SECOND REPORT OP THE DIRECTOR I905, 3 I 



of Watervliet, now included within the town of Guilderland, were 

 exhbited to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. 

 This factory had been erected by John De Neufville, a Dutch gen- 

 tleman, who, after having sacrificed nearly his whole fortune of 

 a half million pounds sterling on behalf of the colonies, invested 

 the small remnant in this enterprise. 



In Elkanah Watson's Reminiscences of Albany, 1788, it is stated 

 that De Neufville was the negotiator of the treaty between Hol- 

 land and the American Congress which brought on the war between 

 England and Holland in 1781. Mr Watson found him living 

 impoverished and in solitary seclusion at Dowesburgh, in what 

 is now Guilderland township, in a wretched log cabin destitute 

 of the ordinary comforts of life. In 1785 John De Neufville, 

 Leonard De Neufville, Jan Heefke and Ferdinand Walfahrt in- 

 augurated this glass factory, obtaining their sand from the imme- 

 diate vicinity. In 1788 these proprietors appealed to the Legis- 

 lature for^aid, arguing that the State is annually drained of £30,000 

 for English glass and that they could manufacture a superior 

 article from local materials. This request was denied and the 

 company was obliged to suspend operations. It was soon after 

 resurrected taking the firm name of McClallen, McGregor & Co., 

 the Co. being James Caldwell and Christopher Batterman. The 

 application to the Legislature for a subsidy was renewed and in 

 1793 the request was granted in the form of a loan of £3000 for 

 three years without interest and five years more at five per cent. 



Evidently rinding the local sand not entirely suitable for their 

 purposes they offered a reward of $50 for the discovery of an 

 available bank of sand within 10 miles of their glasshouse. 

 The works were soon in full bloom though as stated in the Albany 

 Gazette for December 11, 1794, "this valuable establishment has 

 met with obstacles for this two months, partly owing to some bad 

 .materials." In 1795 the firm name was McGregor & Co. and 

 consisted of Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, Elkanah Watson, Robert 

 McGregor and Thomas & Samuel Mather; the same year it was 

 dissolved and reorganized under the name of Thomas Mather & 

 Co., of which the partners were Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, John 

 Sanders, Abraham Ten Eyck, Elkanah Watson, Frederick A. De 

 Zeng, K. K. Van Rensselaer, Thomas Mather, Douw Fonda, Walter 

 Cochran, Samuel Mather. The company then conceived the pro- 

 ject of consolidating their establishment into a permanent village 

 under the name of Hamilton, a church and school house were built 

 and the land laid out in streets and house lots. The Legislature, 



