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 27
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The members of the Ineffable lodge having sub- scribed sums of money for the erection of a lodge-build- ing by Union lodge on the ground conveyed by the city to Samuel Stringer in 1766, proposed "to the Union Lodge that the Ineffable Body should have a joint Right into the Building." At this time the lodge of the latter was a room in the inn of Richard Cartwright, to whom each member paid one shilling every lodge-night for the use of it ; the cost of the candles being defrayed by the society. The lodge met on Monday nights. In winter the meetings began at six o'clock. The overtures made to Union lodge were not acceptable to that body, and at the meeting of the lodge on the twenty-third of February, 1768, "it was agreed that a proposal from Mr.
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Peter Sharp to Build a Lodge-house agreeably to a plan Laid before the Lodge this night should be accepted at £300; and Bro. Gamble, Stringer and [Jeremiah van] Rensselaer engaged to contract for the same upon the Lodge engaging to indemnify them as fast as the money toward erecting the said Building " was obtained. On the following day, Samuel Stringer purchased from the Union lodge the lot obtained in 1766 from the city, pay- ing for it four pounds sterling. On the first of April, 1768, the city conveyed to Samuel Stringer six feet on the east side of the lot, which was seventy feet in length on the north side. The erection of the building was immediately begun, as it was to be finished accord- ing to contract on the twenty-fourth of June. On the twelfth, the corner-stone was laid with due Masonic formality. Lodge Street derived its name from the build- ing that was shortly afterward erected on the northwest corner of it and Maiden Lane.
Master's lodge, number 2, (York Rite) was organized in Albany in 1768 ; William Gamble being its first mas- ter, and Samuel Stringer and Jeremiah van Rensselaer, its first wardens. In March, 1768, the lodge made an agreement with the Ineffable lodge of Perfection to meet on Monday nights, in the new building to be erected by the latter. 1
The minister, wardens and vestry of St. Peter's church having petitioned Sir Henry Moore, the governor of the province, for "a charter for the incorporation of the said church," were granted the same on the thirteenth of July, 1768. The Rev. Thomas Brown, having moved in 1768 from Albany, was succeeded the same year by the Rev. Henry Munro, who was rector of the church until 1774.
1 A condensed history of Mount Vernon lodge No. 3, of ancient York Masons, A. L. 5765 to A. 5874. Coll. on hist. Albany. Munsell. vol. iii. pp. 411-424.
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The governor having permitted the theatrical com- pany playing in New York to act "for one month only " in Albany, the hospital on Pine Street, near the site of the Lutheran Church, was fitted up with a stage and seats, in June 1769, and the play "Venice Preserved " was announced for the first night, the third of July. The leading players of the company were Lewis Hallam, jr., John Henry, Mr. Woolls, and Miss Cheer.
Voyages to the West Indies and to European ports by vessels owned by Albany capitalists were common in the last half of the eighteenth century. The exports were generally flour, fish, lumber, horses, and fruit ; the imports were principally rum and sugar from the West Indies, and dry goods, queen's-ware and hardware from England and Holland.
In 1771 the city-streets were lighted with twenty oil- lamps. Milestones were also placed this year along the Schenectady road as far as the half-way-house ; the west side of the Dutch church being the point from which the measurement of the first mile was made. The market-house between the two churches was moved this year to the one standing on the north side of the Dutch church.
The population of Albany county, which in 1749 was ten thousand six hundred and thirty-four, had increased to forty-two thousand seven hundred and six in 1771. In the preamble of the act "to divide the county of Albany into three counties," passed the twelfth of March, 1772, the following statement is made respecting the object in view : "Whereas the Lands within the County of Albany are more extensive than all the other counties of this Colony taken together ; and altho' the Inhab- tants thereof are already very numerous and continue to increase, yet it is conceived that the settlement of the
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County would proceed with much greater rapidity (to the vast augmentation of his majesty's revenue and the benefit of the Colony) if a suitable partition was made of the lands, and new counties erected ; the number of Inhabitants, and their great distance from each other rendering the administration of justice extremely difficult and burdensome ; many people, as County officers, Jury Men, Suitors, and Witnesses being obliged to travel nearly two hundred miles to the city of Albany, where the County Gaol is and where the Courts of Com- mon Pleas, Sessions of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and General Gaol Delivery are held.
The county was therefore divided and the counties of Tryon and Charlotte erected by the division of its territory.1 Charlotte County lay north of Albany Coun- ty, between it and Canada.
By an act of Assembly, passed November 11, 1692, two fairs were to be held annually in the city and county of Albany. The one in the city was to begin on the third Tuesday of July and to end on the following Friday. The county fair, to be held at Crawlier, in Rensselaers- wyck, was to begin on the third Tuesday in October and to end on the following Friday. Each was to be superin- tended by a ruler appointed by the governor, and that
1 The county of Albany was thus bounded in 1772: "On the South and on the West Side of Hudson's River, by the County of Ulster. * * * On the West by Delaware River [in Delaware County] and the West Branch thereof, as far up as a certain small lake called Utsaantho ; [Lake Utsayanthe, in the town of Jefferson, Schoharie County;] and thence by a line north twenty- five degrees east, until it be intersected by a West line drawn from the north- west corner of the old Schoharie patent ; thence east to the northeast corner of the said Schoharie patent ; thence to the northwest corner of the township of Duanesburgh ; [the western part of Schenectady County;] thence along the north bounds thereof to the northeast corner of the same ; thence on the same course with the said north bounds of Duanesburgh to the Mohawk River ; thence North until it intersects a West line drawn from Fort George, near Lake George ; thence East until it intersects a North line drawn from that, nigh [the] Falls on Hudson's river, which lays next above Fort Edward ;
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official was to have the direction of every thing connected with the fair. As recited in the act, these fairs were to be "holden together with a Court of Pypowder, and with all the liberties and free customs to such fairs ap- pertaining, or which ought or may appertain according to the usage and customs of fairs holden in their Majes- ties realm of England."
As explained by Blackstone, "the lowest and at the same time the most expeditious court of justice known to the law of England is the court of piepoudre, curia pedis pulverizati : so called from the dusty feet of the suitors ; or, according to Sir Edward Coke, because jus- tice is there done as speedily as dust can fall from the foot. Upon the same principle that justice among the Jews was administered in the gate of the city, that the proceedings might be more speedy as well as public. But the etymology given us by a learned modern writer is much more ingenious and satisfactory ; it be derived, according to him, from pied puldreaux, (a pedlar, in old French,) and therefore signifying the court of such petty chapmen as resort to fairs or markets. It is a court of record, incident to every fair and market, of which the steward of him who has or owns the toll of the mar- ket is the judge, and its jurisdiction extends to ad- thence South to the said Falls ; thence along the East Bank of Hudson's river to a certain Creek called Stoney Creek ; [on the east side of Hudson River, opposite Fort Miller;] thence East Five Hundred and ten chains ; thence South to the North bank of Batten Creek ; thence up along the North bank of said creek until the said creek intersects the South bounds of Prince- Town ; [now in Vermont,] thence along the same to the southeast corner thereof, thence East to the West bounds of the County of Cumberland, [now in Vermont ;] thence Southerly and Easterly along the West and South bounds thereof to Connecticut river ; thence along the said river to the North bounds of the Colonie of Connecticut ; thence along the North and West bounds of the same to the County of Dutchess ; thence along the North bounds of the said County of Dutchess to Hudson's river ; and thence by a straight line to the Northeast corner of the County of Ulster, on Hudson's river."-Laws of New York. vol. i. pp. 658, 659.
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minister justice for all commercial injuries done in that very fair or market, and not in any preceding one."
In 1773 the time of holding the fair at Crawlier in the manor of Rensselaerswyck was changed. Thence- forth it was to "be kept on the Tuesday next after the tenth day of November annually," and was to "continue to the evening of Saturday next ensuing." It does not appear that such fairs were held in Albany County until the year 1774, when, on the seventh of November, the common council directed the high constable to appoint two constables to attend the ferry during the fair.
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CHAPTER XVII.
THE REVOLUTION.
1774-1783.
The aggrieved people of the province of New York believing that the government of Great Britain had not the right to impose taxes on the colonies without their consent readily complied with resolution of the Conti- nental Congress, which, having met in September, 1774, in Philadelphia, recommended the appointment of com- mittees to consider and perform such things as were most urgent and protective while the political welfare of the colonies was imperiled by the oppressive acts of the British ministry. The resolute freemen and freeholders of the city therefore held a meeting in November and appointed a committee of superintendance and corres- pondence. John Barclay, an influential and patriotic citizen, was chosen its chairman, which important position he held nearly three years. The people of the county of Albany also constituted committees in their respective districts.
On the twenty-first of March, 1775, at a meeting of · the committees of the city and county of Albany, in the inn of Richard Cartwright, Colonel Philip Schuyler, Abraham Yates, jr., Colonel Abraham Ten Broeck, Wal- ter Livingston, and Colonel Peter R. Livingston, were selected as deputies to represent the city and county at the
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intended Provincial Congress in New York to be con- vened on the twentieth of April for the purpose of ap- pointing delegates to represent the province at the next Continental Congress in May, in Philadelphia. Colonel Philip Schuyler was among the delegates selected to rep- resent the province of New York in the Continental Con- gress.
When the exciting news of the engagement at Lex- ington, on the nineteenth of April, reached the city, the sub-committee of correspondence met at the inn of John J. Lansing and resolved "that the following advertise- ment should be published through the town : "
"Whereas the various accounts that have been re- ceived of the extraordinary Commotions both in the Province of Massachusetts Bay and at New York make it indispensably necessary that the sense of the Citizens should be taken on the line of Conduct they propose to hold in this Critical Juncture, every Person therefore is most earnestly intreated to attend at the market-House in the third Ward 1 at four o'clock this afternoon [the first of May, ] to give his Sentiments. It is expected that no Person whatever able to attend will be absent.
"Secondly. Resolved That the Chairman [Abraham Yates, jr., ] sign the several Papers relative to this Day's Transaction.
"Thirdly. Resolved That the following Proposals be read to the Citizens at their intended meeting this after- noon :
" Are you willing to cooperate with our Brethren in New York and the several Colonies on the Continent in their opposition to the Ministerial Plan now prosecuting against us ?
1 The market-house was in Market street, now Broadway, a short dis- tance north of the Dutch church.
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"Are you willing to appoint Persons to be Conjointly with others to be appointed by the Several Districts in this County a Committee of Safety, Protection, and Cor- respondence, with full Power to Transact all such matters as they shall conceive may tend to the weal of the American Cause ?
"If yea, who are the Persons you chuse to appoint ?"
To acquaint the citizens with the important nature of this meeting, Lucas Cassiday was sent through the dif- ferent streets beating a drum, and at the time appointed for the assembling of the people, John Ostrander went about the city ringing a bell to notify them to repair to the market-house.
The great concourse of enthusiastic citizens that crowded the market-house and the street around the building enthusiastically shouted yea to the several questions of the committee. A committee of safety, protection, and correspondence was then constituted by the appointment of the following citizens : Jacob C. Ten Eyck, Henry I. Bogart, Peter Silvester, Henry Wen- dell, Volkert P. Douw, John Bay, and Gysbert Marselis, in the first ward ; John R. Bleecker, Jacob Lansing, jr., Jacob Cuyler, Henry Bleecker, Robert Yates, Stephen De Lancey, and Abraham Cuyler, in the second ward ; John H. Ten Eyck, Abraham Ten Broeck, Gerrit Lan- singh, jr., Anthony E. Bratt, Samuel Stringer, Abraham Yates, jr., and Cornelis van Santvoordt, in the third ward.
On the same day, the corresponding committee wrote as follows to the Boston committee :
" Gentlemen :- While we lament the mournful event which has caused the Blood of our Brethren in the Massachusetts Bay to flow, we feel that satisfaction which every honest American must experience at the
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glorious stand you have made, [and] we have an ad- ditional satisfaction from the consequences which we trust will [follow] in uniting every American in Senti- ments and Bonds which we hope will be indissoluble to our Enemies.
" This afternoon the Inhabitants of this City convened and unanimously renewed their former agreement that they would cooperate with our Brethren in New York and in the several Colonies on the Continent in their op- position to the Ministerial Plan now prosecuting against us, and also unanimously appointed a Committee of Safety, Protection, and Correspondence, with full power to transact all such matters as they shall conceive may tend to promote the weal of the American Cause. We have the fullest Confidence that every District in this ex- tensive County will follow our Example.
" On the twenty-second Instant a Provincial Congress will meet when we have not the least doubt but such effectual aids will be afforded you, as will teach Tyrants and their Minions that as we were born free, we will live and die so, and transmit that inestimable Blessing to Posterity. Be assured Gentlemen that nothing on our Parts shall be wanting to evince that we are deeply im- pressed with a sense of the necessity of Unanimity, and that we mean to Cooperate with you in this arduous struggle for Liberty to the utmost of our Power."
The patriotic determination of the people to assert their rights by taking up arms to resist the attempts of Great Britain to coerce them into a compliance with the plans of its ministry was further manifested on the fourth of May when a large number of the citizens as- sembled in the afternoon and formed themselves into companies of fifty-one persons ; each company besides having this number of privates, had one captain, two
.
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lieutenants, one ensign, four sergeants, four corporals, and one drummer. Of the first company of the first ward, the following persons were officers : John Barclay captain, John Price and Stephen van Schaick lieutenants, and Abraham I. Yates ensign. The officers of the second company were : John Williams captain, Henry Staats and Barent van Alen lieutenants, and Henry Hogen ensign. Those of the third company were : Thomas Bassett cap- tain, Abraham Eights and Mattheus Visscher lieutenants, and John Hooghkerk ensign. In the third ward the fol- lowing persons were officers of the two companies that were formed : John Beeckman and Harmanus Wendell captains, Isaac De Freest, Abraham Ten Eyck, William Hun, and Peter Gansevoort, jr. lieutenants, and Cornelis Wendell and Teunis T. van Vechten ensigns.
The people in the county were earnestly requested to form themselves into similar companies to be properly equipped and disciplined with all despatch, and to make reports through their respective district committees of their condition to the chairman of the general committee of safety, protection, and correspondence.
In May, many of the people of the city and county signed the following compact :
" A General Association agreed to and subscribed by the Members of the Several Committees of the City and County of Albany.
"Persuaded that the Salvation of the Rights and Liberties of America depends under God on the firm Union of its Inhabitants in a vigorous prosecution of the Measures necessary for its Safety ; and convinced of the necessity of preventing Anarchy and Confusion which at. tend a Dissolution of the Powers of Government, We, the Freemen, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the City and County of Albany, being greatly alarmed at the avowed
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Design of the Ministry to raise a Revenue in America ; and shocked by the bloody scene now acting in the Massachusetts Bay, Do in the most Solemn Manner re- solve never to become Slaves ; and do associate under all the Ties of Religion, Honor and Love to our Country, to adopt and endeavour to carry into Execution whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Con- gress, or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention for the purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing the Execution of the several arbitrary and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament until a Reconciliation be- tween Great Britain and America on Constitutional Principles (which we most ardently desire) can be ob- tained : And that we will in all things follow the Advice of our General Committee respecting the purposes afore- said, the preservation of Peace and good order and the safety of Individuals and private Property."1
The surrender of the British fort at Ticonderoga, on the morning of the tenth of May, to Ethan Allen and his one hundred and fifty undisciplined men, gave great hope of the success of the cause which had inspirited the at- tempt to vindicate the rights of the aggrieved people. To retain possession of the large number of cannon and the military stores found in the fortress, two companies of volunteers were sent to Ticonderoga from Albany.
The Provincial Congress, sitting in New York, on the seventh of June, unanimously resolved to recommend Colonel Philip Schuyler as "the most proper person" in the colony to be appointed a major-general. On this recommendation the Continental Congress on the nine- teenth of June appointed him the third major-general in the armies of the United Colonies. On the twenty-fifth
1 Proceedings of the Albany committee of correspondence, 1775-1778. MS. in the State library, Albany.
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of the month, Major-general Schuyler arrived at New York to take command of the northern department.
William Tryon, appointed governor of the province of New York by the British government, wrote as fol- lows from the city of New York, on the fourth of July, 1775, to the Earl of Dartmouth : "I arrived in the government the 25th of last month with apparent satisfaction to the inhabitants of this city, and received the next morning the Great Seal of the Province and the diminished authority the Lieutenant Governor had trans- ferred to me.
"The general revolt that has taken place in the Colonies has put his Majesty's civil Governors in the most degraded situation, [being] left in the exercise of such feeble executive Powers as suit the present conveniences of the Country, and this dependant on the caprice of a moment. To attempt coercive measures by the civil aid would hold up [the] Government to additional contempt by the exposure of the weakness of the executive and civil Branches.
"The communications through the Province, and, I understand, through the Continent are stopt. Every traveller must have a Pass from some Committee or some Congress."1
To keep the Indians of the six nations from taking a part in the hostilities between the colonies and Great Britain was a matter of no little diplomacy. To obtain from them a promise to withhold themselves as neu- trals during the continuance of the war, the Continental Congress appointed Major-general Schuyler, Major Joseph Hawley, Turbot Francis, Oliver Walcott and Volkert P. Douw to treat with the Indians "to preserve peace and friendship " with the people of the provinces. In the 1 Doc, colonial hist. N, Y, vol. viii. pp. 589, 590,
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latter part of August, the Indian commissioners of the northern department held conferences in Albany with the sachems of the different tribes. Speaking for the Continental Congress, the orator of the commissioners said :
"Brothers, sachems and warriors of the six united nations, we, the delegates from the twelve united prov- inces now sitting in general congress at Philadelphia, send this speech to you, our brothers. We are sixty-five in number and have been appointed by the people through- out all these provinces and colonies to meet and set to- gether in one great council to consult together for the common good of this land, and to speak and act for them. *
"We will now tell you of the quarrel between the counselors of King George and the inhabitants and colo- nies of America. Many of his counselors are proud and wicked men. They persuaded the king to break the covenant chain and not to send us any more good speeches. A considerable number have prevailed upon him to enter into a new covenant against us, and have torn asunder and cast behind their backs the good old cove- nant which their ancestors and ours entered into. *
" They tell us now that they will slip their hands into our pockets without asking, as if they were their own pockets, and will take at their pleasure from us our charters, * ** our plantations, our houses and goods, whenever they please, without asking our per- mission. *
" We desire that you will hear and receive what we have already told you, and that you will now open a good' ear and listen to what we shall further say to you. This is a family quarrel between us and Old England. You Indians are not concerned in it. We do not want
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you to take up the hatchet against the king's troops. We desire that you remain at home and join neither party, but keep the hatchet deeply buried. * * *
"We are now twelve colonies united as one man. We have but one heart and one hand. Brothers, this is our union belt. By this belt we, the twelve united colo- nies, renew the old covenant chain by which our fore- fathers in their great wisdom thought proper to bind us and you our brothers of the six nations together when they first landed at this place. If any of the links of this great chain should have received any rust, we now brighten it, and make it shine like silver. As God has put it into our hearts to love the six nations and their allies, we now make the chain of friendship so strong that nothing but an evil spirit can or will attempt to break it. But we hope through the favor and the mercy of the Good Spirit that it will remain strong and bright while the sun shines and the water runs."1
These conferences, which were sometimes held in the Dutch church and sometimes in the Presbyterian meet- ing-house, satisfied the commissioners that the Indians could not easily be made the allies of Great Britain. While the Indians and the commissioners were engaged in making the covenant-chain strong and bright, the streets of the city were becoming more thronged with soldiers daily arriving to be incorporated in the army of the northern department, commanded by General Philip Schuyler. Lieutenant-colonel Philip van Cortland, of the fourth New York (Dutchess County) regiment, writing from Albany on the twenty-eighth of August, 1775, thus describes the needy condition of the Continental troops that had taken up arms to maintain the rights of the United Colonies.
1 Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. viii. pp. 616-619.
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