USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time > Part 20
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The proposed expedition against Canada being favored by Leisler, a council of war was held in New York, on the first of May, 1690 In July about five hundred sol- diers and a number of Indians were concentrated at Albany. Fitzjohn Winthrop of Connecticut, having re- ceived from the governor of that colony a commission "to command the forces designed against Canada," reached Albany with some soldiers from Connecticut in the latter part of the month. Robert Livingston came from Hartford with these troops, and gave his house to the Connecticut officer for his headquarters. Shortly after his arrival, the latter was commissioned by Leisler as major-general of the army of invasion. About the be- ginning of August, Major-general Winthrop marched his forces to Wood Creek, at the south end of Lake Cham- plain. Unprovided with canoes and provisions, the little army was compelled to return and went into camp at Greenbush, on the twenty-first of August. Other than a foray conducted by Captain John Schuyler, nothing of importance was accomplished by the expedition of 1690. Leisler became so exasperated by the sudden, incon- sequential termination of it, that he hastened to Albany and imprisoned General Winthrop and a number of other
1 Doc, colonial hist. N. Y., vol iii. pp. 708-710.
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officers. This arbitrary act at once caused a great tumult. The vindictive usurper unable to quell the menacing sol- diers and Indians quickly released the officers. The in- censed government of Connecticut severely censured the pretentious demagogue for this unlawful exercise of power, and told him "that a prison is not a catholicon for all state maladies."
On the tenth of October, Leisler appointed Jochim Staets, Johannes Wendell, Jan Janse Bleecker, Pieter Bogardus, and Ryer Jacobse Schermerhorn to superin- tend, direct, and control the affairs of the government of the city and county of Albany.
The disturbed condition of the province under the government of Leisler and his associates, and the constant apprehension of a descent upon the city by the French continued to disquiet the people of Albany during the winter of 1690 and 1691.
The arrival of Governor Henry Sloughter in New York, on the nineteenth of March, 1691, and the im- prisonment of Jacob Leisler on the next day, ended the period of revolt in the province. On the ninth of April, the Assembly convened in the city of New York. Dirck Wessels and Levinus van Schaick were representatives from Albany county, and Kiliaen van Rensselaer from Rensselaerswyck. Several important acts relating to Albany were passed. One directed that a court of ses- sions should be held for the city and county of Albany, in the city-hall, on the first Tuesdays in June, October, and February of each year, for "the increase of virtue and discouraging of evil doers;" the sessions of which court were to "continue for the space and time of two dayes and no longer." A court of common pleas was also ordered to be held in the city-hall ; beginning the next day after the termination of the court of sessions
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and continuing two days, one judge and three justices occupying the bench, "to hear, try, and determine all things triable at the common law."
An act was also passed for the defence of the frontiers of the province in the county of Albany. The governor was empowered to raise " one company to consist of one hundred fuzileers, with their proper officers, which shall remain in the said county, for the defence thereof one whole year, to commence on the twenty-eighth day of March now last past." Of the sum of £2000 to be raised by the province to pay the expenses of this body of sol- diers, the city and county of Albany were to be assessed £180.
When Governor Sloughter, in the latter part of May, visited Albany and Schenectady, he held a number of conferences with the sachems of the five nations assem- bled in the city-hall in Albany. One of the Indian orators referred to the past troubles in the province, and said : " We have a tree of peace and tranquility in this place, which tree has shook and moved much of late. We make that tree firm and strong so that in the future it may not waver but be immovable." The governor writing, in New York, on the eleventh of July, 1691, to the governors of the neighboring provinces, speaks of his visit, saying : "I re- turned to this place from Albany on the 27th past, where I left all things in a very good posture and with much dif- ficulty have secured our Indians. I found that place in great disorder, our plantations and Schenectady almost ruined and destroyed by the enemys dureing the time of the late confusion here. I have garrisoned Schenectady and the Halfe Moon with some of the hundred fusileers raised by our Assembly for the defence of the frontier at Albany; the remainder with one of the King's companys are posted at Albany.
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"By the Indians propositions herewith sent you, you will perceive their sentiments and what apprehensions they have concerning your government and the rest of the adjacent colonys, and how farr they think you [are] obliged (being in the same chaine of Covenant with them) to aid and assist us against the French our com- mon enemy. * I need not relate unto you of how great import the preservacon of this place [Albany] is, being the only bulwark and safeguard of all Their Majes- tys plantacons on the main [coast] of America, and if, for want of strength, the French should assault and gain Albany, how farr your Government and all the English Colonys on both sides of us would be endangered, you can easily judge. For we have nothing but that place that keeps our Indians steady to us, and the loss of that must be the loss of all the Kings interest on this Continent." 1
Meanwhile Major Pieter Schuyler, the mayor of the city, had marched from Albany on the twenty-first of June, with a small body of soldiers and Indians, and on the first of August, fell.upon the French settlement of La Prairie de la Madeleine, near Montreal, and killed about two hundred of the enemy's people and Indians, losing only twenty-one men and twenty-two Mohawks and River Indians.
After the sudden death of Governor Sloughter on the twenty-third of July, Major Richard Ingoldsby ad- ministered the government of the province until the arrival of Governor Benjamin Fletcher, in New York, on the twenty-ninth of August, 1692.
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iii. pp. 784, 785.
CHAPTER XII.
INDIAN AFFAIRS.
1693-1700.
The persistence of the French in their attempts to obtain possession of the province of New York kept the people of Albany in a state of constant disquietude. The vigilance of the tribes of the five nations of Indians to preserve themselves from subjection by the French greatly affected the fur trade on which the welfare of inhabitants of the city mainly depended. The exigencies of this period of war drew to the city for its defence various bodies of soldiers, who were either billeted in the dwellings of the people, quartered in Fort Orange, or camped on Martin Gerretson's Island. Houses were built outside the palisades to lodge the Indians, who took part in the protection of the city and made frequent recon- noiters along the frontier to discover the movements of the enemy. Details of soldiers were stationed at Sche- nectady, at Niskayuna, and at Half Moon, (Waterford,) to guard the fording places in the Mohawk River.
The French, in January, 1693, invaded the province of New York to attack the palisaded villages of the Mo- hawks whose frequent forays along the borders of Cana- da had checked the settlement of that country and had prevented Louis IV. from obtaining the possession of the territory lying between Montreal and the Ohio River,
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About three hundred and fifty soldiers and two hundred Indians, provided with rackets to prevent their feet from sinking into the snow and light sledges drawn by dogs to transport provisions, reached the first Mohawk village, near Schenectady, on the eighth of February. The absence of the resident warriors permitted the French to destroy it. The undefended second village was also burnt. In the third, which was called Tionondage, were forty warriors, who, when the French entered it un- perceived, resisted their assailants and killed thirty of the enemy. Its brave defenders, however, were slain, and the French force with three hundred prisoners, men, women, and children, retreated towards Canada, pur- sued by Major Pieter Schuyler, who had the command of about three hundred soldiers and militiamen and about the same number of Indians. The companies of fusileers, militia, foot and horse, were respectively commanded by Captains Peter Mathews, Arent Schuyler, Benjamin Phipps, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, Thomas Garton, and Lieutenant John Schuyler. The pursuit of the French was continued for several days, during which time, between thirty and forty of the enemy's men were killed and about forty prisoners rescued.
When Major Schuyler returned to Schenectady, he found Governor Fletcher there with a reinforcement of nearly three hundred men brought from New York, from which he had sailed with three sloops late in the afternoon of the fourteenth of February, and arrived at Albany, about nine o'clock, on the morning of the seven- teenth. The promptitude with which the governor had hastened to aid the Indians obtained from them their hearty thanks, and they thereafter called him Cajen- quiragoe, Lord of the Great Swift Arrow.
While Governor Fletcher was in Albany, the muni-
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cipal officers presented him with an address, in which they adverted to his diligence in hastening with troops to the defence of the frontier and the city: "Wee therefore out of a deep sence of yor Excell. unparelled affection to & care for us, cannot but esteem our selves highly oblidged to yor Excellency and begg of you to accept our unfeigned thanks, assuring yor Excell. as wee shall never forgett yor extraordinary care of us, soe wee shall ever admire and beg the continuence of yor Excellencys benign gov- ernment over us. And since the Maquase nation is wholly dispersed by the enemyes late burning all their Castles & our farmers live straggling up and down the country in great danger to be cutt off by sculking Indians, wee pray that yor Excellency in yor wisdom will be pleased to order some convenient place where the remnant of the said Nation may be convened together & fortified against any attaque of the enemy, & that the farmers may be ordered to fortify themselves in Comps together that the enemy may not have an advantage of them." 1
By Governor Fletcher's appointment, Pieter Schuyler became a member of the provincial council, Robert Livingston was made a sub-collector of customs at Al- bany, and William Shaw, gauger. As municipal officers, Pieter Schuyler was appointed mayor, Dirck Wessells recorder, Robert Livingston town-clerk, and John Apell sheriff. Major Richard Ingoldsby, commanding Fort Or- ange, was made president and Robert Livingston judge- advocate of the court-martial, who with the captains of the companies in the city, had power to exercise martial law. The militia of the county of Albany, embracing five companies of foot soldiers and one company of dragoons, the whole numbering three hundred and fifty-nine men, was under the command of Major Pieter Schuyler.
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 14-20.
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In June, 1693, Governor Fletcher, learning that the French were endeavoring to make a treaty of peace with the Indians of the five nations, visited Albany, and held conferences with the savages. In one of his speeches he said: " I have received information as if some of the breth- ren were wavering and inclined to a peace with the com- mon enemy. I desire to know the truth of the matter and am assured that such thoughts must only arise from the instigation of the Jesuit Milet whom some of the breth- ren have so long suffered to live among them, and whose practice is to delude and betray them. Let me therefore advise you to remove this bad person from among you." He then gave them the following presents, which he told them were brought from the king and queen "to renew and confirm the ancient covenant not only in behalf of this province but those of New England, Virginia, Mary- land and Pennsylvania," and which were also an ex- pression of their majesties' esteem : 86 guns, 146 bags of powder, 800 bars of lead, 1000 flints, 87 hatchets, 4 gross of knives, 5 pieces of duffel-cloth, 126 shirts, 30 rolls of tobacco, 52 gross of pipes, 9 dozen pairs of stock- ings, 30 kegs of rum, 200 loaves of bread, 4 casks of beer, 2 fat bulls, besides salt, and 24 brass-kettles. To certain chiefs or sachems he gave 8 laced coats, 8 laced hats, 24 shirts, 4 guns, 6 kegs of rum and 1 dozen pairs of stock- ings.
One of the Indian orators, who was delegated to ex- press the thanks of the recipients of these gifts, said : " We are extremely glad, and roll and tumble in joy that our great king and queen have been pleased to en- large their favors to us in our great necessities." 1
In September, 1693, an allotment was made for the delivery of five hundred and sixty new palisades at Fort
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 25, 26, 28, 29 ; 38-47.
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Orange by the inhabitants of the county of Albany. The sum of fifteen pounds had been authorized by the gov- ernment to be expended for new palisades, so that the persons delivering them at the fort received 64 pence for each palisade. Some were to be twenty feet long and some nineteen, and all twelve inches thick at the smallest end, "of good smooth-barked pyne, not of your black. barked pyne," and were to "be sett up against the old stockadoes in a month's time." The people of the city of Albany were to ride or bring 200, the inhabitants of Rensselaerswyck 100, those of Schenectady 90, those of Kinderhook 85, those of Catskill and "Coxhacky " 35, and those of Claverack 30. The duty of opening and shutting the gates of the city devolved upon the city porter and town cryer.
Pieter Schuyler, who had been mayor of the city for more than eight years, was succeeded by John Abeel, who was appointed to the office by Governor Fletcher, on the fourth of October, 1694.
The Rev. John Miller, describing Albany in 1695, says : "It is in circumference about six furlongs, and hath therein about 200 houses, a fourth part of what there is reckoned to be in New York. The form of it is septan- gular, and the longest line [is] that which buts upon the river running from north to south. On the west angle is the fort, quadrangular, strongly stockadoed and ditched round, having in it twenty-one pieces of ordnance mounted. On the northwest side are two block-houses, and on the southwest as many : on the southeast angle stands one block-house ; in the middle of the line from thence northward is a horned work, and on the northeast angle a mount. The whole city is well stockadoed round, and in the several fortifications named are about thirty guns. Dependent on this city, and about twenty miles
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inhabitants of the county, burned their dwellings and barns, and killed their cattle. On the third of May, 1697, Governor Fletcher ordered that a report should be ren- dered him of the number of persons who had left the city and county during the war and of the number killed and taken prisoners ; and also a similar report respecting the Indians of the five nations. On the nineteenth of April 1698, a return was made which disclosed that in 1689 the inhabitants of the county were 662 men, 340 women, and 1014 children ; and in 1698, they were 382 men, 262 women, and 805 children. There were also 23 negroes in the county in 1698. The number of the Indians in 1689 was : Mohawks 270, Oneidas 180, Onondagas 500, Cayougas 300, Senecas 1300, and River Indians 250, making a total at the beginning of the war of 2800. In 1698 there were 110 Mohawks, 70 Oneidas, 250 Onondagas, 200 Cayougas, 600 Senecas, and 90 River Indians, in all 1320. The report further showed that 142 men, 68 women and 209 children had left the city and county during the period of hostilities, that 16 men had been taken prisoners, 84 had been killed and 38 had died. 1
On the second of April, 1698, Richard Coote, the earl of Bellomont, the new governor of the province, arrived in New York. In July, he visited Albany, and had several conferences with the sachems of the five nations. Writ- ing to the commissioners of the Council of Trade, in September, the governor thus speaks of some of the incidents of his visit : "My journey to Albany in July last was very unfortunate to me in respect to my health, for having appointed the Five Nations of Indians to meet there at a day certain, I resolved to keep touch with them as near as I could, tho' to the hazard of my life, and I imbarked * * * in the midst of a fit of the gout, by
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 337, 338.
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which *
* and a cold taken upon Hudson's River ; I had like to have dyed when I came to Albany. How- ever, in the weak condition I was, I made a shift to manage a conference with the Indians.
"I must confess I was strangely surprised and dis- couraged at the behaviour of those people the first two or three days conference ; for I found them so sullen and cold in their carriage that I thought we had quite lost their affections, but some of the Sachims coming to some of the honest Magistrates of that town, discovered to them they had been tamper'd with by Mr. Dellius, the Dutch Minister, to whom with three others, vizt : Colonel Peter Schuyler, Major Dyrk Wessells, mayor of that Town, and one Banker1, Colonel Fletcher had committed the whole management of all the Indian affairs ; so that Dellius, to serve the interest and designe of Colonel Fletcher in creating me all the difficulty and disturbance in that part of my administrations, had possessed the Indians (as these Sachims confessed) that their power, vizt : that of Dellius and the other three before mentioned persons, was equall to mine, and did insinuate, as if it did more peculiarly belong to them, to take congnizance of the Indians and their affairs, and to treat with and succor them at all times then it did me. Besides, Dellius did inculcate that by no means they must impeach Colonel Fletcher of any neglect of them or our frontiers during the late warr. -
"These practices of Dellius were the true reasons I afterward discovered of the cold behaviour and dogged- ness of the Indians to me, but they being a people who have naturally a great quickness of understanding, in- formed themselves of severall of the most substantial and honest people of that town that I was the King's
1 Evert Banker.
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Governour and that Dellius had deluded and abused them; they found out their error, and became more free in declaring their grievances to me. *
"I shall observe this to your Lordships that tho' the beginning of my treaty with our Indians was very melan- choly to me and all those that were present and wished well to the King's government, there having been all the marks that can be imagined of discontent and disaffection in the countenances and carriages of those people ; yet to my unspeakable satisfaction I managed them with that patience and gentleness and made them so good a present, that I quite retrieved their affections to the King's govern- ment, and by the acknowledgement of all the Magistrates and traders at Albany, they were never known to part with any Governor in so good humour as they did with me. It does happen to be a little more expensive to the country this journey of mine, then usuall, it amounting to about twelve hundred pounds of this country money; but then it must be considered that all those commodities which are useful and acceptable to the Indians happened to be dearer at the time of my going up to Albany 50 per cent then they were ever known to be during the whole course of the last warr.
"Dellius, the Dutch Minister, was the more industri- ous to amuse the Indians and make them reserved to me, that they might not complain of the notorious fraud and circumvention put upon the Mohack Indians by himself chiefly, and the other three before mentioned persons, in obtaining a grant from Colonel Fletcher of their whole country. The villany of this Dellius will appear to your Lordships upon the perusall of that part of the conference which is in manuscript and which relates wholly to that fraudulent bargain transacted between Dellius and six or eight Mohack Indians, wherein tho' he makes the Indians
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believe the land was only to be conveyed to them by himself and the other three persons in trust for the use of them and their posterity, and to hinder the said land being disposed of to other hands, that would probably dispossesse them thereof ; yet he with the other three persons together with Mr Pinhorne 1 (whom I lately re- moved from the Council and his Judges place) obtained an absolute grant of all the said Mohacks land from Colonel Fletcher.
"The next thing observable in the said Addresse [of the magistrates of Albany] is their giveing me thanks for restoring the management of the Indians and their affairs, to all the Magistrates of that town, which I thought was the fair and honest way for the advantage both of the Indians & Inhabitants of Albany ; for I could by no means approve of the private management Colonel Fletcher had confined the Indians affairs and trade to, vizt : under the direction of Mr Dellius, the Minister, Colonel Peter Schuyler, Major Wessells and Mr Banker, wherein those four persons found their Account ; but that town and the whole Province suffered prejudice in the trade with the Indians." 2
The land granted to the Rev. Godefridus Dellius by the Indians, on the third of September, 1696, was about seventy miles in length and about twelve in breadth, and extended from the Batten kill, in Washington County, the north bounds of the Saratoga patent, to the site of Vergennes, Vermont. The land granted by the Indians to William Pinhorn, Pieter Schuyler, the Rev. Godefridus Dellius, Dirck Wessells and Evert Banker was about fifty miles long and two miles wide, and lay on each side of the Mohawk River, immediately west of the site of
1 William Pinhorn, a member of the provincial council and a justice of the Supreme Court.
2 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 362-367.
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Amsterdam, in Montgomery County. These patents were annulled by the Assembly, in May, 1699, as was recommended by the governor; and the Rev. Gode- fridus Dellius, by the act, was deprived of his " benefice at Albany." The pastorship of the Reformed church was then given to the Rev. Johannes Petrus Nucella, who was succeeded, on the twentieth of July, 1700, by the Rev. Johannes Lydius, who on the following day preached his introductory sermon.
The dictatorial power of royalty and the blind obedi- ence of subjects in the seventeenth century are con- spicuously exhibited in the following oath, test and association which were taken and signed by the mayor, Hendrick Hanse, the recorder, Jan Janse Bleecker, the aldermen, the Rev. Godefridus Dellius, and one hundred and sixty-six of the other citizens of Albany, on the fourth of January, 1699 :
"I, * * * , do hereby Promise and Swear yt I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his majesty, King William, so help me God.
"I, * * * , do swear that I do from my heart abhor, detest and abjure as Impious and Heretical, yt damnable Doctrine and Position, yt Princes Excom- municated or Deprived by ye Pope or any authority of ye See of Rome, may be deposed or murthered by their subjects or any other whatsoever.
" And I doe declare yt no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate, hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction, Power, Superiority, Preëminence or Au- thority, Ecclesiasticale or Spirituall within this Realm. So help me God."
THE TEST.
" We underwritten do solemnly and sincerely, in ye presence of God, profess and declare yt wee doe believe
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yt in ye Sacrament of ye Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of ye Elements of Bread and Wine into ye body and blood of Christ, or after ye Consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and yt ye Invocation or Adoration of ye Virgin Mary and ye Sacrifice of ye Mass, as they are now used in ye Church of Rome, are Superstitious and Idolatrous, and we do Solemnly in ye presence of God, Profess, Testify and Declare yt we do make this declaration and every part thereof in ye plain and ordinary Sense of ye words now read unto us as they are commonly understood by English Prodistants without any Evasion, Equivocation or Mental Reservation whatsoever, and without any Dispensation already granted for ye purpose by ye Pope or any other authority or person whatsoever, or without any hope of any such Dispensation from any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking yt we are or can be acquitted before God or Man, or absolved of this Declaration or any part thereof, although ye Pope or any other person or persons or power whatsoever should dispense with or annull ye same, or declare that it was null and void from ye begin- ning."
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