The most noted old Albany building is at the northern end of Broadway, in grounds extending to the river, and surrounded by fine trees, the ancient Van Rensselaer Mansion, commonly called the "Patroon's,"--a broad house with porch and wide central hall. This occupies the site of the first mansion, which was covered with a roof of reeds. Over on the opposite side of the river at Greenbush, the "Greene Bosch" or "pine woods" of the original settlers, is the Patroon's other residence, built of bricks from Holland, by the second Patroon Johannes. Port-holes were cut in the walls for the musketeers, it having been a fort in the Indian forays. The family burial-ground adjoins the mansion. State Street, at the corner of Pearl, which is parallel with Broadway, is the most interesting historic locality of ancient Albany. Here stood that elaborate dwelling of the Knickerbockers, regarded as the best specimen of old Dutch architecture in New York State, the "Vanderheyden Palace," an extensive building with two tall gables facing the street. One of the old burghers, Johannes Beekman, built it in 1725, and during the Revolution Jacob Vanderheyden of Troy bought it, and lived there many years in the almost regal state of the Dutch aristocracy. Washington Irving tells of it in the story of Dolph Heyliger, in _Bracebridge Hall_, as the residence of "Herr Anthony Vanderheyden," and when Irving transformed Van Tassel's old farmhouse into his villa at Sunnyside he made a gable in imitation of one of these, and also captured the old weather-vane of the "Palace"--a horse going at full speed--to mount on top of it. Upon the opposite corner was the quaint "Lydius House," the home of Rev. John Lydius, the owner of a great manor at Fort Edward, farther up the Hudson, and in front of it stood the crooked elm, giving the locality the name of the "Old Elm Tree Corner." This tree is said to have been planted by Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who lived in an adjoining house. The "Lydius House" had been built as a parsonage for the clergyman sent out to the old Dutch church, Rev. Gideon Schaats, the bricks, tiles, iron and woodwork, together with the church bell and pulpit, all coming from Holland in 1657, in the same ship. During many years its only occupant was Balthazar Lydius, an eccentric bachelor, a tall, spare, morose and irritable Dutchman, fond of bottle and pipe, and having a round bullet head thinly sprinkled with white hair. He gloried in his celibacy until the infirmities of age came upon him, when it is said he gave a pint of gin for an Indian squaw, called her his wife, and they lived contentedly together until he died. This was the oldest brick building in the United States; its partitions were made of mahogany and the exposed beams were richly carved.