 1823, we find at the close of the advertisement announcing the new enterprise, the following quaint notice:

"N. B .- As this is an establishment entirely new, it is not likely to be very profitable at first; but the proprietor hopes in time, with the assist- ance of his friends, to make it a great accommo-

dation to the public, and merely asks a remunera- tion for necessary expenses."

In 1825 another daily line was started between Schenectady and Troy, and the fare reduced to 63 cents. This includes all the stage lines of impor- tance which had headquarters at Schenectady of which we have any authentic account. The open- ing of the canal in 1825 did away with a greater part of this business in Schenectady, while the completion of railroads closely following sup- planted it entirely. Its tired horses and tired men have been superseded by the iron horse that never tires.

RAILWAYS.

No event in the history of Schenectady has done more to give this ancient city renown abroad than its connection with the enterprise which result- ed in building the first steam passenger railway in the world. True, in 1783 a railroad was construct- ed in France, but it was a crude affair and used only for the transportation of coal. The era of successful operations for the transportation of pas- sengers upon railroads by locomotives propelled by steam dawned a little more than half a century ago, and the fine plain between Schenectady and Albany was the theater of the first genuine passen- ger railroad ever built in the world.

Mr. George W. Featherstonhaugh, an honored and influential citizen of Schenectady, and the father of Geo. W. Featherstonhaugh of this city, was one of the first projectors of this enterprise. As early as 1812 a pamphlet was published explaining the superior advantages of railways and steam car- riages over canal navigation. In 1825, a writer in the Albany Argus urged upon capitalists the abso- lute necessity of their building a railroad from Albany to Schenectady, under the questionable plea that it was the only course to take to prevent Albany going to decay through the rivalry of Troy.

Mr. Featherstonhaugh, in a letter to the Mayor of Albany, said the transportation of prop- erty from Albany to Schenectady was seldom effected in less than two, and sometimes three, days. By railroad, he argued, the communication between the same points could be made, in winter and summer, in three hours, at no greater cost than by canal, paying for sixteen instead of twenty-eight miles. He regarded this experiment, which he believed to be practical, as a test whether this economical mode of transportation would suc- ceed in this country.

The project was brought before the Legislature early in the session of 1826, and a bill to incorpo- rate the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad introduced. On the roth of March the bill was discussed in the Assembly. It is amusing to read the novel argu- ment, advanced by the men of that day, both pro and con, in regard to the project.

The bill passed the Assembly on the 27th of March, 1826, incorporating the company, with a capital of $300,000, with liberty to increase it to $500,000, and a duration of fifty years, limiting the time for construction to six years. Stephen Van Rensselaer, known as the old patroon, of Albany, and George W. Featherstonhaugh, of this

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF SCHENECTADY.

city, were the only persons named as directors in the charter.

On the 26th day of June of this year books were offered for subscription to the stock of this road, and the stock was eagerly taken up by capitalists ; but for some cause the company moved slowly, for more than four years elapsed before the road was begun.

On the 29th of July, 1830, the ceremony of breaking ground for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad took place near Schenectady with a silver spade by Stephen Van Rensselaer. In September it was announced the stock had risen ten per cent., and the editor of the Albany Daily Advertiser pre- dicted that trains would run from Albany to Sche- nectady in a quarter of an hour, and reach Utica from Albany in four hours. The latter was a somewhat startling prediction at this time, when we consider that the utmost exertions of the stages barely overcame the distance in twelve hours.

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Bi-centennial history of Albany. History of the county of Albany, N. Y., from 1609 to 1886. With portraits, biographies and illustrations, Part 226

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1452

Author: Howell, George Rogers, 1833-1899; Tenney, Jonathan, 1817-1888
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: New York, W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1452