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 34
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1 " This violation of architectural proportions, is a deviation from the design of the Architect, Mr. Philip H. Hooker, of this city, whose abilities and correctness in the line of his profession are universally acknowledged."
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which are occupied as lobbies to accommodate the mem- bers of the Legislature.
"From the west end, in the centre of the hall, you ascend a staircase that turns to the right and left lead- ing to the Galleries of the Senate and Assembly Cham- bers, and also to the Supreme Court room, which is immediately over the hall ; its dimensions are 50 feet in length, 40 in breadth, and 22 in height. This room is handsomely ornamented in Stucco. An entresole or mezzazine [mezzanine] story, on each side of the Court room, contains 4 rooms for Jurors and the uses of the Courts.
"The attic story contains a Mayor's Court room, a room for the Society of Arts, and 2 other rooms yet un- appropriated. This building is roofed with a double- hip, or pyramidal form, upon the centre of which is erected a circular cupola, 20 feet diameter, covered with a domical roof, supported by 8 insulated columns of the Ionic order, and contains a small bell for the use of the courts. The centre of the dome sustains a pedestal, on which is placed Themis, facing State-Street, a carved figure in wood of 11 feet in height, holding a sword in her right hand, and a balance in her left. The whole cost of the building, 115,000 dollars ; and I regret to say that the roof is covered with pine instead of slate, with which the state abounds, and of an excellent quality.
" The house erected by the Government for the chief Officers of State, is a large substantial brick building, situated on the S. side of State-Street. The Albany Bank is a brick edifice of 3 stories on the E. corner of Market and State-Streets, opposite the Post-Office, and facing the Capitol, at the distance of 1900 feet. The New-York State Bank is situated on the N. side of State- Street, between Pearl and Market-Streets, and presents
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a modestly ornamented brick front, conceived in the happiest style of ornamental elegance. Of the Churches, or houses dedicated to Religious purposes, that called the South Dutch Church, situated between Hudson and Beaver Streets, exhibits unquestionably the finest speci- ment of the arts to be found in this city, in any public building. * This building belongs to the Reformed Dutch Congregation, very numerous and respectable, and probably the richest in the state, next to one or two in the city of New York. The old Dutch Church that formerly stood in State-Street, was taken down in 1806, and the stone and other materials from that are em- ployed in the erection of the South Church, which is not yet quite finished. A portico, steeple, bell, and town clock are to be added, when it will have cost about 100,000 dollars. Its pews now yield an annual income of 770 dollars. The North Dutch Church, situated on the W. side of Pearl-street, has been erected some years, and belongs to the same congregation as the above. It is a large brick edifice, of good proportions, and has 2 steeples, in which are a bell and a town clock. The rent of its pews yields an annual income of 620 dollars. Whole cost of the building about 50,000 dollars.
"The Presbyterian Church is a plain brick edifice, and has a steeple, bell and town clock. It is a neat building in modern style, sufficiently elegant, standing at the corner of Washington and Beaver Streets.
"The Episcopal Church is on the N. side of State Street, a durable stone building of good appearance, and very just proportions. Its steeple is unfinished, but it has an elegant church organ.
"The German Lutheran Church is a small building with a steeple, bell and organ, standing nearly opposite the Presbyterian Church, in Washington-Street.
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" A Roman Catholic Chapel, and a small Presbyte- rian Church, with the City Library and Mechanic Hall, are situated on the W. side of Chapel-Street. A Metho- dist Meeting-House stands on the East side of Pearl- Street, opposite the North Dutch Church ; and there is a Seceder's Church in the N. part of the city of in the Colonie.
"The Arsenal, is a large brick edifice, filled with military stores belonging to the State of New York and the United States, situated in the Village of Colonie. The City Powder-House, stands on the plain at the Washington Square ; and a Powder-House erected in 1811, by the state, at the expense of 3,000 dollars, stands on an eminence of the plain, near the 3 mile-stone. The Alms-House is also on the plain, near the Washington Square, the annual expense of which, with the support of the poor, is about 6,000 dollars. The Theatre, now building, at an expense of about 10,000 dolls. is situated on the W. side of Greene-Street. * *
"The usual tides at Albany are from 1 to 3 or 4 feet, but variable according to the wind, and the strength of the current of the Hudson. 1 * *
"The city of Albany is governed by a Mayor, Re- corder, 8 Aldermen and 8 Assistant Aldermen, denomi- nated in the laws, 'the Mayor, Aldermen and Com- monalty.' * *
"There are many companies of Firemen, well regu- lated, and well provided with engines and other means of effective operations. * *
"As a manufacturing town, Albany is entitled to a very respectable rank ; and among its various establish- ments connected with manufactures, the extensive
1 The mean tide is 2.46 feet higher than that at Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York ; the mean rise and fall being 2.32 feet.
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Tobacco Works of Mr. James Caldwell, an eminent Mer- chant of this city, attract early notice. This manufac- tory is situated in the northern suburbs of Albany, about one mile from the Capitol, and in the township of Watervliet, near the mansion-house of the honorable Stephen Van Rensselaer, just at the foot of the river- hill, and on the margin of mill creek. It was first erected about 1785, and was the first considerable to- bacco-manufactory in the United States ; but it was des- troyed by fire in 1794, and immediately rebuilt-again destroyed since, and again rebuilt, by its enterprising and indefatigable founder. * There are other tobacco manufactories here also, but on a much smaller scale.
" There are 3 Air-Furnaces in this city, which fur- nish castings to a very great amount, and in an approv- ed style of excellence. The third one was erected in 1812, and stands on the plain } mile W. of the Capitol, connected with which is an extensive manufactory of machinery in wrought-iron and brass also, with black- smith's and other tools and implements of trades, hus- bandry, &c.
"Among those of the finer arts, we may enumerate 5 printing-offices, 2 of which are very extensive estab- lishments, and which issue semi-weekly Gazettees. A manufactory of looking-glasses must not be omitted, because useful, rare in this country, produc- tive, and the work is well executed. *
"The Museum of Mr. Trowbridge, kept in the 3d story of the old City-Hall, is a large collection of the productions of nature and art. * *
"There are now 3 Steam-Boats employed on this river, between Albany and New York, (the largest of which is 170 feet long and 28 wide, its burthen 350 tons, )
H- El.
MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK
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which perform their passages to Albany in the average time of 30 to 36 hours. *
* * There is also a Steam- Boat constantly running between this city and Troy, for the accommodation of passengers, performing 4 pas- sages every 24 hours. The public stages are very nu- merous that centre in Albany ; and the facilities which these afford of travelling by land, correspond with the importance of the place and the intercourse with every part of the country. The line for Utica runs through every day ; for New York in 2 days ; for Bennington in Vermont in 2 days ; and there are stages for every part of the country, with little delay of conveyance."
On the twenty-fifth of February, 1815, the legisla- ture passed "an act to annex the town of Colonie to the city of Albany." As described by the act, it was that part of the town adjoining the northern limits of the city, that extended along the east bounds of the county of Albany from the city "to a red cedar post with brick around it," planted on the west bank of the river, dis- tant twenty-two chains and thirty-six links from the south-east corner of the store-house of Stephen van Rensselaer. The new city-line ran from the post to the west bounds of the town, and thence southwardly along its west side to the city limits.
By "an act for the sale of the arsenal in the city and county of Albany," passed the nineteenth of April, 1815, the surveyor-general of the state was empowered to sell the arsenal and its grounds "in the late Colonie" an- nexed to the city, and to apply the money derived there- from to the purchase of a site and to the erection thereon of a new arsenal; the site to be within five miles of the capitol.
The first daily newspaper published in Albany was issued on the twenty-fifth of September, 1815. It was
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the Albany Daily Advertiser, printed by John W. Walker for Theodore Dwight, at No. 95 State Street.
Although the project of establishing an academy in the city was favorably discussed in 1804, yet the erection and completion of such an institution were not ac- complished until 1817. On the thirteenth of March, 1813, the regents of the University granted a charter incorporating Stephen van Rensselaer, John Lansing, Archibald McIntyre, Smith Thompson, Abraham van Vechten, John V. Henry, Henry Walton, the Rev. William Neill, the Rev. John M. Bradford, the Rev. John McDonald, the Rev. Timothy Clowes, the Rev. John Mc Jimpsey, the Rev. Frederick G. Mayer, Samuel Mervin, the mayor, and the recorder, ex officio, the first trustees of the Albany Academy.
On Saturday afternoon, the twenty-ninth of July, 1815, at four o'clock, Philip S. van Rensselaer laid the cor- ner-stone of the building. A copper plate was deposited in the cavity of the stone on which was inscribed the fol- lowing memorial : "Erected for an Academy, anno 1815, by the corporation of the city of Albany. Philip S. Van Rensselaer, Mayor. John Van Ness Yates, Re- corder. Building Committee-Philip S. Van Rensselear, John Brinckerhoff, Chauncey Humphrey, James War- ren, and Killian K. Van Rensselaer. Seth Geer, Archi- tect. H. W. Snyder, Sculpt." The building not being completed, the school opened on Monday, the eleventh of September, in a frame building, on the southeast cor- ner of State and Lodge streets, under the superintendence of the Rev. Benjamin Allen of Union College, the principal. The Rev. Joseph Shaw was professor of languages, and Moses Chapin, tutor. On the first of September, 1817, the academy-building was occupied by the school. Theodric Romeyn Beck, M. D., on the
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resignation of the Rev. Benjamin Allen, was elected principal of the institution, in August, 1817, which position he held with distinguished ability until his resignation, at the close of the summer session in 1848.
The building is on the northwest corner of the at- tractive public square, immediately north of the grounds in front of the new capitol. It is constructed of Newark free-stone ; the main-building, which is two stories high, above the basement story, is seventy by eighty feet, and the wings, thirty by forty-five feet. About ninety thousand dollars were expended in the erection and com- pletion of the academy.
The corner-stone of the Lutheran church, on the north- west corner of Lodge and Pine streets, was laid on Thurs- day, the twenty-sixth of September, 1816, by the Rev. Frederick George Mayer. The construction of the build- ing was under the superintendence of Philip Hooker, the architect. The site of the old church, bounded "on the east by South Pearl, late Washington Street ; on the south by the Rutten kill; on the west by a small run of water, called Fort Killitie, and on the north by Howard, late Lutheran Street," was purchased by the city for thirty-two thousand dollars. The site of the new church was given the congregation by the city, on- the condition that the dead should be removed by its members from their old burying-ground on Pearl Street. The corner-stone of the present church was laid on the fourteenth of August, 1869.
The commercial advantages of navigable water-ways between the Hudson River and the western and north- ern lakes were considered to be so important to the state that in 1792 the Western and Northern Naviga- tion companies were incorporated ; the Western Navi- gation company to make the Mohawk navigable by the
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construction of canals and by deepening the channel of the river as far as Wood creek, and from that point to make other canals and to deepen other channels to con- nect the Mohawk with lakes Ontario and Seneca. The Northern company's project was to open a navigable communication with Lake Champlain. The Western company having expended a large amount of money in the prosecution of its undertaking, abandoned it in the early part of the century. The Northern company accomplished little in the construction of its projected system of canals and dams.
In 1815, after the notification of the treaty of peace between England and the United States, the project of constructing canals between lakes Erie and Champlain was considered practicable. On the seventh of February, 1816, a meeting was held by the interested citizens of Albany at the Tontine Coffee-house to discuss the im- portance of the canals to the city and the state. To secure the passage of the desired act, committees were ap- pointed to procure signatures to a memorial addressed to the legislature. On the seventeenth of April, 1816, "an act to provide for the improvement of the internal navigation of this state " was passed, by which Stephen van Rensselaer, De Witt Clinton, Samuel Young, Joseph Ellicott, and Myron Holley were appointed commission- ers "to consider, devise and adopt such measures " as might or should be "requisite to facilite and effect the communication, by means of canals and locks, between the navigable waters of Hudson's river and lake Erie, and the said navigable waters and lake Champlain." On the fifteenth of April, 1817, the act authorizing the construction of "navigable communications between the great western and northern lakes and the Atlantic Ocean " was passed.
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH
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The first exhibition of the illumination of a building in Albany by gas-light was given by Henry Trowbridge, the proprietor of the museum, on Saturday, the twenty- second of March, 1817. The one hundred and twenty burners were inspected as wonderful curiosities by the large number of people who visited the museum to see the brilliant effects of the new light.
The freshet in the spring of 1818 was the greatest known in forty years. On the third of March, the horse ferry-boat was carried by the high water "about half way up to Pearl Street."
The first society of Baptists in Albany was consti- tuted from a number of persons of that denomination assembling together for religious worship in their differ- ent dwellings in the early part of the year 1810. On the twenty-third of January, 1811, the First Particular Baptist church was organized with twenty-one members. The Rev. Francis Wayland was the first pastor of the congregation, which he served until 1812, when he moved to Troy. On the twelfth of May, 1818, the society purchased the ground and the building known as the Albany Theatre, on the west side of Green Street. The interior having been altered for the use of the con- gregation, the building was dedicated on the first of January, 1819, by the pastor, the Rev. Joshua Bradley. On the fifth of January, 1851, the congregation held its last service in the church, the building having been sold to the religious society, called the People's church.
The "act for the establishing of a public library at the seat of government " was passed the twenty-first of April, 1818. By it the governor, the lieutenant-governor, the chancellor and the chief justice of the supreme court of the state of New York were constituted a board of trustees, who were "to cause to be fitted up some proper
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room in the capitol, for the purpose of keeping therein a public library for the use of the government and peo- ple of this state." Three thousand dollars were appro- priated for the establishment of the library, and a further annual sum of five hundred dollars for the yearly pur- chase of books. The trustees in 1818 appointed John Cook librarian.
In 1819, Benjamin Silliman, professor of chemistry in Yale college, on his way to Quebec, passed three days in Albany. In his description of the city, he says : "There is also a state library, just begun ; it does not yet contain 1,000 volumes, but they are well selected, and a fund of 500 dollars per annum is provided for its increase, besides 3,000 dollars granted by the legislature to commence the collection. * *
"Albany is the great thoroughfare and resort of the vast western regions of the state; its streets are very bustling ; it is said 2,000 wagons sometimes pass up and down State Street in a day ; it must hereafter become a great inland city.
"Albany has been memorable in American history. It was the rendezvous and the point of departure, for most of those armies, which, whether sent by the mother country, or, raised by the colonies themselves, for the conquest of the Gallo-American dominions, and of the savages, so often, during the middle periods of the last century, excited, and more than once, disappointed the hopes of the empire. It was scarcely less conspicuous in the same manner, during the war of the revolu- tion and during the late war with Great Britain. Few places on this side of the Atlantic, have seen more of martial array, or heard more frequently the dreadful 'note of preparation.' Still (except perhaps in some of the early contests, with the aborigines),
PHOTOS ARE GONNA
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it has never seen an enemy ; a hostile army has never encamped before it ; nor have its women and children ever seen 'the smoke of an enemy's camp.' More than once, however has a foreign enemy, after fixing his destination for Albany, been either arrested, and turned back in his career, or visited the desired spot in captivity and disgrace."1
1 A tour to Quebeck in the autumn of 1819. By Dr. Benjamin Silliman. London, 1822. pp. 18, 20, 21.
First Lutheran GRurch.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CITY'S WEALTH AND PROSPERITY.
1820-1884.
The augmentation of Albany's wealth was not only manifested in the increase of the city's trade and com- merce and in the appearance of the public buildings and private residences, but also in the large capital of the different banking institutions. To encourage the thrift of those who by manual labor earned more than their daily bread, William James, Charles R. Webster, Jesse Buel, John Townsend, and Joseph Alexander, citizens of Albany, in 1820, petitioned the legislature to be made a corporate body under the name of the Albany Savings Bank, to receive " on deposit such sums of money " as might, "from time to time be offered by tradesmen, me- chanics, laborers, minors, servants, and others; " and to invest "the same in government securities, or in stock of the United States, or of this State, for the use, inter- est and advantage of the said depositors and their legal representatives." "An act to incorporate the Albany Savings Bank," was passed the twenty-fourth of March, 1820.
The first officers (a president, three vice-presidents and fifteen trustees) of the institution designated by the act were : Stephen van Rensselaer, president, Wil- liam James, first vice-president, Joseph Alexander, sec-
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ond vice-president, John Townsend, third vice-president, Charles R. Webster, Jesse Buel, Thomas Russell, Vol- kert P. Douw, William Durant, Douw Fonda, Simeon De Witt, Peter Boyd, John Spencer, John L. Winne, William McHarg, Matthew Gill, Harmanus Bleecker, and Sylvanus P. Jermain, managers ; who were "not to receive directly or indirectly any pay or emolument for their services," nor "directly borrow " or "use the funds of the corporation." At the first meeting of these officers at the "Chamber of Commerce Rooms " on the sixteenth of May, 1820, Sylvanus P. Jermain was ap- pointed secretary ; and at their next meeting, the fifth of June following, John W. Yates, then cashier of the New York State Bank, was appointed treasurer.
Deposits were to be received every Saturday after- noon, and three trustees, appointed monthly, were with the treasurer to receive them. On the tenth of June, 1820, the first deposits were made ; the money being re- ceived at the New York State Bank, with which the Savings Bank had made an agreement for the safe keep- ing of its funds. The sums placed that day in the bank were from one dollar to two hundred dollars, and amounted to five hundred and twenty-seven dollars. Joseph T. Rice, a silversmith, was the first depositor.
The Albany Savings Bank was the second incorpora- ted savings institution in the state of New York. On the fifteenth of March, 1828, a contract was made with the Commercial Bank to keep and invest the funds of the Savings Bank. On the first of July, 1871, the business of the bank was continued in the rooms pre- viously occupied by the First National Bank. The site of the new bank-building on the northwest corner of State and Chapel streets was purchased in 1873 and in 1874. The plans for the building were made by Fuller &
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Woollett, architects. It was erected in 1874 and 1875. On the eleventh of May, 1875, the bank began business in it. The present officers of the institution are Henry H. Martin, president, J. Howard King, first vice-presi- dent, Marcus T Hun, second vice-president, Theodore Townsend, treasurer, and William Kidd, secretary. The deposits in the bank on the first of January, 1884, were $8,253,176 64 ; the assets $9,605, 713 74.
The peculiarly constructed sun-dial recently project- ing from the southeast corner of the old capitol build- ing was made under the superintendence of James Ferguson, a native of Albany. It was modelled after a diagram on plate XXXVI, in a work, entitled “Lectures on Select Subjects," by James Ferguson, an eminent Scotch astronomer. The dial was placed on the corner of the capitol in August, 1822, by the order of the com- mon council of the twenty-second of July : "Resolved, That the city superintendent be directed to put up the dial at the south-east corner of the capitol building at an expense not to exceed $15."
The celebration of the passage of the first boat from the Erie Canal into the Hudson River at Albany, on Wednesday, the eighth of October, 1823, was a memora- ble event. Although the construction of the great pub- lic work was not yet completed, the people of Albany, as soon as a boat could be towed on that part of it ex- tending northward from the city, determined to in- augurate the navigation of the extensive water-way to the western lakes by passing several boats from it into the Hudson through the new lock immediately north of Colonie Street, opposite the north end of the pier.
A committee of seventy-two citizens of New York had been appointed to attend the celebration, and a bottle of sea-water had been sent to the committee to
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be poured into the water issuing from the canal when the lock-gate was opened for the passage of the first boat into the Hudson. Major Solomon van Rensselaer was made marshal of the day. At sunrise a national salute was fired and all the church-bells and those of the public buildings were rung. Shortly afterward the joint committee proceed to the junction of the Erie and Champlain canals, north of Gibbonsville, (West Troy,). to join the canal commissioners and engineers on board the first boat that was to pass through the lock at Al- bany. When the line of boats arrived at the termina- tion of the canal at Albany the cap-stone of the lock was laid with Masonic formalities. On the pier the fol- lowing military companies under the command of Major R. I. Knowlson were in line to receive the first boat with the canal commissioners on entering the Hudson: Captains Stafford's Dragoons, Bradt's Artillery, Koon's Artillery, Durrie's Light Infantry, Dunn's National Guards, Cuyler's Governor's Guards, and Fowler's City Guards. A detachment of artillerymen with two twelve- pounders was posted on the hill near the mansion of the late General Ten Broeck to fire a national salute and fifty-four rounds in honor of each county in the state when the procession started to march to Capitol Square, where a pavillion had been erected and where speeches were to be made by the mayor, Charles E. Dudley, De Witt Clinton president of the board of canal commissioners, William Bayard of the New York committee, and Wil- liam James of the Albany committee.
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