36 31en and Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago. 



LL.D. — Learned in Low Dutch! This Pieter Schuyler, the 

 major of 1686, is memorable for having accompamed the 

 Mohawks to England, in the time of Queen Anne and the 

 Spectator, on which occasion his portrait was painted, as 

 is supposed by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is still preserved 

 at the Flats among the family relics, by Mr. John Schuyler. 

 The accompanying engraving is copied from it. 



State street below Broadway was called Abram Staats's 

 alley, because the doctor, the progenitor of the Staatses of 

 Beverwyck (1642), occupied the front of the Exchange 

 lot, and behind him on the east was the brewery of Vol- 

 kert Janse Douw, the first of that name here also (1638). 

 The residence of Yolkert Janse was on the upper corner 

 of State street opposite, which lot has belonged to the family 

 nearly 250 years. Probably there is not another instance 

 like it in the city, if we except that of Van Rensselaer. 

 This alley was afterwards extended in width, and called 

 Little State street, and finally widened to its present ex- 

 tent, and the tp.rni Little dropped. When I see the lower 

 part of the street several feet under water, and the owners 

 of stores wading about in rubber boots prodigiously elon- 

 gated upwards, or paddling about in boats to learn if their 

 goods have bepn lifted above high water mark, I am re- 

 minded of the tradition told me by Cornelius Trnax, half 

 a century ago, that when the Yankees came over and 

 began to build below Dean street, the Dutchmen told 

 them that if they had seen the river break up they would 

 not build there. 



Here we recognize on the map the late Exchange street, 

 formerly known as Mark lane, now obliterated to give 

 verge and scope to the ambitious designs of the govern- 

 ment architect of the new custom house. A street or 

 alley ran down between this street and Maiden lane, which 

 was long since closed up; and next comes Maiden lane 

 itself, spoken of in the records as Rom street — the origin 

 of the name can only be conjectured. 



