ing to the estate and title of his father, Sir William, adhered to the Crown, under which both became ennobled. Schenectady was again threatened, from the side of Canada, but by its former friends and allies. Aside from its contribution of six companies to the patriot cause, its position made it the base from which those who adhered to the English cause sought to send aid and comfort to the enemy. General Washington came here early in the struggle, and made arrangements for the frontier defence.'

The Schenectady patriots appointed a committee of vigilance and safety, who, as the one hundred and sixty-two written pages of their records show, repressed with strong hand and scant ceremony the slightest evasions of the orders of Congress and of the military authorities, and all attempts at treasonable intercourse with the enemy. Finally American independence was won, and Schenectady, after nearly a

He came again in 1782, when the struggle was practically over. The authorities and the people did their utmost in his honor. This he suitably acknowledged in a letter addressed “To the magistrates and military authorities of the township of Schenectady," closing in these words: May the complete blessings of peace soon reward your arduous struggle for the freedom and independence of our common country,”

century of unrest, enjoyed the blessing of permanent peace. The forts and stockade soon disappeared.

Meantime the little village had steadily grown, becoming a chartered borough in 1765,

and advancing to the dignity of a city in 1798. Schenectady received its first officially carried mail on the 3d day of April, 1763,-Benjamin Franklin being the colonial postmaster-general, -founded the Schenectady Academy in 1784. which became Union College in 1795, and read its first newspaper, The Schenectady Gazette, January 6, 1799.

The military occupation and the increasing

importance of the frontier trade added largely to the English population. As early as 1710,

the Rev. Thomas Barclay, the English chaplain to the fort in Albany, preached once a month at Schenectady, where, as he writes, "there is a garrison of forty soldiers, besides about sixteen English and about one hun

dred Dutch fam

ilies." At that

time the Dutch

STATUE, SITE OF OLD FORT."

freely give me the use of." ever, until 1759, when there

had no pastor. Mr. Barclay writes, "There is a convenient and well built church which they It was not, howwere three hun

dred houses in the village, that the English population undertook the erection of a separate church. They "purchased a glebe lot and by subscription chiefly among themselves erected a neat stone church," and called it St. George's. This stone church, with its subsequent additions, is the handsome St. George's of to-day. Its site had previously been covered by the English barracks. There is a tradition that the Presbyterians assisted in the erection of St. George's with the understanding that the Anglicans were to go in at the west door and the Presbyterians at the south door, but that the Anglicans managed to get the church consecrated unknown to the Presbyterians. The latter, upon finding it out, were so indignant that they set about building a church for themselves. Be this as it may, the Presbyterians commenced building their church in 1770, and finished it with bell and steeple, the latter surmounted by a leaden ball gilded with "six books of gold leaf.”

In 1767 the Methodist movement began here under the lead of Captain Thomas Webb, a local preacher bearing the license of John Wesley. The movement was favored and advanced by the preaching of that great orator,

can tour.

George Whitefield, then making his last AmeriThe society, however, waited until 1809 before building its first church edifice. In the same year Schenectady County was carved out of Albany County.

But, the

All this while the English speech was gaining over the Dutch. Children of Dutch parents, despite the teaching of the nursery, would acquire and use the English idiom. Finally some of the members of the Dutch Church ventured to suggest the propriety of having service now and then in the English tongue. The staid burghers were shocked. question once raised, the younger generation grew bolder, and the elder began to listen. Domine Romeyn, a graduate of Princeton College, a fluent master of both languages, and eminent for his varied learning and as the founder of Union College, was pastor of the Church from 1784 to 1804. He so far yielded to the new demand as to preach in English upon occasions of which he was careful to give previous notice. It was not until 1794 that the leading members of the Church represented to its consistory the necessity of increasing the services in English," to the end that the church

1 "Ten eynde de Gemeente niet verstroyt werde."