Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
Among the finest Albany buildings is the magnificent new Episcopal
Cathedral of All Saints, an English Gothic structure, as yet
incomplete, which will be one of the most beautiful churches in
America. In the southern part of the city is the Schuyler Mansion,
built in 1760, a brick house with a broad front, having a closed
octagonal porch over the doorway and spacious apartments; its lawns in
the olden time reaching to the Hudson, where now the city is densely
built. Peter Schuyler was the first Mayor of Albany, and his
descendant, General Philip Schuyler of the Revolution, occupied a
large space in New York history. In this house Alexander Hamilton was
married to Elizabeth Schuyler, and a subsequent owner, Mrs. McIntosh,
was made the wife of Millard Fillmore, President of the United States.
General Schuyler and his family always dispensed a princely
hospitality in this mansion. In 1781, towards the close of the
Revolution, it was the scene of a stirring event. The British,
discovering that Schuyler was at home, tried to capture him. The house
was then distant from the small town and surrounded by forests. A
party of Canadians and Indians prowled for several days in the woods,
and capturing a laborer, learnt that the General was in the house with
a bodyguard of six men. The laborer escaped afterwards and notified
the General. Upon a sultry day in August, when three of the guards
were asleep in the basement and the other three lying on the grass in
front of the house, a servant announced that a stranger at the back
gate wished to speak with the General. The errand being apprehended,
the doors and windows were barred, the family collected up stairs, and
the General hastened to his bedchamber for his arms. From the window
he saw the place surrounded by armed men, and fired a pistol to arouse
the guards on the grass and alarm the town. At this moment the enemy
burst open the doors, when Mrs. Schuyler suddenly discovered she had
left her infant in the cradle in the hall below. She rushed to the
rescue, but the General stopped her. One of her daughters then quickly
ran down stairs, and carried the infant up in safety. An Indian who
had entered hurled a tomahawk, as she rushed up the stairs, which cut
her dress within a few inches of the baby's head, and striking the
hand-rail made a deep scar. As she ran up stairs, the Tory commander,
thinking her a servant, called out, "Wench, where is your master?"
With great presence of mind she quickly replied, "Gone to alarm the
town." General Schuyler heard her, and taking advantage, threw up a
window, crying out loudly, as if to a multitude, "Come on, my brave
fellows, surround the house and secure the villains!" The marauders,
who were then plundering the plate in the dining-room, becoming
frightened, beat a hasty retreat, taking prisoners the three guards
who were in the house. The brave daughter, who made the gallant
rescue, afterwards became the wife of the last Patroon Van Rensselaer,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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