Charter Day and Cake

July 22 marks the 328th anniversary of the Dongan Charter, the document which established Albany as a city and which makes it among the oldest incorporated cities in the United States.  The event doesn't get much attention since the Tricentennial celebrations in 1986 (which themselves seem to have been less spectacular than the 1886 Bicentennial (see the picture of crowds at a night parade in this previous post and some of the Bicentennial tablets which were placed at significant locations around the city).

I spent much of the day thinking that it would be great if something could be done annually to celebrate the event, even if only on a small scale. 

Yesterday, I picked up several vintage cookbooks.  Someone was putting moving out of a building in Center Square and set out a box of books.  I can never resist cookbooks so I came home with two.  Both were community cookbooks and the recipes in those can be hit or miss.  One was published by a church in Hagaman, New York and the other was published in conjunction with city Sesquicentennial in Indianapolis.
I didn't have a chance to peek inside either until this afternoon when the piece of paper shown above slipped from between the pages.  Not only does the apple cake recipe sound like its worth making (as soon as the weather cools enough to bake), but the recipe is handwritten on a piece of paper with a letterhead from the Tricentennial celebration.  Perfect timing!

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

On Broadway

Bicentennial plaque affixed to the Old Post Office and Federal Building on Broadway at the foot of State Street.