USA > New York > Schenectady County > Schenectady County, New York : its history to the close of the nineteenth century > Part 11
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9
Cornelius Veeder, Peter S. Veeder,
Peter Van Antwerp,
118
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
Philip Van Patten,
Helmus S. Veeder,
Frederick Van Pette,
John Veeder,
Frederick Van Petten,
John B. Veeder,
Frederick S. Van Petten,
Nicholas Veeder,
Henry Van Petten,
Peter H. Veeder,
Nicholas Van Petten,
Peter S. Veeder,
Nicholas A. Van Petten,
Peter T. Veeder,
Nicholas H. Van Patten,
Simon B. Veeder,
Nicholas R. Van Petten,
Simon H. Veeder,
Nicholas S. Van Petten,
Wilhelmus Veeder,
Philip Van Petten,
John Visger,
Simon Van Petten,
John Visger, Jr.,
Simon F. Van Petten,
John Vischer, Jr.,
Andrew Van Petten,
Adam Vrooman,
Gerret Van Schaick,
Adam H. Vrooman,
Abraham Van Sice,
Adam S. Vrooman,
Cornelis Van Sice,
Arent Vrooman,
Gysbert Van Sice,
Aron Vrooman,
Isaac Van Sice,
David Vrooman,
Jacobus Van Sice,
Hendrick Vrooman,
John Van Sice,
Henry Vrooman,
Aaron Van Sice,
Jacob A. Vrooman,
Andrian Van Slyck
Jacob I. Vrooman,
Adrian Van Slyck,
Jacob J. Vrooman,
Andrew Van Slyck,
John B. Vrooman,
Anthony Van Slyck,
John J. Vrooman,
Cornelius Van Slyck,
John T. Vrooman. Simon Vrooman,
Cornelius A. Van Slyck,
Cornelius P. Van Slyck,
Simon J. Vrooman,
Harmanus Van Slyck,
Harmanus N. Van Slyck,
Michael Wagner, Jacob Walrat,
John T. Wemple,
Christopher Ward,
Mindert R. Wemple, Myndert Wemple,
Ahasuerus Wendell,
John B. Wendell,
Arent Wessel,
Arent Wesselse, Aorn Wesselse,
Richard Warner, Frederick Weller, Robert Weller,
John Wemple, John J. Wemple,
Nicholas Vrooman,
119
CLOSE OF CENTURY.
Abraham Yates, Abraham J. Yates, John Yates,
Nicholas Yates,
Abraham Yates.
CHAPTER X.
THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY.
Schenectady could not be said to have emerged from the Revolu- tion. The county had never been submerged. The waters had divided around it and the burgher had walked through on compara- tively dry land in a calm which he had earned by a century of suf- fering.
Then, as now, the situation of the burgh, Dorp as it began to be called, enforced its growth. Anything but progress became impos- sible. The eyes of the world were on the young nation born in the throes of seven years of one of the most wearisome, brave and patient struggles for self government in the history of the earth. The path- way of emigrant adventure and explorer thronged eastward and westward to a new land, over which hung the mirage of gold in its mountains, and wealth in its valleys and plains. The highway of a countless procession that was in the coming century to establish the grandest Republican empire of earth was under the Catskills and the Lowereuin of Rotterdam where now an unbroken line of railway belts the continent and in a flying house of unchanging luxury and splendor, transports the globe trotters by night and day, awake or asleep, from sea to sea.
The calm of a blessed peace settled over the peaceful town on the Groot Vlachte, the great beautiful plain that circled out under the hills and was girdled by the Mohawk. It was a lovely village of magnificent elins, of towering pine on the plain, and graceful willow by the river side. The Fort was permitted to rot away, the palisades
I20
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY
which had survived the usefulness of protection, now one by one subserved the comfort of the sturdy Dutchman who by the roaring fire on the immense hearth smoked his great pendant pipe and drank his schnapps, despising the luxury of the cigar and the effeminency of tea. £ Old streets lengthened out, new ones radiated, names changed. The aggressive Yankee interloper cane and came to stay and would not be shouldered out. The burgher watched the caval- cade for awhile. But he was a trader, from way back in trading Holland, shrewd, cautious, close but honest as the sunlight.
So it happened that as the century drew near to its close the ending of the 18th as of the 19th, was marked by the commingling of races and the infusion of new young blood that acted like an elixir to its prosperity. For despite the suffering imposed upon busi- ness by a worthless currency and the erection of a national edifice on lines which were new and experimental and which the genius of Hamilton, Gallatin and John Jay had not perfected into stable government, the town prospered and grew proportionally equal to any in the leading state of the young union.
It was a busy town and a heterogeneous one, in population and architecture. On the old quadrilateral bounded by Front, Ferry and State streets and Washington avenue, the old steep roofs and gabled ended houses so much derided in later days by Captain Maryatt, who lied more amusingly in his American visit than he did in his English novels, still stood, so massively built with their enormous beams that but for the terrible conflagration of 1819, inany would have been standing to-day. The Dorpian loved his home, endured its ugliness for it was stuccoed with the beauty of youthful memories and family tradition. He met with true Dutch stolidity the sneer of the cosmo- politan bewigged and ruffled shirted swell from New York. Inside the homely shell there were polished floors, walls and heavily raf- tered rooms, radiant with cleanliness reflecting in every nook and corner, the living forms of his living and the shadowy outlines of his beloved dead. "Giving him the laugh" never fazed the Mohawker. He met it with the marble lieart and smoked placidly on his stoop in homely, but solid comfort.
Business was all centered in the west end. Great storage and for-
BOAT BUILDING. 121
warding warehouses of Yates, Mynderse, Phynn, Ellice, Jacob S. Glen & Co., Duncan, Stephen N. Bayard, Walten & Co., Luther & McMichael stretched from the Frog Alley Bridge, now crossed by the Street Railway Company to the present site of the Mohawk Bridge. Great docks, built on heavy piles, extended out in the stream and a river commerce of grand volume, building up splendid fortunes for its promoters, began to actually whiten the Mohawk with sails of tlie Durham boat. From near Governor's Lane to the poor pasture, given for the use of the peasantry by the generous provisions of the will of Hans Jans Enkluys, was the Strand. Here was founded in the last part of the century an immense boat-building industry.
Nearly all the boats used on the Mohawk and western waters, were built at this place. The boat yards were located on what is termed the Strand street on the river, then much wider than now, owing to encroachinents and other causes. 'It was no 1111c0111111011 sight in the War of 1812, to see from twenty-five to 100 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 Wilkin- son down the St. Lawrence river were all built at this place ; the oak forests of our common lands furnished the requisite materials in great supply. The principal boat-builders were the Van Slycks, Marselis', Veeders and Peeks, although there were others. The boat-builders were generally residents of Front and Green streets.
Encroachinents, the building of the Mohawk Bridge, the disap- pearance of the waters from the face of the earth as in the survival of Noah, and the destruction of forest timber in the Adirondacks, has shrunken the Mohawk tremendously in the century and a quar- ter since the Revolution. It was then a deep, broad stream, broken by rifts but far scarcer and much deeper than now.
It is astonishing as we look at the Mohawk now, to learn what it once was. The story of its ancient commercial glory is well told by Judge Sanders in his quaint style illumined occasionally by old- fashioned rhetoric. He thus described the commerce of the Mohawk :
" Up to about the year 1740, the early settlers used the largest sized Indian bark canoe, the graceful craft, which had glided on the
.
I22
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
bosom of the Mohawk, probably for centuries before. But about, or soon after that time, the later Indian traders, William, afterwards Sir William Johnson, John Duncan, John Robinson, William Cor- lett, Charles Martin, James Ellice, Daniel Campbell and others, tak- ing a wide step in advance of the time-honored canoe, introduced the small bateau, a wooden vessel strongly manned by three men. Simms says, in his history of Schoharie County, containing interest- ing memoranda of the Mohawk valley, page 141: "These boats were forced over the rapids in the river with poles and ropes, the latter drawn by men on the shore. Such was the mode of transport- ing merchandise and Indian commodities to and from the west, for a period of about fifty years, and until after the Revolution. There were carrying places along the route. Of course, the first was at Little Falls. A second place was near Fort Stanwix (Rome) from the boatable waters of the Mohawk to Wood Creek ; thence passing into Oneida Lake, the bateaus proceeded into the Oswego river, and thence to Oswego, on Lake Ontario, and to Niagara, or elsewhere on that lake, on the St. Lawrence, as they pleased to venture," and after being carried around the falls of Niagara to Chippewa, went uninterruptedly on to Detroit, their usual limit, and sometimes even to Mackinaw. But after the Revolutionary War, the tide of imini- gration set strongly westward, and that energetic population required increased facilities of transportation and communication with the great Hudson river, and their old homes in the east and elsewhere. What was to be done? Just emerged from a sanguinary and exhausting struggle, the State and the people were impoverished. The expense of the canal could not be thought of, and dreams of railroads, steamboats and electricity put to service, were only the far off fancies of visionary men, born prematurely.
" But something must be done. General Philip Schuyler, that · far-seeing statesman of Revolutionary fame, who as major-general had rendered his country invaluable services in her most trying periods, who had been a United States senator and was then surveyor-general of the State of New York, succeeded in forming a corporate body known as the " Inland Lock Navigation Company," of which body many citizens of Schenectady and vicinity were members. With
123
LABORIOUS BOATING.
such capital, General Schuyler, under his immediate supervision and direction, constructed a damn and sluice, or short canal, at Wood Creek, uniting it with the navigable waters of the Mohawk; and also built a short canal and several locks at Little Falls ; in both cases obviating portage, or the necessity of unloading the vessels. Those works were completed in 1795, and from that date, or soon thereafter, those enterprising forwarders, Jonathan Walton, Jacob S. Glen, Eri Lusher, Stephen N. Bayard and others, erected addi- tional wharves, docks and large storehouses on the main Bennekill, and the commerce of Schenectady, with the increased facilities of navigating the Mohawk, was largely extended until the great fire of 1819. The Durham boat, constructed something in shape like a inodern canal boat, with flat bottom, and carrying from eight to twenty tons, took the place of the clumsy little bateau which had for more than fifty years superseded the Indian bark canoe. Tliese Durhamn boats were not decked except at the front and stern; but along the sides were heavy planks partially covering the vessel, with cleats nailed on them, to give foothold to the boatmen using poles. Many of the boats fitted for use on the lakes and St. Lawrence had a inast, with one large sail, like an Albany sloop. The usual crew was from six to eight men. At that day boatmen at Schenectady were numerous, and generally were a rough and hardy class ; but from common labors, exposures and hardships, a sort of brotherly affection for each other existed among them which did not brook the interference of outsiders, and yet as a class, they were orderly, law- abiding citizens.
" Boating at this period was attended with great personal labor. True, the delay of unloading and carriage at the Little Falls had been overcome, but it was found more difficult to force large than small craft over the rapids. In view of that difficulty, several boats usually started from port in company, and those boats first arriving at a rift, at a low water stage, awaited the approach of others that their united strength might lighten the labor there. At high water with favorable wind, they could sail the navigable length of tlie river ; but when sails were insufficient, long poles were used. These poles had heads of considerable size that rested against the shoulder
I24
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
of the boatmian, while pushing onward ; and as has often been seen the shoulders of the boatinen became calloused by such labor, like that of a severe collar-worn horse. The toil of a boatınan's life, when actually at work, was generally severe and trying, so that, in port, like the sailor, they were sometimes festive and hilarious.
" It is a matter of curious history in the travel of the Mohawk Valley, that about the year 1815, Eri Lusher established a daily line of packet boats which were constructed after the model of the Dur- hamn boat, with cabin in midship, carefully cushioned, ornamented and curtained, expressly calcutated for and used to carry from twenty to thirty passengers at a time, between Schenectady and Utica, making the passage between the two places down the river in about thirteen hours, and up the river, with favorable wind and high water, within two days."
Line boats, so-called, built entirely for passenger traffic, right after the building of the canal, carried passengers through its whole length, changing at Utica, Syracuse, Rochester to Buffalo. Emi- grants poured along the great waterway by thousands and crowded the holds and the decks of a species of conveyance that before the full development of railway traffic, were as filthy as they were re- munerative. All this disappeared on the development of the rail- road and in 1850 there was not a vestige of passenger traffic upon the canal.
Grand old officers of the Revolution and men with names already distinguished in the annals of their country, came here in the late afternoon and the still evening of the peacefully closing century. Straight from Paunce's tavern, with their hands yet warm from the farewell grasp of the great Washington, came General William North, bringing with him as his guest, Baron Steuben, on whose staff North was chief. The grand old house that he built in Duanes- burgh still stands in decaying beauty. Yet there are those still living who remember the charmning manor where survivors of the Revolu- tion drank and smoked and one of them resonantly swore. For the old baron surpassed in profanity any general of the famous army that "swore terribly in Flanders " and startled more than once the grave and stately commander-in-chief whose fame was resounding
125
A RENOWNED OFFICER.
through the world. Steuben could and did discipline an army that triumphed over the finest soldiers of Europe. He controlled other men with grand ability, and yet he could not control himself, and when he was mad, and that was not seldom, they say his oaths could be heard on the sacred threshold of the Duane. church, two miles away. The grand old house is, after all, the most historic of all, except the Glen house on Washington avenue, and the old mansion in Scotia. General North was a renowned officer, an intimate friend of Washington, under whom, in 1798, he was the adjutant-general of the United States army. Through the magnificent Rose Lane, half a mile long, banked on either side with every variety of sliade, color and beauty of that gorgeous flower, came as his guests the conquerors of England and the founders of a mighty nation.
The story of the Norths and Duanes is the history of the Duanes- burgh of old. The life of North is fully told by the exquisite epi- taph taken from his tomb in the church yard of the village :
" In memory of William North, a patriot of the Revolution. He entered the army of his country
in his nineteenth year, and was among the first of that generous band who in youth stepped forth in defence of her liberties and devoted their manhood to her service.
As an officer he served throughout the war in various grades, till at the peace which confirmed his country's National existence.
He retired to private life, whence he was called by the voice of his fellow citizen whom he served in various civil capacities. He was Aide-de-camp to the Baron De Steuben Adjutant and inspector general of the ariny commanded by Washington in the year 1798 one of the first canal commissioners Speaker of the House of Assembly and Senator in Congress of this his adopted State
I26
SCHENECTADY COUNTY : ITS HISTORY.
A pure patriot, a brave soldier, an exemplary citizen. Born in Maine in 1755, Died in the city of New York, Jan. 3d, 1836."
Thither through the same Rose Lane came in his old days, laden with honors, the distinguished Judge James Duane, the builder and generous endower of the little church in Duanesburgh, the most independent little pastorage in America. The bounty of Duane has protected church and rectory from the blight of religious mendi- cancy. It is to be regretted that space will not perinit the grand eulogy of Judge Sanders upon the life and character of this one of Schenectady's most eminent citizens. The exquisite epitaph upon his tomb must suffice for his biography.
" To the honor of CHRIST and to the welfare of the people of Duanesburgh, this church was erected by the Honourable JAMES DUANE, Esquire, whose remains here rest until that day which shall give to the patriot, the man of Virtue, and the Christian the Plaudit of a GOD. Eminent at the Bar, enlightened and impartial as a Judge. To the knowledge of a Statesman, the manners of a gentleman were joined, and all the domestic Virtues, the Social affections were his. Planted in the Wilderness of his hand, people of Duanesburgh you were his children ; imitate his Virtue, Adore the Deity, love your country, love one another. To the Memory of her dear departed friend : his Widow Partner, has erected this Monument due to his worth, to her affection and her grief.
Born Feb. 6th, 1732.
Died Feb. Ist, 1797."
I27
WASHINGTON'S VISITS.
General North married the daughter of Judge Duane. No record of his children, if he had any, seems attainable. The naine has never appeared since its distinguished possessor died. None of the name of Duane lives among us, though but a few years ago it was borne by men loved by all of us who knew so many of them so well. The descendants of Judge Duane have attained high rank in the army, the last soldier of the race dying but a few years ago a General and Chief of Engineers in the U. S. Army. And hundreds of old timers remember well that charming coterie of brother gentlemen of the old school, the " Doctor," the "Baron," the "Colonel " and the " Major " and "Farmer " Mumford.
Washington visited Schenectady on three different occasions dur- ing the latter part of the century. Of one of these visits there is record proof, of the others sufficient evidence to establish authen- ticity. Judge Sanders supplies the proof and his account is quoted in full.
" As connected with the history of Schenectady's Revolutionary incidents and as the question has frequently been asked, 'When and how often has General Washington visited this place ?' I deein it not inappropriate to state here the information I have on the subject, thus : I answer, three times, as derived from my father and other citi- zens."
" The first occasion was a hurried visit, soon after the commence. ment of the Revolutionary War, to make arrangements for frontier defense. He then dined and lodged at the residence of John Glen (the Swartfigure house on Washington avenue), who was then quar- termaster of the department, and his brother, Henry Glen, deputy, stationed at Schenectady. He also took tea at the residence of my grandfather, John Sanders."
" The second occasion was while at Albany in 1782. General Washington was invited by the citizens of Schenectady to visit the place, which invitation he accepted ; and in company with General Philip Schuyler rode there in a carriage from Albany, on the 30thi of June. He was received with great honor by the civil and military authorities, and a public dinner was given him at the hotel of Robert Clinch, situated on the south corner of State and Water streets
I28
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
(destroyed in the great fire of 1819, and one of the houses spared in the destruction of 1690). Robert Clinch came to America as a drum- major under General Braddock, and was well known by General Washington, a fact which added much to the interest of the occasion."
" At the dinner table were assembled the principal citizens of the place ; and as guests, Generals Washington and Schuyler, Colonels Abraham Wemple and Frederick Vischer ; the last, one of the sur- viving heroes of the sanguinary battle of Oriskany. As a mark of honor, Washington assigned the seat on the right, next his own, to the gallant Vischer."
" An address was made to Washington, and before he returned to Albany he wrote the following reply :
' TO THE MAGISTRATES AND MILITARY OFFICERS OF THE TOWN- SHIP OF SCHENECTADY :
Gentlemen-I request you to accept my warmest thanks for your affectionate address. In a cause so just and righteous as ours, we have every reason to hope the Divine Providence will still continue to crown our arms with success, and finally compel our enemies to grant us that peace, upon equitable terms, which we so ardently desire.
' May you, and the good people of this town, in the meantime be protected from every insidious and open foe ; and may the complete blessings of peace soon reward your arduous struggle for the estab- lishment of the freedom and independence of our common country.
GEORGE WASHINGTON. Schenectady, June 30th, 1782.' "
" To correct the mis impressions of some as to the hotel, I remark that Thomas B., the son of Robert Clinch, subsequently kept a public house in the old Arent Bradt building, No. 7 State street, sub- sequently at Clinch's hotel (afterwards called the Sharratt House, now supplanted by the Myers Block ), and died 2211d of May, 1830."
" The third occasion was during Washington's tour through the country in 1786, as far west as Fort Stanwix, in company with Gov- ernor George Clinton, General Hand and many other officers of the New York line. In passing through Schenectady, he again quar-
129
THE RISING CITY.
tered at the hotel of his old army acquaintance, Robert Clinch. Yet the precise date I cannot fix."
But Judge Sanders failed to learn or note that the Great Soldier on his third visit, which was in the early summer, rode out on horse- back one fine morning to visit the officer. whom he was to make his chief of staff and to greet the sturdy German who had mobilized his army.
So Rose Lane gained an added glory, as the First President of the Union in the majestic beauty of his old age rode through the flowers. The soldier mansion so different from Valley Forge received a new baptism of renown as the greatest man of the century greeted his comrades of the sterner days.
There is only a shell there now, little left but the glorious air of the hill side; the smiling valley, and the little church nestling on the slope beyond are still there.
" You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses hangs 'round it still."
Standing on the porch where the great of Schenectady and the earth have stood a hundred years before, the aroma of memory needs not the scent of the Rose Lane to recall the splendor of the scene, and the story of the old house, beautiful in its ruin, grand in its decay.
In the city as it was in 1798, business was booming but its centre was along Washington avenue from the Freeman House to Front street and then east to where Front street dwindled to a cow patlı. Stores of greater pretensions, the little shops with diamond paned windows set with lead lined the streets. This was no mere way station on canal and railroad as it became in the first half of the coming century, but the head of water navigation, the most impor- tant post on the main highway to the far west as Ohio then was. The young city boomed in the evening of the eighteenth century as it has in the latter quarter of the nineteenth. It was a far more flour- ishing borough in 1770 than it was in 1870.
" Travel was difficult but brisk. The old stage route from Albany
130
SCHENECTADY COUNTY: ITS HISTORY.
to this city was changed from the twenty mile distance, via the Norman Kil to the direct sixteen mile journey of to-day."
Judge Sanders says : " In the spring of 1793, Moses Beal, who kept a first-class hotel in a large brick building (since then burned down) on the site of the present Edison hotel building, ran a stage for the accommodation of passengers from Albany to Schenectady, Johns- town and Canajoharie, once a week. The fare was three cents a inile. The success of this enterprise was so great, that John Hud- son, keeping the Schenectady Coffee House, on the southwest corner of Union and Ferry streets, now the property of Madison Vedder, Esq., soon afterwards established a line of stages to run from Albany to Schenectady three times a week. John Rogers of Ballston, ran a line from that place to connect with it, by which a regular commun- ication was first established for the convenience of those who visited the Springs.
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