USA > New York > Rensselaer County > Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 1 > Part 9
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FIRST COURTS AND COUNTY OFFICERS.
Rowland Hall, Hezekiah Hull, William Douglass, Daniel Gray, Jonas Odell, Benjamin Randall, Benjamin Hanks, Harmon Van Veghten, Benjamin Milks, Ebenezer Darling, Jacob Vanderheyden, jr., Jacob C. Schermerhorn, Nathaniel Jacobs and Simeon Button. Moss Kent was the first surrogate, Silas Weeks was the first coroner, Nich- olas Schuyler was the first county elerk, Aaron Lane was the first county treasurer and Albert Pawling was the first sheriff, all in 1791. The first general election of the county, in 1792, resulted in the choice of Jonathan Brown, John Knickerbocker, John W. Schermer- horn, Thomas Sickles and Moses Vail as representatives in the New York State Assembly and Robert Woodworth as the first member of the State Senate from the new county. The first member of the federal Congress was John E. Van Allen, who was elected in 1792 and served from 1793 to 1799, and the first presidential elector was Abraham Yates, jr., in 1792.
Tuesday, April 15, 1791, the first officers of the county held their first meeting, pursuant to law, in the tavern of Ananias Platt in Lans- ingburgh. The first Court of General Sessions of the Peace and the Court of Common Pleas was held the first Tuesday in May, 1391, at the same place in which the first county officers held their first meeting. It was presided over by the First Judge, Anthony Ten Eyck, associated with whom were all the " Judges " and Assistant Judges Hicks, Mont- gomery and Kent. At this term of court these persons were admitted to practice as attorneys and counselors at law: John Woodworth, Direk Ten Broeck, Moss Kent, John V. Henry, Peter D. Van Dyck, Abram Hun, John Waters Yates, Nicholas Funda, Gerrit Wendall, John D. Dickinson, Guert Van Schoonhoven, Cornelius Vandenbergh, John Lovett, Peter E. Elmendorf, Sanders Lansing and Francis Silvester. The court adopted thirty three rules, provided for a county seal-a plow, with the words " Rensselaer County Seal" engraved around the edge -- and after a session lasting three days adjourned to meet at the house of Stephen Ashley in Troy. Thereafter the county courts were held alternately, until the erection of the court house, at the two taverns mentioned. The first Court of Oyer and Terminer and General Jail Delivery in the county was held July 5, 1791, at Platt's Inn in Troy.
The county of Rensselaer is described as follows in the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, Section 2, Title I, Chapter II, Part 1:
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
The county of Rensselaer shall contain all that part of this State bounded easterly by the eastern bounds of this State; southerly by the county of Columbia; westerly by the middle of the main stream of Hudson's river, with such variations as to in- clude the islands lying nearest to the east bank thereof; and northerly by a line be- ginning at the mouth of Lewis' creek or Kill, and running thence south eighty-four degrees east, to the middle of Hoosick river; then up along the same until it is inter- sected by a continuation of the before mentioned line, and then along such continua- tion to the cast bounds of the State.
The county is centrally distant from New York north 157 miles and from the capital at Albany east a trifle over eleven miles. The east- ern portion of the county is broken and hilly and in some places rather mountainous and interspersed with fertile valleys. The central and western portion is diversified with hills and a gently undulating surface. It has extensive valleys and alluvial flats with a rich soil, and the up- lands generally are well adapted to the various purposes of agriculture. On the streams there are an abundance of excellent mill sites, and the numerous rivers, creeks and brooks irrigate every part of the county. The county lies almost in the centre of the great valley extending from the mouth of the Hudson northward to the valley of the St. Lawrence, and at the eastern end of the valley of the Mohawk. It is midway between the Green mountains of Vermont and the Catskill mountains of New York. The central part of the county, though over 150 miles distant from the sea, borders upon that part of the Hudson river at which the ebb and flow of the tide ceases. Properly speaking, however, it is not the tide but the set-back from the tide which causes the regular rise and fall of the water at this point.
The hills in the county are a part of the great Appalachian system. None of them are very high, except in the eastern part of the county. Though they are a part of the Appalachian system and no part of the Laurentian system enters into their make-up, their close proximity to the Adirondacks, which form the most southerly part of the Laurentian system, makes their study highly interesting to geologists. Two ranges of hills which connect the Green mountains on the north with the Cats- kills on the south, traverse Rensselaer county almost directly north and south. They are the Taghkanic mountains on the east and the Peters- burgh mountains in the centre and west. Between them flows Kinder- hook creek to the south and the Hoosick or Hoosac, and Little Hoosick, toward the north, the Hoosick taking a westerly turn in the northern part of the county, continuing on its course in a general westerly direction until it reaches the Hudson. The Petersburgh mountains occupy the
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Imwanees
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GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF THE COUNTY.
larger part of the county between these rivers and the Hudson, and their highest peaks average 1,200 to 1,500 feet above the level of the sea. One or two peaks approximate nearly 2,000 feet in height. In some parts of the county the tops of the range form plateaus, the land of which in many places is unfit for cultivation. The principal peak in the northern part of the Petersburgh range is Bald mountain, located party in Schaghtieoke and partly in Lansingburgh. In the south the highest is Meshodac, located in the town of Nassau. The latter peak is the highest in the county and reaches an altitude greater than that of any other moun- tain between the Catskill and the Hancock mountains. It received its name from the river Indian name, Isodac, which means "a burned district."
The Hoosick river, which is the principal stream in Rensselaer county, is one of the principal tributaries of the Hudson river. The latter was known by the Mohawk Indians as the Skanektade, which means " the river beyond the open pines." Its Algonquin name was Cahotatia, meaning "the river that comes from the mountains lying beyond the Cahoos falls." As is told elsewhere, the Algonquin name was trans- lated by Sir Henry Hudson to mean "River of the Mountains." It was also sometimes called the Nassau by the early Dutch settlers, and the Mauritius by others, in honor of the reigning family of Holland and Prince Maurice, respectively. The Hoosick rises in Berkshire county, Mass., entering Rensselaer county in the northeast corner of the town of Petersburgh. The Little Hoosick has its source in the southeastern part of the county, principally in the town of Berlin, and flows almost directly north into the Hoosick, which it joins in the town of Petersburgh. Kinderhook creek rises in the town of Berlin and flows south through Stephentown into Columbia county. Several smaller streams flow westerly into the Hudson, including the Poestenkill, whose mouth is in the city of Troy; the Wynantskill, which enters the Hudson two or three miles to the south; Valatiekill, which flows south from Nassau, and scores of other small streams.
To describe the geological formation of the county properly would require more space than can be devoted to it in this work. It has been difficult to correlate the various groups in the county, which belong partly to the peculiar development in Western New England and partly to the more regular gradations of the New York system.
Probably most of the rocky strata which forms the ground work of Rensselaer county belongs to the Silurian age, or age of inverte- 10
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
brates, the first age of the Paleozoic era, coming immediately after the first or Archaan era. The rocks of the Lower Silurian age are mainly sand- stones, shales, conglomerates and limestones. In the early part of the age sandbeds, now sandstone, were spread out over wide areas in North America, including practically all the territory of what is now Rens. selaer county. The earliest Silurian sandstones and shales have the layers sometimes marked with ripples, or with mud-cracks, or with the tracks of the animals of the era; and they thus show that they were not made in deep water, but that they were either the sea shores or the sand flats or mud deposits off-shore in the age. Part of the time they were above the water's level, exposed to the sun and air, or no mud cracks or ripples or tracks of animals would now be visible. The lower of these rocks are what is known as Potsdam sandstone, next coming the calciferous sand-rock. The latter rock crops out in many places throughout the county, particularly along the western borders, as in the vicinity of Lansingburgh. The only plant forms found among these rocks are sea-weeds of that period. As far as has been discov- ered by geological research the only animals which have left their im- press in these rocks are marine animals, principally mollusks.
Along the eastern boundaries of the county are found the taleose and chloritie rocks and the limestones, more or less modified in various places by metamorphic agencies. In some places the limestone is white, crystalline, granular, dolomitie stone; in others it is yet practi- cally the primordial caleiferous rocks and the solid blue limestones. The character of the slate varies. In some localities it is highly tal- cose or chloritic, with common red slate; in other the slate is argilla- ceous, the roof state of commerce. In no part of the county is it firm enough or near enough to the surface in large quantities to make it valuable commercially. Through the valley of the Little Hoosick river are found roeks of the same character in abundance. The surface of the Taconic mountains abounds in boulders and milky quartz, with a profusion of chlorites. The chlorite is in small bodies of green seales, and the quartz is in loose bodies, caused by decomposition and chisinte- tegration. In many places where the slate rock has been despoiled by the action of the elements, quantities of the quartz, which withstands the decomposing effect of the atmosphere better than does slate, are still found essentially uninjured. On the western descent of the Ta- conie range taleose slate predominates, though argillaceous and chlorite slate is also to be found. In the Petersburgh valley is found a mixture
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COUNTY GEOGRAPHY.
of chlorite and quartz, and on its western side are distinct traces of chlorite slate.
In some sections of the western half of the county quantities of slate and shale belonging to the Hudson river group of the Trenton period are found. The Post-Tertiary period is also distinctly characterized above the Old Silurian in parts of the county. The first part of this period, or the Ice Age, shows in all parts of the county by the sand, gravel, cobblestones and boulders which almost everywhere appear; while the Champlain and Terrace epochs are conspicuous on the banks of the Hudson river, where soft clay beds abound.
Along the banks of the Hudson river, the western boundary of the county, is a stretch of flat, low land varying from a few rods to half a mile in width and bounded by a series of bluffs from 100 to 200 feet in height. From the summits of these bluffs the surface is a broken and hilly upland, composed of the drift deposits, mixed with disintegrated slates, clay and sand predominating in different places. Hoosick and Little Hoosick rivers and Kinderhook creek flow through the valley in the eastern part of the county. The summit level in this valley, be- tween the waters flowing north and those flowing south, at South Ber- lin, is 600 feet above tide. The streams flowing from the Petersburgh mountains westward to the Hudson have worn deep ravines through the clay bluffs, forming lateral valleys which extend eastward from the valley of the river. Numerous small lakes and ponds are interspersed in the wild and rocky region of the Petersburgh mountains, forming one of the most beautiful features of the landscape in this section of the county. The narrow flats along the streams and a large portion of the uplands are adapted to the cultivation of grain and produce excellent crops, but the soil generally is better adapted to grazing and dairying, especially in the eastern towns of the county, where these occupations form the leading pursuits, except in the villages. The manufacturing industries are large and constantly growing in Troy, Lansingburgh, Hoosick Falls, Valley Falls, Schaghticoke, Greenbush, Castleton and some other villages, the eity of Troy being known as the greatest cen- tre for the manufacture of shirts, collars and cuffs in the world. The commerce and leading industries of Rensselaer county, however, are fully described in succeeding chapters.
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
CHAPTER VIL.
The Erection of the First County Buildings-Rivalry Between Troy and Lansing- burgh as to Which Should Secure the Court House-Formation of New Towns -- Rapid Development of the County and its Increasing Needs-Organization of the State Militia-Appointments for the Rensselaer County Brigade-Its Evolution in the Early Days of the Nmeteenth Century.
The question of the erection of the first court house in Rensselaer county was settled in a manner which naturally resulted in locating it in the village of Troy. By an act of January 11, 1793, the sum of six hundred pounds was appropriated by the State Legislature for the erection of a court house and jail, to which was to be added such amount as the inhabitants of the county might decide to give. Troy and Lansingburgh were the two principal towns in the county, and they were bitter rivals. To avoid the unnecessary increase in the jealousy which existed between them the authorities decided that the court house and other county buildings which it was decided to build should be located in the town subscribing the most money toward their con- struction. The people of Troy, with that enterprise which has char- acterized them ever since the close of the war of the Revolution, quietly went to work to secure the necessary amount of money. A paper reading as follows was circulated, receiving the signatures of sixty -four Trojans, who pledged themselves to pay the joint sum of one thousand pounds, or nearly five thousand dollars:
To all whom these presents shall come or may concern: Whereas, by an act of the Legislature of the State of New York at their present session it was enacted that a court house and gaol should be erected and built in the county of Rensselaer, within sixty rods of the dwelling house of Stephen Ashley, in the village of Troy in the town of Troy, and that the sum of one thousand pounds should be made payable to the treasurer of said county for the time being, for the purpose aforesaid, by the in- habitants of the said village in the town of Troy. Now therefore know ye, that we whose names are hereunto subscribed do respectively promise to pay unto Albert Pawl- ing and Christopher Hutton, or to one of them, to their or one of their executors, ad- ministrators, or assigns, the sum of money annexed to our respective names on de- mand, which money is to be appropriated to the building of the court house and gaol as aforesaid. Dated this fourteenth day of January, in the year of Our Lord one thousand and seven hundred and ninety-three.
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THE FIRST COURT HOUSE.
To make doubly sure and hasten the work, on March 22, 1793, Jacob D. Vander Ileyden, owner of most of the land on which the busi- ness portion of the city of Troy is located, deeded to Robert Wood- worth, Cornelius Lansing, Jacob A. Lansing, Benjamin Milks, Thomas Sickles, Jonas Odell and John Wylie, supervisors of the county, the lots on the southeast corner of Second and Congress streets, numbered respectively 145, 146 and 147, on which to erect the court house and jail which the citizens of Troy had decided should be erected in that village. Work on the court house was begun at once, the building occupying the site of that which is now occupied by the handsome new court house erected in 1895 and 1896. It was a handsome and sub- stantial building for its day. While it was in course of construction Benjamin Gorton, county clerk, on Nov. 11, 1794, advertised for pro- posals for the erection of the jail, which was built east of the court house. On February 3, 1794, the Legislature passed this law:
Whereas a court house has been lately erected in and for the county of Rensselaer. 'Therefore
Be it enacted, etc., That it shall be lawful for judges and assistant justices of the same court of common pleas | referred to in the title of the law), who shall hold the next court, or the major part of them, and for the justices of the peace who shall hold the next court of general sessions of the peace in the same county, or the major part of them, on the first day of the next term or sessions of the same courts respect- ively, or at any time thereafter, to adjourn the same courts respectively to the said court house in the same county, and there to hold the said courts.
The first court, the court of common pleas, convened in the court house the second Tuesday in June, 1794. The jail was completed the next year. In addition to its original appropriation, in 1794 the Legis- lature voted the further sum of eight hundred pounds, in 1797 it voted five thousand five hundred dollars and in 1798 five hundred dollars more. The first county clerk's office was in a house in Lansingburgh, previously occupied by N. Jacobs, near that of Col. John Van Reusse- laer.
From this time on many events of interest to posterity occurred in the county of Rensselaer; but all of these excepting those which relate directly to the county as an institution, those which have a local bear- ing only, will be found preserved in their proper places, in the history of the various towns in which they transpired.
From time to time in the early days of the county, and even before Rensselaer county was set apart from Albany, road improvements were provided for by legislative enactment. April 1, 1799, a turnpike com-
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
pany was incorporated "for improving the road from the springs in Lebanon to the city of Albany." At the same time a company was incorporated " for improving the road from the village of Bath to the Massachusetts line." The directors of the first named company were Jolın Tryon, Eleazur Grant, John W. Schermerhorn, Jonathan Hoag, Elisha Gilbert, James Mckown, Nathan Hand, Moses King, John Darling, Jacob C. Schermerhorn, Nathaniel Brockeway and others, who were empowered to " make a good and sufficient road from the line of the State of Massachusetts, where the road from Pittsfield and Hancock leads by or near the springs in Canaan, commonly called New Lebanon Springs in the nearest and most direct route, as far as cir- cumstances will admit by the house of Elisha Gilbert, John W. Scher- merhorn, Jonathan Hoag and James Mckown, to the ferry near the house of John I. Van Rensselaer." John Tryon, Elisha Gilbert, John W. Schermerhorn, Jonathan Hoag and James McKown were appointed commissioners to direct the work.
By the provisions of the same law Abraham Schuyler, Thomas Hun, Teunis T. Van Vechten, Barent Bleecker, John C. Cuyler, David Fonda, Barent G. Staats, John Maley, Gerrit W. Van Schaiek, John E. Van Alen, Daniel Gray and James Main were empowered, under the name of " the President Directors and Company of the Eastern Turn- pike Road," to make " a good and sufficient road from the village of Bath in the county of Rensselaer, in the nearest and most direct route to the house of James Main in Petersborough in said county and from thenee to the line of the State of Massachusetts, where the road from Williamstown to the city of Albany crosses the said line." David Fonda, John C. Cuyler and Sanders Lansing were appointed commis- sioners to direct the construction of the road. The law directed that both the roads should be at least four rods wide, "twenty-four feet of which shall be bedded with wood, stone, gravel, or any other hard sub- stance compacted together, a sufficient depth to secure a solid found- ation to the same, and the said road shall be faced with gravel or other hard substance in such manner as to secure as near as the ma- terials will admit an even surface rising toward the middle by a grad- ual arch." The rates of toll which might be charged were fixed by the same law.
It may not be amiss to describe here the formation of the several towns. The setting apart of the four districts of Rensselaerwyck, Hoosick, Pittstown and Schaghticoke, which were made towns of
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ORGANIZATION OF TOWNS.
Albany county March 7, 1788, and the formation of Stephentown from Rensselaerwyck in 1784, are described in another chapter. By the act which set apart the county of Rensselaer the town of Troy was erected from Rensselaerwyck. March 18, 1791, Petersburgh was erected from Stephentown. When the first board of supervisors met in 1791 there were therefore but seven towns in the county, viz. : Rensselaerwyck, Troy, Schaghtjcoke, Hoosick, Pittstown, Stephen- town and Petersburgh. The remainder of the sixteen towns in the county were organized thus:
Greenbush was formed from Rensselaerwyck April 10, 1792. A second act of incorporation bears date of March 17, 1995. In 1812 a part of the town of Sand Lake was set off. February 23, 1855, East Greenbush was set off under the name of Clinton, and at the same time North Greenbush was taken from Greenbush. This left the boundaries of the town of Greenbush and the village of Greenbush identical, as defined by the act of April 9, 1852, incorporating the village.
Schodack was erected from the remainder of Rensselaerwyck March 17, 1795, when the name of Rensselaerwyek as a town ceased to exist.
Berlin was taken March 21, 1806, from parts of Schodaek, Stephen- town and Petersburgh.
Nassau was formed on the same date from parts of the same town.
Brunswick was taken from Troy March 20, 1807.
Grafton was formed on the same date from Troy and Petersburgh.
Lansingburgh was also formed in the same way from parts of Troy and Petersburgh. In 1819 a part of Schaghticoke was annexed; in 1836 a part of Troy was set off and added to the town, and three years later its size was still further increased by the addition of a part of the town of Brunswick,
Sand Lake was erected June 19, 1812, from parts of Berlin and Greenbush.
Poestenkill was taken from Sand Lake March 2, 1818.
East Greenbush, originally called Clinton, was set off from Green- bush Feb. 23, 1855. Its name was changed from Clinton to East Green- bush April 14, 1858.
North Greenbush was set off from Greenbush at the time Clinton was erected, Feb. 23, 1855.
Troy was formed as a town March 18, 1791. The first village charter was granted in the latter part of the same year, a second one March
MOSES WARREN.
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LANDMARKS OF RENSSELAER COUNTY.
25, 1794, and another in 1798. A part of Brunswick was annexed in 1814, and two years later, April 12, 1816, Troy received a city charter.
As the population of the county and the consequent litigation in- creased the court house constructed in the latter part of the eighteenth century became inadequate to the needs of the county and the demand for a more commodious and more convenient building became general. At a meeting of the board of supervisors held Nov. 15, 1826, at the hotel of William Pierce it was decided to petition the State Legislature to pass a law authorizing the county Legislature to raise by taxation a sum (together with the money which might be contributed by the city of Troy) not exceeding $25,000, for the construction of a new court house. The board at the same time decided that, to insure the erec- tion of said building, the city of Troy must guarantee the payment of two-fifths of the cost of the building in addition to the city's portion of the remainder of the cost. The proposition was accepted by the com- mon council of the city of Troy on the understanding that the munici- pal authorities should have accommodations in the building and that the new court house should be erected not far from the site of the old one, and under the direction of a joint commission of the board of su- pervisors and the common council. The supervisors agreeing to the conditions a committee was appointed, consisting of Townsend Mc- Coun, Ephraim Morgan, and Jeremiah Dauchy. May 13, 1827, the State Legislature, in compliance with the request of the county, passed an act authorizing the supervisors to raise by tax a sum not exceeding $15,000, for the work of rebuilding the court house. Work was begun at once. The old building was razed and temporary headquarters for the courts were engaged in the Methodist meeting house on the north- west corner of Fifth and State streets. The foundations of the new building were begun in 1829 on the site of the one described. The Dorie hexastyle order of architecture was followed, the structure being of Sing Sing marble and modeled principally after the temple of The- seus at Athens. In March, 1831, upon the completion of the building, a very handsome and imposing one for its day, the supervisors, in ac- cordance with their agreement, set apart two rooms on the north side of the first floor, one for the mayor's court and the other for the com- mon council. Three rooms in the basement were also assigned for the use of the other city officers. The remainder of the building was reserved for the use of the county. The total cost of the court house was about $40,000. In it the municipal courts and the sessions of the
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