Peter Hess

Peter Hess is the president of Albany Steel and served on the Board of Trustees of Albany Rural Cemetery for 18 years. During his time on the Albany Rural board, he wrote over 150 articles on important and interesting people buried in the cemetery. Starting about 2008, he accumulated the 150 articles and additional research into four books known as the People of Albany series. Hess has also conducted tours of the cemetery and spoken to public groups over 100 times.

Albany’s Squire Whipple: Father of the Iron Truss Bridge

November 8, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

Squire Whipple was born in Hartwick, Massachusetts on September 16th, 1804. His parents were James and Electa Whipple. Born and raised on a farm, he attended a small country school for three or four months a year. He moved to New York in 1817.

By the age of seventeen, he passed the required examination for common school teaching and taught part time to finance his education. In 1822-1828 he attended Hartwick College in Otsego County; Fairfield Academy in Herkimer County; and graduated from Union College, Schenectady in 1830. He spent the next few years working as a surveyor for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and married Anna Case. [Read more…] about Albany’s Squire Whipple: Father of the Iron Truss Bridge

Albany’s Harmanus Bleecker, 19th Century Ambassador to The Netherlands

October 11, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

In 1658, 17-year-old Jan Janse Bleecker set sail from Mappel, Overyssel in the Netherlands for Nieuw Amsterdam (now New York City) in the Dutch colony of New Netherland. He knew that Dutch traders had established a trading post there about 45 years earlier.

In 1629, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a partner in the Dutch West India Company, had obtained rights to establish a settlement and control the fur trade at Fort Orange located about 150 miles north of New Amsterdam. [Read more…] about Albany’s Harmanus Bleecker, 19th Century Ambassador to The Netherlands

Alfred Billings Street: Albany’s 19th Century State Poet

August 7, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

Alfred Billings Street was born in Poughkeepsie on December 18th, 1811. He was descended from an Englishman, the Reverend Nicholas Smith, who immigrated to Connecticut around 1659.

His father, Randall Sandal Street, was a general in the New York Militia and served in the War of 1812. A practicing lawyer, Randall Street was also active in politics; he was a two-term district attorney and a Democratic congressman from 1819 until 1821. His wife, Cornelia, was the daughter of Revolutionary War veteran, Andrew Billings. [Read more…] about Alfred Billings Street: Albany’s 19th Century State Poet

Temperance & Fire At The Delavan House: Albany’s Finest 19th Century Hotel

July 31, 2022 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

Edward Delavan was born in Westchester County, NY, in 1793. His father died when Edward was eight and he and his mother, brother, and two sisters moved to Albany. Edward began work in a printer’s office at 13 years of age and after several years, left to work at his brother’s hardware store. While at the hardware store, he began selling wine, which proved very successful. [Read more…] about Temperance & Fire At The Delavan House: Albany’s Finest 19th Century Hotel

Dan Rice & Spalding’s North American Circus Steamboats

July 11, 2022 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

Dr. Gilbert R. Spalding was a pharmacist who operated a drug store in Albany, NY. Gilbert’s father, Guy Spalding, had operated the drug store starting about 1810. The Spaldings sold different varieties of chemicals, oils and alcohol that they would blend into medicinal drugs, paint, stains, varnish, cleaning fluids, and popular drinks.

They could make up a cure for almost anything from a headache to piles, consumption to lumbago. Their ability to blend medicines led their Albany neighbors to nickname both Guy Spalding and, later his son Gilbert, “Doc” Spalding. Gilbert Spalding operated the drug store from about 1840 to 1845. [Read more…] about Dan Rice & Spalding’s North American Circus Steamboats

The Albany Museum: Curiosities, Circus & Performing Arts

July 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 3 Comments

Albany’s first museum was started in 1798 in a building on the corner of Green and Beaver streets. In the summer of 1808, two royal tigers were housed at the Thespian Hotel, a circus pitched its tent, and Ralph Letton started the Albany Museum.

The Albany Museum was located in the Old City Hall (Stadt Huys) on the northeastern corner of South Market Street and Hudson Avenue (today’s Broadway and Hudson Avenue). The Old City Hall was built in 1741 and was the site of the 1754 Albany Congress meeting where Benjamin Franklin first proposed the Albany Plan, a plan of union of the colonies that later was a basis for the U.S. Constitution. On its steps, the Declaration of Independence was first read to Albany on July 19, 1776 by the order of the Provincial Congress. With the construction of the new building on Eagle Street in 1808, the Old City Hall was converted into the Albany Museum. [Read more…] about The Albany Museum: Curiosities, Circus & Performing Arts

Albany Artist Ezra Ames: A Biography

June 23, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

Ezra Ames was born on May 5th, 1768 in Framingham, Massachusetts. He was the fourth child of Jesse Emes and Betty Bent.

Prior to the 1800s, printed documents were scarce and there was usually no generally accepted spelling for many words. Most words were written phonetically; whatever combination of letters caused a person to say the intended word was accepted. [Read more…] about Albany Artist Ezra Ames: A Biography

James Eights: An Albany Artist-Scientist Who Explored Antarctica in 1830

May 15, 2022 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, there were a growing number of adventurers anxious to explore the sea, find new lands, chart new islands, and if they made their fortune while doing it, all the better.

There were also those just trying to get away from home and signing on to a whaling ship seemed the adventure of a lifetime. [Read more…] about James Eights: An Albany Artist-Scientist Who Explored Antarctica in 1830

Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

May 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 4 Comments

Stephen Van Rensselaer III (1764-1839), was orphaned at the age of ten. His father had died when he was five and his mother remarried Reverend Eilardus Westerlo, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. She died five years later and Stephen was raised by Abraham Ten Broeck (later Brigadier General) and his wife (Stephen’s aunt) Elizabeth Van Rensselaer.

Stephen attended the John Water’s School in Albany, grammar school in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey and Classical School in Kingston. He then attended college at Princeton, but withdrew to Harvard because of the dangers in Northern New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. In 1776, Stephen’s grandfather Philip Livingston (who had married Ten Broeck’s sister Christina) had signed the Declaration of Independence. [Read more…] about Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

Simeon DeWitt: America’s Surveyor General

April 25, 2022 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

Tjerck Claeszen DeWitt immigrated to New Amsterdam (now New York City) from Grootholt in Zunterlant in 1656. Grootholt means Great Wood and Zunterland was probably located on the southern border of East Friesland, a German territory on the North Sea only ten miles from the most northerly province of the Netherlands.

By 1657, Tjerck DeWitt married Barber (Barbara) Andrieszen (also Andriessen) in the New Amsterdam Dutch Church and moved to Beverwyck (now Albany). While in Beverwyck, he purchased a house. At this time Albany contained 342 houses and about 1,000 residents, about 600 of whom were members of the Dutch Church. [Read more…] about Simeon DeWitt: America’s Surveyor General