steam boat constantly running between this city and Troy, for the accommodation of passengers, performing four passages every twenty-four hours. The public stages are very numerous that centre in Albany; and the facilities which these afford of traveling 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 two days; for Burlington in Vermont, two days; and there are stages for every part of the country, with little delay of conveyance.

The Society of the Albany Library, is of long standing, and there is also a society of the Albany Water Works, besides many others connected with manufactures, turnpikes and other pecuniary enterprises, a very large amount of capital being so vested.

The city of Albany has a school on the plan of the benevolent Lancaster, first established by individual zeal to do good, patronized by the corporation and ultimately by the state, and now pretty liberally endowed. The company was incorporated in 1812, and intends soon to erect a suitable building for the school, which is now kept in the Mechanic Hall. This is a very useful institution, humanely designed for the more general diffusion of the blessings of learning to all classes of people; and its founders and patrons deserve well of the rising generation. It is good to lay in such claims to the gratitude of posterity.

There are many humane and other societies; and the Ladies' Society maintains a woman's school, in which are educated twenty-five to forty poor girls, with admirable economy. They are clothed alike at the expense of the society, instructed in useful industry, and form a very pleasing spectacle to the heart of benevolence. There is a Humane Society, a Mechanics' Society, a Bible Society, a Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, a St. Andrew's Society, several Free Masons' Societies, a Washington Benevolent Society, and several others less known.

Albany is not yet distinguished for its public walks, and elegant promenades, those usual lounging elegancies of great cities- but its suburbs display considerable of individual taste and opulence in the gardens of the wealthy inhabitants. Among those that of Mr. James Kane is entitled to eminent notice, and a taste for this kind of useful elegance is happily increasing.

The first settlement of this city was made by some Hollanders about 1612, and next to Jamestown in Virginia, it is the oldest settlement in the United States; and in 1614 a temporary fort was erected. Fort Orange was built about 1623. Albany received its charter in 1686. And it is worthy of remark that this city was enclosed by a stockade defense against the Indians about 1745, when there were six block houses erected, the last of which with the last remaining vestige of that work, was destroyed by fire in the summer of 1812. (See also Albany county.) Albany is situated in north latitude 42° 39', west longitude 73° 32′ from London, and 16' east longitude from the city of New York. It is about 394 miles from Quebec, 230 from Montreal, 257 from Philadelphia, 404 from Washington city, 320 from Niagara Falls, 171 from Boston, 654 from Detroit, and 173 from Burlington in Vermont.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

These are rendered somewhat peculiar by the varied character of the original population; and by a distinct preservation of their national characteristics to this time. Among those who planted the colony of New York, and of those who became settlers during many years, a very large proportion were Dutch families from the Dutch Netherlands. Arriving in considerable numbers, with many entire families, they formed Dutch societies here as soon as they arrived, and thus merely translated the rural economy of the population of the Netherlands, of Holland, and of the banks of the Rhine, to those of the Hudson. As yet, the spirit of general migration had not appeared; and the father and son, with the whole family connection, must either emigrate together, or remain so at home. The object was to colonize a far distant country, and whole colonies embarked together, bringing with them brick faithfully burnt with Dutch peat, to a country of clay and wood, with other prepared materials for their houses. They were a trading, commercial people; ships were freighted with brick; and every habitation was furnished at first with a dwelling modelled from those they had left, and with store rooms for trade like those of Amsterdam, and of the trading towns at home. thus at New Amsterdam, now New York, at Beaver Wyck, Fort Orange, or Williamstadt, now Albany, were to be seen in a few years after the arrival of these colonists, rows of houses exactly like those of Holland, built of imported brick, peopled by Dutch families from there, with all their love of neatness, order, industry, and frugality, with the same long pipes, and all the implements of domestic economy. There are yet standing in Albany, many of those houses built of the best of small red bricks; 1 and there are also some in New York, and at a few other early settlements along the Hudson. These colonists may well be characterized as a pious, devout people; and the church was in the Gothic style of building, one story high, and stood in the open area formed by the angle of State, Market, and Court streets, about ninety-two years, and was only demolished in 1806. The stone has been since employed in the erection of the South Dutch church, a most superb edifice. But these minutiæ of detail belong to the topographical part of this work, while the traits of character that we learn from them, are important in this article. There

And

'A half century later than the time of writing the above, these houses had almost entirely disappeared. The principal ones still remaining fifty years after Mr. Spafford printed his book, were the one on the south-east corner of State and Pearl streets, and another on the corner of North Pearl and Columbia streets. One stands at 98 State street with a modern front, and another adjoining the Female Academy in North Pearl street, similarly disguised. There were no others but two or three in the Colonie, as it used to be called, and they were quite inferior houses in their best day. Indeed, it is doubtful if any of the material for these remaining houses was brought from Holland.-M.

are, probably, in this state, more men of opulence, whose wealth is derived from confirmations of colonial possessions in the descendants of the ancient colonists, than in any other portion of the United States. And this circumstance has also been conducive to the preservation of national habits, through a longer succession.

The accession of numbers after the conquest by the English, in 1664, gave a new turn to affairs, and immigrants flocked from all the nations of Europe. From this period, less can be learnt of the origin of national habits, as immigrants became more numerous, and cherished less of their foreign and national distinctions. The arrival of the French protestants, about 1685, proved a considerable acquest of knowledge, as did that of numbers of merchants from Bermudas, about 1740, of wealth, commercial knowledge, and enterprise. The Scotch, during the early periods, settled about Albany, and in Washington county. As the Dutch were the original proprietors and first colonists, so their numbers were the greatest, as were their possessions also, and the most valuable. No foreign emigrants selected for richness of soil with so much care; and next in this respect, were the Germans. Nor have any others preserved their ancient possessions so entire, in the line of posterity as those; not their distinct national manners and habits. With the exceptions above noticed, we may regard the choice, and especially the alluvial tracts along the Hudson, as originally occupied by the Dutch, and a considerable portion of those tracts formed by its small tributary streams. The patents of land, granted to the Dutch, were numerous, and in many instances of vast extent. And these facts explain the origin and etymology of a numerous class of our names of things and places; nor are they without importance in settling their orthography. The Mohawk, unnavigable at its lower extremity, and sterile, was left to the later German, with some exceptions, principally about Schenectady, though their long pipe sagacity, as it was significantly styled by the Mohawk Indians, led them early to settle at Rome, the western navigable extremity of that river.

peace,

But the revolution produced great changes in this state, which was constantly a principal theatre of the war, and often that of its sanguinary conflicts. No part of the union felt more of its immediate consequences, or better sustained its American character in that period. And the changes produced by the revolution, were, in general, favorable to the character of the state at large. The prosperity that succeeded the widely diffused a spirit of enterprise and of emigration; and the successive increase of population and wealth in this state, is without a parallel in modern history. Of the immigrants added to our population during this period, a large portion have come from the eastern states, principally agriculturists, to settle the new lands of the western region, though many others are niechanics, merchants, traders, and professional characters. Every part of the state has received them; and Europe has also yielded considerable numbers, from all parts. These detailed views of our original population, will serve to exhibit the various traits of national character, and the origin of those diversified habits, manners and customs, justly ascribed to us by accurate observers.- Spafford's Gazetteer.

THE STAFFORD FAMILY.

For the origin of the name, STAFFORD, we must look rather to ingenious theory than to any positive knowledge. Attempts might be made to connect it with the Roman family of the Scipiones, which owes its name to the filial piety of a person who, from leading about his blind and aged father, received by metaphor the appellation of Scipio [English Staffer]. But a less honorable and more probable derivation of the English name is to be found in an old chronicle which runs as follows: "St. Bettelin disturbed by some that envied his happiness, removed into some desert, mountainous place, where he ended his life, leaving Bethner to others who afterwards built it and called it Stafford, there being a shallow place in the river hereabout that could easily be passed with the help of a staff only, [forded with a staff and hence Stafford.]"

The first STAFFORD who came to this country was THOMAS, born about 1605. He emigrated from Warwickshire, England, to Plymouth in New England, in or about the year 1626, and was among the inhabitants admitted "at the Toune of Nieu-Port since the 20th of the 3d mo., 1638." A few years later he removed to Providence, R. I., and from thence to Warwick, R. I., in 1652, where he died in 1677. Thomas Stafford is recorded, 1655, in "the Roule of ye Freemen of y Colonie" as "Freeman of the Towne of Warwicke." In 1662 he was granted fifty acres of land in Connecticut by the General Court, and may possibly have stayed there a few years. few years. He was a millwright, and at Plymouth he built the first mill in this country for grinding corn by water. He constructed another at Providence near what is called Millbridge, and still another on his own place in Warwick, the site of which is still recognizable.

Savage adds to the above account "that claim was asserted by him to be of the blood of the Stafford; but of what Stafford is less clear and unimportant though perhaps he had a coat of arms." Rev. Dr. Thomas Stafford Drowne, of Brooklyn, N. Y., in commenting upon this extract, says: "Now Mr. Savage might have known that such an expression could only have reference to the English house of Stafford, and had he inquired of any of the family he would have found that the family traditions are in favor of that view: and further what to my mind is quite conclusive, I have the coat of arms brought over by the first Stafford, which is engraved on wood, and the paper mounted on a panel about a foot square, in frame. It is the regular Stafford arms and bears the inscription The family of Stafford,* of Warwickshire, England.' It has been regularly transmitted from the first settler in Warwick here- bears marks of great age - and could never have been gotten up here."

*The founder of the noble house of Stafford was Robert, a younger son of Roger de Tonei, standard bearer of Normandy, whose name appears in the Doomsday as owner of one hundred and thirty-one lordships in the counties of Suffolk,

If this were a pretentious or exhaustive contribution to the history of the Stafford family, the compiler might be tempted to expend research and even speculation upon the connection which undoubtedly exists between the old English family and the New England offshoot, but his design is simply to give a partial record of one branch of the first settler.

In the will of Thomas Stafford, made Nov. 4, 1677, just before his death, mention is made of his wife Elizabeth, and we know nothing farther of her. Their children were Thomas, Samuel, Joseph, Deborah, Hannah and Sarah.

SAMUEL was born 1635 and admitted freeman of the colony in 1669. He was repeatedly chosen deputy, and in 1674 was elected assistant (senator). There are other evidences of his having been a representative man of Warwick. He married Mercy, daughter of Stukely Westcott,* and died March 20, 1718. Samuel and Mercy had issue: Stukely, Amos, Mercy, Sarah, Samuel, Patience, Freelove, Elizabeth and Thomas.3

THOMAS was born 1682, and admitted freeman in 1708. He also was several times chosen deputy for Warwick. Dec. 25, 1707, he married Anne, daughter of Job and Phebe (Sayles) Greene,† born Feb. 23, 168g, and upon her death, Aug. 24, 1718, he took for his second wife her cousin Audrey, daughter of Richard and Eleanor (Sayles) Greene, born Jan. 18, 1693. The date of this second marriage was July 16, 1719. Thomas 3 and Anne had Phebe, Anne, Mercy, Job. Samuel and Deborah: Thomas 3 and Audrey had Eleanor, Richard, Thomas, Samuel, Almy, Joab, Audrey and John. Thomas sold his portion of the farm at Warwick and removed to Coventry, R. I., certainly prior to 1744. He died Nov. 18, 1765, and Audrey, his wife, died April 7, 1763.

JOAB was born Nov. 14, 1729. He was a farmer like most of the men of that day, but we also learn from the town records of Coventry that he was possessed of considerable real estate, probably the fruits of a profitable lumber business, for Jan. 29, 1767, we find that he sold to John Lyon of Cranston "the rents of one-half of his saw mill, lumber yards, dams and streams of water; also cart-way through his farm to mill for twenty-five years." Oct. 6, 1751, he married Susannah, daughter of John

Gloucester, Lincoln, Warwick and Stafford. The Conqueror appointed him governor of the Castle of Stafford, from which he assumed a new surname; and from him descended the dukes of Buckingham and several other noble houses.

At

The coat of arms of the Staffords has often been changed to suit the varying rank of the family, and the motto likewise has not always been the same. one time it was "Virtus basis vita;" at another "Frangas non flectes." The former, "Virtue the corner-stone of life," was probably the motto used by the family at the time when the first immigrant arrived in New England.

*Roger Williams and wife, John Throgmorton and wife, Thomas Olney and wife, Stukely Westcott and wife, Mary Halleman and the Widow Reeves were excommunicated by the Salem authorities because they "wholly refuse to hear the church denying it and all the churches in the Bay to be true churches," &c.— Knowles's Roger Williams, p. 177.

Anne Greene was a granddaughter of John Greene, deputy governor of Rhode Island, by his second son, Job, who married Phebe Sayles. Audrey Greene was also his granddaughter by his fourth son, Richard, who married Eleanor Sayles. John Greene was deputy governor of the colony, 1690-1700, and died Nov. 27, 1708. Major Gen. Nathaniel Greene was a great-grandson of James, brother of Deputy Gov. John. The father of John and James was John Greene, surgeon of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, who was the son of Peter Greene, and was born Feb. 9, 159, and married Nov. 4, 1619, Joane Tattersalle.