Historic Houses Schuyler Sites & Fort Edward Dredging June 6, 2014

Parlor in the Schuyler Mansion

The other parlor in the Schuyler Mansion

Window Seat on the staircase in Schuyler Mansion

Map of the city of Albany drawn by Simeon DeWitt in 1794

Philip John Schuyler was a man of many careers. One of the jobs he is most famous for is being one of the four major generals that served under Washington. The man at the Saratoga Monument commented something that I’ve been thinking of frequently throughout our trips; that the Hudson Valley area was the beginning of America. Major General Philip Schuyler commanded the Northern Department of the Continental Army until August 1777. Although Schuyler ordered the fortress at Ticonderoga to be evacuated and gave his enemies an opportunity to imply, we can still say that Schuyler helped fight for the freedom of our country. I think our perceptions of mansions have been obstructed by the celebrities we see buying extremely large houses with twenty bedrooms and five bathrooms. The Schuyler Mansion had four bedrooms, two parlors, one dining room, no bathroom inside, and was still considered a great mansion. Not every person had their own room to live in, and even the wealthy had to sleep on floors from time to time. I loved the wallpaper inside the mansion. I wanted to touch it so badly because the color and fabric kept my eyes attracted to it. But the fabric was not the only thing that attracted my eye. I noticed that with almost every window came a window seat. I imagine there were so many window seats because the view of the Hudson River and land from the mansion was a grand view.  Why would Schuyler put a mansion overlooking such a beautiful view and not have window seats? Surely he wanted to impress his visitors with the beautiful Hudson. But as you can see from the picture above, the Hudson River was bigger than it is today. That just means that the view was even greater. One of the famous visitors of the Schuyler Mansion was British General Burgoyne. He stayed at the mansion as a prisoner-guest, and was treated very well in hopes that if the British were to capture rebel generals they would be treated the same way. What surprised me is how much respect the Generals in war had for each other. They both respected one another as gentleman, and did not treat them as poorly as I believe we would treat our prisoners today. General Burgoyne burned the property owned by Schuyler in Saratoga, inherited after Schuyler’s grandfather, the house that we visited later on in the day. 

The Still Water Blockhouse

The blockhouse we went in today seemed small, and it was hard for me to believe that 100 to 120 men could fit in that building. While reading the description in front of the Blockhouse, I noticed that in 1709 Peter Philip Schuyler built a small fort similar to this one and called it Fort Ingoldsby. Even though this Blockhouse is a recreation, I still got the feel of protection an original Blockhouse would create for the men. While eating my lunch I noticed that we had Aquafina water bottles. If any of you remember the class day we had with Toby, you would remember that Aquafina is just purified tap water. I checked to see if Aquafina told their customers that it is purified tap water and they did, in very small print on the side. But, Aquafina was proud to say that their new bottles is 50% less plastic. That’s nice and all Aquafina, but these bottles are still going to create mountains in the landfills in India.

The Schuyler House

The third built Schuyler house we visited, being the third built after Burgoyne’s destruction, was smaller than I thought it would be. But I guess that’s exactly why it’s called a house and not a mansion. What was nice to hear is that a lot of people in the early days reused the things they owned. It was nice to hear that they did at least something eco-friendly after learning about all the wastes and contamination people threw in the Hudson River. I wanted to take the time out to personally thank the Dutch for waffles, pancakes, and cookies. I don’t know where I would be without those delicious food items.

Saratoga Monument #WeClimbedIt

The Saratoga Monument we visited after the Schuyler House commemorates Burgoyne’s surrender to Gates on October 17, 1777. The third Schuyler house above was created shortly after this surrender. Where the monument stands is where Burgoyne’s camp was for the final days of the campaign. All of this fighting was because of each parties want over the Hudson River Valley. Burgoyne called the Hudson River the most proper part of the whole continent, and it was. The Hudson River allowed transportation in order to do business, and communicate with neighboring areas. I didn’t know that there were so many stairs to get to the top of the Monument. At one point I started running without realizing I had a good eighty more steps to travel. By the time I realized I shouldn’t have started running, I kept running because there was no turning back now. My legs were throbbing and my chest felt heavy but the view was beautiful, and so was our selfie.

The dredging of the Hudson River is one of the largest clean-up sites. I would have guessed this to be true because the Hudson River Valley was long settled before many other areas in the United States. It was settled, and colonials would throw waste products and garbage in the Hudson which helped to the contamination of the River. The dredging of the Hudson River is a great example of why we need to look at decisions that could affect the environment in the long run. GE is now paying the price of their own mistakes of contaminating the water by paying for the dredging. I would have liked to see the dredging in action, but by looking at the equipment I could already tell how intricate the process is. I hope that after spending all of this money cleaning up the river, we start taking better care of our environment.