It’s Really, Really Old

Linda Burton posting from Albany, New York – Age denotes character. Isn’t that what you’ve always heard? If that’s true, then Albany has character aplenty, because Albany is old. Really, really old. It is the longest continuously chartered city in the United States, tracing back to July 22, 1686 when Governor Dongan issued a charter fixing boundaries, setting up a municipal government, naming the first officers, and establishing Albany as the sole market town in the upper Hudson River region. Mayor Pieter Schuyler took the oath of office July 26, 1686, and the rest, as they say, is history. But the European history of the area goes back even further, to 1609, when a fellow by the name of Henry Hudson sailed a ship up the river that now bears his name. This led the Dutch to lay claim to the area; by 1624 the Dutch West India Company had built a trading post on the west bank of the river and named it Fort Orange. There were soldiers for protection, employees to conduct business, and farmers to provide food. By the 1640s a fur trading community had evolved north of the Fort; it took the name Beverwyck. Fast forward; the Fort became less profitable to the Company; there was a devastating Hudson River flood; New Netherland fell to the English. Beverwyck was renamed Albany in 1664, in honor of the Duke of Albany, who later became England’s King James II. The English built a new fort, and that brings us back to the Dongan Charter of 1686. Those are the bones of the Albany story; after a visit to the Empire State Plaza I’ll begin to flesh it out. That’s where the castle-like State Capitol and the sleekly modern Cultural Education Center do a face off, across shimmering pools. » read more