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The Schuyler Mansion, Albany, New York: British

Two years after the wedding came one of the incidents that has made the mansion famous. Because of the General's influence with the Indian allies of the British, a number of attempts were made to capture him; the British wished to put him where he could not interfere with their plans. One summer day, when Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Hamilton's sister Margaret, was in the house with her baby Philip, a party of Tories, Canadians, and Indians surrounded the house and forced an entrance. Mary Gay Humphreys, in "Catherine Schuyler," tells what followed: "The house was guarded by six men. Their guns were in the hall, the guards being outside and the relief asleep. Lest the small Philip be tempted to play with the guns his mother had them removed. The alarm was given by a servant. The guards rushed for their guns, but they were gone. The family fled upstairs, but Margaret, remembering the baby in the cradle below, ran back, seized the baby, and when she was halfway up the flight, an Indian flung his tomahawk at her head, which, missing her, buried itself in the wood, and left its historic mark to the present time." After the attack on the mansion Washington wrote to General Schuyler, begging him to strengthen his guard. The following year the Commander-in-chief was a guest at the mansion, while in 1784 he spent the night there, after an evening consultation with Schuyler, while Mrs. Washington visited with her friend Mrs. Schuyler.

Lafayette, Count de Rochambeau, Baron Steuben, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, John Jay, and Aaron Burr had a taste of the delights of life at the mansion. The latter was destined to defeat General Schuyler for reëlection to the Senate, as he was to be in turn defeated by the General. The British General Burgoyne and his staff also were entertained in the mansion, after General Schuyler's victory at Saratoga, and this in spite of the fact that much of the General's property had been destroyed by Burgoyne's order.

For many years the house was famous as the meeting place of the friends of the young nation. Frequent conferences were held in the library on the proposed constitution. It is said that many sections of the document were written there by Hamilton, and the steps of the campaign for the ratification of the document were outlined within the historic walls. When, at last, the victory was complete, General Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton walked at the head of the gay procession that hailed the news with joy. The whole town was illuminated, but the most brilliantly lighted building was the old mansion.

During the years that followed General Schuyler's health failed gradually, and he became more than ever dependent on his wife. When she died, in 1803, he did ALL THE WAY BACK TO NEW ENGLAND 395 not know what to do without her. To Hamilton he wrote: "My trial has been severe. I shall attempt to sustain it with fortitude. I hope I have succeeded in a degree, but after giving and receiving for nearly a half a century, a series of mutual evidences of affection and friendship which increased as we advanced in life, the shock was great and sensibly felt, to be thus suddenly deprived of a beloved wife, the Mother of my children, and the soothing companion of my declining years. But I kiss the rod with humility. The Being that inflicted the stroke will enable me to sustain the smart, and progressively restore peace to my wounded heart, and will make you and Eliza and my other children the instruments of my Consolation...." General Schuyler died in November, 1804, four months after the duel with Burr in which Hamilton was slain.

The mansion in which he spent so many happy years was long an orphan asylum, but in 1911 it was purchased by the State. On October 17, 1917, it was dedicated as a State Monument. XC