8 City Worked: Occupation Colonial Stefan Biellins callonsssAlbany Social Project State Muse

his essayaddresses the theme of how a city worked. mary, the Colonial Albany Project seeks to illuminate In this case, appreciating the play on words in the title and focus the life story of early Albany through the prism holds an important key toward understanding the of the lives of each early Albany person. developmentof an urban characterand urban identity for the city of Albany, New York during its colonial period No aspect of the lives of these people is more from 1686 to 1776. significant than their contributions to the pre-industrial community’s economy. That is, how they supported To date,most studiesof colonial cities and particularly themselves and their dependants-how they worked. the scholarship focused on early Albany either have This essaywill focus on the working people of colonial described community events, traced the evolution of Albany and will draw on the work profile data collected local institutions, or have offered the careersof the most so far by the Colonial Albany Social History Project to outstanding personages as the best ways of under- suggestan outline occupational framework for pre-urban standing the founding, growth, and developmentof what, workers in pre-industrial America. in the case of Albany, was a trading station, a military outpost, a commercial and communications center, and These laborers, artisans, craftspeople, transporters, then a seatof government and service on the west bank human services vendors, merchants and traders, and of the , 150 miles north of .’ professional people gave this colonial city its character, its identity, and its life. An appreciation of how the ‘This essay applies a functional framework and working people of colonial Albany earned a living is employs a humanistic approach toward the under- basic to understandingissues that led to the chartering of standing of life in an early American community. The the colonial city in 1686; how Albany grew over the next city of Albany was a home for as many as 10,000 hundred years; how its political economy functioned in different people during the century before the War for practice; and how its people related to their neighbors, a Independence.Each of these Albany residents played a large dependanthinterland, transient populations, and to part in the community’s socio-economic drama. other parts of the outside world.2 Appreciating the individual and collective contributions of each of the people of colonial Albany representsa Before submitting this outline, an appreciation of two comprehensively revealing approach to community basic concepts is essential. These definitions help history. To know intimately the lives of each of these provide a framework for understanding why the city of people of colonial Albany and to understand how Albany flourished and how the lives of its people differed individual life histories worked as parts of a larger story from those living in the Albany hinterland. First, this of family and community over a period of approximately essaydefines an “Albany person” asa resident of the city 114 years is the ambition of the Colonial Albany Social of Albany, the one mile by sixteen mile strip of land History Project, a model community history program running northwest away from the Hudson as specified in sponsoredby theNew York StateMuseum. The Colonial the city charter granted by Governor Thomas Dongan in Albany Social History Project has undertaken a broadly 1686. The center of this municipality was the land conceived program of historical research and has enclosedby the Albany stockade,a log fence which was developed several data base information centers on the enlarged several times during the seventeenth and people of colonial Albany and their world. The central eighteenth centuries. Most, but not all, Albany residents element of this data base is a detailed life course bio- lived inside the six gates.The distinction of city residents graphy for each of the people who lived in the city of from those living in the countryside is critical to Albany before 1800.These biographies are the essential appreciating the development of the regional economy building blocks of all project-related programs. In sum- on two levels. 119 120 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

Fig. 26. Early Albany Street Sceneby Leonard F. Tantillo.

By the date of the charter, these “city” people had city’s mayor and aldermen), was responsible for protect- formed an image of themselvesas members of an Albany ing the Albany fur trading monopoly. Somleenterprising community. Their special status confirmed in the individuals sought to maintain dual residenciesand thus was tangibly important to them with qualify as traders.But the Albany city fathers (the mayor respectto their land titles in an areaotherwise surrounded and aldermen) were successful in almos%completely by Van RensselaerManor, their exclusive right to trade eliminating that practice by the end of the first decadeof for furs, and the other privileges connected to city the eighteenth century.3 residency. Albany people were distinguished from other regional residents by their occupations, which The Albany city charter also established.Albany as the unlike the others, did not revolve around farming. county market town and designatedregular market days when farmers could bring their produce ~toAlbany to Albany residents made, sold, and repaired things and barter for goods and services offered by those Albany also provided a range of personal services. Only residentsenjoying the “freedom of the city.” Only those qualified Albany city residents, called “burghers” or entitled by freemanship or licenced by the Albany “freemen,” were authorized to trade with the Indians. corporation (the mayor and councilmen) were permitted All others, and there were many, were liable to be to sell their waresat the Albany market. At the sametime, condemnedas illegal traders.In practice, this restriction internal carting and portering, and ferry accessto Albany seriously impeded non-resident, would-be traders, were controlled by appointment and license by the city whether they were from New York, New England, or corporation. Finally, the mayor was emlpowered as more immediately from Rensselaerswijck,Kinderhook, “clerk of the market” to set commercial standardsinclud- Catskill, or Schenectady,from openly purchasing Indian ing weights and measures, and, through the Mayor’s trade goods and from selling competitively the furs they Court, to arbitrate business disputes. This legislation might illegally receive from the and Eastern meant that accessto the market and the movement of Indians. This reservation also placed theseoutsiders at goodsand supplies acrossthe Hudson and within the city risk of being arrestedby the Albany County sheriff who was reserved to those preferred by the Albany city with the Albany Commissioners of Indian Affairs (the fathers. WOW A CITY WORKED 124

Not surprisingly, both the fur trading monopoly and excepting infants and invalids. Wives took over manage- the rights and regulations of the Albany market were ment of theseenterprises during the absenceor death of violated and infringed on by non-residents. However, the head of the household, adding additional respon- unauthorized tradersand merchants(anyone who had not sibility to childbearing which lasted for up to two qualified for the “Freedom of Albany”) often were .Most widows of childbearing age remarried prosecuted and fined. Those who persisted were while those who had reachedmiddle age often managed compelled to carry on in somedegree of secrecy.Thus, the family trade or business themselves and did not they wereat a seriousdisadvantage when competing with remarry. the legally established Albany traders and merchants, These Albany Handelaers, the Dutch word for Children generally outnumbered the adults in the merchants, who were prominently represented on the community as the typical Albany household included Albany Corporation and in the local courts, successfully four or more sonsand daughters.Childhood endedearly employed legal sanctionsto curtail competition.4 as boys and girls had been introduced to crafts, trade, business,and aboveall, to labor, by the time they reached Second, by establishing the city of Albany as the their teens. Few children left their parents’ hearth until exclusive commercial center for the county that origi- they married during their early twenties. Thus, the family nally extended from Saugertiesto the St. Lawrence and work unit would retain its basic labor supply over all but from New England to the Indian country, commercial the first years of an Albany householder’s career. opportunities for the inhabitants of the rest of the region Virtually every Albany youth aged ten to twenty could were confined to agriculture and to extractive expect to passfive to fifteen years of work, training, and enterprises.These farmers were permitted to grow and seasoningin a family businessenterprise. In this city of harvest agricultural products and to cut, cure, and other- households characterized by a family-based economic wise prepareproduce and forest and mineral products for unit, wives, sons and daughters, a large number of or- sale on the Albany market in accordancewith the terms phans, and some adolescent apprentices formed the of their individual land titles. backboneof the community’s labor supply.

Freedom to “mine” the land did not, however, extend For the most part, the heed of the family was acknow- to animals. According to the city charter, hunting for ledged in legal and other public transactions and commercial purposesin the woods north, east,and west activities. However, spouses,children, the elderly, other of Albany was permitted only under license by the kin, slaves, servants (most commonly apprentices),and Albany corporation. This requirement was enacted to sometimeslodgers and boarders who worked for their plug loopholes in the Furtrading monopoly. However, it keep, typically co-operatedin the commercial enterprise also impacted on who could bring gamemeat for sale in or enterprises of the house as members of the family the Albany market. An appreciation of the legal sepam- economy. The unacknowledged/unrecorded contribu- tion of economic activity into “commercial” for the tions of wives and unmarried sons and daughters freeholders of the city of Albany and “agricultural” for permitted the headof the household/businessto leave the the inhabitants of the rest of the county is essential for house/shopfor sales,supplies and stock, and to engage comprehending the nature of work in the Hudson- in other external activities. Mohawk valley.5 Until the War for Independence when the homes of A secondconcept essential to understandinghow the widows, gentlemen, and purely residential dwellings colonial city worked concerns the most typical Albany becamenoticeableoncity assessmentroles, most Albany business unit-described here by the term “family households were functional-that is business activities economy.” Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, ranging from wood and metal work to retail trade to food colonial Albany was a city of households with most of and comfort service activities and every permutation of the substantial buildings in the community housing a the above, were carried on under the same roof that family group. At the sametime, businessactivities were housedan Albany family. In fact, only large-scaleopera- carried on in most of these homes. Generally, the tions like brickmaking and sawing, extremely disagree- commercial (beyond subsistence)business of an Albany able processing operations like tanning, hazardous house-holder encompassedseveral activities and typi- activities like smithing and others that involved fire, and cally involved all the membersof the nuclear household thoserequiring water were practiced in yards,pits, shops, 122 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS and mills detachedand/or located away from an Albany These /Albany residents found that the fur dwelling house. trade provided an attractive, if short-lived, vehicle for upward mobility. As the beaver had been trapped out of From the 1650son, tradesand craftsmen,vendors, and what became New York State by about 1660, the other business people often rented rooms in city resi- European fur market also began to ebb toward the close dencesfrom both widows and from regular families. This of the Dutch colonial era. By 1700,the fur economy was further complicated the functional definition of the early in terminal decline. Half a century later, ten Albany Albany home. By the second half of the eighteenth merchants still could be identified as Indian traders. century, the subletting of rooms in Albany townhouses However, this group was a highly specialized minority was wide-spread and helped open the community to within the Albany businesscommunity and consisted of Scottish and New England newcomers. In summary, the most adept and aged,die-hard membersof Albany’s each person living under a single Albany roof con- traditional trading families except for the two actual tributed to the wealth or standard of living of the frontier traders who also resided in the Indian country. household. The terms “household” and “family In addition, other less obvious Indian traders were char- economy” were synonymous and most fairly describe acterized as Albany merchantswho sent representatives the typical early Albany dwelling.6 Having defined the to Oswego during the summer trading season.’ Albany resident and the family economy of Albany households, this essay now will consider the specific As the fur trade declined during the secondhalf of the elementsof the Albany work force. seventeenthcentury, Albany fur traderswere required to adapttheir businessenergies and substantial experiences Traders, Merchants, and Vendors to more viable areas of opportunity. By the end of the century, not even the most successful of the fur traders Becauseof its location, its trading post, and its fort, relied exclusively on the beaver for their livelihood. the general site of the city of Albany was a center of Those who maintained hegemony now relied on export- independent population from the early days of New import commerce involving a variety of lcommodities Netherland. Despite the preventive efforts of the West taken in trade from their customers.They also had diver- India Company and the intentions of the first proprietor sified into real estate investment, shipping, processing, of Rensselaerswijck,settlers gravitated to the flood plain credit relationships, and other investments and north of Fort Orangethroughout theNew Netherland era. enterprises. Those who could not accommodate the Thesepeople were attractedby the lure of the fur trade- passingof the fur trade were forced to leave Albany. The the most important single economic consideration until survivors and particularly those who flourished over the the latter part of the century. The tradersbuilt frame, then next century asAlbany merchantswere distinguished by brick and limestone homes along the river road and up their flexibility. Some of the fur traders were able to the slope north and west of the fort and sought to barter adapt to new conditions and opportunities and became for furs. By the eve of the English takeover in 1664, merchants who offered a traditional range of imported Beverwijck-the name given to this fur trading staplesand manufacturedand crafted goods to a growing community in 1652-had developed its own core group American-born population and also to the expanding of about fifty major traders and another eighty less body of new settlers of greater Albany County-which prominent entrepreneurswho were struggling to channel had becomethe most populous in the provinlce with over and control the flow of furs into Beverwijck/Albany and one fourth of New York’s total population by the eve of out to Manhattan and beyond. This trading group was independence. composedof former Van Rensselaertenants, discharged West India Company employees, and a sprinkling of Because of its location at the hub of transportation French-heritage settlers, Scats, and others from New accessand egress, the protection of its fort, a favored York and from New England. Most of thesetraders were economic status granted by the city charter, and the at the peak of their careers,having been born in Europe already-established commercial climate within the earlier in the seventeenth century-mostly after 1620. community, Albany was destined to grow as a center of Each of these emigres came to America with work business on the northern frontier. By the end of the experience,although not necessarilyin business.Prior to seventeenthcentury, the Albany-based retail trade was setting up in Beverwijck/Albany, each trader had sup- much more complex in nature and sophisticated in ported himself in a craft, trade, or with his strong back. practice than the simple bartering for furs. A successful HOW A CITY WORKED 123 import merchant was required to comprehend intema- representeda period of significant growth and develop- tional sources of goods, the colonial commodities ment for the city and its economy. By that time, the market, credit and currency exchange, the needsof the successfulbusiness-oriented Dutch families of Albany city resident and the frontier settler, the requirements of had adoptedthe retail trade.Through succeedinggenem- colonial armies, and the workings of existing delivery tions, thesefamilies would provide both the typical and systems. most outstanding examples of the core of an Albany mercantile community. Successful in business, holding By the 168Os,Albany’s leading merchants were the extensive acreage in the greater region, elected and sons of settlers, most of whom were appointed to leadershippositions, and having kinship ties born in the community during the 1640s and 1650s. to most families in the city and its hinterland, these These astute, Dutch-heritage businessmenwere joined merchantsconstituted the most prominent feature of the through marriage by a few enterprising newcomers,like city’s economic life for the remainder of the colonial Robert Livingston. They were able to dominateAlbany’s period. economy basedon their personal ties to the body of the new city’s population. Throughout the colonial period, the merchants of Albany had been a powerful and cohesive force in the The namesof Bleecker, Cuyler, Lansing, Roseboom, economic and political life of the city, the county, and in Schuyler, Ten Broeck, and Wendell were found at the the province as a whole. The most important of the top of Albany merchants’petitions, on the rostersof local Albany merchantswere permanentresidents of the city. government, on city assessmentand contract lists, and They owned Albany town houses from which they most often on census rolls as well. For the next three carried on business and trade; were counted as Albany generations,these New Netherland ancestrygroups were residents on census and voting enumerations and on the most prevelent as well as the most prominent early assessmentrolls-where they paid the highest taxes; Albany families. Not until the 1760s was the Albany held city and county political and judicial offices; Dutch mercantile oligarchy substantially erodedby true belonged to Albany churches; and were known to outsiders. Two decadeslater, the Scatswho survived the neighbors and outsiders as Albany people. The most War for Independence and a larger number of New successfulmaintained family-based businesscontacts in Englanders had taken control of the city’s businesslife, Boston, New York, elsewhere in America, and abroad. sending many Dutch-ancestrymerchants to their country Although the external networks were critical to an estates, where they managed their acreage, and importer’s success,most of the Albany merchantswere continued buying and selling in a less competitive not simply stringers for mercantile atmosphere.* houses.Instead, they conducted independentcommerce often involving personal trade with the British Isles, the Many of those who formerly had trafficked in furs West Indies, and the other colonies. were unable to competeand were forced to fall back on their original occupations, to leave the province entirely, TheseAlbanians led internal developmentin their city or to move out of Albany to a more rural area(Schenec- through an intimate involvement in the city government. tady, Kinderhook, Schaghticoke, and beyond), where Every Albany merchant served as either an alderman or business was less competitive and where some success assistanton the city common council which supervised in trading was more certain. Others, specifically the and regulated all aspects of Albany’s development non-resident tradersfrom New York, New England, and including its commerce.With the mayor, thesecouncil- thosewho sought to maintain a foothold in Albany while men also served as justices and as commissioners of remaining established elsewhere, were deprived of Indian Affairs. Each year, leading Albany merchants adequatereal estate within the stockade,frozen out of were appointed by the royal governor to the offices of cooperative import-export opportunities, or were mayor and recorder. Almost to a man, the mayors of litigated out of the fur trade by the Albany court? colonial Albany were drawn from among the city’s principal merchants.‘0 The passing of the fur trade and the exodus of the non-resident trader from the city had taken place before As a group, the merchantspetitioned, lobbied for, and the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713. That event received commissions, land patents, and other special marked the beginning of three decadesof peacewhich privileges from the royal government in New York City. 124 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

They secured contracts to build, repair, and supply After the 175Os, Albany’s business community Albany’s fort, and also servedas sub-contractorsfor the becamemore closely articulated as newcomersand, to a military expeditions sent against the French during lesser degree, established merchant/vendors, began to Queen Anne’s War, King George’s War, and the Seven specialize in discernible item areas. Solmewere iden- Years War. These contracts often were lucrative and, tified with some consistency as retailers of liquor, when an Albany merchant received such preferment, clothing, or tools. Others advertised imported staple many Albany people sharedin the wealth. More than one goods for sale. Still others called themselves Albany family managedto make a fortune in the tricky apothecaries or tobacconists. After the War for businessof outfitting colonial regiments and the British Independence, these smaller-scale, general merchants army. Albany victualers were able to sublet the pro- came to be identified as shop- keepers.t3 visions of their military contracts to associates and relatives who made shoes, hats, and clothing, supplied As prominent, powerful, and prosperousas Albany’s food items, or to other Albany artificers who were trading community was throughout the colonial period, builders, woodworkers, smiths, and wheelwrights. Such the story of its contribution only partly reveals how and patronage provided a real boost for Albany’s trades- why the city really worked. Undeniably, the lion’s share people and helps account for the concentration and of Albany’s political power and wealth resided with a vitality of a large and diverse skilled labor force in the mercantile establishment composedof resident traders, city. The prosperity generatedby the military contracts merchants, and vendors. This general group of Albany also fostered a unifying spirit among the general merchants formed patron-client relationships with a members of Albany’s business community, that only large number of people in the community and throughout began with kinship.” the region. At the same time, the hand of the Albany merchant was present in virtually every type of com- ltiilitary and civil contracts are a public testimony to munity economic activity. But, by the eighteenth cen- another widespread Albany business activity. After the tury, Albany had outgrown its original purpose as a retail merchants who dealt in externally produced, trading entrep6t on the northern frontier. The mid-cen- imported goods, Albany contractors either provided tury observations of the Scottish physician, Alexander personal services, marketed local produce and agricul- Hamilton, and Peter Kalm, which form the historical tural products, or else sold the things madeor produced basis for many of our impressions of colonial Albany, in Albany-either personally or by their neighbors. suggestthat the people there caredonly about trade. Such Theseself-contained producer/merchants were known as impressions, however, are superficial and seriously dis- vendors. tort the overall occupational picture. B:y 1756, those engagedprimarily in somekind of trade representedno Most Albany vendors both made and sold products more than one-fourth of Albany’s heads of households. ranging from food to clothing to implements to finery. Trade was only the most obvious, best advertised layer Occupational categories were fluid, and these of a substantial and complex occupational structure. The individuals often were comfortable in severaldistinct yet following sections describe the body of that iceberg.14 related roles. Depending on demand, the availability of labor and materials, the stage of an individual’s career, Processing and the season,vendors might be more or less makersor sellers at any particular moment. Thus, the specific From the earliest days, the people who settled at allocation of a vendor’s time eludes precise definition. Albany relied on the abundant and conveniently located In fact, the vendor himself often was in conflict deciding natural resources, turning them into products to feed, whether he was a gunsmith or a merchant, or a vintner, cloth, and shelter them and their rural neighbors. The tavemkeeper, or wine merchant. When transportation bounty and accessibility of the natural environment were considerations becamepart of the commercial activity, important contributing factors in Albany’s success. which often happened with Albany vendors owning However, all of theseresources required processing.The sloops, sleighs, wagons, and draught animals, a definite transformation of clay into bricks and tiles, logs into categorization becomes even more complicated. How- lumber and potash, crops into grain and beverages,and ever, a large number of Albany people who madethings animal matter into meat, clothing, and staples were or provided services also sold the same goods and production activities that took place within sight of the skills.t2 Albany fort. Each mill, yard, kiln, or pit required two or more Processing enterprises often were owned by Albany workers, A significant proportion of the Albany work merchants who employed workmen and engaged an force (especially those considered as part of a family overseer. By the second half of the eighteenth century, economy) was involved in processing. Newcomers, wage laborers and slaves had replaced tenants and unskilled laborers, part-timers, and slaves were apprentices as operatives. The homes of the workers if employed in processing enterprises.However, sawing, not the owners of processing operations began to form milling, tanning, curing, and other processing activities residential neighborhoods north and south of the core often were spaceintensive, required water power, were settlement which spread out from State Street, fire and sanitation risks, and aesthetically were not Broadway, andNorth Pearl Street.By the eve of the War compatible with community living. These considera- for Independence,these lowland enclaves in the South tions dictated that processing activities be practiced End and in North Albany were already defineable outside the Albany stockade. transient/low-income residential areas whose modesty stood in contrast to the extensive and elegant estatesof A number of mills served the people of the Upper the Schuylers, Ten Broecks; and Van Rensselaersthat Hudson during the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries. loomed over them from the west.t’ Becausethe city of Albany was the regional population center and because many of the mill owners were The Building Trades prominent Albany merchants, mill sites would be Using local contractors,the English built Fort Albany expected to be located in close proximity to the city. at the head of State Street in 1676. Even before the However, saw mills and grist mills were more charac- granting of the Albany city charter in 1686, artisans had teristic of the Normanskill, Beaverkill, ’s Creek, been engagedby local government to build, repair, and the rural streamsof the region. Even though the angle of supply Albany’s public buildings, streets and bridges, flow increasedas the streamneared the Hudson, only one and to maintain its protective stockade and associated water mill, namely that of Rutger Jacobsen,was ever blockhouses. In addition, over a thousand homes were erectedon the lower Ruttenkill or Vossenkill, the built within the city limits by Albany tradesmenbefore that flowed through the heart of the city. The Wendell 1800. Throughout the colonial period, a constant and mill upstream on the Ruttenkill was located in today’s substantialvolume of building-related activity in Albany Lincoln Park, away from the core settlement. proper supported a large and broadly constituted group of artisans who servedgovernment, their neighbors, and Tanning pits were situated on the upper part of the the residents of Albany’s large dependanthinterland as Vossenkill. By the secondhalf of the eighteenth century, carpentersand joiners and as stone and brick masons.In an ashery was erected near where the flowed addition, these tradesmen were supported by an in- under North Pearl Street. Beginning in the seventeenth frastructure of sons and helpers, apprentices,slaves and century, severalowners operated a brickyard on the plain other servants, and, after 1750, by itinerent laborers. above today’s South Pearl Street. However, space Together, these builders constituted the largest in- pressureslater relegatedlarger-scale brick baking to the dividual segmentof Albany’s workforce. Until the War river level north of the stockade. By the close of the for Independence, when other trades began to exhibit eighteenth century, this north Albany areawas a sprawl- dramatic growth, those engaged in heavy construction ing lumber district and also the site of building supplies constituted at least a quarter of the city of Albany’s deposits,tar and potash pits, and other storagefacilities. working population. However, that large proportion is somewhatmisleading ascarpenters, for example, simul- Smokehouses,breweries, smithys, cooperages,and taneously were engaged in lumbering and in making leatherworks were numerous and vital to the emerging specialized wooden items such as barrels and crates, regional center. These facilities had been located in the shingles, sleighes, wagons, and wheels.16 heart of the seventeenth century community. But, as home became separatedfrom work place and a central Crafts business district becamediscernible from a locus at the Coopers, smiths, and shoemakers were the most Dutch Church, such processing facilities also were prominent members of a broadly based community of moved to the fringe areasof the city adjoining the pas- craftsmen at work in colonial Albany. Although almost tures south of the stockadeand out North Market Street threedozen distinct crafts activities have been identified, (Broadway) toward the Van Rensselaermanor house. Albany’s artisans generally can be described as those 126 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

who made,adapted, and repaired utilitarian items made an occasional city aldermen and more assistantsduring from either wood, metal, animal products (leather), or the colonial period. Becausea large part of his business cloth/fabric. Until after the War for Independence,the was devoted to repairing broken metal items, the black- only significant fine or distinctive products were crafted smith was in constant demand. Like the gunsmith; he by Albany’s silversmiths, a small number of artisans the often was employed by the city corporation to repair the best known of whom were membersof the Ten Eyck and Albany infrastructure and to fix broken guns, tools, and Lansing families. implements brought in by the Indians. This service function laid the foundation for an extensive network of At any given time before 1776,at leasta dozenAlbany tinkerers that emerged in Albany after the War for coopers produced barrels and casks that were used for Independence.’* storage by regional processors and for shipment by Albany merchants.Although the cooper carved and bent The tanning pits ringing the colonial city preparedthe wood, his craft also entailed the procurement of suitable animal hides that supplied Albany’s leather workers. lumber and metal hoops. This interdependence spon- Theseartisans made shoes, boots, leather c.lothing items, sored flexibility as the names of Albany coopers often saddles, and leather belts, bags, sashes, and laces. were connected with house and boat building, carving Shoemakerswere the most numerous and also the most and other woodwork, smithing, and lumbering. As a rule, highly specialized of early Albany’s crafts activities. Albany cooperages were located along the riverfront Shoe shops typically were attached to the artisan’s area and near storehousesand breweries. By the end of residence‘and were small, most often training a son and the era, the cooperage,with its pile of aging lumber, often employing only an occasionaljourneyman or apprentice. was separate from the cooper’s residence. Although However, as many as two dozen shoemaking estab- Albany supporteda large number of barrel makers,none lishments were counted in the city by the British army in of Albany’s coopers achieved prominence. However, 1756. with the smiths and shoemakers,these tradesmen formed the core of colonial Albany’s workforce. General shoemakerswere the most prevalent ranging from traditional shops passed on for generations by Other wood craftsmen included gunstock and other Albany families to individual rooms rented from Albany handle makers, ship and boat builders, wagon and cart widows by newcomers and young men. These artisans makers, turners, and wheelwrights-who combined made and repaired footwear for everyday use and also wood and metal working skills. These more specialized offered speciality items such as belts and caps as a tradesmenwere not as numerous as the coopersbut they sidelight. Cobblers basically repaired leather goods with also flourished as colonial Albany becamemore firmly thread, thong, and glue, although most sold somerough- establishedas the regional service center.*’ crafted items as well. Cordwainers made and sold more finely cut and stitched “cordovan” shoes and boots to The smith provided basic metal work and repair Albany’s more affluent customers.These elite craftsmen servicesfrom the earliest days of the Albany settlement. took pride in the distinction between cordwainer and the This group of tradesmen included blacksmiths, common shoemaker or cobbler, sometimes offered gunsmiths, other “smiths,” saw, hoop, and other more imported crafted goods, and sought to imitate the specialized “makers,” braziers, and general tinkerers. fashionable in their designs. Typically, as many as two dozen of these metalworkers owned Albany smithys while several other Albany resi- Sadlers,harness-makers, beltmakers, and. other leather dents were empoweredby the Commissionersof Indian workers made, sold, and repaired transportation-related Affairs to practice their tradesin the Indian country. By leather goods and supplies. At any given time during the the eighteenth century, fire safety considerations called century prior to 1776, Albany could support one each of for the smithy to be separate(if only detached)from the thesecraftsmen who, with theropemaker, p,rovidedmost smith’s home. Smithys often were located near Market- of the software for the regional workforce. During the Court Streetsin North and South Albany. Each Albany 176Os,Abraham Eights established a sailmaking busi- smithy was owner-operated and employed one or more ness that prosperedon the Albany waterfront and made assistants who maintained the fire, performed heavy and repaired sails for use all along the Hudson River as labor, and otherwise supported the smith. The smith’s far as New York where his work was aldvertlsed in trade was more lucrative than the cooper’s and graduated Manhattan newspapers.19 HOW A CITY WORKED 127

By the 1720s)former soldiers from the British garrison crossroadsand central place. Albany bakersand brewers had settled into Albany as weaversand tailors andbegan learned at an early date that Native American fur traders to fill out an embryonic textile and clothing community could be plied with food and drink during barter negotia- that had been evident since Beverwijck days. By mid- tions. Contrary to many ordinances against it, Bever- century, Albany’s clothing-related enterprises were wijck and later Albany traderskept sweetsand spirits on booming and presenteda fully articulated occupational hand-sometimes baking or brewing the hospitality structure. Ten or more weavers supplied cloth, a dozen items themselves. As the fur trade declined and the general tailors cut and stitched fabric; and a few britches- region began to fill up with settlers, many of these makers,hatters, and a “mantua” or cloakmakerprovided baker/brewer/fur traders were able to stay in the more specialized clothing services. In 1756, almost two community by baking and brewing food and drink for dozen households were identified as engaged in these their neighbors, travellers, and for other regional clothing trades.Cloth-related activities werelabor-inten- residents. Although many Albany families performed sive and provided prime examplesof the family economy their own meat cleaning, cutting, and curing, several at work as women, children, agedparents, boarders, and butchers offered these services and also sold meat, some wage earnerswere employed on Albany looms or poultry, and fish products. However, until after the War spent prickly hours spinning and stitching in Albany for Independence, evidence of commercial fishing or sewing rooms. For the most part, this cottage clothing fish/mongering to date has been more fragmentary than industry supplied common clothing and provided altera- might be expected.21 tions for the city and regional population. However, many Albany merchants offered cloth and clothing Taverns and Inns shipped in from outside. The volume and variety of After the church, and ranking alongside the court and fabrics and clothing items offered for sale by Albany the city market, taverns were popular places for the men importers continued to increasethroughout the colonial of colonial Albany to meet, exchange information, period?’ propose and broker, and to argue and settle old debts. Undoubtedly, a large proportion of colonial Albany’s Food Services work-related agreementswere negotiatedover a measure Located in the heart of an extensive drainage basin of beer. Unlike the church, the court, and most other teeming with fish and waterfowl, surrounded by game- community focal points, attendance at the tavern was rich forests,and set in the heart of a fertile and emerging recreational and also elective. These facts made agricultural region, colonial Albany was ideally situated Albany’s taverns extremely popular and bred a vitality to turn a profit from the preparation and sale of food. and energy in tavern life often lacking on court day and Most colonial Albany families engagedin somesubsis- the Sabbath.The colonial tavern served locally-brewed tencegardening, dairying, fishing, foraging, and hunting. beer and often had evolved from a room in an Albany Under the city charter of 1686, hunting in most of the trader’s home where he conducted business. Food and county had been reserved exclusively to city residents beverage service represented a logical next step in and to those licensed by the Albany corporation. hospitality. These informal gathering places were numerous, as many Albany homes were referred to as However, the people of colonial Albany were able to taverns at some time during the years before 1800. do better than merely survive. Many Albany households Tavern businessrose and fell in importanceon a seasonal were able to reap additional benefit from the sale and/or basis. Taverns often were operated by widows and by exchange of prepared food items. The preparation and family membersother than the headof the household. In sale of meat, foodstuffs, and drink, representedanother the long run, these factors made most Albany taverns large and traditional enterprise that was familiar to a unsuccessfulas businesses.Their short lives had shown large proportion of the colonial Albany work-force. The them to be casualties of other business and household constant need for food in a non agricultural community priorities, competition from more-committed estab- had been met by house gardens and by Albany bakers, lishments, and of inconsistent responsibility in business butchers, and brewers since the mid-seventeenth practice. century. The people of colonial Albany also owed their well-fed lifestyle to the external demandfor food items The Albany court and, after 1686, the city corporation created by the fur trade, the constant military presence, sought to regulate brewing by licensing tapstersand also and Albany’s location at a commercial and cultural those who served“wyne Rumm, Beer or other Liquors” 128 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

Fig. 27. J. Berckheyde, 1630-1693,“The Baker“ Courtesy of the WorcesterArt Museum, Worcester,Massachusetts. in quantities over five gallons. Coupled with the decline Albany tavern locations had become established and of the fur trade, these conditions and restrictions forced would survive for several decades.22 some Albany entrepreneursto reconsider the wisdom of dividing their business energies. By the eighteenth In the early days of the community, travellers and century, most of the brewers, merchants,and tradesmen longer-term vistiors found lodging in the homes of who had tried to run a tavern as a sideline, closed their Albany residents.As the fur tradebecame more competi- tap rooms and concentratedon their principal businesses tive, however, Albany fur traders and later the city in an effort to remain solvent in the community. At the corporation might be excused for not encouraging same time, the most committed Albany tavern owners outsiders to stay around lest they succumb to the tempta- experienced the most success.By 1700, the taproomsof tion of attempting to trade for furs. However, with the Thomas Williams, William Hogan, and several other building of Fort Albany, establishment of the court, WOW A CITY WORKED 129

Indian commissioners, and other regulatory bodies Albany possessedseveral advantages. By the eighteenth during the 167Os,those other than Albany residents century when the community began to be less dependant could have legitimate business within Albany’s on imports for life necessities,Albany merchantscould stockade.Albany’s emergenceas a service center dates set the cycle and rhythm for exporting wheat,other grain, from this period and many early Albany people were furs, and lumber by controlling the meansfor transport- experienced in service-relatedenterprises. ing their goods downriver. Consequently, a number of Albany merchantsowned outright or in partnership most By the close of the seventeenth century, the most of the sloops and some of the lesser watercraft that successful Albany taverns had evolved into inns which carried their commodities down the river. These vessels offered lodging, meals, stables,and other personal com- were manned and maintained by kinsmen, slaves, and forts to non-residents in addition to the traditional beer other local boys and young men-often on a part-time or for all. Like the taverns, the inn was a family enterprise short-term basis. Although some Albany boys chose employing members of the innholder’s household, sailing as a careeroption, most had settled into a regular, slaves, and other workers but on a larger scale and in community-based trade, craft activity, or became more specialized roles than at the tavern. The inn was farmers in the countryside by the time of their marriages. among the largest employers in the pre-industrial com- lvlanagers and pilots rather than .crew members ac- munity requiring up to a dozenindividuals to prepareand counted for most of the water-related occupations of serve food and drink., maintain lodging quarters,provide Albany people after they reached adulthood. However, stable, valet, and custodial services, and to manage the the water-oriented nature of work in this colonial enterprise day and night. Under the Albany charter, inns community should not be underestimated as many of came under the regulation of the city corporation. Albany’s men could recall some sailing experience or Licenses were required and standardswere established. had worked along the waterfront in days past.“” By the 175Os,over a dozeninns and tavernswerecounted in the city by the British army. Several of these were The Albany corporation controlled accessto the city prominent Albany landmarks that also hosted meetings by virtue of its authority over the riverfront and its and less formal gatherings. By that time, many young exclusive right to regulate the Hudson River ferry. By men were patronizing Albany tap rooms on a regular the mid-1760s, the common council had authorized the basis. On theseoccasions, native sons would affirm peer construction of a seawall along the city’s riverfront that relationships, interact with older membersof the com- featured three docks. This public works achievement, munity in a less rigid, social setting, and be exposed to which allowed ships to be moored and cargoes loaded new plans, fashions, and ideas put forth by recently and unloaded directly instead of being canoed or rafted arrived soldiers, sailors, teamsters,and travellers.23 to a muddy shore, professionalized Albany’s traditional role as a river port and also provided investment and Transportation employment opportunities across the city’s economic Becauseof location, the prosperity and utility of its spectrum.Wharfage and docking rights were franchised business community, and the presence of the English by the corporation-which in practice gave Albany in- fort, throughout the colonial period shipping and siders almost exclusive accessto loading and unloading transportation services were concentrated at Albany. facilities. By that time, Albany merchants were able to Until after the War for Independence,most long-distance capitalize on renting portions of a dock or wharf space, cargo transport was by water and thus was suspended owning warehousefacilities, or sharing in ownership of during the winter months from December through a sloop, yacht, or other river craft. March. Some Albany people owned sleighs but their The Albany corporation appointed an official city cargo-carrying ability was limited. porter who was invested with the right to hand-carry bulk cargoesfor hire through Albany’s streets.However, asa The water-borne and overland carrying trade of practical matter, a single, designated porter could not commodities, products, and travelers between Albany have met the internal demandfor this type of labor alone and other destinations involved sailors and shippers and would have been more suited to courier service. operating from a variety of home bases.The people of Loading and unloading, repacking, warehousing,and the colonial Albany played a major but by no means movementof cargo items to and from the bank and dock exclusive role in the carrying trade to and from their area required substantial if not constant amounts of community. However, in the upriver transport business, heavy labor. 130 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

While the first sons of Albany families might be porter, carters, and Albany wagonners were positioned learning the principles of business, a craft, or a trade to have the best opportunities to move, goods inland. during their adolescence,their younger brothers often However, the poor quality of local roadways retarded started work on the Albany waterfront or as tenant Albany’s ability to participate in overland transit. After farmers. These services typically were in demand and the War for Independence,road building facilitated land labor scarcity was a constant lament among would-be transport and permitted some development of Albany’s entrepreneurs.However, heavy labor was arduous, not road transport industry. By the end of thec:entury,several steady,and was abandonedassoon asother opportunities Albany trucking fiis had becomeestablished, although becameavailable. Until the latter part of the eighteenth not on the scale that would allow them to compete century, only a small portion of the city’s adult work successfully for State stage line charters and transit force could be characterized as laborers. Most Albany contracts. house-holders managed to practice or at least attend a trade or craft; or processnatural materials into products; Charter privileges regarding development, licensing, or gather firewood, loose lumber, or other materials as and franchising gave the Albany city fathers practical contractors of the corporation, the fort, or one of the control of commercial access to Albany (which had region’s land magnates.Thus, they would be able to vend widespread regional applications), and control of a commodity or product insteadof simply hiring out their transportation development within the community as own physical resources. well. However, like other commercial operations, the actual trucking was only a part of the overall community A final work option preferred over manual labor made involvement. Albany carpentersand wheelwrights made young men tenant farmers and relocated them out of the the carts and wagons. Albany blacksmiths fashioned the community. Albany employers sought to fill the labor iron fittings. Albany tannerssupplied the leather. Albany gap with part-time help in the persons of off-duty shoemakersand saddlersoutfttted the horsesand draught soldiers, slaves, with emigres from the countryside, and animals. Albany coopers made the wooden casks and with immigrants from Europe. However, the shortageof shipping crates. Albany carters and wagonmasters labor represented a chronic problem throughout the owned and drove the teams and each employed a few colonial periodF5 Albany teamsters.At the end of this activ.ity chain were the laborers who loaded and unloaded. A large propor- The city charter insured that overland accessto Albany tion of the city’s work force was engaged in making, and also internal transport would be in the hands of servicing, and operating carts, wagons, sleighs, and Albany people. Charter privilege and city by-laws rudimentary coaches. Albany’s overland transport authorized five licensed carters as the exclusive haulers enterprise was substantial and complex and its broadly of cargoes within the city limits. Over the years, basedsocial infrastructure helps illustrate the function of additional legislation set fees and tied the carters to the colonial community as a transport service centerz6 community activities by requiring them to perform civic responsibilities such as street repair and “dirt” or Human Services garbage/trashremoval. As the major population center within a hundred mile Carters held a virtual monopoly on internal trucking radius, Albany had a concentration of people who and the corporation reported no difficulty in finding provided social servicesin the upriver region of colonial solicitous licensees. Typically, these favored New York. Medical treatment, formal education, voca- transportersemployed their sons and others who carted tional training, legal services, spiritual comfort, and any cargoes and supplies up and down Albany’s hillside specialized needs ranging from the expertise of an lanes and along the streetsto and from local storehouses. apothecary to the art and needlecraft of a tailor were The small cart was the only commercial vehicle found most consistently if not exclusively in the permitted to operate within the city stockade. Some pre-urban center of Albany. At any given time during the Albany carters also owned larger wagons that carried eighteenthcentury, the city of Albany servedas the home loads to the farmers on , to the Normanskill, basefor several lawyers, physicians, schoolmastersand to Niskayuna or the Half Moon, or out to Schenectady, tutors, and ministers. Although these professionals eighteen miles to the west. Because water-carried together numbered barely a dozen men, their unique cargoes were unloaded at Albany, the community’s talents and perspectives provided a kind and quality of HOW A CITY WORKED 131 leadership missing from the elite rolls of the surrounding transport system created and controlled by Albany communitiesF7 merchant/traders.

Conclusion Central location, transportation access,the sanction of By the close of the colonial era, Albany had become government, and a responsive and dynamic regional the most populous county in the . economic framework are factors critical for the success Natural increase and a healthy influx of newcomers and livelihood of a community. The businesshistory of especially after 1750 fueled the development of a large colonial Albany provides well-developed examples of agricultural and resource harvesting region that needed eachof thesephysical characteristics.However, the con- service, supply, capitalization, and above all, a tributions of community leaders, traders, transporters, convenient and attractive market place. Over the fore- professional people, artisans and craftsmen, and those going century, the settlersof this region had been able to providing labor and other services represent essential find necessary services at the traditional county seat. human requisites for the successof any community. By This center was defined by Albany’s fort, commercial the end of the colonial period, the people of colonial establishment, municipal and county governments, Albany had establisheda variety of social basesfor the transportation facilities, and support services. As the city’s success.These rested on a foundation of flexibility merchantsprovided leadership, Albany artisansproved and service. The heterogeneousnature of activity in this willing and able followers. Most numerous among central place was made possible by the diversity of the colonial Albany’s adult working people were those talents and ambitions of its people. Although rarely engaged in crafts and trades. Sustained by their neigh- having over three thousand residents at any time during bors and kin, well-developed regional market outlets, the period, colonial Albany clearly possesseda rangeand military and Indian contracts, and protected in their quality of human resources and activities that justify enterprises and investments by a local government calling it a city. controlled by insiders, the city’s artisans,craftsmen, and other producers constituted the broad foundation of The Colonial Albany Social History Project seeksto Albany’s world of work. shed new light on life in early America by studying the lives and comprehendingthe contributions of thosewho By the middle of the eighteenth century, a large lived together in the focal community of a major colonial number of Albany residentswere prospering in the build- region during its formative period. In this social history, ing trades-carpenters, smiths, and masons;processors we have presented an overview and outline of the including brick and tile makers,lumbermen, and tanners. economy of a pre-industrial city by profiling the work Other prosperous tradesmen were metal workers- force of colonial Albany. This essay is intended to be gunsmiths, silversmiths, sawmakers, and tinsmiths; suggestiverather than definitive and is offered asa guide clothiers-weavers, hatters, tailors, wigmakers: and to the structure and dynamics of work in the upper leather craftsmen including shoemakers,cobblers, and . As the research undertaken by the cordwainers. Food and drink was prepared by Albany Colonial Albany Project over the next decadecontinues butchers, bakers, and brewers, while meals and spirits to flesh out the life histories of each of the people of were served in Albany inns and taverns. Albany-made colonial Albany, we will be able to appreciatemore fully and repaired goods and services were offered to local, the breadth, depth, and significance of the work ex- regional, and outside markes via a water and overland periencein an important antecedentof the American city. 132 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS

Notes

‘Since 1970,our understandingof life in early American activities other than those which led the community’s communities has been transformed by an extensive market economy. The bearing and rearing of children literature now known as “town studies.” Outstanding and the running of the household demandedmost of the examples of this genre are Robert A. Gross’s The energy of women under the age of fifty. ‘Thosewomen Minutemen and Their World (New York: Hill dzWang, who engagedin business,crafts, trades,and commercial 1976), an engaging account of the politicization of service activities stood out in the historical record and revolutionary Concord, Massachusetts; Stephanie G. are considered part of the Albany work force. Of the Wolf’s Urban Village: Population, Community, and 5,000 to 6,000 potential “workers” remaining, at least Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683- half of that number can be eliminated from the effective 1800 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976), a work forcebecausethey did not livelong enough to make fascinating, intensive social portrait; and StephenInness a noticeable contribution to the community’s market Labor in a New Land: Economy and Society in Seven- work activity. The death of infants and children teenth Century Springfield (Princeton, NJ: Princeton constitutesan important limiting factor forpre-industrial Univ. Press, 1983), which raises the issue of “class” in populations. The rough rule for the colonial Albany describing the economic relationships in a population is that half of those baptized died before they Massachusettsfrontier town. Labor in a New Land also were old enough to marry. This infant and child mortality is a prime example of community study through the eyes rate declined only slightly from Albany’s frontier days of its founders, in this case William and John Pynchon. through the end of the colonial period. Outstanding examples of this literature are surveyed by 3The Albany city charter issued on July 22, 1686, Stefan Bielinski in “Issues in the Formation and currently resides at the Albany County Hall of Records Development of Communities in Pre-Industrial in Albany. The provisions of the so-called “Dongan America: A Historiography” (1985). unpublished paper Charter” are printed in Colonial Laws of New Yorkfrom on file in the office of the Colonial Albany Social History the Year 2664 to the Revolution (Albany: JamesB. Lyon, Project (CASHP), 3093 Cultural Education Center, 1894), I: 195-214. Albany, New York 12230. The trading rights of Albany residents and the composi- The scholarly work focused directly on colonial Albany tion of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs are is less voluminous. See Sources on the People of explained in Bielinski, Government By The People, Colonial Albany: Narrative Sources (Albany: Colonial chapter v. The sale of house lots owned by non-resident Albany Social History Project, 1985), a comprehensive traders during the 1670s and 1680s is chronicled in bibliography of publications on the colonial community volumes I and II of Early Records of the City and County and its people. The most recent, comprehensivedescrip- of Albany and Colony of Rensselaerswyck, translated by tions of life in colonial Albany appear in Bielinski, Jonathan Pearsonand edited by Arnold J. F. Van Laer, Government by the People: The Story of the Dongan (Albany: J. Munsell, 1914-1916). The passing of non- Charter and the Birth of Participatory Democracy in the resident fur traders can be perceived by c’omparing the City of Albany (Albany: Albany Tricentennial Commis- lists of Albany’s headsof households madlein 1679 and sion, 1986). esp. chapter IU; and Bielinski, “Becoming 1697.The “List of the personswho are.to keep in repair American: An Essayon Leadership in an Early American the posts set around the town fence. . .” dated March 5, Community” (unpublished M.A. thesis, StateUniversity 1679, identified 146 Albany householders and included of New York at Albany, 1986), a biography of Dirck almost two dozen individuals whose principal residence WesselseTen Broeck, a seventeenthcentury Albany fur was not within the Albany stockade.At lea&ten of these trader and political leader. men had come from New York or Boston to qualify as 2The 10,000 figure approximates the number of people fur traders by maintaining a seasonal residence in who lived in the city of Albany between 1686and 1790. Albany, Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensse- During that time, Albany’s population grew from about laerswyck, and Schenectady, 1668-1685, translated and 500 to the 3,140 reported in the first Federalcensus. Each edited by Arnold J. F. Van Laer, (Albany, 19261932), of these people is the subject of a life course study II: 396-97. By the censusof 1697, all of the New York undertakenby the CASHP. However, the city’s “effective and Boston traders were gone and the only non-Albany population” for this period (in terms of its work force) people counted among the 174 heads of families were was less extensive and can be appreciated by under- Schenectadyrefugees and a few farmers who lived just standing that half of the 10,000figure representswomen outside the north and south gates, “New York Colonial who (with some notable exceptions) were engaged in Manuscripts,” New York State Archives, XLII: 34. The WOW A CITY WORKED 133 mayor, recorder, aldermen and assistants were con- Albany households exhibit elements of the family stituted under the city charter as the “Albany Corpora- economy model at sometime during its life history. The tion.” From the beginning, they could be characterized features of the Albany household continue to be more as the community’s principal fur traders. clearly defined as researchprogresses. !For the Albany market, see Colonial Laws, I: 206-8. 70n the rise of Beverwijck and for a case study of a The records of the first two decadesof the Albany city successfulfur trader who maintained his leadershipposi- council contain frequent referencesto the city’s ambition tion by making several transitions, see Bielinski, to protect its market rights. See “The City Records,” “Becoming American,” chapters I-V, and also “The Albany County Hall of Records, also printed by Joel Peopleof Colonial Albany, 1650-1800: The Profile of a Munsell in Annals of Albany (Albany: J. Munsell, ISSO), Community,” in Authority and Resistance in Early New II, 38-143. York, edited by William Pen& and Conrad Wright The standardsource for “freemanship” remains Samuel (New York: New York Historical Society, 1988), l-26. I%%ee, Jr., Labor in Colonial New York, 1664-1776 The standard sources for the fur trade are Allen W. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1935), 33-36, 45, Trelease, Indian Affairs in Colonial New York: The 52-54. During the eighteenth century, Albany Seventeenth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, freeholders were “qualified” or enumeratedat different 1960),andThomasE. Norton, The Fur Trade in Colonial times to guarantee their voting, jury, and economic New York, 1686-1776 (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin rights. See, for example, the lists of Albany city Press,1974). Armour’s “Albany Merchants,” is the most freeholders for 1720,printed in Documentary History of informative study of the Albany fur traders.For the large the State ofNew York, edited by Edmund B. O’Callaghan md small traders and the decline of the fur trade, see (Albany: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1849), I: 2411-42;for Thomas E. Burke, Jr., “The New Netherland Fur Trade, 1742, printed in Annals of Albany, in: 186-88; and for 1657-1660: Responseto Crisis,” WeHalve Maen, ~~13 1763, in “John Tabor Kempe Papers,” New-York (March 1986): 14, 21; and reprinted in this volume. Historical Society. Statements regarding Indian traders during the mid- See Colonial Laws, I: 207, for the establishmentof the eighteenth century are basedon an analysis of the lives mayor as Clerk of the Market. On the protective of those identified as “Indian Traders” on “A List of the measuresemployed by Albany merchants,see David A. Inhabitants of the Citty of Albany . . . as it appearedon Armour, “The Merchants of Albany, New York: 1686 a streetEnquiry madein November 1756” for the Earl of 1760” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern Loudoun, then British commander-in-chief in America University, 1965), chapters II, v~, and the sourcescited “Loudoun Papeas,”Henry E. Huntington Library, San therein, especially the “City Records.” Marino, California, LO3515. ‘The boundaries and enabling legislation for Albany *Diversification into landholding representsa favored County in 1683areprinted in volume1 of Colonial Laws, investment opportunity for successful early Albany 221-23. For the agricultural communities surrounding trader/merchants. The concept has been considered Albany, see Samuel G. Nissenson, The Patroon’s generally by several authors including Allen Trelease, Domain flew York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1937), for David Armour, Georgiana Nammack, and Sung Bok Rensselaerswyck; for Schenectady,Thomas E. Burke, Kim. The “Real Property Archive” under development “The ExtreemestPart of All: The Dutch Community of at the GASHP is charting not only the city property but Schenectady,New York, 1661-1720,” (Ph.D. disserta- also the external landholdings of early Albany residents. tion, State University of New York at Albany, 1984; SeeBielinski, “Becoming American,” chapter m, for a forthcoming from Cornell University Press);and R. Beth case study of Dirck WesselseTen Broeck’s transitions Klopott, “The History of the Town of Schaghticoke,NY, from trade through politics to the land. Albany traders 1675-1855,” (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of were well-represented on the major regional land New York at Albany, 1981), which describes the early partnership petitions of the late seventeenth-early days of an Albany satellite, For a more regional perspec- eighteenthcenturies. These grants included: The Kinder- tive, see Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in hook Valley Patent (1680), Saratoga Patent (1683), Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664-1775 Schaghticoke Patent (1697), the so-called Dellius (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press,1978). Patent-which was disallowed by Governor Bellomont, “Hunting” restrictions are specified in the Albany city the Westenhook Patent, Fort Hunter Patent, and the charter printed in Colonial Laws, I: 211. KayderosserasPatent. %his section on the “Family Economy” is informed by Of the 175 households identified on the 1697 census, the biographical case studies being compiled by the nine were named Schuyler, seven named Wendell, and CASHP. The CASHP data files documentnumerous outline live Roseboom,while the Lansings, Cuylers, and other examples of this general pattern. In fact, most early prominent merchant families joined them as multiple 134 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS householdson subsequentsurveys. The women of these Documents” at the New York StateArchives. The CASHP families further extended familial ties when they has begun to collect copies of these manuscripts for married. A majority of the people of colonial Albany analysis. Over a dozen account lists involving Albany belonged to approximately one hundred family groups. people appear in volume 42 alone. See *alsothe ledger The majority of that majority were members of about entries reproduced in An Account of Her Majesty’s twenty families. For the Scottish and New England Revenue in the Province ofNew York, 1701-l 709, edited merchants,see Bielinski, “The Profile of a Community,” by Leo Hershkowitz, Julius M Bloch et al (Ridgewood, in Authority and Resistance in Early New York, notes 26 NJ: The Gregg Press, 1966). and 27. ‘%‘he divers’ty1 and fluidity of occupational designations ‘On outmigration and population evolution, see ibid., have been revealed by comparing the occupations used passim, and Bielinski, “Coming and Going in Early to identify Albany residents over the course of his work America: The Peopleof Colonial Albany and Outmigra- career in court, probate, government, church, and tion,” De Halve Maen, LX/~ (1987): 12-18. The names military records, in newspapers,and in literary sources. of these outmigrants make up the rosters of the settlers Albany’s merchants/traders/vendors are particularly and early inhabitants of Schenectady, Kinderhook, distinguished by their for multiple occupation titles. Catskill, Schaghticoke, and other Albany satellites. See Shoemakers, tailors, and those in food production above, notes 2 and 5, and Bielinski, “The Profile of a provide outstanding examples.However, a combination Community,” 20, note 8. of significant production and commercial activities “In “The Merchants of Albany,” David Armour has under one roof was much more common before 1750 studied traders and businessmen of the region but than after. without regard to their actual residence (that is: Albany 13Admittedly, a claim for occupational specialization city or elsewhere). That approach hamperedconsidera- after the mid-eighteenth century may be biased by the tion of the special status and cooperative advantages availability of an increasedvariety of sourcesand by the enjoyed by Albany city merchants. Clearly, as officers developmentof an advertising mentality among publish- of the municipal and county governments,of the courts, ers, printers, and the businessmenthemselves. However, as Commissioners of Indian Affairs, as successful a narrow articulation of product lines is not a charac- petitioners for frontier acreage,and as leaders of local teristic of seventeenth and early eighteenth century social organizations ranging from the churches to the Albany business. Although the first use of the terms milita, the city-resident Albany merchant possessed “storekeeper” and “shopkeeper” appears during the many advantages.All but two of the first thirty mayors 175Os, these small merchants made their initial of Albany fit the merchant profile. Albert Ryckman significant impact on Albany businessduring the 1780s. (1702) was a brewer/vendor and Robert Livingston, Jr. 14Alexander Hamilton, Gentleman’s Progress: The (1710) was characterizedas a “gentleman.” Itinerium of Doctor Alexander Hamilton, edited by Carl “For a textbook example of transitions in an Albany Bridenbaugh (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina merchant’scareer, see Bielinski,“Becoming American,” Press, 1948); The America of I750: Peter Kalm’s Travels chapter VII. I am indebted to Thomas E. Burke for first in North AmericttThe English Version of 1770, revised pointing out the multiple/collateral/transitional occupa- from the original Swedish and edited by Adolph B. tions of the Albany fur traders. Benson (New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937, revised Merchants made the most frequent and numerous edition, New York, 1966), I, 342-43. “.A List of the submissions for reimbursement and for payment of Inhabitants . . .,” “Loudoun Papers,” Henry E. accounts to the Albany Corporation, “City Records,” Huntington Library. Annals of Albany, II, III, V, VII-X. For military contracts, 15[Ed.note: For evidence that Rutger Jacolbsenerected a the last published treatment is Lawrence H. Leder, small water mill behind his house on the lower Ruttenkill “Military Victualing in Colonial New York,” Business which bears his name (Rut) see Gehring, Fort Orange Enterprise in Early New York, edited by JosephR. Frese Court Minutes (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, and Jacob Judd (Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Press, 1990), 223n.l Processing activities in collonial Albany 1979), 16-54, and the sources cited therein. Also, The and its hinterland are being studied by the CASHP. This Papers of Sir William Johnson (Albany: Univ. of the and the following sections on occupations is basedon a StateofNew York, 1921-65), thirteen volumes,presents study of the information collected from the sources a detailed chronicle of the range of activities of regional described in “The People of Colonial Albany: A Indian and military contractors during the mid- Community History Project” (a current edition is avail- eighteenth century. See, for example, the index entry able on loan from the project offices), see especially under “clothing,” XIV: 123-26. A large number of 28-83, which describeseach source and the volume and accounts are included in the “New York Colonial types of- information found. In addition, historic maps HOW A CITY WORKED 135 have supported the charting of processing enterprises. 1756, the inventory of households identified eleven Copies of all known seventeenth,eighteenth, and early blacksmiths, five gunsmiths, two braziers, a sawmaker, nineteenth century maps and diagrams are held at the and wagon and wheel wrights, “A List of the Inhabitants CASHP offices, Researchin thesesources has been under- . . .,” “Loudoun Papers,” Huntington Library. way since 1981 and will continue over the next decade. “The location of tanning pits, particularly along the Originally, the findings presentedby the author at the Foxes Creek [%rossenkill],is well documented in “the Seminar in 1981 representedlearning as of the summer City Records” printed in Annals of Albany. Our under- of that year. For pubbcation several years later, some standing of the tanning operation is indebted to Lucius revision and updating was essential. The statements F. Ellsworth, “The New York StateTanning Industry to made in this essay reflect some of the information 1900,” (1971), an unpublished manuscript in the collec- collected, analyzed, and integrated by the CASHP tlru tion of the CASHP. With distinctions typically separating 1986. However, “How a City Worked” is intended to cordwainers, shoemakers,and cobblers, leatherworkers provide an overview of occupations rather than a close were the most closely articulated of Albany’s crafts. This study of each activity. The study of occupations in section is basedon census,probate, and church records. general and of processing and extractive industries in For Abraham Eights, see CASHP life-course biography early Albany will continue to be a focal point of the #7800 and its documentation file. CASW research. 2%‘his section is based on sources described in note I5 t%?he idea and need for a typology of pre-industrial and particularly on “A List of the Inhabitants . . .,” occupations first was suggestedby Stephen Innes in a “Loudoun Papers,” Huntington Library. Widows some- paper entitled “Economic Dependency and Social times were identified as weavers, tailors, and as the Authority in Seventeenth Century Springfield,” practitioners of more special&d cloth-trade activities presentedat the annual meeting of the organization of such as cloak making. American Historians in 1978. Publication of his Labor 21The people of colonial Albany generally appear to in CLNew LQ~$, (especially 72-122), in 1983 provided have devoted the best part of their work energy to structural guidance. Also, we were instructed by the commercial and market-oriented economic activities. framework appearing in Gary B. Nash’s The Urban However, subsistenceagriculture, and the preparationof Crucible: Social Change. Political Consciousness, and food, clothing, and shelter for internal consumption were the Origins of the (Cambridge, basic and ongoing needs that occupied much of the MA: Harvard Univ. Press,1979), 387-91. community for much of the time. The researchdesign of However, the need for a more closely articulated and the Colonial Albany Social History Project supportsthe Albany-relevant occupational outline hasremained. This collection of information that will document the extent essayrepresents a first stepin addressingthat need,Here, and breadth of community subsistenceactivities. Also, we have categorizedmarket work activities and and have the CASI-P seeksto learn the extent of Albany’s depend- suggestedan organizational framework for occupations ence on its hinterland and on imports. Albany’s well basedon the sourcesexamined to date by the CASHP. developed “food chain” and regional networks were “For an overview of pre-industrial trades, see Carl basic reasonsfor the successof the city of Albany and Bridenbaugh, The Colonial Craftsman (New York, deserve substantial emphasis. However, this essay 1950; reprint Univ. of Chicago Press/Phoenix Books, differentiates between subsistence (internal consump- 1961). For silvercrafting, see Norman S. Rice, Albany tion) and commercial (profit-oriented) activities, and Silver, 1652-1825 (Albany: Albany Institute, 1964). A focuseson the latter. basic primer on woodworking is Brook Hindle’s edition ‘%his section is based on the types of sourcescited in entitled America’s Wooden Age: Aspects of its Early note 15 and particularly on Albany town and “Mayor’s Technology (Tarrytown, NY: Sleepy Hollow Press, Court” minutes and on the records of city government. 1975). Assessmentrolls and property recordshave been A large number of different tavern and taproom locations particularly helpful in the identification and location of are noted in these sourcesand in the real estaterecords cooperagesin the riverfront areas.No AIbany cooper described in the CASHP “Guide-1988,” 65-72, 80-81, was elected to the position of alderman or rose to any 92. For ThomasWilliams and William Hogan, see CASHP measure of economic prominence during the colonial life coursebiographies #6326 and #4396, respectively. period. 23Examplesof tavern regulation appear in the printed ‘*The gunsmiths’s accounts submitted to the city “City Records” and in “By-Laws of the City of Albany” Corporation during the 1690sdocument the volume and for I686 in the “New York Colonial Manuscripts,” New range of metalwork practiced in the community, “New York State Archives, m, and printed in Annals of York Colonial Manuscripts,” New York StateArchives, Albany, VII, 171, 173. “A List of the Inhabitants . . .,” XXVII, 160-93, translated by Arnold I. F. Van Laer. In “Loudoun Papers,” Huntington Library. This section on 136 SELECTED RENSSELAERSWIJCK SEMINAR PAPERS the social nature of tavern life is based on information 2%egislation relating to city carters is printed in “By- taken from town and Mayor’s Court records, associated Laws,” for 1686 printed in Annals of Albany, 172-73 legal depositions, the “City Records,” and literary and in “The City Records” covering the Ientire colonial sources. Beverly McAnear’s edited account entitled period. Graham Russell Hodges, New York City “The Albany Stamp Act Riots,” William and Mary Carmten, 1667-1850 (New York: New YorkUniv. hess, Quarterly, IV (1947), 486-98, provides examples of the 1986), is a comprehensive study that pres.entsoutstand- descriptive value of thesetypes of resources. ing discussionsof the mechanicsof the carting operation 2%his section on transportation is informed by the types and of economic issuesin early American labor history. of sourcesdescribed in note 15. 27 By the end of 1986, the CASHP life course biography 25Developmentof the Albany waterfront, the economics files had been established for each member of the of docking and storage rights, and the leasing of the colonial city’s medical and legal professio:ns,clergy, and Hudson River ferry are chronicled in “The City Records” for many of the school teachers. A number of these for the eighteenth century printed in Annals of Albany people were college educated.For the most part, these and Collections on the History of Albany, and in were the sonsof Albany’s leading residents. Most of the manuscript in the “Common Council Minutes” and other professionalshad studied or worked with that lead- associateddocuments for the years before 1800 held at ing practitioners of their day. Although the professional the Albany County Hall of Records.Waterfront develop- sub-group numbers fewer than a hundred individual ment is illustrated graphically in the Robert Yates map Albany residents, the value of the informed and some- of 1770 and the Simeon De Witt map of 1794. Copies of times enlightened quality of their contributions should theseand other relevant map resourcescan be inspected not be underestimated. at the CASHP offices.