Chapter 6
Dutch, British & Palatines
| Dutch (below) | British | Palatines |
First Dutch Farmers Were French . . . Walloons
After Henry Hudson sailed the Dutch ship Half
Moon up the Hudson River to the shallows created by the outflow of the
Mohawk River, it was several years before a permanent Dutch settlement
was established. The Dutch had no interest in farming. They wanted to trade
for furs. When it was decided their interests would be better served by
creating a more self reliant and permanent settlement, the Dutch contracted
with French Walloons to farm the land.
Two centuries before Christ was born the Roman Empire had spread into southern Europe. The Romans and Romanized-Celts living in that area were called Walah by their German speaking neighbors. Walah became Walon in French. In the Middle Ages the French speaking inhabitants of the Low Countries in what is now eastern Belgium, called themselves Walons. By the 1600s the French Protestant refugees that had escaped persecution in France and later in the southern Netherlands called themselves Walons. The English called them Walloons.
It was these Walloons that agreed to farm the lands near Dutch trading posts in America. One of these trading posts was just downstream from the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. Henry Hudson had discovered the river was too shallow here for large vessels to proceed upstream when he explored the river in 1609. This was also the location of an island where the Dutch built a small fort in 1618. The fort was subsequently washed away in a spring flood, so when the Dutch West India Company created a settlement in 1624 it was located on higher ground on the west side of the river. It was here at Fort Orange (Albany) that 18 families of French Walloons became the first Dutch farmers.
For more information about Fort Orange give a
cick: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/fortorange.html
For more information about Walloons try:
http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Terms--Wallachians_Walloons_Welschen_etc.html
Discovery: Dutch Country: Schenectady - Cohoes - Peebles Is.
November 1, 2001, Foggy, 40 degrees
The plan was simple. Drive to Schenectady, have breakfast, walk around
the "old city", visit the Historical Society and the Museum, have lunch
and head for home. I'm happy to report our plans went awry.
We started in a fog; a thick fog that hung over
the valley like a cotton blanket. I didn't relish the winding, many-intersection
drive down Route 5 when I could hardly see the road, so we took the highroad
(thruway) from Little Falls and headed east to Scotia. My research indicated
the "old city" was just across the river.
Schenectady Stockade
District
The last time I visited this area was more than 20 years ago when I
fished the river for smallmouth bass. Back then I had no idea this was
the site of the oldest and only walled "city" in the Mohawk Valley. Indeed,
when the Dutch settled Schenectady in the 1660s it was the westernmost
European settlement in the valley. As the community grew, some 50 homes
were surrounded by a palisade similar to the Mohawk castles further up
the valley. Although the French burned the wooden-walled village in 1690,
it was soon rebuilt and expanded to include more than a hundred homes.
Today, the palisade is gone, but many of the old homes still crowd the
narrow streets of the Stockade District of Schenectady.
After breakfast at the Scotia Diner, we drove across
the Scotia/Schenectady (Western Gateway) Bridge, turned left on Church
Street and drove into the Stockade District. By following one-way streets
through the district, we located Riverside Park at the end of North Street,
where we left the Jeep and strolled along the river walk.
This was a major area of activity in the 1700s. It was the eastern
end of the Mohawk River waterway. Goods coming up the Hudson were transferred
to wagons in Albany, carted to Schenectady and then loaded onto Mohawk
River boats for the journey westward. Here was a center of boat building,
warehousing and trading. Later a pioneering, wooden-rail railroad ran between
the two port cities, leading to Schenectady becoming a major railroad manufacturing
and transportation center.
This was the eastern terminus of the
Mohawk River waterway in the 1700s..
As we walked under the overhanging branches of sugar
maples that line the river walk, two young women with a dozen preschoolers
walking hand in hand passed us. A very small voice warned us to watch out
for puddles.
Dick Wilson of Rome sent this old postcard picture of the Scotia to Schenectady covered bridge. Dick reports that it was built in 1808-1809. Four more piers and a covering were added in 1835, giving it a snake-like appearance. It was torn down in 1873. The abutment pictured above held up one end of that bridge.
While we were standing atop an old stone abutment
at the upper end of the park, a brightly-colored work barge motored by;
the only traffic on the river. Some 250 years ago a ferry crossed here
several times a day, and the river was often crowded with bateaux or Durham
boats waiting to be unloaded.
At the upper end of the park we followed Washington
Street, noting, the historic sites where General George Washington slept,
or ate or met with local dignitaries. We also passed the Schenectady Historical
Society building that we intended to visit when it opened at 1 o'clock.
From there we walked the narrow streets, admiring the huge silver maple
trees, and a variety of colorful buildings, many displaying signs noting
their historical significance.
Today the river walk passes under stately maple trees. That's a railroad bridge in the background.
Our travels took us down Front Street to the center
of the Stockade where a statue of an Indian sits atop a pedestal surrounded
by a flower garden. Across the street we stopped at Arthur's Food Market.
There has been a public market here for over 200 years.
From the market we returned to the river and walked
to the other end of the park, noting the railroad bridge just downstream,
and another bridge beyond that. We still had a couple of hours before the
Historical Society Building opened, so I suggested we drive down to Cohoes
so Gert could see the "Big Falls."
Cohoes
Falls
We arrived at Cohoes at 12:30 and drove down Mohawk Street to the overlook
at the upper end of renovated millworker housing that are now apartment
complexes sitting atop the western edge of Cohoes Gorge. The view of the
Falls was disappointing. With practically no water coming over it, the
falls was a long black cliff. The water was being diverted first to the
Barge (Erie) Canal and then to the Orion Power Plant. What was impressive
were the hundreds of seagulls and dozens of ducks in and near the water
coming out of the power plant. Must be food down there.
While this low-water condition was not impressive
from the overlook, it could provide an ideal opportunity to explore the
gorge and falls, if I could find a safe way to get to the bottom of the
gorge.
In addition to being the "Big Falls" on the Mohawk
River with its 70-foot drop, Cohoes is the site of the resurrection of
Deganawida,
"The Peacemaker" and the discovery of the Cohoes Mastodon. While there
is no historic marker noting where Deganawida fell into the gorge, there
is one noting the location of the pothole that preserved the mastodon
.
After photographing the barren falls, and the historic
marker in front of a large factory building, we drove downstream looking
for an easy access to the gorge. We found an access road near the bottom
of Mohawk Street and drove down to the river. Although this landing has
been used and abused as a dumping ground for old mattresses and such, there
is a gentle-slope ramp where a canoe or small boat could be launched. From
there it's a mile paddle and walk to the base of the falls. The thought
of exploring the bottom of the gorge---perhaps seeing the mastodon pothole---walking
along the base of the falls, seeing all those gulls and ducks up close,
and catching a few fish, got me so excited I had to leave; vowing to return
sometime soon with a canoe atop the Jeep.
Peebles
Island
We continued our downstream drive that took us across a bridge to the
Golden Krust Bakery and Restaurant where we stopped for lunch at one o'clock.
From there we continued eastward to a sign pointing north to Peebles Island
State Park.
Peebles Island sits at the confluence of the Mohawk
and Hudson rivers. Its rich history includes the fact that it was the site
of a Mohican Village, a fort, a river crossing (Waterford), a shirt factory
where sanforized cotton was invented, and now a State Park. It's also the
location of offices of the New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic
Preservation.
After viewing the historic markers noting the Revolutionary
War breast works, and the river crossing, we walked through the picnic
area, past the pavilion and onto the dock that provided a view of the merging
waters of the Mohawk and Hudson. A sign on the other side of the river
noted the juncture of the Erie and Champlain canals.
We returned to the parking area and started down
a trail that we thought---according to the State Park description sign---was
only a mile long. When it took us 15 minutes to reach the waterfalls depicted
on the sign, we realized we had been led astray. Nevertheless, we continued
down what turned out to be a 2-mile trail that ran around the perimeter
of the island. Along the way, we saw the waterfalls, shale cliffs, bridges,
dams, plus oak, maple, white pine, cottonwood and a couple of giant sycamore.
Grey squirrels scurried through the woods, a great blue heron took flight,
and ducks, geese and sea gulls lounged along the river. Our 15-minute walk
turned out to be 45-minute adventure.
When we returned to civilization, I stopped at the
park office and picked up a brochure noting the island trails. Better late
than ne'er.
It was too late to return to Schenectady, so we
headed for home; elated that our original plan had gone awry.
For more information about The Stockade District see: http://www.historicstockade.com/
For more information on Deganawida, "The Peacemaker" see: http://www.indians.org/welker/hiawatha.htm
For more information about the Cohoes Mastodon. see http://www.paulkeeslerbooks.com/Chapter3.html
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Schenectady or Cohoes, select New York, press GO! Click on margin arrows to follow our progress down the Mohawk Valley.
Update:
I returned to Cohoes the following Tuesday, November 5, 2001 with a canoe and my discovery partner, Denny Gillen. It was only 40 degrees, so we drove straight to the Golden Krust Restaurant, expecting the sun to warm things up a bit by the time we finished breakfast.
At 10:30 were at the overlook. Just a couple of trickles were coming over the Falls, but the water in the gorge was much higher than the week before. We drove down to the canoe-launch where we discovered fast running water where it had been running slow previously. My plan was to paddle upstream for about a quarter mile, cross to the other side of the river where the river bottom was dry. From there we could walk the rest of the way to the bottom of the falls. Unfortunately, the dry river bottom was now a series of shallow rapids. And to add insult to injury, a 20 knot wind was whipping down the gorge, making that 45 degree air seem like 30. It was a tough decision, but we scrapped the mission.
Our trip wasn't wasted. We drove around the area, viewing the mouth of the Mohawk from the other side of the Hudson River, visiting Peebles Island and exploring the five locks that drop the New Erie Canal from the top of Crescent Dam to the Hudson River. On the way home we drove along the north shore of the river where we stopped at the Vischer Ferry Nature and Historic Preserve that's on the Mohawk River and a stretch of the Old Erie Canal.
Discovery:
Fanciest Restaurant in the Mohawk Valley
May 30, 2002, 60 degrees, Cloudy, Threatening Rain
The phone rang at 6 a.m. Denny had a bad cold and couldn't join me for a day of discovery on the Mohawk River. No problem, it was a lousy day for canoeing . . . and I had a backup plan.
Gert was half-asleep when I asked if she wanted to
have lunch at the fanciest restaurant in the Mohawk Valley. Without hesitation
she said, "Sounds good to me."
Glen-Sanders Mansion is located on the Mohawk River on the Scotia side of the Western Gateway Bridge.
If you read this book or even looked at the pictures on a regular basis, you know I'm fascinated with the history of Schenectady. Among other things it was the only walled city in the Mohawk Valley and the earliest Dutch settlement. What you may not know is that a Scotch trader working for the Dutch West Indian Company set up shop just across the river in 1658, three years before Schenectady was founded. His name was Alexander Lindsey Glen and his stone home and trading post next to the river was called Nova Scotia (New Scotland). Although the rampaging river flattened the original dwelling, he built a new home on higher ground using stone from the destroyed building. Alexander made a number of additions over the years, but the Glen home became the Glen Mansion when his son added a west wing in 1713.
When Alexander's great-granddaughter, Deborah Glen married wealthy Albany businessman John Sanders in 1739 and inherited the mansion in 1765, the unheard of happened. Way ahead of his time (or perhaps in the early Dutch tradition) John acknowledged his wife's family name and called their home the Glen Sanders Mansion. For more than 300 years descendants of the Glen Family owned this property on the Scotia side of Mohawk River.
There have been many changes since Alexander Lindsey
Glen bought this property from the Mohawk Indians in 1658.
The Mansion was sold in 1961. Since then it has grown in thoughtful leaps and bounds. Today it features a restaurant, ballroom, bar, meeting rooms and an Inn, all designed to complement the original mansion.
Gert and I arrived at the Mansion around noon dressed in our finest "diner" attire. We were escorted to a corner table where we could see the entire room. The walls were decorated with paintings and the tables were covered with white linen and set with more silver than I could ever use.
Attentive waiters and waitresses in black and white uniforms brought water, bread and menus. I couldn't find the prices on the menu until Gert pointed out they were "written" at the bottom of each entre --- no numbers, no dollar signs.
Gert ordered Mansion Sirloin Steak. I ordered Soy-glazed Scallops. Both meals were superbly prepared and delicious. Fact is, if I wasn't in such an elegant place I'd have licked the red pepper sauce from the plate. The cost of both lunches, which included salads, bread and coffee, was around thirty dollars. Expensive but worth every dollar.
After lunch we looked around the building, noting the colonial period art and furniture. The river-view was especially beautiful: flowering shrubs, flowerbeds and manicured lawn overlooking tree-covered islands in the Mohawk River. Two men in an open boat were fishing at the end of the dock next to a fountain.
I can't wait to stop there for lunch when I'm canoeing through the area. On the other hand, hip boots and life jackets may not be the proper dress for the fanciest restaurant in the Mohawk Valley.
Follow the path of this discovery trip by clicking on Mohawk Valley Maps: by Maptech.
Type Scotia select New York, press GO!
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