Independence Day at The Schuyler Mansion

On Monday, July 4, the Schuyler Mansion will hold an Independence Day Celebration from 11:00 A.M. to 4 P.M.

The event will include a balladeer, games, magicians, tinsmiths, ice cream, and other family-themed activities at the Mansion on 32 Catherine Street (South End).

For more information, contact the Schuyler Mansion at 518-434-0834

New Blog - The Albany Rural Cemetery

A new companion to this blog and Albany (NY) Daily Photo focusing on the historic Albany Rural Cemetery:

Albany Rural Cemetery - History In Photos

A Lord Interred In Albany - Viscount Howe (Part One)

It's not every day that one finds an English Lord buried underfoot in an American city. But walk through the massive bronze doors of St. Peter's Episcopal Church at the corner of State and Lodge Streets and look down. Set in the floor is a bronze marker which reads, GEORGE AUGUSTUS VISCOUNT HOWE IS BURIED BENEATH THIS PAVEMENT KILLED NEAR TICONDEROGA JULY 6, 1758.

A larger plaque of polished black stone hangs on the wall nearby and gives a little more information on the interment: BENEATH THIS PAVEMENT LIES THE BODY OF GEORGE AVGVSTVS VISCOVNT HOWE A DISTINGVISHED MAN AND SOLDER A FRIEND OF THE COLONIES KILLED ON THE MARCH TO TICONDEROGA JVLY 6 1758. This ornate memorial, designed by prominent Albany architect Marcus Reynolds, features Lord Howe's coat-of-arms and is of a similar design to monuments in the Reynolds family plot in the Albany Rural Cemetery.

Described by his contemporary Major-General James Wolfe as "the best officer in the British Army," George Augustus, 3rd Viscount Howe, was born in 1725, either at his family's home on London's Albemarle Street or their estate at Langar, Nottinghamshire. His family was quite well-connected as his mother, was the niece of King George I, and his father served as Governor of Barbados.

George Augustus began his career military career at the age of twenty, serving in the War of the Austrian Succession and would later be described as "the best officer in the British Army" by Major General James Wolfe. He would go on to introduce the Light Infantry into the British Army, training them for rapid movement in the wilderness of the American Colonies. His efforts would help shape the later Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

In 1758, Brigadier General Howe took part in the disastrous attack by General James Abercrombie on the French-held Fort Ticonderoga. Howe's supporters, including the Prime Minister William Pitt, would have greatly preferred to have Howe himself leading the campaign against Ticonderoga, but Abercrombie's seniority and political connections put him in command.

Marching north from Lake George, Howe's regiment encountered the French in a skirmish close to Ticonderoga on July 6. The British won the skirmish overwhelmingly and with minimal losses compared to the enemy's. But one of those casualties was Howe. Shot at extremely close range, the 33-year old Howe was fatally struck in the heart. His adjutant later wrote, "Never has ball had more devastating effect ... he was hit in the chest, fell backwards and only the tips of his fingers twitched for an instant."

By most historic accounts, Howe's body was transported to Albany by barge under the care of his friend Phillip Schuyler, then a young fellow officer in the British Army.

Reports vary as to where Howe was originally interred; some refer to the Schuyler family vaults, others to either the Dutch Church or St. Peter's Episcopal. Certainly church records for the latter make note of related burial expenses and Howe had been a member of the Church of England. Some accounts say that Howe's body was first laid in the Schuyler vaults until a spot under St. Peter's chancel was prepared to receive his remains. Schuyler himself was a warden of the church.

A Times Union article from 2001 also contains a tantalizing reference to Howe having been buried in secret at one of Albany's forts before being laid to rest beneath the church, a claim said to be backed by the church's records.

A popular officer who was an ease among his peers and among the common people, he was mourned both in England and in the Colonies. A monument in his memory was erected in London's Westminster Abby with the inscription:

THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETS BAY, IN NEW ENGLAND BY AN ORDER OF THE GREAT AND GENERAL COURT BEARING DATE FEBy; 1st: 1759, CAUSED THIS MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE AUGUSTUS LORD VISCOUNT HOWE, BRIGADIER GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY’S FORCES IN AMERICA, WHO WAS SLAIN JULY THE 6th 1758, ON THE MARCH TO TICONDEROGA, IN THE 34th YEAR OF HIS AGE: IN TESTIMONY OF THE SENSE THEY HAD OF HIS SERVICES AND MILITARY VIRTUES, AND OF THE AFFECTION THEIR OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS BORE TO HIS COMMAND. HE LIVED RESPECTED AND BELOVED: THE PUBLICK REGRETTED HIS LOSS; TO HIS FAMILY IT IS IRREPARABLE.

The monument is a large marble tablet atop a pair of lion's heads. A mourning female figure in classical robes rests atop the tablet.

About forty years after Howe's death, the original St. Peter's Church was demolished to make way for a new church building designed by noted Albany architect Phillip Hooker. At this time, Howe's coffin was exhumed and reburied in the new church around 1802. It is believed that they were temporarily placed in the Van Rensselaer family's private vault during construction of the new St. Peter's.

At the time of the first exhumation, Elkanah Watson (who was born the same year in which Howe was killed) attempted to obtain a rather morbid, if not downright souvenir of the Viscount and later chronicled the incident:

As the bones were then collected to be thrown into a promiscuous mass, I conceived the idea of getting possession of this skull of a Lord. I ascertained from Henry Cuyler, a British half-pay officer residing then at Greenbush, the precise spot where he was buried, which was also indicated by his coat of arms being placed on the E. wall, nearly over the tomb. I took the opportunity, to avoid exciting curiosity, when the workmen were gone to dinner, and with the aid of my man, we removed all the dirt and rubbish which covered the remains of a double coffin containing his ashes. The outer one made of white pine, had nearly moulded into dust; the inner one being made of mahogany, was with some exceptions sound, but in some places it had rotted. The weight of the earth had forced its way intermingled with his Lordship's bones. I removed the lid and found a thick rich silk damask in which his cold remains were enshrouded on his interment, apparently sound. In attempting to remove it, it crumbled into dust. I then perceived the object of my research within my grasp, resting in peace after slumbering forty-four years (44 years) within this damask. I raised it with great caution with my left hand and to my astonishment I found a fine set of shining teeth; the hair of his head in excellent preservation completely matted with powder and pomatum as if recently done by the frizure. The queue was very neat, the ribbon and double beau apparently new & jet black, but on touching it moldered between my thumb and finger. I concluded with Mr. Cuyler who alone was in the secret to send it to his family in England. On further consultation we thot that it would only open a fresh wound which bled nearly half a century ago and answer no valuable purposes.'

Whether or not he actually made off with the skull of Lord Howe isn't made clear, but the remains of the Viscount were respectably reburied beneath the second St. Peter's...only to be disturbed again.

To be continued....

The Angel At The Sepulchre

Perhaps the most famous monument in the historic Albany Rural Cemetery – and certainly one of the most written of - is Erastus Dow Palmer's heroic Angel at The Sepulchre.

Commissioned by Robert Lenox Banks, a Treasurer for the New York Central Railroad and, later Secretary to the Board of Directors of the Cemetery, for the grave of his first wife, Emma Rathbone Turner, the Angel sits alone in a circular plot atop a hill near the Cemetery's ornamental pond. A strikingly beautiful monument, it quickly became a draw for lovers of art who ranked the Angel as one of the world's great masterpieces.

Not that the contemporary praise for Palmer's Angel was unanimous. One critic regarded the both the face and figure as “a very fleshy and unangelic type.” In short, the Angel was too human and even "too American." On the other hand, at least one religious publication praised the Angel enthusiastically as “a royal herald” and the work of “an original and poetic mind.”

As early as 1894, concerns were raised about the damaging effect of the elements on the white marble Angel. The New York Times addressed the issue in an article, “Monuments At Albany.”

Art critics are much concerned over the future of Palmer's masterpiece, “The Angel at the Sepulchre,” which is one of the finest pieces of monumental art in Northern New-York. It is on the burial plot of Gen. Robert Lenox Banks in the Albany Rural Cemetery, and is of large proportions, being 7 feet in height. The figure is deceptive, appearing larger at a distance than when close to it. Chiseled out of one piece of stone, it stands a monument to the sublime creation of a master mind. What the critics fear is that, being of marble and exposed to the severe changes of this climate, scaling of the stone may set in and degeneration certainly take place. Already a part of one of the toes has disappeared, and this fact has caused the lovers of art to renew their entreaties that this work of art be placed under cover and preserved.

Those concerns were well-founded. Today, the elements have softened and worn the Angel's clear features and the white marble is crusted with scaly gray lichen.

Born in Pompey, New York in 1817, Erastus Palmer was one of America's finest 19th-century artists. Entirely self-taught, he began his artistic career carving small cameo portraits before moving on to marble. His works include The White Captive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Robert Livingston in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. The Albany Institute of History & Art in his adopted city includes an excellent gallery of his work, including the plaster cast of the Angel. His son, Walter Launt Palmer, was a respected painter best known for his snowy scenes and detailed interiors.

Palmer himself, lies in the Rural Cemetery in a family plot with a Roman-style marble monument just steps downhill from his magnificent Angel.

More on the Angel At The Sepulchre

The Albany Bicenntennial Tablets - Part One

1886 was a celebratory year for Albany. It marked the 200th anniversary of the granting of the Dongan Charter, the municipal charter issued by Governor Dongan which separated Albany from the colonial estate of Rensselaerwyck and created it as a city.

Among the many commemorations, a series of 42 bronze plaques were placed throughout Albany through the efforts of a committee headed by architect Walter Dickson. The Bicentennial Tablets were created by William Hailes (a maker of stove and machine patterns whose shop stood at the corner of Broadway and Hamilton Street) and placed at sites significant to Albany history.

The plaques varied in size from small (about 16 x 7 inches) to large (about 32 x 40 inches) and marked such places as the site of Fort Frederick atop State Street's steep hill, historic churches and private residences of note, original names of streets, and the courses of some of the old streams that once flowed through the city. They commemorated events such as the ride of Symon Schermerhorn who carried the news of the Schenectady Massacre to Albany, visits by George Washington, and the planting of an elm tree by Philip Livingston.

The tablets were part of a celebration of Albany heritage that included proclamations, sermons, hymns, parades, visits by Mohawk chiefs, and an evergreen "triumphal arch" built across Broadway complete with a wooden replica of the old stockade gates.

A numbered list of the plaques was published in various late 19th and early 20th century guidebooks to aid visitors to Albany in retracing the paths of the city's history.

Almost 125 years have passed since the Bicentennial Tablets were set in place and, gradually, many of the plaques disappeared as buildings were torn down and new structures raised. Streets were widened, paved, and repaved and the plaques set along curbs lost or destroyed.

More than half of the original 42 plaques are gone. At least one of the current plaques is a replica replacing a lost marker noting the home where Governor DeWitt Clinton died in 1828. The majority, though, are lost and forgotten. Only about a dozen survive and some of those are now very difficult to find.

Looking at the original list of markers is a poignant reminder of how much of Albany's early history was not preserved. So many of the places commemorated by the plaques were gone by the time of the Bicentennial and many of those that still stood intact as of 1886 are long since gone.

To be continued...

Plaque Number 1 - Fort Orange 
Plaque Number 4 - The Progenitor
Plaque Number 29 - The North East Gate
Plaque - Old Saint Mary's
Plaque - Lydius Corner
Plaque - On Broadway

Wacheka Albanya (Sophie High Dog)

The little girl's grave lies among the elegant monuments of Albany's elite and wealthy. The white marble headstone has toppled and lies propped against its base. The inscription is beginning to weather away and tall grass often half-hides the grave.

The child who was known as Sophie High Dog or Wacheka Albanya was Sioux born in South Dakota around 1890. Too little information is known about her early childhood or family, but she was brought to Albany at the age of five as an orphan. It was later claimed that she had been "thrown away," simply abandoned by her parents.

Wacheka had initially been sent to the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle school's purpose was to assimilate Native American children in white society and its history is one of abuse and tragedy. Wacheka, however, came to the attention of the Albany Indian Association and was termed "too delicate" for a boarding school where hundreds of children died of disease and harsh treatment. The Association, which was founded in 1883 to aid in solving the so-called "Indian problem" through eduction, had the child brought to Albany and placed her in St. Christina's Home. St. Christina's, which operated under the auspices of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, was located in Saratoga Springs and served as a summer home for the Child's Hospital.

Described as a "bright and earnest" child, she soon became a favorite of caretakers who referred to her in the sentimental language of the era, as a "sweet flower out of rough forest soil" even as they sought to erase all traces of her Sioux heritage with a white Christian education.

Meanwhile, the delicate health that had first won the sympathy of her guardians worsened. Her body was weakened by measles and tuberculosis and she passed away on February 13, 1900. Four days later, William C. Doane, the popular Episcopal Bishop of Albany, presided over her funeral at the Cathedral of All Saints.

Her obituary is a sad one which reflects the prejudices and misconceptions of the day, describing her parents as a "drunken" Sioux father and a "dissolute half-breed" mother. It was accompanied by a picture of Wacheka in fashionable child's coat and bonnet.

She was laid to rest in the Rural Cemetery, her grave paid for by the Albany Indian Association.

The people who arranged for her care, those who paid for her education and, later, mourned her with a lavish funeral acted no doubt believed they did right for Wacheka. They probably meant well and their actions were the product of their era and its cultural values.

Owner of Iconic Miss Albany Diner Dies

Clifford Brown, owner of the Miss Albany Diner, passed away yesterday.

Read more about the Miss Albany here.