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,

unmodified, unimproved; still pertinaciously adhering, in all its walks, to the old track and the old form.

The rude hand of innovation, however, was then just beginning to be felt; and slight as was the touch, it was felt as an injury, or resented as an insult.

Nothing could be more unique or picturesque to the eye, than Albany in its primitive days. Even at the period above mentioned, it struck me as peculiarly naive and beautiful. All was antique, clean and quiet. There was no noise, no hurry, no confusion. There was no putting up, nor pulling down; no ill-looking excavations, no leveling of hills, no filling up of valleys: in short, none of those villainous improvements, which disfigure the face of nature, and exhibit the restless spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race. The stinted pines still covered the hills to the very edge of the city, and the ravines and valleys were clothed with evergreens, intermixed with briars, and spangled with the wild rose.

The margin of the river, with the exception of an opening at the foot of State street, extending down to the ferry, was overhung with willows, and shaded by the wide spreading elm.* The little islands below the town were feathered with foliage down to the very water's edge, and bordered with stately trees, whose forms were mirrored in the stream below. As far as the eye could

* [It is said that there were docks at this time from Maiden lane to the Watering place, as it was called, now the Steamboat landing. At the latter place was Hodge's dock, and above it the State dock, built in the French war.] At the foot of Maiden lane was Fish slip, where the sturgeon were sold. On Quay street were stores and dwelling houses, and a tavern. If our author, when he first set his foot in this "jewel of antiquity," had taken a walk to this worldrenowned sturgeon slip, "a little after sun rise," he would have witnessed a scene that would have cast the willows and elm trees into the deep shade of a forgotten past. There was the quiet ancient burger, elbowed aside by his Old and New England, Scotch and Irish brethren, more clamorous and eager for Albany beef than himself. If he had not beforehand entered into a confederacy with the Etsbergers and Reckhows, lords of the slip, he must infallibly have gone home dinnerless and desponding. J. Q. W.

extend, up and down the river, all remained comparatively wild and beautiful, while the city itself was a curiosity; nay, a perfect jewel of antiquity, particularly to the eye of one who had been accustomed to the "white house, green door, and brass knocker," of the towns and villages of New England. Nothing, indeed, could be more picturesque than the view of North Pearl street, from the old elm at Webster's corner, up to the new two steepled church. Pearl street, it must be remembered, was in those days, the west end of the town; for there the town ended, and there resided some of the most aristocratic of the ancient burgers. There, a little after sun rise, in a mild spring morning, might be seen, sitting by the side of their doors, the ancient and venerable mynheers; with their little sharp cocked hats, or red-ringed worsted caps, (as the case might be), drawn tight over their heads.* There they sat, like monuments of a former age, still lingering on the verge of time; or like milestones upon a turnpike road, solus in solo! or, in simple English, unlike any thing I had ever seen before. But there they sat, smoking their pipes, in that dignified silence, and with that phlegmatic gravity, which would have done honor to Sir Walter Van Twiller, or even to Puffendorf himself. The whole line of the street, on either side, was dotted by the little clouds of smoke, that, issuing from their pipes, and, curling round their noddles, rose slowly up the antique gables, and mingled with the morning air; giving beauty to the scene, and adding an air of

* If the seer had looked a second time, he would have seen the simple side hill street, the grass covering the east half of it. He would have seen the quiet citizens returning from their business or their morning walk-but he would not have seen a single cocked hat, nor red ringed worsted cap, upon the head of one of them, except may be that of the venerable Dr. Stringer on his professional morning tour. He would have seen the upper half of each front door open, and here and there a neat and thrifty house-wife, bending forward over the closed lower half, watching for her husband or her sons, as they came home to breakfast. He might have seen that brass knocker, in the form of a dog, on the door of Lafayette's head-quarters, unlike "knocker" on any any 66 'green door” in New England. J. Q. W.