Yankee Doodle is said to have been composed at the fort by Dr. Schuckburgh, a British surgeon, as a satire on the provincial troops, who did not show to advantage among the smartly dressed British soldiers. The Yankees, however, adopted the words and the tune, and less than 20 years later the captured soldiers of Burgoyne marched behind the lines of the victorious Continentals to the same melody. [Illustration: Albany from Van Rensselaer Island in 1831] ALBANY TO SYRACUSE 142 M. ALBANY, Pop. 113,344. (Train 51 passes 11:32a; No, 3, 12:05p; No. 41, 4:15p; No. 25, 5:46p; No. 19, 8:55p. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 5:58a; No. 26,6:30a; No. 16, 12:25p; No. 22, 2:05p.) Across the river from Rensselaer on sharply mounting hills is the city of Albany. We cross the river by a suspension bridge, passing over Rensselaer Island and seeing ahead of us the handsome new freight houses of the D. & H.R.R., and to right and left the boats of the Hudson River Steamship lines lying against the wharves. Once over the bridge the tracks swerve to the right, and soon lead into the Union Station. Almost under the shadow of the present Capitol, on a meadow to the north, Ft. Orange was built in 1624, when 18 families of Dutch Walloons selected this site for a permanent settlement in the New World. The history of Albany, however is usually dated from ten years earlier when Dutch traders built Ft. Nassau on Castle Island, the present Rensselaer Island. According to some writers a temporary trading post was established here by the French as early as 1540--80 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. But it is on the date 1614 that Albany lays claim to being the second oldest settlement in the colonies, Jamestown, founded in 1607 by Capt. John Smith and Christopher Newport, being the first. It is interesting to note that the Pilgrim Fathers narrowly missed making a settlement somewhere along the Hudson River. William Bradford, second governor of the Plymouth colony, tells in his history, how, at one point in the _Mayflower's_ voyage, they determined "to find some place about Hudson's river for their habitation." But, after sailing half a day, "they fell amongst dangerous shoulds and roving breakers," and so decided to bear up again for Cape Cod. During the early days Albany held high rank among American settlements. As a center of trade and civilization it rivalled Jamestown, Manhattan and Quebec. In 1618 the Dutch negotiated here the first treaty with the Iroquois, which tended to preserve friendly relations with the Indians for more than a century to come.