Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/337

ALBANY. was set up near the present site of Albany. But this proved only temporary, and the continuous history of the place dates from the effective discovery of the region by Henry Hudson in 1609. Hudson's voyage was followed by Dutch traders, who, in 1614, established a trading station on Castle Island under the name of Fort Nassau. Three years later, the trading post was removed to the mainland and given the name Beverwyck. The first actual settlers, however, were eighteen Walloon families, who arrived in 1624. During the same year, Fort Orange, or Aurania, was built, near the site of the present State Capitol. Two years later an Indian war broke up the settlement for a time. In 1629, Killiaen Van Rensselaer obtained an extensive grant of land in the neighborhood of Fort Orange, and sent over settlers from Holland, who rented their land from him as their patroon, or lord of the manor. (See .) On the transfer of New Netherlands to the English, in 1664, the name of Albany was given to the settlement, in honor of the Duke of York and Albany, afterward James II.; and shortly afterward a long-standing dispute as to the jurisdiction of the patroon over the earlier settlements was compromised. In 1686, Albany received a city charter from Governor Dongan, providing for an elected council and a mayor to be appointed by the governor. The first mayor, Peter Schuyler, continued to serve until 1694. The settlement continued to be inhabited mainly by the Dutch, but the increase in the English population is indicated by the erection of an English church in 1714.

As a frontier town open to Indian attacks, Albany was protected not only by the fort, but by a stockade surrounding the compactly built area. During the French and Indian wars, the city was the storehouse for munitions of war, the rendezvous for the troops, and a place of safety for refugees and wounded soldiers. In 1754 there was held at Albany the first general Congress (see ) of all the colonies, at which plans of union were discussed.

Burgoyne's campaign in 1777 was directed against Albany, as the key to the situation in the north; but the battle of Saratoga preserved this strategic point to the patriots. During the next twenty years Albany was at times the headquarters of the State government; in 1797 it was made the permanent capital of the State, and the first State house was built a few years later.

In 1820 Albany had a population of only 12,630; but the Erie Canal opened a new field for commercial activity, and brought a rapid development. By 1840 the population was 33,721, or nearly treble that of twenty years before; by 1860 it had reached 62,367, but since then the increase has been at a slower rate. In 1839 there began the &ldquo;Anti-Rent War&rdquo; (see ), the result of an attempt by the Van Rennsselaer heirs to collect the quit-rents on the old leases made in the pre-Revolutionary days. Albany has been visited by several disastrous fires, those in 1797 and 1848 being the most destructive. The lower part of the city has often been inundated by spring floods in the river. In 1886 the bi-centennial of the incorporation of the city was celebrated with elaborate ceremonies; and on January 6, 1897, the centennial of the selection of the city as the State capital was also commemorated. In 1894 the Delavan House, for fifty years the resort of politicians and eminent men, was burned. See A. J. Weise, The History of the City of Albany (Albany, 1884); J. Munsell, The Annals of Albany, 10 volumes (Albany, 1850-59), and Collections on the City of Albany, 4 volumes (Albany, 1865-71); and a sketch in L. P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Middle States (New York, 1899).  ALBANY. A city and county seat of Linn Co., Oregon, 85 miles south by west of Portland, on the Willamette River, and on the Southern Pacific and the Corvalli and Eastern railroads (Map:, B 5). The river, crossed here by a fine steel bridge, supplies good water power. There are wagon and furniture factories, saw and planing mills, foundries and machine shops, a wire mattress factory, brickyards, and woolen and flouring mills. Flour, grain, and sandstone are exported. Albany was settled about 1850, and was incorporated in 1864. Pop., 1890, 3079; 1900, 3149.  ALBANY. A city and county seat of Dougherty Co., Ga., 107 miles south by west of Macon; on the Flint River, at the head of high water navigation, and on the Central of Georgia, the Plant System, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Albany and Northern railroads (Map:, B 4). It is in an agricultural region, and controls large commercial interests, particularly in cotton, cottonseed oil, bricks, fertilizers, lumber, etc. The city has wide streets and handsome residences; is the home of the Georgia Chautauqua; and is noted for numerous artesian wells, which are the exclusive source of the water supply. Settled in 1836, Albany was incorporated two years later. The government, under a charter of 1899, is administered by a mayor, elected every two years, and a city council, whose consent is required for all appointments of administrative officials made by the mayor. The water works and electric light plant are owned and operated by the municipality. Pop., 1890, 4008; 1900, 4606.  ALBANY. A city and county seat of Gentry Co., Mo., 50 miles northeast of St. Joseph, on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (Map:, B 1). It is a residential place, with commercial interests and some industrial establishments, but is known primarily as the seat of Central Christian College (Christian), opened in 1892, and of the Northwest Missouri College (Methodist Episcopal, South), opened in 1893. Settled in 1840 and incorporated about two years later, Albany is governed, under a charter of 1897, by a mayor, biennially elected, and a city council. The water works and electric light plant are owned and operated by the municipality. Pop., 1890, 1334; 1900, 2025.  ALBANY, or AL′BAINN. An ancient name for Scotland, retained in poetical usage down to our own day. Connected with it is the term Albiones, applied to the inhabitants of the entire British Islands in Festus Avienus's account of the voyage of Hamilcar, the Carthaginian, in the fifth century B.C.; also the term (q.v.), which appears as the name of the islands in Aristotle's Treatise of the World. It may, indeed, be assumed that Albion, or Albany, was the original name of Britain among its Celtic population, and that it only became restricted to the northwest provinces of Scotland when the Celts had for the most part become confined to the same region. The modern use of the name Albany may be said to have taken its rise in an