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 35
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The noteworthy features of the event were thus pro- trayed by a writer : "The pencil can do no justice to the scene presented on the fine autumnal morning when the Albany lock was opened. Numerous steam boats and river vessels, splendidly dressed, decorated the
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beautiful amphitheatre formed by the hills which border the valley of the Hudson at this place. * * A line of canal boats, with colors flying, bands of music, and crowded with people, were seen coming from the north, and seemed to glide over the level grounds, which hid the waters of the canal for some distance, as if they were moved by enchantment.
" The first boat that entered the lock was the De Witt Clinton, having on board Governor Yates, the mayor and corporation of Albany, the canal commissioners and engineers, the committees and other citizens. Several other boats succeeded. One (not the least interesting object in the scene) was filled with ladies. The cap stone of the lock was laid with Masonic ceremonies by the fraternity, who appeared in great numbers and in grand costume.
"The waters of the west and of the ocean were then mingled by Doctor Mitchell, [of the New York com- mittee] who pronounced an epithalamium upon the union of the river and the lakes, after which the lock gates were opened, and the De Witt Clinton majestically sunk upon the bosom of the Hudson.
"She was then towed by a long line of barges, passed the steam boats and other vessels, to a wharf at the upper end of the city, where those gentlemen who were embarked on board the canal boats landed, and joined a military and civic procession, which was conducted to a large stage, fancifully decorated, erected for the occasion in front of the capitol."
"It was a great day," says another writer, " cele- brated with great pomp, a grand display of all sorts of pride and ceremonies, attended, probably, by 30,000 people."1
1 Spafford's Gazetteer. 1823.
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In reviewing the growth of the city in 1823, the Daily Advertiser presents these facts : "Ten years ago and the now proud and beautiful Academic square was a barren clay bank, variegated by an occasional saw-pit, or a group of reclining cows-then the whole of the upper part of Columbia Street was a high hill unoccu- pied and impassable as a street, and the greater part of Chapel Street was in rainy weather a complete mud- hole.
"Ten years ago, of the whole row of handsome dwellings now standing on the south side of the Capitol square, only one was then erected ; then Daniels Street did not exist, and the whole south part of Eagle Street was a most unpromising ravine.
"Ten years ago there were not four families in the city who used grates and burned coal fires-their winter fuel was laid in at a high price and procured at great trouble in New York. Now there is a manufactory here which turns out beautiful grates of every variety of patterns, and all kinds of coals can be bought in the city at any season of the year-consequently a great number of families consume coals. as more comfortable, safe and economical than wood."
The decision of the supreme court of the second of March, 1824, respecting the free navigation of the Hud- son river, abrogated the exclusive privileges of the North River Steamboat Company, and affirmed the right of others to navigate the river from certain points with vessels impelled by steam. The Bristol, Henry Eckford, and Olive Branch were among the first new boats that shortly afterward began to ply upon the river. The bursting of the boiler of the steamboat Constitution, plying between New York and Albany, on the twenty- first of June, 1825, when opposite Poughkeepsie, led to
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the use of safety barges. In 1826, the safety barges Lady Clinton and Lady Van Rensselaer were respec- tively towed by the steamboats Commerce and Swift- sure, each being fitted up exclusively for the transpor- tation of passengers. Besides these boats of the Steam Navigation Company, the Union Line, the North River Line, the Connecticut Line, the North River Association Line, and the Transportation Company Line had twelve boats plying on the river, carrying freight and passen- gers to and from Albany.
The construction of the pier, authorized by the legislature on the fifth of April, 1823, was completed in May, 1825. It was about four thousand four hundred feet long, eighty wide and twenty high. It extended along the east side of the basin in which a thousand canal boats and fifty large vessels could harbor.
On the twenty-sixth of October, 1825, the passage of the first canal boat from Buffalo into the Albany basin was announced by the successive discharge of cannon placed along the canal between lake Erie and the Hud- son, and along the Hudson, between Albany and New York. The Buffalo boat entered the basin at three minutes before eleven o'clock A. M. At five minutes be- fore twelve o'clock the sound of "the return fire from New York " reached Albany.
The opening of the canal from lake Erie to the Hud- son was celebrated at Albany on the second of Novem- ber, 1825. The celebration is described by the Daily Advertiser : "Wednesday last was a proud day for the citizens of Albany ; a great day to the citizens of the state of New York ; and an important day to the Union ; for then we had ocular demonstration that the great work of the age is completed, and our inland seas made accessible from the ocean. *
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"At 10 o'clock the Seneca Chief, with the governor, lieutenant governor, the Buffalo, Western and New York committees on board, came down in fine style, and the thunder of cannon proclaimed that the work was done ! and the assembled multitudes made the welkin ring with shouts of gladness.
"The Seneca Chief was closely followed by the Young Lion of the West, from Buffalo, richly laden with the products of the West, and having many dis- tinguished citizens on board. After passing the lock, the two boats were taken in tow by ten yawls, each having four rowers and a sloop captain as coxswain, the whole under the command of that veteran in river navi- gation, Capt. Peter Donnelly, and towed through a double line of canal boats, down the basin, and through the sloop lock into the Hudson. This sight was par- ticularly beautiful, and the repeated cheers of the throng on the wharves and bridges was an evidence of the deep feeling of joy which filled the hearts of the spectators. After the boats arrived in the river, they were towed up to the steamboat Swiftsure, on the east side of the pier, in front of the centre bridge, on board of which had assembled the members of the common council and different committees of this city. % At 11 o'clock a procession was formed, under the direction of Wel- come Esleeck, John Taylor, James Gibbons, jr., and Francis I. Bradt, marshals of the day. * * The procession was very long and respectable."
At the capitol, an ode, written for the occasion by John Augustus Stone of the Albany Theatre, was sung. Philip Hone of New York, William James of Albany, and Lieutenant-governor Tallmadge delivered addresses. The exercises were followed by a collation at the Columbia Street bridge "consisting of the most choice
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viands of our climate, with a plenty of the 'ruby bright' wines of the best vineyards of Europe." At night the capitol and the Pearl Street theatre were brightly illumi- nated, and besides the recitation of a " Grand Canal Ode " at the play-house, there was "a brilliant ball" at Knickerbacker Hall.
The Marquis de Lafayette, on his tour through the United States, reached Albany by steamboat on the seventeenth of September, 1824, and " was received with every possible demonstration of joy and gratitude." On the following day he continued his journey. On the eleventh of June, 1825, he again visited the city, and on the following day, Sunday, attended church. On Mon- day he departed for Boston. He returned on the first of July, and was honored with a dinner given by the citizens in the capitol that afternoon. The following toast was offered by him : "Albany as I have known it, and Albany as it is now-a comparative standard be- tween royal guardianship and the self government of the people ; may this difference be more and more illustrated at home, and understood abroad." Daniel Webster, who was also present, offered this one : "The ancient and hospitable city of Albany ; where Gen. Lafayette found his headquarters in 1778, and where men of his principles find good quarters at all times." After attending the play at the theatre, General Lafay- ette went on board the steamboat Bolivar and proceeded to New York.
In November, 1823, a notice was published that an application to the legislature would be made for the in- corporation of the Commercial Bank of Albany, with a capital of five hundred thousand dollars. But it was not until the twelfth of April, 1825, that the desired act was passed. The capital stock was not to exceed three
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hundred thousand dollars. Commissioners were appoint- ed by the act to receive subscriptions for the shares of the stock, each share having a value of twenty dollars. In three days the subscriptions amounted to more than one million five hundred thousand dollars. The chagrined opponents of the institution obtained an injunction stay- ing the opening of the bank. In August, 1826, it was de- cided that the bank might go into operation so far as to issue bills and discount notes, but it was prohibited to make any transfer of stock, or any loans on pledges of stock. Joseph Alexander was elected president of the institution, and Harry Barton appointed cashier. The bank began business on the fifth of September, 1826, at No. 42 State Street.
The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, incorporated by the legislature on the twelfth of March, 1793, and the Albany Lyceum of Natural History, incorporated on the twenty-third of April, 1823, were, by articles of association, united on the fifth of May, 1824, and named the Albany Institute, of which Stephen van Rensselaer was the first president. By the act to incorporate the Albany Institute, passed the twenty-seventh of February, 1829, the society was constituted with three departments: the first depart- ment, physical sciences and arts; the second depart- ment, natural history; and the third department, history and general literature.
The Institute holds its meetings in the library-room of the association, in the Albany Academy building. Its library contains about six thousand books and a valuable collection of old newspapers. Its publications embrace ten volumes of Transactions and one volume of its Field-meetings.
The legislature having appropriated in 1829 seven-
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teen thousand five hundred dollars to purchase the city's right and interest in the capitol and its grounds, the corporation bought the site of the present city-hall, on Eagle Street, between Pine Street and Maiden Lane. The corner-stone was laid on the thirty-first of August, 1827, by the mayor, John Townsend. The building was constructed of Sing Sing marble ; $92,336 91 were expended on it. The common council held its first meeting in the building on the twenty-fifth of July, 1831. The city-hall was burned on the tenth of Febru- ary, 1880. The corner-stone of the new building was laid on the thirteenth of October, 1881. The walls are of Bragville granite, trimmed with East Long-Meadow brown stone, both taken from quarries near Springfield, Massachusetts. The building, including the tower, has a frontage of one hundred and twenty feet and a depth of one hundred and twenty-five feet. The tower is two hundred and ten feet high. The building and its furni- ture cost $325,000. The plan of the city-hall was de- signed by H. H. Richardson, architect, of Boston. The jail, immediately east of the city-hall on the north side of Maiden Lane, was erected in 1852. Criminals were confined in it for the first time on the second of June, 1853.
The Albany Evening Journal, which, for more than a half-century, has enjoyed a well-deserved popularity, began its publication on the twenty-second of March, 1830. It was first published by B. D. Packard & Com- pany as an anti-masonic organ. Thurlow Weed ac- cepted the editorship of the paper and obtained for the Journal no little celebrity during the thirty-three years of his connection with the paper.
The construction of a railroad from Albany was ap- parently first suggested by the publication in 1812 of a
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pamphlet entitled : "Documents tending to prove the superior advantage of Rail Ways and Steam Carriages over Canal Navigation, particularly from Lake Erie to Hudson's River." By the "act to incorporate the Mo- hawk and Hudson Railroad Company, passed April 17, 1826, Stephen van Rensselaer, George William Fea- therstonhaugh and Lynde Catlin were named commis- sioners to open subscription-books in the cities of Albany and New York for three hundred thousand dollars, the capital stock of the company, at one hundred dollars a share.
On the twenty ninth of July, 1830, near Schenectady, Stephen van Rensselaer, with a silver spade, broke the ground for the construction of the road, the first railroad in the state of New York. It was nearly sixteen miles long, six of which were on a level, the remainder, ex- cept the inclined planes, at each end of it, had a gradient of about one foot to two hundred and fifty feet. The wooden sleepers, seven inches in diameter and eight feet in length, rested on blocks of stone bedded in rubble. These ties supported the wooden longitudinals on which long bars of iron were placed, three-fifths of an inch thick and half an inch wide. The De Witt Clinton, the third railroad engine made in America, was constructed for the company at the West Point Foundry, in New York City. It was put on the road on the twenty- seventh of July, 1831.
" On the 30th of July an experiment was made with the locomotive, but owing to some defect or inexperience in burning Lackawanna coal, the speed did not exceed seven miles an hour, and it was determined to substitute coke. Meantime the road, which was completed and in use from the junction of the western turnpike and Ly- dius Street, about twelve and a half miles, to the brow
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of the hill at Schenectady, was operated by horse power. Besides platform cars used in the construction of the road, a number of stage coach bodies were placed upon trucks for temporary use, affording seats for fifteen or twenty passengers each. On the third of August the De Witt Clinton made the trip in one hour and forty- five minutes, and on the 10th they ran two trains each way with coke, making a part of the trip at the rate of thirty miles an hour ! *
"On the 17th of September the English locomotive [one from Stephenson of England, named " John Bull,"] was on the road. Its power and weight being double that of the American engine (12,742 lbs.,) great expecta- tions were entertained of its efficiency. * * Al- though the locomotive De Witt Clinton had been placed on the road in July, and the city officials and other dig- nitaries had passed over it both by horse and steam power early in August, it was so late as the 22d of Sep- tember when the locomotive was advertised to take passenger trains. The road was still uncompleted, and used only from the junction, as it was called, two miles from the foot of State Street, from whence passengers were taken to the train by stage coaches. The other terminus of the road was still at the bluff overlooking Schenectady, where passengers were again transferred to stages. The distance traversed was less than thirteen miles. * *
"The precise time when the directors of the road felt prepared to crown the complete success of their labors by a grand excursion, to which were invited the state and city officials, and a number of eminent citizens of New York, was the 24th of September, 1831. * * In the spring of 1832 the road was completed through- out its whole line, and the inclined planes being in work-
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ing order, another grand excursion was given on the 14th of May, extending from the foot of Gansevoort street into the heart of Schenectady. This event was witnessed by a large assemblage, and attended by the firing of cannon. The cars were drawn up the in- clined plane by means of a long rope attached to them and to a stationary engine at the top, the whole steadied and balanced by a car loaded with stone descending on the opposite track. The same style of railroad coaches was still used. In the fall of this year a new pattern of car was built in Schenectady, more nearly like those now in use, the architecture of which was modeled from Dr. Nott's parlor stove, and was called the gothic car. * * *
"In January, 1833, the company having erected in State Street [north side, between Chapel and Eagle Streets] for a hotel the building [No. 119], now [in 1875] occupied by the Free Academy, the cars were run by horse power from State Street to the junction, where they were coupled to the locomotive. * * In 1839 the terminus at the head of State Street was aban- doned, and a depot improvised where the Taylor Brew- ery, now [in 1875] stands. Horses were used only to draw the coaches to the foot of the incline plane at Pearl Street."1
The inclined plane was abandoned in 1844, a track extending along Patroon creek, on the north side of the city, and running thence to the depot, at the foot of Maiden Lane, having been laid that year. Trains began to run to and from the new depot on the thirteenth of September. The railroad between Greenbush and Bos- ton having been opened in December, 1841, freight and passengers were conveyed across the river by ferry-boats
1 Paper read by Joel Munsell before the Albany Institute, April 20, 1875,
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plying between the wharves at the termini of the two roads. Maiden Lane, from the river to Broadway, was daily the scene of great business activity, the street being crowded with vehicles and the sidewalks with people. Stanwix Hall, on the southeast corner of Maiden Lane and Broadway, erected in 1833, now became the favorite stopping-place of a large number of travelers. In April, 1844, the old hotel on the northeast corner of Broadway and Steuben Street was demolished, and on its site E. C. Delavan erected the Delavan House, which soon acquired the popularity that this well-known hotel still possesses.
In the summer of 1832 the cholera prevailed with extreme malignancy and more than four hundred per- sons died in the city with the disease. Six hundred and thirty-two cases were reported in July, of which num- ber of persons afflicted two hundred and eight died. In August there were five hundred and twenty-five cases, and one hundred and ninety-three deaths from cholera. The population of the city was about twenty-six thou- sand. In August, 1834, a number of cases were again reported, but the deaths from the epidemic did not exceed thirty.
The act to incorporate the City Bank of Albany was passed the thirtieth of April, 1834. Thirteen commis- sioners were appointed by the act to receive subscriptions for the capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars, divided into five thousand shares of one hundred dollars each. The subscription-books were opened on the ninth of June, and when they were closed two days there- after, the subscriptions amounted to $1,142,900. On the twenty-fourth of July thirteen directors of the institution were elected at the City Hotel. By them Erastus Corning was made president and Watts Sher-
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man cashier of the bank. The bank began business on the first of October, 1834, in the building then No. 38 State Street.
Dr. Alden March of Massachusetts began in 1821 a course of lectures on anatomy with dissections to a class of fourteen students in a building on Montgomery street, north of Columbia street. In 1830 he delivered a public lecture on the "propriety of establishing a medical col- lege and hospital in Albany." In 1835 Dr. James H. Armsby, who had attended the lectures of Dr. March, . became a teacher of anatomy in the school. In May, 1838, the Lancaster School building, on the southwest corner of Lancaster and Eagle streets, was leased to the trustees of the college. The names of the following persons were reported at the meeting of the trustees in the latter part of May to compose the faculty of the institution : Alden March, professor of surgery ; James H. Armsby, anatomy and physiology ; Amos Dean, med- ical jurisprudence ; Ebenezer Emmons, chemistry and pharmacy ; Henry Greene, obstetrics and diseases of women and children, and David M. Mclachlan, materia medica. Subsequently, David M. Reese was appointed professor of the theory and practice of medicine. The first course of lectures began on the third of January, 1839, in the Lancaster school building, fifty-seven students attending them. The institution was incorporated on the sixteenth of February, 1839. The degree of doctor of medicine was conferred on thirteen graduates at the com- mencement on the twenty-fourth of April, 1839. In April, 1873, the institution was constituted a part of Union University. Sixteen hundred and fifty-seven students have graduated from the college.
The organization of the Albany Exchange Bank had its inception at a meeting held in Samuel Stevens' office
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on the twenty-first of September, 1838. At a meeting in the American Hotel, on the twenty-fifth of October, John Q. Wilson was elected president of the association. The capital stock having been increased to four hundred thousand dollars, and George W. Stanton having been elected president, and Noah Lee cashier of the institu- tion, the bank began business on the sixteenth of Sep- tember, 1839, in the Exchange Building, erected in 1836 and 1837, on the northeast corner of State and Market Streets, now the site of the Government Building. In 1856 the institution was removed to the new bank-build- ing, No. 450 Broadway.
On the first of April, 1834, the legislature appointed a board of trustees to purchase land in the vicinity of the capitol to erect thereon a new state-hall. The plat of ground on the east side of Eagle Street between Steuben and Pine Streets was selected for the building, the erection of which was not completed until 1842. It was built of Sing Sing marble, and cost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. When it was completed, the different apartments in it were occupied by the chancellor, the judges of the supreme court, the register of the court of chancery, the secretary of state, the comptroller, the treasurer, the attorney-general, the surveyor-general, the adjutant-general, the clerk of the supreme court, the canal-board and the canal-com- missioners. The old state-building, on the southwest corner of State and Lodge Streets, was then fitted up for the reception and display of the various specimens, maps, figures and illustrations collected and prepared by the state geological corps. In the summer of 1855, the old state-building was demolished and the present hall containing the geological and agricultural rooms was erected on its site. By an enactment of the legis-
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lature in 1883 the present state-hall, when vacated by the state officers, is to become the state-museum of natural history.
The Albany Morning Express, a penny daily paper, published by Stone & Henly, and edited by James Stan- ley Smith, began its first career on the thirteenth of September, 1847, with a sale of sixteen hundred copies. Four other daily newspapers were published at that time in the city.
On the seventeenth of August, 1848, the most densely populated part of the city was ravaged by fire. The space on which were the six hundred buildings that were burned is described as extending "700 feet west from the river on Herkimer Street, 350 on Dallius, running northwardly ; 900 feet on Union Street, continuing in the same direction ; 300 feet east on Hud- son, and 1600 on Quay Street, running south." By a strong south wind the fire swept northward from the corner of Broadway and Herkimer Streets, where it began in a shed adjoining the Albion Hotel, to "the cut at the foot of Maiden Lane." The loss was estimated at $3,000,000.
The imposing edifice, the cathedral of the Immacu- late Conception, built on the west side of Eagle Street, between Madison Avenue and Jefferson Street, was dedicated by Archbishop Hughes, on the twenty-first of November, 1852, who had laid its corner-stone on the second of July, 1848. The attractive building has a frontage of ninety-five feet and a depth of one hun- dred and ninety-five. The nave has a length of one hundred and twenty-five feet, and the transept ninety- six feet. The cathedral has twenty-five hundred sit- tings. About two hundred thousand dollars were expended in its construction and decoration. It is a
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