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Updated
July 14, 2011

 

A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me.


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July 14, 2011

The Patriot’s House

Celebrating the Fourth of July and contemplating economic freedom at the oldest building in the South End

Schuyler Mansion is about three and a half blocks downhill from my house. It’s been there since 1761, built back when the South End was farmland and pine barrens located outside of the settled areas of Albany. Originally it was the manor house for an estate called The Pastures that began at the Beaverkill (which still flows under today’s Lincoln Park,) extended south to the present City line at the Normanskill, and from the Hudson River west to present day Delaware Avenue.

Schuyler Mansion Of Albany, July 2011
Schuyler Mansion Of Albany, July 2011

Today Schuyler Mansion is the one historic park run by New York State in the South End. The park includes a fair sized grassy yard that is regularly used for events, such as the annual “old-fashioned Independence Day celebration” this past July 4th. And of course, at the centerpiece of all activities in the park is the mansion itself.

The annual event features demonstrations of the technical skills of the people who lived in Albany in the late 1700s. Among the displays I found a tinsmith, a physician, a magician entertainer of the period and a Mohawk Indian fur trader. And there were others. Many of these folks are regulars at this event. These reenactors make their own costumes and find their own equipment, and all were very willing to share their knowledge of their historic specialty.

Schuyler Mansion In 1818, Note The Barn And Cookhouse In Back
Schuyler Mansion In 1818, Note The Barn And Cookhouse In Back

The mansion was built by Philip Schuyler, who was a third generation native Albanian. He was considered the wealthiest and most prominent citizen of Albany in the last years before the Liberal Revolution that created our nation. His great grandfather Philipse Pieterse, a carpenter, had arrived in New Netherlands sometime before 1650 and somehow managed to marry the daughter of the Director of the Dutch colony, thus laying the foundation for the family fortune.

After the English conquered New Netherlands in 1674 and renamed the Hudson Valley parts of the former Dutch colony New York, grandfather Phillipse collaborated with the new rulers. Having climbed his way into the elite society of the Dutch colony, this former carpenter again managed to develop an accommodating relationship with the new regime. The family’s special relationship with the conquerers allowed subsequent generations of Schuylers to prosper under the English for more than a century.

Mohawk Fur Trader ( Didn't Catch His Name)
Mohawk Fur Trader ( Didn't Catch His Name)

But in the 1760s and early 1770s, the English attempted to seriously restrict the economy of the Thirteen Colonies. These confining regulations included extending the ban on the manufacture of most kinds of goods (to force the colonists to import from England.) Also, England imposed new and arbitrary petty taxes meant to compensate the global East India Company for their past “investments” which were in default.

Many of the wealthiest government officials in London were major investors in the East India Company. Thus suppression of political and economic rights in the Colonies became policy.

Mr. Bayley, 18th Century Magician, With A Bedazzled Onlooker
Mr. Bayley, 18th Century Magician, With A Bedazzled Onlooker

After Philip Schuyler settled into his new Albany mansion, he increasingly found the new economic restrictions imposed by the English interfered greatly with his business interests, which were mainly the production and exportation of farm and forest goods. These oppressive policies were an early version of so-called Supply Side Economics, which is a plan designed to extract all the wealth from all the people living in one place and giving it all to a few priviliged people living somewhere else. We see this “system” effectively impoverishing our country today.

Tinsmith Art Thorman of Vorheesville At Work
Tinsmith Art Thorman of Vorheesville At Work

Increasingly Philip spoke out publicly against this deliberate economic strangulation that was adversely affecting his business interests. Philip, you see, was not a major investor in the East India Company, his wealth was mostly productive land in Albany. Thus he was on the losing side of the economic manipulations and saw that he faced eventual ruin.

Philip became increasingly radicalized, so that by the time American Liberals took up arms against the English armies he was considered a leading Patriot. In 1775 he was appointed a major-general in the Continental Army. Later during the American Revolution he served as a representative in various revolutionary governments, including representing New York in the Continental Congress.

Philip Schuyler's personal physician Dr. Samuel Stringer
Philip Schuyler's personal physician Dr. Samuel Stringer

I spoke to Philip Schuyler’s personal physician Dr. Samuel Stringer, who is actually Stuart Lehman of Guilderland. He had on display the tools of his trade, along with the native herbs that he used and the actual books that doctors consulted back then. And best of all were his pet leeches, swimming in a jar.

Live Leeches For Blood Letting
Live Leeches For Blood Letting

Aren’t they cute? I wanted to bring one home to surprise The Wife, but the good doctor informed me that these were serious medical instruments. “This is Hirudo Medicnalis,” he said. “This is not the leech that grabs your leg when you wade in a muddy pond.” Believe it or not, blood letting with leeches has made a comeback and the creatures are again sometimes used by doctors and specialists.

Applying leeches works very well with local inflammation on the body, and the creatures excrete anti-clotting factors that have a variety of applications. But during Dr. Stringer’s time leeches were often misused on patients suffering fevers and other problems for which blood letting is the last thing the patient needed. It is often said that George Washington met his end much faster because of regular bloodletting by the doctors to “relieve bad humours.”

Dr. Stringer's Guns And Blades For Explaining The Kind Of Wounds He Dealt With
Dr. Stringer's Guns And Blades For Explaining The Kind Of Wounds He Dealt With

Philip Schuyler appears to have suffered through much of his adult life from lead poisoning, a hazard of upper class living in those days. This was of course misdiagnosed as gout, which is actually an accumulation of sediment in the joints that resembles arthritis. I know from personal experience that family physicians were misdiagnosing lead poisoning as gout as late as the 1960s, so Dr. Stringer cannot be faulted for that.

If I was more on the ball I would have asked Dr. Stringer if he applied leeches to Philip Schuyler’s swollen joints to give him some relief. I suspect he did and that they did relieve his symptoms, at least for a little while. And I wonder if later Dr. Stringer overused his leeches and hastened Philip Schuyler’s end.

Schuyler Mansion, First Floor
Schuyler Mansion, First Floor

Of course at the center of the historic park is the mansion itself. It is not a large, rambling structure like many other surviving manor houses, rather it is simple and compact. If for no other reason, Schuyler Mansion deserves to be preserved as an example of how to correctly build a place for people to live.

Schuyler Mansion, Children's Bedroom
Schuyler Mansion, Children's Bedroom

The sky was blue that high summer day, and natural light poured into the mansion so that every corner of the interior was bright. The building was designed so well that to this day there is no need to install fixed electric lights inside. They’re not necessary during the day. The artificial lights are pulled from the closet only when needed.

Schuyler Mansion, Wallpaper On The 2nd Floor
Schuyler Mansion, Wallpaper On The 2nd Floor

In those days wallpaper was a luxury imported from France, so naturally the wealthiest citizen of Albany covered his interior walls with the stuff. The paper on the walls today is not the same as what Philip Schuyler had put up, “The Ruins of Rome” which was hand painted and imported from England. But we still have some examples of the original paper on display in Manhattan.

"The Ruins Of Rome" On Display At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art In NYC
"The Ruins Of Rome" On Display At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art In NYC

Apparently this exact same hand painted wallpaper graced the walls of the more ostentatious Van Rensselaer Manor Home, which was located north of Albany and was torn down for no good reason in 1963. Fortunately the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC managed to snatch enough of the interior fixtures of that doomed building to construct a permanent display which I plan to go look at perhaps this fall.

Schuyler Mansion, Dining Room
Schuyler Mansion, Dining Room

Like many other revolutionary leaders, Philip Schuyler’s militant liberalism was propelled mainly by self-interest and not particularly by democratic principles. He was, after all, the feudal lord of a serfdom. In 1790 he was assessed as owning thirteen slaves, but then so did George Washington and the other “founding fathers” who owned plantations in Virginia.

But Philip Schuyler had chosen the winning side in the Revolution, and indeed he attained the economic freedom that he sought. But his heirs were not so business minded and the basis for the family fortune faded. After he died in 1804 the estate was broken up and sold for housing developments, my own house being one of those plots.

Schuyler Mansion, Dining Room
View From The Front Windows, Circa 1800. The Island With The Stand Of Trees Is Today The North End Of The Port Of Albany

The City grew around the mansion, slavery became illegal, tenant farmers won their freedom during the Rent Wars, and by the 20th Century the illustrious Schuyler family had descended into the teeming masses. Today we have the mansion, but last year the State of New York wanted to close it, ostensibly to “save money” so they can give that money to corporate looters. It seems that the same forces that compelled Philip Schuyler to go to war are now threatening to destroy his house.

Fortunately, enough people in Albany came forward last year to let our State officials know that closing Schuyler Mansion was a bad idea politically. But you know our “leaders” are waiting for an opportunity to shut down our State park. You know how they are. If we want to keep this South End treasure that has survived so much over the years, then it is up to us to fight for it.

 


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