New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Schuyler House

Schuyler House Opening June 10th

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General Philip Schuyler houseSaratoga National Historical Park preserves, protects, and interprets some 3,600 acre of sites associated with the battles, siege, and surrender of the British forces at Saratoga. The park encompasses five sites including the Saratoga Battlefield, General Philip Schuyler’s House, Victory Woods, the Saratoga Monument, and the Sword Surrender Site .

It was here in September and October 1777, during the American War for Independence, American troops battled and defeated the British invasion force. A British Army surrendered, for the first time in history, on October 17th, 1777. This crucial victory secured essential foreign recognition and support and boosted the morale of the American forces making it a decisive moment in the American Revolution. [Read more…] about Schuyler House Opening June 10th

Annual Candlelight Tour Set For Historic Schuyler House

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Schuyler house Candlelight TourThe Historic Schuyler House will hold their annual annual Candlelight Tour on Saturday, October 14, 2017 from 6 to 8 pm. Visitors will be able to walk the floors and hear the stories of the Schuyler family and their many visitors including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.

Old Saratoga Historical Association hosts the annual Candlelight Tour of General Philip Schuyler’s 1777 country house. Their members will join park staff and volunteers to guide visitors on short tours throughout the evening. Light refreshments will be served. [Read more…] about Annual Candlelight Tour Set For Historic Schuyler House

Philip Schuyler: A Time to Remember

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Philip Schuyler 1881A recent post on here on The New York Almanack previewed Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton events at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site this month.

A recent article by Paul Grondahl, Director of the New York State Writer’s Institute, in the Albany Times Union noted that Schuyler Mansion is experiencing a spike in attendance due to the “Hamilton effect” – “a mysterious affliction created by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical that altered the lives of countless unsuspecting fans with a powerful history lesson embedded in hypnotic, rhyming lyrics and a hip-hop beat.”

It is notable that Hamilton, Schuyler’s son-in-law, who spent only a few years at Schuyler Mansion, is boosting popular attendance there. [Read more…] about Philip Schuyler: A Time to Remember

Bike Tour: Champlain Canal and Rev War Road to Saratoga

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On Sunday August 12, enjoy a free 20-mile guided bicycle tour along the Champlain Canalway Trail between Hudson Crossing Park in Northumberland and Saratoga Battlefield in Stillwater.

This tour will take bikers past historic sites of interest related to the Revolutionary War and the Champlain Canal. Sites include Hudson Crossing Park, Champlain Canal Lock 5, the Schuyler House, the Champlain Canalway Towpath Trail and Saratoga National Historic Park. [Read more…] about Bike Tour: Champlain Canal and Rev War Road to Saratoga

18th-Century Day at the Historic Schuyler House

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On Sunday, August 12 from noon to 5pm, the 1777 Schuyler House on Route 4 in Schuylerville, will be the setting for 18th Century Day, a free event with dozens of artisans demonstrating their crafts much as they were plied over 200 years ago when household items were handcrafted.

Visitors to the 34th annual 18th-Century Day will be able to enjoy free tours of the Schuyler House, listen to music of the period, see 18th-century Punch and Judy puppet shows, plus see artisans demonstrating 18th century crafts such as tinsmithing, blacksmithing, broom-making, knitting, rope-making, beer brewing, spinning, dyeing, soap making, butter-making, sheep shearing, and needlework. Also see colonial-era farm life activities such as discussions of farming methods, medicinal treatments and bee keeping.
This traditional event is organized by the Old Saratoga Historical Association, a non-profit educational organization that provides furnishings for the Schuyler House and promotes interest in the history of Old Saratoga, Schuylerville, Victory and the Town of Saratoga, from Native American occupation through present times.

Visitors are advised to dress for hot weather, bring water, and wear insect repellent and sunscreen. Free light refreshments will be available.

Schuylerville Area Gets Battlefield Preservation Grants

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The National Park Service has announced the award of two American Battlefield Preservation Program grants totaling over $100,000 to Saratoga P.L.A.N. and National Heritage Trust, for projects in the Schuylerville area. Both organizations are members of the Hudson-Hoosick Partnership and will partner with Saratoga National Historical Park in these projects.

Saratoga PLAN was awarded $21,425 for planning and designing interpretive signs for the Fish Creek Trail, a one-mile trail along the south side of Fish Creek that is part of a six-mile historic loop linking Schuyler House with Victory Woods, the Saratoga Monument and the 71-mile Champlain Canalway Trail slated for completion in 2013. 

“With the funds, we intend to hire an artist to help us tell the stories of Fish Creek,” said Maria Trabka, Executive Director of Saratoga P.L.A.N., a conservation organization serving Saratoga County. “The site has a long history for fishing, travel, hydropower, and as an American stronghold during the Revolutionary War, when the British were forced to surrender.”
Natural Heritage Trust was awarded $80,000 for a study of two colonial era battlefields at Saratoga (present day Schuylerville). As European and Native nations vied for dominance in North America a series of wars were fought between Great Britain, France and their Native allies. During these wars in the 1690s and again in the 1740s a number of battles were fought at Saratoga. This research will shed new light on the significant formative history of Canada and America and the important role of the Schuyler family.

The grants are part of over $4 million that the Partnership has generated for communities along the Hudson River since 2006. The Partnership, founded by Senator Roy McDonald and Assemblyman Steve Englebright, is a legislatively designated public-benefit corporation whose mission is to preserve, enhance and develop the historic, agricultural, scenic, natural and recreational resources and the significant waterways within the Partnership region. The Partnership fosters collaborative projects with
non-profit and governmental entities emphasizing both agricultural and open space protection, economic and tourism development, and the protection and interpretation of the region’s natural and cultural heritage.

Photo: Town of Saratoga Historical Marker, Schuylerville. Photo by Bill Coughlin, courtesy the Historical Marker Database. 

General Horatio Gates Event in New Windsor

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Saturday, November 5, from 2:00 – 3:00 PM visit this Revolutionary War headquarters and meet General Horatio Gates, who was none too happy to be billeted in this house. This is a cooperative program of the National Temple Hill Association and the New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site. Free admission. Edmonston House is located at 1042 Route 94 in New Windsor, New York, just ½ mile west of the 5 corner intersection. For more information please call (845) 561-1765 ext. 22.

The home of James Edmonston has stood for over 250 years. Rescued in the 1960’s, by the National Temple Hill Association, the house by that point had become a junkyard showroom, filled with old car parts. Nicely restored, the house serves as the headquarters for this local historic organization.

When General Horatio Gates was assigned the Edmonston home as winter quarters for 1782-83, only the small western section of the house existed. Disgusted with the pitifully small house, he wrote General George Washington: “Your Excellency’s Dog kennel at Mount Vernon, is as good a Quarter as that I am now in”. Eyeing the much larger and far more refined Ellison House, he expected to be billeted at that nearby property. To please Gates, the senior ranking Major General, in the Continental Army, Quartermaster General Colonel Timothy Pickering had to evict Surgeon General John Cochran from the Ellison house. Angered by his removal, Cochran challenged the beleaguered Pickering to a duel.

Despite his utter defeat and shameful flight from the battlefield of Camden, South Carolina, in 1780, he still remained as arrogant as ever. An intriguer and schemer, he used friends in Congress to wrest the command of the Army that would eventually defeat and capture a British Army at Saratoga, in 1777. Many of his contemporaries and later historians, believed that the victory was the result of the efforts of the man he replaced; Philip Schuyler. He was implicated in a plot, with the same Congressional partisans who helped him supersede Schuyler, to supplant Washington as commander-in-chief. While at the Ellison house, he was involved in a conspiracy, in March 1783, which threatened the very freedoms the country had fought to achieve.

Organized in 1933, The National Temple Hill Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic sites related to the last encampment of Washington’s Continental Army. New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site is part of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. The Palisades Interstate Park Commission administers 27 parks, parkways and historic sites for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation in New York as well as the Palisades Interstate Park and parkway in New Jersey.

‘Keeping Up With the Schuylers’ Dramatic Tours

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Historic Cherry Hill and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site present to the public, “Keeping Up With the Schuylers,” a dramatic house tour of both historic sites. It is part of the special series: Got Class? Status and Power in Early America presented by Historic Cherry Hill and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site and funded by the New York Council for the Humanities.

The dramatic tour begins at Historic Cherry Hill in the year 1787. The public will meet the 18th century Van Rensselaer family inhabitants of the Cherry Hill home. The tour continues at Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site where visitors will find the Schuyler Mansion household preparing for the approaching nuptials of General Schuyler’s son, John Bradstreet Schuyler to Catherine Van Rensselaer.

This unique dramatic tour will explore the subtleties of class within Albany’s 18th century elite. The public will be able to compare the households of two of Albany’s prominent citizens and determine for themselves what it meant to be a gentleman in the founding era of the United States. Dramatic tours will be offered to the public on Thursday October 20th at 3:00pm and 5:00pm and on Saturday, October 22nd at 9:30am, 12:00pm and 2:30pm.

The dramatic tour is a ticketed event. The cost of tickets is $12.00 per person. To purchase tickets for this event please call Historic Cherry Hill at 518-434-4791 or email mary@historiccherryhill.org.

Historic Cherry Hill, located at 523 ½ South Pearl Street in Albany, NY, is a non-profit historic house museum built in 1787 and was lived in continuously by five generations of the same family until the death of the last family member in 1963. The museum is currently undergoing a large restoration project and offers a Behind-the-Scenes Restoration tour from April through December, on Wednesday afternoons at 1, 2 and 3pm and Saturday afternoons at 2 and 3pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and college students and $2 for children between the ages of 12 and 18. An Architecture Hunt for Families is also offered on Saturdays between 1 and 2pm at the admission price of $2 for adults and $1 for children ages 6-11. Visit Historic Cherry Hill’s website at www.historiccherryhill.org for more information.

Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site, located at 32 Catherine Street in Albany, NY, was once the home of Philip J. Schuyler, the renowned Revolutionary War General, US Senator and business entrepreneur. He and his wife Catharine Van Rensselaer descended from affluent and powerful Dutch families. Together they raised eight children in this home. Throughout the Schuyler family occupancy from 1763-1804, the mansion was the site of military strategizing, political hobnobbing, elegant social affairs, and an active family life. Guided tours are available mid-May through October 31st, and are offered on the hour, Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00am to 4:00pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and college students. Children under 12 are free. Visit www.schuylerfriends.org for more information about Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site.

Illustration: Schuyler Mansion.

Candlelight Tour at Schuyler House Saturday

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The annual Candlelight Tour of the General Philip Schuyler House, located just south of Schuylerville on Route 4, will be held on Saturday, October 15th from 6 to 9pm.

Old Saratoga Historical Association hosts the event and in addition to providing light refreshments, their members join park staff and volunteers to guide visitors through the candle-lit atmosphere of General Schuyler’s 1777 country house.

As the autumn evenings can be chilly or wet, please dress for the weather. It is also recommended that visitors bring a flashlight for the walk back to their cars.

For more information about this or other park events, call the Visitor Center at 518-664-9821 ext. 224 or check the park website.

33rd Annual Schuyler House 18th-Century Day

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On Sunday, August 14 from noon to 5pm, the 1777 Schuyler House on Route 4 in Schuylerville, will be the setting for dozens of artisans demonstrating their crafts much as they were plied over 200 years ago when household items were handcrafted.

Visitors to the 33rd annual 18th-Century Day will be able to enjoy free tours of the Schuyler House, listen to music of the period, see Punch and Judy puppet shows, plus see artisans demonstrating 18th century crafts such as tinsmithing, blacksmithing, broom-making, basket-making, rope-making, beer brewing, spinning, dyeing, weaving, soap making, butter-making and needlework. Also see colonial-era farm life activities such as discussions of farming methods, medicinal treatments and bee keeping.


Visitors are advised to dress for hot weather, bring water, and wear insect repellent and sunscreen. Free light refreshments will be available.

This traditional event is organized by the Old Saratoga Historical Association, a non-profit educational organization that provides furnishings for the Schuyler House and promotes interest in the history of Old Saratoga, Schuylerville, Victory and the Town of Saratoga, from Native American occupation through present times.

Saratoga National Historical Park presents special interpretive events and programs throughout the year. For further information about this and other programs, please call (518) 664-9821 ext. 224 or check their website.