Albany County

New Netherland Institutes Rensselaerswijck Seminar

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The New Netherland Institute has announced its 31st Rensselaerswijck Seminar, &#8220Neighbors in the New World: New Netherland and New France,&#8221 a one-day conference to be held on Saturday, September 13, 2008, in the Kenneth B. Clark Auditorium of the Cultural Education Center at the Empire State Plaza in Albany.

The theme is the relationship between the Dutch and French in 17th-century North America. Major attention will focus on interactions of these European powers and their respective Indian allies. The following speakers will explore various aspects of this relationship, including direct and indirect contacts between these two European trading powers both in Europe and in the New World:

James Bradley, ArchLink, Boston, MA
“In Between Worlds: New Netherland and New France at Mid Century”

Jose Antonio Brandao, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
“An Unreasonable Offer: Iroquois Policy towards their Huron and Mahican Neighbors”

Willem Frijhoff, Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
“Jesuits, Calvinists, and Natives: Attitudes, Agency, and Encounters in the Early Christian Missions in the North.”

Joyce Goodfriend, University of Denver, CO
Introduction and presentation of the Hendricks Manuscript Award

Conrad Heidenreich, York University, Ontario, Canada
“The Skirmish with the Mohawk on Lake Champlain: was Champlain a ‘trigger-happy thug’ or ‘just following orders?’”

The conference program and registration information can be found online [pdf].

The New Netherland Institute is the friends group of the New Netherland Project, which, according to their website:

Was established under the sponsorship of the New York State Library and the Holland Society of New York. Its primary objective is to complete the transcription, translation, and publication of all Dutch documents in New York repositories relating to the seventeenth-century colony of New Netherland. This unique resource has already proven invaluable to scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. It also serves to enhance awareness of the major Dutch contributions to America over the centuries and the strong connections between the two nations. The Project is supported by the New York State Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New Netherland Institute.

The New Netherland Institute (formerly Friends of New Netherland) seeks to increase public awareness of the work of the New Netherland Project and supports the Project through fund raising. The Institute assists authors of scholarly and popular material- disseminates information to educators, researchers, historians, curators, genealogists, and anthropologists- develops collaborations with academic institutions and other organizations interested in early American history- provides learning opportunities, such as internships, as well as research and consulting services pertaining to New Netherland- and sponsors activities related to the work of the New Netherland Project.

The Big 400: Champlain Descendants Still Local

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2009 will mark the celebration of the 400th Anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival on the big lake, Henry Hudson’s on the big river, and the 200th Anniversary of Fulton’s steamship. Both New York and Vermont will be celebrating Champlain.

Here is an interesting article in the Plattsburgh Press Republican about the family of Champlain’s 12-year-old bride Helene Boulle, daughter of Nicholas Boulle. Helene’s nephew Robert was the first of the family to travel to America and his descendants are still in the area:

Helene was married to the 43-year-old explorer when she was 12 but remained with her parents for a few years after the wedding because of her age&#8230-

Robert Boulle farmed land on the Isle of Orleans in the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, and that 160-tract of land is still intact, said Boule, who visited the property in the mid-1990s&#8230-

Helene Boulle accompanied Champlain to the area in 1620, but returned to France in 1624.

Americas First Railroad Tunnel Located?

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Incredible news from the Schenectady Gazette this morning. Schenectady City Historian Don Rittner has apparently found the first railroad tunnel ever constructed buried in the historic Schenectady stockade district. The find includes a section of the original tracks:

The 15-foot-deep tunnel snakes its way across what are now a dozen or more private backyards. But in 1832, that land was a major thoroughfare — the foundation of the city’s prosperity and growth for the next century.

Hundreds of business owners and daring families rode through the tunnel on trains so experimental that they were considered too dangerous to be allowed on city streets. They could travel so fast and their engines could produce so many wild sparks that city leaders feared pedestrians would be run over and buildings burned down.

So horses dragged the trains from the Erie Canal to the Scotia bridge along a safe, deep tunnel. It was an experiment that lasted just six years, but in that time it was guaranteed a place in the history books. Not only was the tunnel the first ever constructed for a locomotive, but the entrance was the first junction of two railroad companies, according to Rittner.

Technically, the first rail road in the United States is believed to have been a gravity railroad in Lewiston, New York in 1764. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, of which the tunnel would have been a part, was the first modern-style railroad built in the State of New York- it was incorporated in 1826 by the Mohawk and Hudson Company and opened August 9, 1831. On April 19, 1847, the name was changed to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad. The railroad was consolidated into the New York Central Railroad on May 17, 1853. In 1867, the first elevated railroad was built in New York.