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 23
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"To prevent this, these houses are built, where they trade publickly and so are more equally dealt with."
In another letter, written on the twenty-first of No- vember, 1724, the governor observes "that by the near- est computation there were from the year 1716 to 1720 but 30 canoes of far Indians that came " to Schenectady on their way to Albany, "and from 1720 to 1724 there are come 323, which is above ten times the number." 2
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. v. pp. 684, 685.
2 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. v. pp. 701, 739.
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The following description of the situation of the vil- lages and lands of the Indians of the six nations in 1724 shows how advantageously Albany was located to con- trol the fur trade : "The Mohawks, ( called Annies by the French,) one of the Five Nations, live on the South Side of a Branch of Hudson's River, (not on the North Side as they are placed in the French Maps,) and but forty Miles directly West from Albany, and within the English settlements ; some of the English Farms upon the same River being thirty Miles further West. The Oneydas (the next of the Five Nations), lie likewise West from Albany, near the Head of the Mohawks River, about one hundred Miles from Albany. The Onondagas lie about one hundred and thirty Miles West from Albany ; and the Tuscaroras 1, live partly with the Oneydas and partly with the Onondagas. The Cayugas are about one hundred and sixty Miles from Albany ; and the Senecas (the furthest of all these Nations, are not above two hundred and forty Miles from Albany, as may appear from Mr. De L'Isle's Map of Louisania, 2 who lays down the Five Nations under the Name of Iroquois." 3
The population of Albany County, which in 1723 was six thousand five hundred and one, was in 1731 eight thousand seven hundred and three. During this period the number of slaves had increased from eight hundred and eight to twelve hundred and twenty-two.
In June 1731, by a resolution of the common council, the inhabitants of the first and second wards were per- mitted to erect a market-house in each of them.
On the sixth of November, 1731, the municipal authorities published an ordinance, which appears to be
1 The Tuscaroras had come in 1722 from the UpperPotomac in Virginia.
2 Map of Louisiana by M. de L'Isle. Paris, 1718.
3 History of N. Y. Smith. p. 157.
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the first step taken to organize a fire-department for the city. The following persons were designated as fire- masters : Isaac Fryer and Egbert Egbertse, in the first ward ; Matheys van der Heyden and Frans Pruyn, in the second ward ; Wilhelmus van den Berg and Matheys de Garmo, in the third ward. At a meeting of the com- mon council on the twenty-second of December, the pur- chase of a fire engine was discussed. It was then re- solved "that an Enguin or Water Spuyt be sent for to England per the first oppertunity in the Spring." On the twenty-ninth of February 1732, it was further de- termined that a letter should be written to Stephen D. Lancey, a merchant of New York, requesting him to procure a suction water-engine "of the fifth sort," made by Richard Newsham, and a sucking pipe six feet long, besides forty feet of leather hose with brass screws. On the delivery of the engine at New York, the board of aldermen promised to pay Stephen D. Lancey or his order the same sum that the corporation of the city of New York had "paid for their Engines, (that is to say) at the rate of 12 per cent. on the foot of the Invoice including the prime cost." When the engine was de- livered to the authorities and placed in a building in the central part of the city, they advertised that the key of the engine-house could be obtained from Henry Cuyler, who resided near by it. 1
"The quantity of one Thousand Acres of Low or Meadow Land, lyeing att a certeyn place called or known by the name of Tionondorogue," granted to the city in the charter of 1686, was in 1730 still in possession of the Indians. To make good the city's title to it, the common council, on the tenth of October, resolved that John de Peyster, mayor, Dirck Ten Broeck, re- 1 Albany records, 1731, 1732, 1734.
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corder, Ryer Gerritse, Jacob Lansing, and Cornelius Cuyler, aldermen, and John Vischer, jr., an assistant alderman, should go as a committee to the Mohawk country and have full power to act and agree with the Indian proprietors for the purchase of the said land. The committee performed this duty and obtained from the Indians, a deed, bearing the date of the twelfth of October, 1730, "for the flatts on both sides of Tinnon- doroges Creek or River." 1
It appears that the Indians did not understand at that time that the conveyance which they had been induced to sign deprived them forever of their proprietor- ship of the land. When they at last became aware of their misconception they sought a conference with Governor Cosby, in Albany, in September, 1733, to obtain "redress of a gross deceit and injury done them by the Corporation of Albany." The interview of the Mohawk sachems the governor describes in a letter written by him to the Lords of Trade, on the fifteenth of December, 1733. 2
"I gave them to understand that I was ready to hear, and to relieve them. They then said that they were the natural owners and proprietors of that part of the Mohock's Country where they lived,
* that * * the Mayor and some others of the corporation of Albany did about a year or two ago, insinuate to them that Govr Montgomerie had in his lifetime an intention to take their lands from them and that possibly some future Govr might pursue the same intentions, that there was but one way to secure their lands to them from such attempts, which was to make them over to the Corporation in trust for them, and that then the
1 Schoharie Creek, in Montgomery County.
2 William Cosby began his administration as governor of the provinces of New York and New Jersey, August 1, 1732.
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Corporation would withstand all such attempts, and preserve their lands to them so long as they thought fit to continue them their trustees, that being thus pos- sessed with the fear of loseing their lands they did con- sent to make them over to the Corporation in trust for such time only, as they should think fit, and accordingly executed a deed to that effect as they supposed and were told that the Corporation promised them a counterpart or copy of that deed but never gave it them ; that some time after the execution of that deed they were informed that it was not a deed of trust but an absolute conveyance of a thousand acres of low or meadow- ground at a place called Tiononderoga, being their best planting ground. Full of resentment at the fraud they resolved to apply themselves to me and earnestly de- sired that the Mayor might be ordered to bring the deed, and that it might be read and interpreted to them.
"I sent for the Mayor, desiring him to bring the deed, he did so, and it being read and interpreted to the Sachims, they cryed out with one voice that they were cheated and that the deed was imposed upon them for a deed of trust and vowed that as long as there should be one Mohock living, the people of Albany should never have a foot of that land, declaring that if they had no redress they would leave their Country, and go over to the French, and begged to have the deed delivered up to them.
"I inquired if the Corporation had paid or given the Mohocks any consideration in money or goods for it, * * but not finding that they [ the people of Al- bany] had given them any thing, the Mohocks persisting strenuously in their demand of having the deed delivered up to them, and the fraud being too evident, I gave the deed into the hands of the Sachims, who first with great
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rage tore it in pieces and then threw it into the fire, de- claring again that as long as one Mohock lived the peo- ple of Albany should never have a foot of that land, and then thanked me for the justice I did them." 1
The arbitrary act of Governor Cosby in giving to the Indians the document that he had promised should be safely returned to the person from whom he had ob- tained it made the people of the city very indignant toward the governor. The board of aldermen, acting under the advice of several attorneys-at-law, gave a deed to Peter Brower in November, 1734, for a tract of land, which was a part of that granted to the city by Gover- nor Dongan in 1686, lying on the south side of the Mo- hawk River, at Fort Hunter, and on both sides of Schoharie Creek, or Tinnondoroges Creek, as it was then called.
The work on the stone-fort, the foundation of which Lord Cornbury had laid in 1703, was resumed in 1735, and prosecuted with such enterprise that it was soon completed.
The congregation of the English church, unable to re- tain the Rev. Thomas Barclay after the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts withdrew its allowance for his support shortly after the erection of the chapel, was without a pastor until 1728, when the Rev. Mr. Miln took charge of it. In 1738, the Rev. Henry Barclay, the son of the Rev. Thomas Barclay, a native of Albany, and a graduate of Yale College, became his successor.
The Rev. Petrus van Driessen continued to serve the members of the Reformed Protestant church until his death about the first of February, 1738, when the Rev. Cornelis van Schie, who had been his colleague since 1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. v. pp. 960, 977.
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1733, succeeded him as pastor of its large congrega- tion.
The peculiar geographical position of the city of Al- bany gave it many advantages by which it could com- mand the Indian trade of the greater part of the country from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. Cadwal- lader Colden, the surveyor-general of the province, thus pertinently spoke of the different water-ways from it, in 1738: "From the Eastern Branch [of the Hudson River] there is only [a] land Carriage of Sixteen miles to the Wood Creek, or to Lake St. Sacrament, [Lake George,] both of which fall into Lake Champlain, from whence Goods are transported to Quebec. But the Chief advantages are from the western Branch of Hudson's River. At 50 miles from Albany, the Land Carriage from the Mohawks river to a lake from whence the Northern Branch of [the] Susquehana takes its rise, does not exceed 14 miles. Goods may be carried from this lake in Battoes [bateux] or flatt bottomed Vessels through Pennsylvania, to Maryland & Virginia, the cur- rent of the river running every where easy, without any cataract in all that large space. In going down this River two large branches of the same River are met, which come from the westward, & issue from the long ridge of mountains, which stretch along behind Penn- sylvania, Maryland, Virginia & Carolina, commonly called the Apalachy Mountains. By either of these Bran- ches Goods may be carried to the Mountain, & I am told that the passage through the Mountains to the Branches of the Misissippi, which issue from the West side of these Mountains, is neither long nor difficult ; by which means an Inland Navigation may be made to the Bay of Mexico.
"From the Head of the Mohawks River there is like-
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wise a short land Carriage of four miles only, to a Creek of the Oneida lake, which empties itself into Cadarackui [Ontario] Lake at Oswego; and the Cadarackui Lake, being truely an Inland Sea, of greater breadth than can be seen by the eye, communicates with Lake Erie, the Lake of the Hurons, Lake Michigan, and the Upper lake, [Lake Superior, ] all of them Inland Seas. By means of these Lakes, & the Rivers which fall into them, Commerce may be carried from New York, through a vast Tract of Land, more easily than from any other Maritime Town in North America." 1
The common council on the thirteenth of May, 1740, ordered an engine-house to be built. In 1743, Robert Lansingh, Bernardus Hartsen and Michael Basset, were appointed by the common council to take charge of the fire-engine in case of fire, and always to be ready upon any occasion that the engine might be wanted. They were each to make a key to open the lock of the shed in which the engine stood and to place the keys in some parts of their houses where the keys might be found when they were absent. For their services, they were each to receive annually six schepels of wheat.
In 1741, an act was passed by the assembly to enable the city and county of Albany to build a new court- house and gaol. In the three wards of the city in 1742 there were two hundred and four freeholders.
In 1743, the common council contracted with Anthony Bratt to remove the block-house, near the city-hall, to where the powder-house stood on the plain, on the south side of the city. He was " to put it up there, to find all the materials necessary, to mason the stone of the foundation above the ground with lime, to put a new roof of squared white pine boards " on the building, 1 Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. iv. p. 112.
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5
"to mason the pipe of the chimney above the house with lime and to make it of hard bricks, and to make draws before the port-holes below, and to finish it all compleat," for thirteen pounds four shillings. 1
The news of the declaration of war between England and France was received, in June, 1744, by the people of Albany with no little apprehension that the frontier would again become the scene of many ruthless acts of savage warfare. Governor George Clinton, in his con- ference with the sachems of the six nations, on the eighteenth of June, recommended them to be wary of the treacherous French, and reminded them of the evils that had befallen them when their enemy burnt their castles and carried their people into captivity.
Writing to the Lords of Trade in November 1745, the governor adverts to a project he had laid before the provincial assembly : "I have been endeavoring to set on foot a scheme and to engage the Province therein for the reduction of a Fort at Crown point possessed by the French in the Indian Country, which is a very great an- noyance to our Frontiers, and had in pursuance thereof sent up to Albany six pieces of Cannon of 18 pounders with carriages, and a proportion of powder, Ball, Match and other Implements. It is well they are gone, for to my great concern (and what I have represented to the Assembly would be our Fate), I received an Account the 19th inst., by express from Albany, that a party of French and their Indians had cut off a settlement in this province called Saratoge, about fifty miles from Albany, and that about twenty houses with a Fort, (which the publick would not repair) were burned to ashes, thirty persons killed and scalped, and about sixty taken prisoners. * *
1 Albany records, 1740, 1741, 1742, 1743.
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"In the mean time I have done everything in my power for His Majesty's [George II.] service, and have detached two of His Majty's Company's of Fuzileers to Albany, and given orders to march detachments of the Militia as a further security to that City. I have also given orders to the Six Nations of Indians to take up the hatchet against the Enemy immediately."
The terrifying deeds of the enemy filled Albany with refugees. The people living in the vicinity of the burned settlement at old Saratoga (now Schuylerville) left their homes and passed the winter in the city. To lodge the soldiers quartered in the city for its defence the three market-houses were converted into barracks, each hav- ing "double chimneys in the middle."
Governor Clinton, to retain the Indians of the six nations in the service of Great Britain, held several con- ferences with their sachems in August and September 1746. At this time, Colonel William Johnson held the office of Indian agent. William Dunlap, in his history of New York, describing the arrival of the Indians at Albany, says :
" When the Indians came near the town of Albany, on the 8th of August, Mr. Johnson put himself at the head of the Mohawks, dressed and painted as an Indian war-captain. The Indians followed him painted for war. As they passed the fort, they saluted by a run- ning fire, which the governor answered by cannon. The chiefs were afterwards received in the fort-hall, and treated to wine. A good deal of private manœuvering with the individual sachems was found necessary to make them declare for war with France before a public council was held. After the governor's speech was ar- ranged, he fell ill ; and to prevent delay, Mr. Colden was appointed to speak.
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"The Iroquois took to the 23d of the month for de- liberation, and then answered,-the governor being present. They agreed to join in the war generally against the French ; and add, that they take in the Messesagues 1 as a seventh nation .- These, I call the Mackinaws, from their situation. *
* The Indians being sick 2 and expensive, Clinton dismissed them, ordering Johnson to send out parties from Schenectady, and from his own settlement, near the lower Mohawk castle, to harrass the French of Canada."
"On the fifth of September, a party of sixty Sus- quehanna Indians came to Albany, and had a conference with Governor Clinton. A sergeant of one of the mili- tary companies having been killed near the city by a member of an Indian scouting party from Canada, the Susquehanna Indians and a number of soldiers were sent out to discover the force of the enemy. The latter were not overtaken and the reconnoitering party re- turned to the city. So many of the Indians were at- tacked with the prevailing malignant disease and so many of them died, that those who were well could not be induced to engage actively in an attack upon the settlements along the border of Canada. It is related that when the Mohawks were solicited by Colonel
1 "There is a nation called the Messissagas whose delegates are here present. They consist of five castles containing eight hundred men who are all determined and do agree to join us in this common cause against our enemies the French and their Indians." Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. vi. p. 323.
2 The epidemic which spread among the people of Albany, the soldiers, and the Indians was thought by some to be yellow fever. It is said that " the bodies of some of the patients were yellow-the crisis of the disease was the ninth day ; if the patient survived that day he had a good chance of recovery. The disease left many in a state of imbecility of mind, approach- ing to childishness or idiocy ; others were afterwards troubled with swelled legs. The disease began in August and ended with frost, carried off forty- five inhabitants, mostly men of robust bodies." Albany annals. Munsell. vol. iii. p. 204.
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Johnson to go with him on a scouting expedition, one of them said : "You seem to think that we are brutes, that we have no sense of the loss of our dearest relations, and some of them the bravest we had in our nation. You must allow us to go home to bewail our misfor- tunes." 1
In September, five companies of soldiers were sent to Albany by the governor for its defence during the winter. These soldiers were for the most part quartered in the eight block-houses. The common council ordered that "in case of any alarm in the night," that all the house-holders should set candles in their windows to give light to the men repairing to their posts. While the frontier in 1747 was guarded by detachments from companies of soldiers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the other provinces, considerable disaffection existed among the troops on account of their not receiving any pay for their services. Some of the companies mani- fested such a mutinous spirit that it was with difficulty that they were kept from disbanding. Governor Clin- ton, in a letter to the duke of Newcastle, written on the twenty-third of July, from New York, adverts to the disaffection among the soldiers, saying :
"I am this day arrived from Albany .. I was in great hopes the 40s advance, and 20s a month each man, would have satisfied them, as was expected ; but Coll. Schuyler, who commands the New Jersey forces, having paid his men their whole pay then due them, & the people of Albany, some out of a malicious spirit, others in hopes of the profit they would receive by the men receiving their pay while they remained at that place, instigated them to mutiny unless they had their whole pay ; and for that purpose insinuated to them,
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. vi. pp. 288, 317-326. Albany records, 1745. History of New York. Dunlap. vol. i. pp. 358, 359, 360.
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that I, or their officers had received money for their whole pay, & that they were defrauded of it. Upon this the mutiny became almost universal. As these troops had been kept on the frontiers for the defence of it, the Province must inevitably be exposed to the greatest dangers from the enemy if these troops should be suf- fered to disband, as well as to plunderings & other mis- chiefs from mutinous soldiers. I applyed to the Assem- bly for assistance on this occasion ; but what an indecent refusal I received from them will appear from their an- * swer. * * I was then reduced to draw bills for the whole payment of the forces at Albany.
"Coll. Johnson, whom I have employed as Chief Manager of the Indian War and Colonel over all the In- dians, by their own approbation, has sent several parties of Indians into Canada, & brought back at several times prisoners & scalps, but the expedition being laid aside last year, the Indians were discouraged and began to entertain jealousies, by which a new expence became necessary to remove those jealousies & to bring them back to their former tempers ; but unless some enter- prize be undertaken which may keep up their spirits, we may again lose them." 1
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in October, 1748, brought peace to the disheartened and impoverished people of the city. The disapperance of the clouds of war permitted them to return to their former occupa- tions with renewed zeal and hope. The resumed activi- ties of the people are graphically portrayed by Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist, who, in 1749, visited Al- bany to collect seeds and plants for the university of Upsala, Sweden. The following excerpta from his jour- nal present, no doubt, some very authoritative informa-
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. vi. pp. 357, 358.
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tion respecting the character and manners of the people of Albany, of whose personal traits and modes of life he seems to have been a close observer :
" At noon [the tenth of June], we left New York, and sailed up the River Hudson, in a yacht bound for Albany. All this afternoon we saw a whole fleet of little boats returning from New York, whither they had brought provisions and other goods for sale. *
* All the yachts which ply between Albany and New
York, belong to Albany. * * They bring from Albany boards or planks, and all sorts of timber, flour, pease, and furs, which they get from the Indians or which are smuggled from the French. They come home almost empty, and only bring a few merchandises with them, among which rum is the chief.
* The yachts are pretty large, and have a good cabin, in which the passengers can be very commodiously lodged. They are commonly built of red cedar, or of white oak. * * *
"The canoes, which the yachts have along with them, are made with a single piece of wood, hollowed out ; they are sharp on both ends, frequently three or four fathoms long,1 and as broad as the thickness of the wood will allow. The people in it do not row sit- ting, but commonly a fellow stands at one end, with a short oar in his hand, with which he governs and brings the canoe forward. Those which are made here at Albany are commonly of white pine : they can do ser- vice for eight or twelve years, especially if they be tarred
and painted. * * There are no seats in the canoes ; for if they had any, they would be more liable to be overset, as one could not keep the equilibrium so well.
" Battoes are another kind of boats, which are much in use at Albany. They are made of boards of white 1 A fathom is a measure of six feet.
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pine. The bottom is flat, that they may row the better in shallow water : they are sharp at both ends, and somewhat higher towards the end than in the middle. They have seats in them, and are rowed as common boats. They are long, yet not all alike : commonly three, and sometimes four fathoms long. The height from the bottom to the top of the board (for the sides stand almost perpendicular), is from twenty inches to two feet, and the breadth in the middle about a yard and six inches. They are chiefly made use of for carrying goods, by means of the rivers to the Indians ; that is, when those rivers are open enough for the battoes to pass through, and when they need not be carried by land a great way.
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