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 29
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The municipal government having lost the power of its perpetuity by the institution of the committee of safety, protection and correspondence in 1775, the people of the city were empowered by the legislature, on the seventeenth of February, 1778, to re-organize it con- formable to "an act to remove doubts concerning the corporation of the city of Albany." On the seventeenth of April, 1778, John Barclay, having a commission under the great seal of the state of New York appointing him mayor, clerk of the markets and coroner of the city ; and Abraham Yates, jr., having a commission under the seal of the state appointing him recorder of the city ; and
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Matthew Visscher, having also a commission appointing him town-clerk, also clerk of the Mayor's Court, and of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the city and county of Albany, and also clerk of the Peace and of the Court of Sessions of the Peace and for the said city and county ; and John Price and John Roorbach, having been elected aldermen, and Abraham I. Yates and Mat- thew Visscher assistant aldermen, in the first ward ; and Jacob Lansing, jr., and Abraham Cuyler having been elected aldermen, and Isaac D. Fonda and Jacob Bleecker, assistant aldermen, in the second ward ; and John M. Beeckman and Harmanus Wendell, having been elected aldermen, and Cornelius Swits and Abraham Schuyler, assistant aldermen, in the third ward, all these officers, except Harmanus Wendell, being present in the city-hall, took the oath of allegiance to the state of New York as prescribed by law, and also their respective oaths of office as prescribed by the charter of the city. On the twenty-first of April, Thomas Seeger was appointed mar- shal, and on the twenty-third, Henry Bleecker chamber- lain of the city. Harmanus Wendell having refused to accept the office of alderman, Doctor Samuel Stringer, who had been surgeon-general under General Schuyler, was elected in May to fill the vacancy.
In the ordinance for regulating tavern-keepers in the city made by the common council on the twenty-fifth of April, the following rates and prices were established for the taverns, ale-houses, victualing houses, inns, and ordinaries : "Good West India Rum, genuine French brandy, Holland Geneva, Lisbon, Sherry, Port, red and white Mountain French Claret, common sort, French white Wine, Spanish red Wine, Rhenish, at ten shillings per quart, and one shilling and four pence per gill. Ameri- can made Whiskey, four shillings and four pence per quart
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and seven cents per gill. Good New England Rum, Brandy, Geneva, common Cordials and all other Spirit- uous Liquors not herein mentioned, at six shillings and nine pence per quart, and one shilling per gill. Good Toddy of West India Rum, French Brandy, or Holland Geneva, sweetened with Loaf Sugar, at three shillings per quart Bowl and so in proportion. Good Toddy of other Liquors (whiskey excepted), at two shillings per quart Bowl and so in proportion. Strong Beer and Cyder, brewed or made in the state, one shilling per quart.
"For a Breakfast of comfortable and nourishing Victuals, two shillings per Meal ; for Dinner equally suitable, three shillings and six pence per Dinner. For twenty-four hours or one Night good Hay and Stabling for a Horse, two shillings ; for Oats four pence per quart, Corn per quart six pence, and other Grain in proportion. For a good clean Bed and Bedding one Night, one shil- ling."
General Abraham Ten Broeck, having received a letter from Brigadier general Stark, informing him that the troops in the city were ordered to Fishkill, the board of aldermen thus wrote on the twentieth of May, 1778, to the latter officer :
"The Common Council beg leave to observe that they consider themselves in duty bound to inform you that from the weakness of the Militia in this City, owing to the Number in public Service, it will not be safe to leave the Stores, Provisions, Hospital, Sloops and Vessels, the Regular and other Prisoners, the latter exceeding one hundred, besides the disaffected in and about the City, to so small a number as one hundred and fifty, the whole number of Militia that are subject to military duty. For should an accident happen by means of the disaffected in destroying the Stores or in discharging the Prisoners,
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ten whereof are now under Sentence of Death, it would distress not only the City but the Service of the Conti- nent in general.
"The Common Council farther beg leave to observe that in case your Honour cannot detain one of the Regi- ments stationed here that at least one hundred and fifty men ought to be detained."
A letter was also addressed to Major-general Gates on the same subject, in which the board of aldermen made this statement :
"The Common Council would further beg leave to observe that the many Robberies and Murders daily com- mitted on the Inhabitants of this County by Deserters and Prisoners from Burgoyne's Army and the disaffected, who are drove to desperation, render it indispensably necessary to have a Body of Troops to go in quest of the Villians, for unless the Militia can remain this year at home and properly manage their Summer crops little or no support of Flour can the Continent derive from this part, last year more than one half [was] destroyed and not more than half the usual quantity sowed.
"If the British Prisoners could be moved to another place it would break up the connection which is now ap- prehended is kept up between them, the Tories, and Negroes."
The request of the common council could not be com- plied with, and all the Continental troops, were transported in June to Fishkill. When in September the authorities learned that it was reported that two thousand troops were to be stationed in the city during the winter, the board of aldermen wrote to Governor Clinton explaining to him the motives of the members desiring that the city might not be put to the expense of providing for so large a number of soldiers.
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"From this state of Facts we beg leave to inform your Excellency that however willing we have always been and still are to risk our all in supporting the Free- dom and Independence of our blessed Country, yet it is our earnest request (and we deem it no more than reas- onable) that in the distribution of the Troops for Winter Quarters, due respect may be had to the former distresses and present sufferings of the Inhabitants of Albany and its Suburbs. And as there are Barracks in this place which may contain about four hundred troops exclusive of an Hospital which will contain eight hundred, tho' we pre- sume the latter will be appropriated for the use of the sick, we would deem it equitable that no more troops may be allotted to us than the Barracks and Hospital (if not used as such) may contain."
A number of the inhabitants of the city and county of Albany desiring to have their children receive a higher education than that obtainable in the schools that were then in Albany, petitioned the common council, in April, 1779, that they might be permitted to establish in the city a Seminary to be under the protection, direction, and care of the board of aldermen. The authorities willingly complied and letters were written to George Merchant of Philadelphia, offering him the position of principal of the institution. He accepted the offer and the academy was opened by him for the reception of scholars, on Monday, the sixteenth of November, in the peculiar- ly-built house historically known as the "Vanderhey- den Palace," near the southwest corner of North Pearl Street and Maiden Lane, now the site of the Perry build- ing. A few weeks thereafter Suel Chapin was given the position of "usher or second master in the Semi- nary." In 1797, the building, which had been used for almost a score of years for educational purposes, was
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St. Agnes School.
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then occupied as a residence by its owner, Jacob van der Heyden.
The legislature of the state of New York was first convened at Kingston in 1777 ; the assembly beginning its sessions on the first day of September, and the senate on the ninth day of that month. The capture of Fort Montgomery by the British, and their advance up the Hudson caused the legislature to adjourn in the beginning of October. 1 In January, 1778, the legislature convened at Poughkeepsie, and completed the organization of the state government. In August, 1779, it again assembled at Kingston.
The first meeting of the legislature in Albany was in accordance with a joint resolution of the senate and as- sembly, passed at Kingston, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1779. On the first day of December, Governor Clinton, in a proclamation, designated the fourth day of January, 1780, for the senate and the assembly to meet in the city, but on account of "a deep fall of snow " and the inclemency of the weather, the two bodies did not assemble until the twenty-seventh day of January. A number of the rooms in the court-house, or city-hall, on the northeast corner of Hudson and Court streets, 2 were suitably furnished for the use of the legislature, which adjourned on the fourteenth of March. On the seven- teenth of January, 1781, it again convened in Albany, and held its sessions in the city-hall until the thirty-first of March, the day of its adjournment. The legislature did not meet again in the city until the sixth of July,
1 The assembly began its sessions on the first of September and ad- journed on the first of October. The senate met on the ninth of September and adjourned on the seventh of October. Kingston was burned by the British, on the fifteenth of October.
2 Court Street was that part of Broadway which extends from State Street to the Steamboat-landing.
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1789, when after a session of ten days it resolved to to adjourn.
The current rumor, in the fall of 1781, that the British designed to burn the city caused the municipal authori- ties to exercise extreme caution in the admission of strangers into it. It is also related that a large reward was offered for the capture of the members of the com- mittee of safety, and that several unsuccessful attempts were made to secure the persons of General Schuyler, Colonel Philip van Rensselaer, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, and of other prominent men, who were to be carried to Canada to be held as prisoners of war.
The publication of the first newspaper printed in the city was begun in November, 1771, by Alexander and James Robertson, who had moved from the city of New York and established a printing-office in Albany. The publishers of the small quarto-sheet named the paper the Albany Gazette, a few copies of which are in the library of the Albany Institute. It is not known when the publication of the paper was discontinued, but, as the publishers of it were named among the Royalists in the city of New York in 1776, it has been conjectured that the printing of the paper ceased about the beginning of the revolution.
The second newspaper published in Albany was The New York Gazetteer, or, Northern Intelligencer. Solomon Balentine and Charles R. Webster, under the firm-name of Balentine and Webster, began its publication on the third of June, 1782. The dimensions of the pages of the little folio are nine and one half by fourteen inches. A number of copies of the paper are in the library of the Albany Institute. In 1783, Charles R. Webster withdrew from the partnership and moved to New York. The pub- lication of the paper, it is supposed, ceased in May, 1784.
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General Washington's visit to Albany, on Thursday, the twenty-seventh of June 1782, was an occasion of no little joy to the people. At six o'clock in the evening, the city authorities waited on his excellency, and after the delivery of a short address of welcome, presented him with the freedom of the city, the document being con- tained in a gold-box. The bells of all the churches were then rung until eight o'clock when a salute of thirteen guns was fired at fort. At night the city was illumi- nated.
The news of the signing of the provisional articles of peace, between Great Britain and the United States of America, on the thirteenth of November, 1782, was re- ceived in the city, on the twenty-seventh of March, 1783. The board of aldermen to communicate the exciting in- telligence to the citizens immediately ordered the public cryer to notify them to convene at the city-hall to hear the contents of the letter read. The municipal authori- ties also ordered that the messenger who brought it should "be presented with five pounds as a reward for his assiduity and dispatch."
When it was learned, on the eighteenth of July, that General Washington and Governor Clinton would be in city on the following day, the common council appointed Peter W. Yates and Matthew Visscher, aldermen of the first ward, to prepare addresses to be delivered to their excellencies. Abraham Schuyler and Leonard Ganse- voort of the third ward were appointed "to repair to the Hogebergh and there wait the arrival" of the distin- guished personages, and afterward to inform the board of the time designated for the reception of the city's guests. The invitation by the common council to Gen- eral Washington and to Governor Clinton to a public dinner was accepted. At eleven o'clock, on the morning
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of the nineteenth of July, the city-officers went in a body to the inn of Hugh Denniston, where the following address was presented to the commander-in-chief of the United States army :
"We, the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of Albany, with the sincerest pleasure avail our- selves of this opportunity to offer your Excellency our most cordial Congratulations on the formal Recognition of the Independence of the United States by that Power which has so long anxiously laboured to subvert it. The Citizens of America and their Posterity will ever have abundant reason to commemorate the day when your Excellency was appointed to the Chief Command of her Forces, in the faithful discharge of which you have sac- rificed your private ease and interest to the public weal and evinced to the world that you have been the faithful guardian of the Liberties of your Country.
" Under the Smiles of Providence, with a brave and victorious Army, aided by a great and generous Ally, you have saved America from Bondage, restored to her the peaceable enjoyment of her civil Rights and laid a solid Foundation for the Freedom and Independence of the United States. Receive, Sir, our sincere wish that you may in the Bosom of your Country enjoy the Tran- quility which your Toils have purchased and look forward with patriotic Pleasure to those ages of Prosperity which we may reasonably hope will be confirmed in endless succession by the Wisdom and Harmony of her Councils."
His excellency was pleased to return the following answer to the address :
"To the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of Albany,
"Gentlemen : I accept with heartfelt satisfaction your affectionate congratulations on the restoration of
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Peace and the formal recognition of the Independence of the United States. We may indeed ascribe these most happy and glorious Events to the smiles of Providence and the virtue of our Citizens and the bravery of our Troops aided by the powerful interposition of our mag- nanimous and illustrious ally.
"For the favorable sentiments you are pleased to express of my agency in this Revolution and for your benevolent wishes for my personal felicity, I intreat you. Gentlemen, to receive my warmest acknowledgments.
" While I contemplate with irrepressible pleasure the future tranquility and glory of our common Country, I cannot but take a particular interest in the anticipation of the increase in prosperity and greatness of this antient and respectable City of Albany, from whose Citizens I have received such distinguished tokens of their appro- bation and affection."1
1 Albany records, 1782, 1783.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TRADE OF ALBANY.
1784-1796.
The impoverished condition in which the revolution- ary war left the people of the thirteen states was not so disheartening as to repress the quickening spirit of the industry and thrift of those who had so recently ob- tained a political independence that was to make them famous throughout the world. The people of Albany, diligent and acquisitive, actively engaged in merchan- dizing and commerce. The merchants with judicious enterprise stocked their stores with large and saleable assortments of goods and wares. For these they often received grain and other productions from their country customers, which articles they shipped to foreign mar- kets, whence they imported such commodities as were readily sold by them.
Many of the dry-goods vended by these enterprising merchants were designated by strange names now sel- dom seen. Advertisements of them usually began with such announcements as the following : "Robinson and Hale, on the north corner opposite the Dutch church, in Albany, have just imported in the ship Vigilant, from London, a large and general assortment of European and East India Goods." "Jacob van Schaick, in Water Street, near the middle dock, has just imported in the
tr
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Triumph, Captain Stout, from London, a quantity of goods."
Under such paragraphs were columns of names designating the recently received dry-goods : "First and middling fagathees," "moreens," "durants," "tam- mies," "callimancoes," "camblets," "ratteens," "Irish frize," "penniston," "striped duffels," "fustians," "barnegore romals," "striped and plain shags," "mil- linet," "figured duroys," "pullicat, bandanc, and lun- ger silk." In the same stores were also found "tafte and ribbands," buckram, wafers, quills, ink-powder, snuff of the first quality, smoothing-irons, frying-pans, queen's ware, scythes and sickles, musket-balls, Jamaica spirits, West India and common rum, Muscovado sugar, German, blistered and Crawley's steel, refined and blooming bar-iron, pot, fool's-cap, and post paper, and London hair-powder and pomatum.
The loss of the fur trade had its compensation in the more remunerative grain-business which for many years made Albany a noted market for the sale and purchase of wheat and other cereals. In winter the farmers of the surrounding country brought their grain in sleds to the city and sold it to the competitive mer- chants to be stored in their ample granaries until navigation opened in the spring, when it was transferred to the holds of sloops to be transported to New York and other seaports.
One of the effective means used to enlarge the trade of Albany was "The Albany Gazette," a news- paper printed by Charles R. Webster, the first number of which was published on the twenty-eighth day of May, 1784; a small folio having pages ten by sixteen inches. 1
1 The editor of the Gazette, in an advertisement, in the first number, in- forms the public that " His paper will in future, be published every Thurs-
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In the spring of 1784, the city authorities began the demolition of the fort at the head of State Street, using the stone for public improvements, and permitting parts of its walls to be appropriated by the officers of the different churches for building purposes. The fire engines, which had been kept in another part of the city until 1773, were now housed in a building on the north side of St. Peter's church. The board of aldermen, on the nineteenth of March, 1785, ap- pointed a committee to report proper names to be as- signed to the different streets in the city and a plan for the numbering of the houses along them. The com- mittee, on the ninth of April, made a report which was received and a map of the city was ordered to be made on which the name assigned to each street should appear.
By an act of the legislature, passed the fourth of April, 1785, Isaac van Wyck, Talmage Hall, and John Kinney were granted the exclusive privilege of running a line of stages between the city of Albany and New York for a period of ten years. They were to provide at least two good and properly covered coaches, drawn by four able horses, and were not to charge more than four pence per mile for the conveyance of a passenger, who was to be allowed the free transportation of four- teen pounds of baggage. The stages were to depart once each week from the two cities unless prevented by the bad condition of the roads, or some unavoidable ac-
day morning at nine o'clock, during the Summer-and on Friday at ten o'clock in the Winter.
"The price will be twelve shillings, per annum, six shillings to be paid on receiving the first paper, the other at the end of six months.
" Advertisements of no more length than breadth, will be inserted three weeks for one dollar, and in the same proportion for every continuance."
On the eighth of November, 1784, Webster's Calendar, or the Albany Almanac, for the year 1785, was issued from the office.
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cident. The fare, in the summer of 1794, from Albany to New York, was $7.25; in the following winter, $8. The price in the winter of 1796 was increased to $10, but in the following spring it was reduced to $6.
Letters to persons living northward and southward of the city, were sent to the Albany post-office, which had been established, it seems, during the revolution. A number of towns, south and east of the city, also ob- tained their letters at Albany. Post-riders, compensated by the people whom they served along their routes through the surrounding country, distributed each week to their patrons the letters and newspapers addressed to them at Albany. There was a mail each week from New York, and one from Springfield, Massachusetts. In January, 1786, arrangements were perfected for the transmission of the mails twice each week between the cities of New York and Albany.
A company of actors, having petitioned the board of aldermen for permission to give a number of theatrical performances in the hospital in the city, during the win- ter, were duly granted the privilege. The opening play was advertised in the supplement of the Gazette of the fifth of December. "By authority. On Friday Eve- ning, the 9th December, 1785, The Theatre in the City of Albany, will be opened with an Occasional Prologue, by Mr. Allen. After which will be presented, A Comedy in Two Acts call'd Cross Purposes. *
"After the comedy, An Eulogy on Free Masonry, by Brother Moore. To be followed by a Dance called La Polonese, by Mr. Bellair. To conclude with a Comedy of Three Acts written by Shakespeare, call'd Catharine and Petruchio, or, The Taming of the Shrew. * * *
"Doors to be opened at Five o'Clock and the perfor- mance to begin precisely at Six.
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"Tickets (without which no person can be admitted) to be had at Mr. Lewis's Tavern-as no money will be received at the door.
"Box 8s. Gallery +s.
"No person to be admitted behind the scenes.
"N. B. Stoves are provided for the boxes, to render the house warm and comfortable."
The following paragraph appeared on the same day in a supplement of the Gazette :
"We have the pleasure to inform the public, that a number of Carpenters for these some days have been employed fitting up, with the greatest expedition, the Hospital in this City as a Theatre ; under the direction of the Managers of the Company of Comedians, who have entertained the inhabitants of New York for some months past, with so much satisfaction to the pub- lic and reputation to themselves. Their continuance amongst us will be but for a very short time, it is there- fore to be wished, that all Lovers of the Drama, in this city and its neighborhood, would exert themselves in encouraging these ingenious Sons and Daughters of Thalia and Melpomene; as it is universally acknowl- edged that Theatrical Representations are, of all others, the best calculated to eradicate vulgar prejudices and rusticity of manners, improve the understanding and enlarge the ideas."
The advertisement of the play and commendation of the editor it seems, gave offence to a number of the citizens, and a petition was signed and sent to the municipal authorities requesting them to rescind the resolution permitting the company to play in the city:
"To the worshipful the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen and Commonalty of the city of Albany- This Petition Humbly Sheweth :
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"That your petitioners having observed in the Sup- plement to the Albany Gazette, of the 5th inst. an ad- vertisement in the following manner,
"'By Authority, On Friday Evening, the 9th De- cember, the Theatre in the city of Albany, will be opened,' &c. beg leave humbly to represent to your worshipful Board, the present state and situation of this city-Though in the same paper the inhabitants are suspected of rusticity and want of politeness, they have so much common sense, we trust, as to judge and to declare, that we stand in no need of plays and play- actors to be instructed in our duty or good manners ; being already provided with other and much better means to obtain a sufficient knowledge and improve- ment in both-But the pressing necessities and wants of many families, after a long continued and distressing war-the debts still due to the public, for the safety and convenience of the state, and this city ; as well as the many objects of pity and charity (not to mention the gratitude we owe to God) call upon us to request an impartial reconsideration of your resolution, by which that authority was given, and to make such amend- ments as are consistent with your wisdom and prudence ; to acquaint your citizens, that the intent and meaning thereof, was not publicly to authorize, and thereby to applaud and encourage the theatrical exhibitions of those persons ; who, having left another more populous city, pretend to stay but a short time among us, prob- ably to support themselves on the way to another place, where they expect to meet with better friends and political connections : But, in reality, will drain us of our money, if not instil into the minds of the imprudent, principles incompatable with that virtue which is the true basis of republican liberty and happiness."
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