rise in the county of Albany. Fox creek descends westwardly into the Schoharie.

Albany, the second city in the state in population, commerce, and wealth, is situated on the west side of the Hudson, about one hundred and forty-five miles northwardly of the city of New York, in north latitude fortytwo degrees and thirty-nine minutes. It is built partly on a flat, and partly on the side of a hill. The streets are generally crooked and narrow. The hill rises with a pretty steep acclivity, and has an elevation of about one hundred and fifty feet at the distance of half a mile from the river, and two hundred and ten at the distance of one mile; here the plain, spreading westwardly, begins. From the border of this plain there is an extensive view eastwardly, and south-eastwardly.†

Albany in 1825 contained about sixteen thousand inhabitants, and three thousand dwelling houses and stores, twelve houses for public worship, a state-house, three banks, the capitol, a court-house and jail, an academy, theatre, museum, and an arsenal. Its population at present (1829) is about twenty thousand.

The academy is constructed of red sandstone. It is ninety feet square, and three stories high, apart from its basement. The Albany Lyceum is kept in it. It is the handsomest edifice in the city.

*The spot where this city now stands was at first called by the Dutch Aurania; then Beverwyck, till 1625; then Fort Orange, till 1647, and Williamstadt, till 1664. All this time it had also the name of the Fuyck. Fort Orange was built in 1623, and Williamstadt, in 1647. At first a hamlet, then a village, and afterwards a town, and lastly a city. For a long time after its foundation it was enclosed with pickets (palisadoes.)

† By a late survey the distance between New York and Albany, by the road on the west side of the river, has been found only 145 miles. According to the latitudes the distance is still less, being only one hundred and thirty-five miles and a half, and eight rods. The received distances of all the intermediate towns and villages on and near the river from these two cities are incorrect. Hudson, for instance, is about one hundred and eight miles by its latitude from the city of New York. By the river the distance does not exceed one hundred and sixteen miles. The latitudinal distance from Hudson to Albany is about twenty-five miles.

The Capitol, or State-House, stands at the head of State street; its base is about one hundred and thirty feet above the Hudson; the structure is brick faced with red sandstone. It is one hundred and fifteen feet long, ninety broad, and fifty high, exclusive of the basement story and the roof. The legislature of the state, the supreme and county courts sit in it. In the structure of this edifice the rules of architecture, whether Egyptian, Hindoo, Chinese, Grecian, Roman, Saracenic, Gothic, or composite, have been violated.

The Erie and Champlain canals terminate at the city in a spacious basin. Sloops carrying from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons come up to the city. The bars below are serious impediments to the navigation of the river; these might be obviated by a canal ten or twelve miles long, and then vessels of two or three hundred tons might make their way up.

Albany was incorporated in the year 1686, by Colonel Dongan, governor of the colony. In 1750 it contained three hundred and fifty houses. From its foundation till the close of the revolution it was palisadoed and fortified. Here all the treaties with the Agoneaseah, and other Indians, were concluded. It used to be a great mart for fur.

The exact time when Albany was founded is not known. In 1614 the Dutch erected a small fort and a trading house, on an island half a mile below the site of the present city. In 1623 they built fort Orange on the west side of the river, within the bounds of the present city. Some have alleged that they made the latter fort in 1614. If this be true, Albany is the oldest town in the United States, but if the preceding, then New York, Esopus, and Schenectady take precedence. Notwithstanding the allegation, we have no doubt New York is the oldest of the two. A village sprung up near the fort, which was afterwards enlarged and became a city.

Mr. Stuyvesant, the governor of the New Netherlands, in a letter to Col. Nicolls, September 2d, 1664, says, that

the Dutch came up the North River, in the years 1614, 1615, and 1616, near fort Orange, where to hinder the invasions and massacres commonly committed by the savages, they built a small fort. A little before in the same letter he says, we have enjoyed fort Orange about forty-eight or fifty years, and the Manhattans about fortyone or forty-two years. See Smith's Hist. p. 28. Albany was called Schau-naugh-ta-da, by the Agoneaseah. The definition of which is, over the pine plains, or across the pine plains, on the Cahohatatea (Hudson's River). The Dutch in after times applied it to the place where Schenectady now stands, as being over the plains from Albany. Hence the radical of Schenectady.

Greenbush is on the east side of the Hudson, over against the lower part of the city of Albany. It is built on the river bottom, and has about one hundred houses. The present village was founded in 1812.

Troy was also situated on the east side of the Hudson, at the head of sloop navigation. It is six miles north of Albany, and one hundred and fifty-one north of New York. The Erie and Champlain canals are joined to the Hudson by side cuts, and locks, so as to benefit this place. Troy is built on a handsome plain, of several miles extent, lying between the river and hill, and contains about eleven thousand inhabitants. There are here two banks, and six or seven houses for public worship; also a court house and jail. After Albany, Troy is the most wealthy, commercial and populous city on the Hudson. It was founded between 1787, and 1790; incorporated as a village in 1801, and as a city in 1816. In point of location, it nearly equals Albany. It is the shire town of the county of Rensselaer. The tide ascends to this place.

Gibbonsville in the county of Albany, west of Troy, contains about eighty houses. There are two large basins here appended to the Erie canal. The one is connected with the Hudson by a side cut, and two locks. There is an arsenal at this place.

RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS.

[The following reminiscences were written by GORHAM A. WORTH, Esq., who was sometime Cashier of the Mechanics and Farmers' Bank in this city, and afterwards president of the City Bank in New York. He died in that city in 1856, aged 73. Like all other Recollections they are occasionally discrepant. An octogenarian, on the publication of Mr. Worth's pamphlet, wrote some strictures upon it for the newspapers, which are appended as notes with his initials. The last one is by another hand.]

In commencing these reminiscences, I prefer to say that my first visit to Albany was just before the election of Mr. Jefferson, or the Great Apostle as he is sometimes called. Not that the visit had any thing to do, either with the election of Mr. Jefferson or the fortunes of his followers, but because it was an epoch in my own personal history, as the election of Mr. Jefferson was, in the history of the country.

I had then just launched my "light untimbered bark" upon the ocean of life; with no guide but Providence, and with no hand but my own to direct its course. Never shall I forget the deep feeling of loneliness that came over me when the receding headlands of my native bay disappeared in the distance, and I found myself, for the first time in my life, alone on the waters.

It was at the age of eighteen, and in the autumn of the year eighteen hundred, that I first set my foot within the precincts of the ancient and far-famed city of Albany. It is true, I had passed through the city some ten or twelve years before, but 'twas on a rainy day, and in a covered wagon; and as the only glimpse I had of the town, was obtained through a hole in the canvas, I set it down as nothing, since, in reality, it amounted to nothing.

I am, however, well aware that an intelligent, sharpsighted English traveler, such for instance, as Fearon, Hall, or Marryat, would have seen, even through a [Annals, x.]

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smaller aperture, and under less favorable circumstances, enough to have enabled him to have given you, not only the exact topography of the town and its localities, but a full and accurate account of its different religious denominations, the state of its society, the number of its slaves and the character of its inns; together with many sage reflections upon the demoralizing tendency of republican governments!

But this faculty of taking in all things at a single glance; this ability to see more than is to be seen, is one of the many advantages which the English traveler possesses over all others, and which in fact distinguishes him from the traveler of every other country on the face of the globe-the land of Munchausen not excepted! I mention these things merely to satisfy the reader that I might have made something out of the affair of the covered wagon, had I been so disposed. But 'tis not my intention, nor was it when I commenced these reminiscences, to draw upon my imagination for a single fact. I have materials in abundance, and can not, therefore, be tempted to go out of my way to recollect incidents which never happened, or to describe things which I never saw.

The city of Albany, in 1800, though the capital of the state, and occupying a commanding position, was, nevertheless, in point of size, commercial importance, and architectural dignity, but a third or fourth rate town. It was not, in some respects, what it might have been; but it was, in all respects, unlike what it now is. Its population could not, I think, have exceeded some seven or eight thousand.

Albany has probably undergone a greater change, not only in its physical aspect, but in the habits and character of its population, than any other city in the United States. It was, even in 1800, an old town (with one exception, I believe, the oldest in the country), but the face of nature in and around it had been but little disturbed. Old as it was, it still retained its primitive aspect, and still stood in all its original simplicity; maintaining its quaint and quiescent character, unchanged,