SPENCER STAFFORD.

It is stated in Recollections of Albany, that "in the year 1789 not more than four New England families were residents of the city;"* consequently the families of Col. Joab Stafford and Thomas Spencer were of this number. The latter, a "merchant of Providence, R. I., in 1783," had migrated from Rhode Island; first to Berkshire Co., Mass., and thence, perhaps in company with his father-in-law, to Albany. He was of the Quaker faith, as was also his aunt Susannah, Joab's wife. These New Englanders were progressive people, and were regarded, to quote from the same work, as "meddling eastern Saxons, who had crept in and were daily guilty of innovations upon the cherished habits and venerated customs of the ancient burgers." The establishment of a newspaper, The Gazette, March 28, 1784, was doubtless a principal and highly censurable innovation. Thomas Spencer appears by its columns, to have opened a store at 49 Market street (now north Broadway), Sept. 4, 1788, and if it be fair to judge of his prominence by the frequency of his advertisements, his must have been one of the principal stores in the city for the sale of hardware, groceries, dry goods and the like. At this time Albany, then and long after, the most important city (New York and Boston excepted) in the north, was a most promising theatre for business enterprise, uniting the traffic of the Hudson with that of the wilderness lying to the north and west. It is not strange, therefore, that Spencer decided to be a merchant. At the early age of fifteen he was apprenticed to Thomas Spencer, his brother-in-law, and then commenced to learn the mysteries of a business, which already multiform in its nature, assumed still another phase in 1789, in the manufacture of tin-plate and copper. This latter feature of trade received especial attention from the young man, though he ultimately chose hardware, to the exclusion of all other branches of business. Sept. 7, 1790, he, then in his nineteenth year, married Dorothea, fourth child of Bernardust and Ellen (Clark) Hallenbake of Albany. Here, again, the audacity of a Yankee was conspicuous in carrying away a beautiful daughter from a carefully guarded Dutch fireside. Their first child Susan, afterwards the wife of Lewis Benedict, was born July 1, 1791. His apprenticeship having expired in 1792, Spencer proceeded with his wife and daughter to Deerfield, a small settlement in the wilderness opposite the present site of Utica, where he engaged in the manufacture of potash. His home was a log house, oiled paper serving as window glass, and by the light of pine torches he read

It is worthy of note that most of the early settlers of Albany from New England were Rhode Islanders, viz: Col. Joab Stafford, Thomas Spencer, Elkanah Watson, Solomon Southwick, the Barbers, Thomas Gould, Walter Clarke and John Spencer.

Bernardus Halenbake, father of Dorothea Stafford, was a son of Hendrik, who was a son of Isaac Casparse, who was a son of the original settler Caspar Jacobse Halenbeek, who made his will in 1685. The estate of Hendrik Halenbake originally comprised what is now the southern section of Albany, extending from Plain to Arch street, where it adjoined the farm of Gen. Schuyler, and having the river for its eastern and Eagle street for its western boundaries. This, with an island in the river, and lands in other places, in all 1800 acres, constituted the Halenbeek estate.-Munsell's Hist. Colls., vol. II, pp. 410–416.

the books received, with other necessaries, in exchange for his goods (ashes, tinware and maple-sugar), which he transported by batteaux down the Mohawk to Albany. The privations and exposures incident to a frontier life were, however, intolerable to his wife, and he yielded to her wishes and returned to the city in 1793. June 21, 1794, he advertised in the Albany Register, the opposition (Republican) paper, the Gazette having become identified with the Federal party, a resumption of business in the old line, viz: " Tinplate, sheet-iron, copper and brass manufacture at his shop, east side of Market, a few doors north of the Dutch church."

In 1795, he became associated in business with James Minze (formerly of Lansing & Minze, a kindred establishment). This copartnership was dissolved by mutual consent, May 18, 1796. His place of business then,

and for many years afterwards, was No. 45 Court street, now South Broadway. He had 'at this time a branch in Schenectady. John, his brother, was his partner thereafter until Jan. 1798. Aug. 13, 1802, Mr. Stafford bought of Thomas Gould a lot of land and the storehouse thereon, a light structure of brick, three stories high, known as No. 9 Court street, and also one-half of Ruttenkill on the north boundary of said lot. He demolished this building because it was too frail for the character and

quantity of his goods, and in 1814-15 erected in its place the substantial five-story store, subsequently known as 420 South Broadway, and now

(1870) occupied by Taylor, Wendell & Co. The north wall of this store was built upon a massive arch thrown over the creek and resting upon piles; and in every other respect care was taken to make the building commodious and substantial. There are many living who remember it in its palmy days with the sign of the gilt stove. Here the brothers Stafford acquired name and fortune. John, the elder brother, was only nominally the head of the firm. Broken in health, he had given up the business which he conducted alone at 33 Court street, from January, 1798, until the spring of 1799, and it was upon his return from a sea voyage that his brother generously offered him an interest in his own well-established concern. They soon became ". men of extensive business connections," and are mentioned in the Recollections of Albany as among the "principal merchants of the city-those who gave life and character to its business interests." Mrs. Stafford died, after a brief illness, July 11, 1806. The mother, taken away in the prime of life, was deeply lamented by her children, but their sorrow was softened by pleasant memories of her gentleness, dignity and discretion.

ERECTED 1815.

Mr Stafford married again in 1807, Harriet, second daughter of Rev. James Van Campen Romeyn,* of Hackensack, N. J., and the year following removed to his newly completed dwelling on Lydius just east of Pearl street, and here, where his children by his second wife were born, he continued to reside until his death in 1844. George B. Spencer, a nephew and partner (the firm then being Staffords, Spencer & Co.) built the house adjoining on the east, and John Stafford that next, on the corner of Franklin street; the two former were substantial and the latter, afterwards occupied by Gov. Yates, was the most elegant private residence of its size in the city. Lydius street was then the most southern avenue of the city, running east and west, the very outpost of population. The ground hereabout was flooded during freshets to the depth of eight or ten feet. A number of steps used to lead to the platform of Spencer Stafford's stoop, but the filling in of the street has made them superfluous. Eastward and southward towards the river but one house (that of Henry Guest) intervened; to the north it was also open ground as far as Division street, and during a long period he traversed the interval, en route from his house to his store, to the corner of Green, diagonally. West and south he had ample space within his own enclosures for the culture of flowers, and also for his barns and outhouses; but what most enhanced the comfort of his family in after years was the orchard and garden at

*See Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, vol. IX, p. 87, for Rev. James Van Campen Romeyn.