PKOPOSED ERECTION OF LOCAL HISTORICAL 

 MONUMENTS. 



Report of Special Committee ojt Archaeology. 



[Presented April 26, 1881.] 



The city of Albany has a history, in its length of record, beyond 

 that of most of the cities of the Union, and especially interesting in 

 the features of that history. At the time of the settlement of the 

 river at and near this place, England was under the authoritative, and 

 in a degree, absolute government of the Stuarts. It was just subse- 

 quent to the time of Elizabeth, and the monarch was the son of Mary, 

 Queen of Scots. Europe was old Europe then, with ways and words of 

 rule and manner now faded out, or living in the more or less truth of 

 coloring of books. From this interesting date of commencement, 

 Albany, under differing names and governments and fealties of allegi- 

 ance, has been a discovery, a trading post, a border fort, a frontier village, 

 a city, and for the greater portion of its existence, on the verge of civil- 

 ization, fenced in by the surroundings of savage life, when that life 

 was in the conduct of an organized powerful Indian confederacy of 

 tribes, skilled in their ideas of warfare. It has been a place greatly 

 desired to be reached by conquest of savage and European war, and 

 through all this, and out of all this, has attained what it is to-day — in 

 the incidents and wealth and enterprise and life of a large city — the 

 leading political capital of the north, except the place of the Federal 

 government. 



It is but an expected result of all these facts, that certain physical 

 relics are yet here, and tradition of others is not yet obliterated. As 

 to some of these, the only duty of the Institute is to give earnest and 

 respectful recommendation. The conduct of preservation of them is, 

 in its greatest features, for municipal and State authority. 



Your committee understand distinctly, and their action is with this 

 closely in view, as regulating the expression of their judgment to you, 

 that the pecuniary question involved is the rock upon which effort at 

 monumental memories wrecks. Large expenditures are initiated by 

 enthusiasm, and reach a pitiable mediocrity and fail. We propose no 

 individual effort except on the most economical basis. 



There are to-day two buildings in Albany that, especially, should be 

 preserved. The loss of them, or either of them, would be deplorable, 

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