1690.] ALARM AT ALBANY. 217 



At the outset of the attack, Simon Schermer- 

 horn threw himself on a horse, and galloped 

 through the eastern gate. The French shot at 

 and wounded him ; but he escaped, reached Al- 

 bany at daybreak, and gave the alarm. The 

 soldiers and inhabitants were called to arms, can- 

 non were fired to rouse the country, and a party 

 of horsemen, followed by some friendly Mohawks, 

 set out for Schenectady. The Mohawks had prom- 

 ised to carry the news to their three towns on the 

 river above ; but, when they reached the ruined 

 village, they were so frightened at the scene of 

 havoc that they would not go farther. Two clays 

 passed before the alarm reached the Mohawk 

 towns. Then troops of warriors came down on 



served at Albany, including, among others, the lists of killed and cap- 

 tured, letters of Leisler to the governor of Maryland, the governor of 

 Massachusetts, the governor of Barbadoes, and the Bishop of Salisbury ; 

 of Robert Livingston to Sir Edmund Andros and to Captain Nicholson ; 

 and of Mr. Van Cortlandt to Sir Edmund Andros. One of the best 

 contemporary authorities is a letter of Schuyler and his colleagues to 

 the governor and council of Massachusetts, 15 February, 1600, preserved 

 in the Massachusetts archives, and printed in the third volume of Mr. 

 Whitmore's Andros Tracts. La Potherie, Charlevoix, Colden, Smith, 

 and many others, give accounts at second-hand. 



Johannes Sander, or Alexander, Glen, was the son of a Scotchman of 

 good family. He was usually known as Captain Sander. The French 

 wrote the name Cendre, which became transformed into Condre, and then 

 into Coudre. In the old family Bible of the Glens, still preserved at the 

 placed named by them Scotia, near Schenectady, is an entry in Dutch 

 recording the "murders " committed by the French, and the exemption 

 accorded to Alexander Glen on account of services rendered by him and 

 his family to French prisoners. See Proceedings of N. Y. Hist. Soc, 

 1816, 118. 



The French called Schenectady Corlaer or Corlar, from Van Curler, 

 its founder. Its treatment at their hands was ill deserved, as its inhab- 

 itants, and notably Van Curler himself, had from the earliest times been 

 the protectors of French captives among the Mohawks. Leisler says 

 that only one-sixth of the inhabitants escaped unhurt. 



