The Mystery of the Remarkable and Audacious Dr. Mrs. Rachel C. Martin: A Women’s Suffrage Juggernaut

In 1876 the “Albany Evening Journal” newspaper ran an ad for Dr. Rachel C. Martin advertising the availability of garments for “Under Dress Reform” and electro – thermo treatments. At that time there were only three female physicians in Albany, and they all treated only women and children in the most traditional ways. Dr. Martin’s path (and her advertisement of services) seemed more than just a bit unconventional, We needed to know more about her. She was clearly a woman ahead of her time.

Rachel was born in 1819, daughter of John Cutler, a watchmaker and son of a Revolutionary War soldier, and Magadelena Goewey from an old Albany area Dutch family. She was one of four children who survived to adulthood. It seems to have been the most ordinary of families. In 1848, when Rachel was about 28, she married Joseph Martin and moved to Philadelphia. At this point her father had passed away, her sister Ann was married and her mother was living with Ann. There’s scant information about her life in Philadelphia. Her husband was listed as a sewing machine maker in that City’s 1860 directory.

In 1861 we found Rachel had left Philadelphia and about age 41ish, enrolled in the Albany State Normal School to become a teacher, one of the few jobs available to women. At that time only single or widowed women were permitted to teach. Rachel was neither.

Her husband died a year later in Philadelphia in 1862. His death notice mentions he was the son-in-law of John Cutler; Rachel isn’t mentioned. This was the same year Rachel’s mother Magdalena is died; there is no mention of Rachel in that death notice either. Something had caused a schism between Rachel and her family.

Next, we found Rachel listed as a teacher in Albany directories. In the middle 1860s she had a “select school” at 696 Broadway. Starting in 1866 we found newspaper ads for Rachel Martin’s dance classes, conducted by a variety of dancing “professors” at both the 696 Broadway (a/k/a Kinter Garden Hall) and a State St. location. In 1869 she was operating both a school in that location AND a Turkish Bath!

Rachel Martin was clearly determined to make her own way in a world where women were expected to depend on men – fathers, husbands or brothers.

In 1869 and 1870 Rachel was lecturing in Albany on “Social and Domestic Reform” and “What Woman has done and can do to establish herself” (in the Assembly Chamber of the NYS Capitol) and in surrounding counties on the issue of women’s suffrage. She was a one woman juggernaut for equal rights. In July 1870 she took the stage with Susan B. Anthony in Saratoga Springs at a woman’s suffrage convention in Congress Hall. The issue at hand was the enactment of federal legislation providing voting rights for Black men while excluding all women. In May 1870 she was again standing with Susan B, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Apollo Hall in New York City at the Union Suffrage Convention. (Unlike Anthony and Stanton Rachel had no family supports or husband – Rachel was an anomaly.)

(In the 1870 census Rachel is identified living in Albany with an Albert Cutler, age 21, born in New York State. Another mystery. Is Albert her son? A nephew? Why the Cutler surname? In any event Albert disappears from the records never to be seen again.)

And now another plot twist. In 1871 when Rachel was in her early 50s she enrolled in the newly established New York Free Medical College for Women. (It’s clear from NYS records and newspaper reports that she played a key role in securing State legislative approval for the College.)

Who saw this coming? We did a little digging and found a possible answer. In the late 1860s and 1870 Rachel’s establishment at 696 Broadway was next door to that of Dr. Emma Burleigh* who at the time appears to have been the only female physician in Albany. It’s quite likely that Dr. Burleigh influenced Rachel’s decision to attend medical college.

In 1873 Rachel graduated from Medical College and became Dr. Martin (or “Mrs. Dr. Martin” or “Dr. Mrs. Martin” – it’s clear the world was grappling with what to call married female physicians). But rather than practice medicine she appears to have spent the next year living in Brooklyn and lecturing throughout that borough and Manhattan on behalf of the temperance and women’s suffragist movements.

By 1876 she returned to Albany and opened her own practice, specializing in women’s health issues, including undergarment reform. Dress reform was a hot topic of the time. Many physicians and feminists were trying to persuade women to abandon tightly-laced whale bone or steel-ribbed constricting corsets. (It would take another 40 years and a shortage of steel in World War I to get women to stop wearing corsets.)

An example of 1870s under garment dress reform alternatives

In that year she lectured in Saratoga Springs on the general topic “Reform”. A Saratogian newspaper article notifying the public of the forthcoming lecture said, “The Doctor is highly spoken of by the press as a clear thinker and a good speaker”. And yet in April 1880, when Rachel became a founding member of the Albany Women’s Suffrage Society, the press singled her out and savaged her. The Argus didn’t bother referring to her as “Dr.” or even “Mrs. – massive shade for the time. At the first meeting of the Society the Argus reporter didn’t share the sentiments of the Saratogian. He refers to her “wanting in propriety” and “lack of perception”. Oh boy! She seems to have ruffled some feathers.

In the 1880s Rachel divided her time between Saratoga Springs (probably in the “Season”) and Albany, Although in 1880 she’s the second physician to register with the town of Saratoga Springs, in 1885 the town board of Saratoga Springs appointed Dr. Martin as the town nurse, rather than as a physician. (Sigh.)

Finally, about 1891 she returned to Albany and entered the Home for the Friendless (a/k/a The Guardian Society) on Clinton Ave. It was large well-appointed retirement building for older, single Protestant ladies with some funds, but without family. (In the terminology of our day, it was a continuing care community – residents turned the bulk of their assets over to the Home in exchange for a promise to be well-cared for to the end of their days.)

But there’s life left in Rachel. In her last public act in 1894 she wrote a letter to the editor of “Argus” in which she called out prominent Albany attorney Matthew Hale who had just given a major address railing against votes for women to a large anti-suffrage group. In the letter she said “.. if he (Mathew Hale) would track up the bad men as sharp as the bad women politics would not need the women as they do now.” (Smackdown.)Dr. Martin died in 1901. She’s buried in Albany Rural Cemetery Section 89 Lot 32.

But Rachel left one last mystery. Her gravestone also carries the name of James Whelply, who died in 1875. It’s a joint headstone. It took a while to sort this out, with the help of Paula Lemire, Historian at the Cemetery and Lorie Wies, Local History Librarian, Saratoga Springs Public Library.

Rachel was named in Whelply’s will and inherited money. The cemetery plot was provided for Whelply and Rachel in 1875 by the daughter of Whelply’s best friend. James Whelply was a number of years older than Rachel, an attorney who grew up in Albany who never married. You can draw your own conclusions about their relationship, but we think that at some point they were devoted lovers, which is why they share a plot and headstone.

This is the last surprise in a surprising life of a woman who marched to the beat of her own drum.

*Dr. Emma Burleigh would become a woman of great notoriety. She was born outside Utica, married young, was abandoned by her husband in England who kidnapped her children, who she never saw again. In the 1850s she graduated from a female medical college in Philadelphia. She acted as an agent for a NYC publisher who sent her to Albany to lobby the Legislature to adopt his textbooks and charts for statewide use. It appears she was quite a favorite with NYS legislators. She had a torrid affair with Benjamin Sickles, who would become well-known Civil War general and who was also notorious for killing his wife’s lover, the son of Francis Scott Key. He was not convicted, having invoked what would become known as the “insanity defense”. Emma had several children by a former classmate from her home town while living in Albany. By 1871 Dr. Burleigh was lived on Howard St. between Lodge and Eagle. In 1872 she was accused of being an abortionist (no criminal charges were brought.) In the same year her lover turned she and her children out of the Howard St. house he owned. She traveled to Utica, followed him onto a horse car, pulled a gun and attempted to shoot him. Sadly, she killed his companion. She was tried and found not guilty. She returned briefly to Albany. She lived the last years of her life, surrounded by her children, on the Jersey Shore.

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

The Rev. Nathaniel Paul and the Pauls of Albany; Albany’s First African American Church

Recently there was an amazing find at Albany Rural Cemetery by Paula Lemire, Cemetery Historian – the discovery of the gravestone of the Rev. Nathaniel Paul. It’s been restored by Christopher White.

So we thought we would take the opportunity to tell you why the discovery and restoration are so important.

The Rev. Nathaniel Paul was part of an African American family that had a major impact on the Black community not only in Albany, but in this country, in the early 1800s. Their work was foundational- it echoes into the present day. The Paul brothers were among a small number of Black men who, very early in the 19th century, saw their role as helping African Americans transition into a society of empowered and independent men and women, no longer bound by slavery.

These men and women deserved equal rights, but in this temporal world they would have to advocate for themselves. It was also the mission of the Paul brothers to those who had been freed understand that it was their responsibility to ensure that others gain their freedom. The ministers in the newly created safe spaces of the Black churches were preaching what we would call today “Liberation Theology”. Theirs was a potentially dangerous game – the ideas that slavery should be abolished in the U.S. , and African Americans were worthy of equal rights were incendiary and terrifying to many – to powerful whites and especially those whites without power.

Rev. Paul was born about 1795 in New Hampshire. We know his father had been enslaved, but appears to have gained his freedom through service in the Revolutionary War. Four sons became Baptist ministers: Thomas (the eldest), Nathaniel, Benjamin and Shadrach. Shadrach remained in New Hampshire while Thomas, Nathaniel and Benjamin found their way to congregations in Boston, Albany and New York City.

The three brothers would create a network that spanned the population centers of the Northeast, align themselves with other Black men, and find white men and women as allies. Thomas became the pastor of the Boston’s African Meeting House (later known as the Joy Street Baptist church) in 1805. In 1808 he also would be one of the founders of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City.

Historians think Nathaniel may have joined Thomas as some point in Boston, where he married, but then moved on to Northampton Mass. Nathaniel came to Albany with his wife about 1820 at the invitation of the minister of the local Baptist Church. By 1821 many of the Black congregants left that church and established the Albany African Baptist Society, which would become the African Baptist Church (a/k/a the Hamilton Street Church). Soon his brother Benjamin joined him in the city., and he helped to establish a school for African children attached to the church.

Over the next decade Nathaniel Paul became well known not only in Albany (he was appointed one of the chaplains of the NYS Legislature), but in the entire Northeast. He, along with his brother Thomas in Boston, preached about the evils of slavery and the need for abolition. Keep in mind at that this time there were still people enslaved in New York (including Albany) waiting for the general statewide abolition scheduled for 1827.

And when Abolition arrived there was a major celebration in Albany among the Black population. Hundreds of African Americans thronged the streets in a dignified and stately procession. The culmination of the event was an oration by Nathaniel on the Abolition of Slavery in the Hamilton St. Church. It was re-printed in a number of newspapers, and copies sold in bookstores in Albany and other cities. Meanwhile Nathaniel Paul was a busy man. He was an agent for Freedom’s Journal, the first newspaper in U.S. published by an African American (so was his brother Thomas in Boston). He was also a key player in an early court case in Albany, along with several of his congregants, that resulted in the freedom of Elizabeth Cummings, an African American woman who had been snatched off the Baltimore streets, and was in the process of being sold into slavery.

His brother Benjamin left Albany in 1824 to become the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, and there was a synergy between the Black communities in the three cities (Albany, Boston and New York) with the three Paul brothers in the pulpits of the major churches. Freedom’s Journal said of Nathaniel Paul that he had been successful in “…improving the moral and class of the community which has been too long neglected”. “To prepare men for liberty their minds must be enlightened to their own rights and duties which they owe to the community.”

The next act of Nathaniel’s life would come about as a result of his brother Benjamin. Benjamin became one of the Board of Managers of the Wilberforce Colony in Ontario Canada. The colony was established as a refuge for African Americans in Ohio who were increasingly subjected to harsh and discriminatory laws. It was named after William Wilberforce, a British MP who succeeded in abolishing the slave trade (and whom Nathaniel’s brother Thomas had met on a trip to England in 1815). Benjamin settled in the e Colony and Nathaniel followed; it was time for him to move on. He had done good work in Albany, but his wife had died about a year before, and the Colony was a place where he could continue that work. He settled there and quickly established an African Baptist Church.

The colony wasn’t self-sustaining and financial support was necessary. The managers decided to send Nathaniel Paul to Great Britain to fund raise. He would spend the years from about 1832 to 1835 traveling through England and Scotland. It was a revelation; he didn’t experience the racism and discrimination he’d encountered America, and was treated with dignity and respect. He re-married a white woman, Ann Adey from Gloucestershire. Soon he was joined by William Lloyd Garrison on much of his lecture tour. Garrison had been a friend of his brother Thomas in Boston, was the publisher of the anti-slavery newspaper “The Liberator”, and was emerging as the leading white abolitionist in the United States.

But the trip to Great Britain was a financial failure and Paul returned to America. His brother Benjamin died in Canada in in 1836, and Nathaniel’s relationship with the Colony was over. Nathaniel came back to Albany in 1837 to the African Baptist Church. Sadly, Nathaniel died in 1839. The members of the Church provided a simple yet moving headstone, with the following epitaph:

SACRED To the memory of REV. NATH.L PAUL.

First Pastor of the Hamilton StreetBaptist CHURCH in this City

Born in Exeter N.H. Jan. 7th 1795

Died in the Faith & triumph of the Gospel July 16th 1839

Having experienced Religion in the morning of life.

He was early employed in the Vineyard of his Divine Master & continued until his decease a Laborious, Faithful, & Efficient Minister of the CROSS.

Emulating the spirit & example of the Saviour like him.

He also partook in degree a similar recompense!

For The Servant is not greater than his LORD.A Distinguished Minister & Philanthropist: A Martyr to his indefatigable exertions in the Cause of Truth & suffering Humanity.

Removed in the midst of his days & usefulness his cherished Memory will remain enshrined in the hearts of His sorrowing Widow, attached People, the Churches and Ministers of Christ With a Large circle of Friends.

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, From Henceforth, yea saith the Spirit, that they may Rest from their Labours: and their works do Follow them.

Rev. XIV. 13. They mourn the dead who live as they desired.

On his death “The Liberator” published the following:

“DEATH OF REV. NATHANIEL PAUL. The decease of this estimable and eloquent colored brother, who was pastor of the Hamilton-street Baptist church in Albany, is announced in the daily papers of that city. Mr. Paul was in almost constant companionship during our sojourn in London, a few years since, and to his active and efficient co-operation were we greatly indebted for the triumphant success. “

His widow Ann remained in Albany until at least 1841 (living on Madison Ave, below Swan St.) while she assembled a collection of her husband’s writings, with a view to publication by Garrison, but nothing came of the effort. (The Rev. Nathaniel Paul’s legacy is the sermon he delivered On July 5, 1827 on the need for abolition which is still read today.) By 1850 she had moved to Northampton where she died in 1853.

But that was not the end of the Paul family in Albany. In 1840 the city would agree to open a public school for “colored” children. The first principal of this new Wilberforce School in 1841 would be Thomas Paul Jr. son of Nathaniel’s brother Thomas. Thomas was one of the first the first Black graduates of Dartmouth College, and had worked as a printer’s apprentice for William Lloyd Garrison. He remained in Albany for a number of years; there was a disagreement with the school supervisors and he was terminated. He went to teach Boston, but about 3 decades later he would return briefly to Albany’s Wilberforce School.

While in Albany he would live with some of his uncle Benjamin’s family. Two of Benjamin’s sons, Benjamin Jr. and Shipherd (also known as Samuel) made their home in Albany, and were deeply involved in the fight for abolition and equal rights for African Americans, including participation in the Underground Railroad.

Julie O’Connor

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

Erastus Dow Palmer

Palmer was born in 1817. He was a self-taught artist who showed early talent by carving wooden animals on his father’s farm in Pompey, N.Y.

As a young man, he moved to East Aurora (near Buffalo) to work as a carpenter.  While living in East Aurora, he married, but illness claimed both his wife and infant son.  Shortly after this double loss, he relocated to Utica where he continued as a carpenter and woodcarver.  In 1843, he married Mary Jane Seaman.

Having seen illustrations of cameos in the home of a client, Palmer was inspired to cut a cameo of his wife using an oyster shell and the smallest of his carpentry tools.  He showed the finished piece to a local lawyer for whom Palmer had done work.  The lawyer was very impressed by Palmer’s work and immediately lent him books with engravings of famous artwork, provided him with letters of recommendation to a number of prominent artists of the era, and strongly encouraged Palmer to pursue a career as a sculptor.

That career began with a series of portrait cameos, mainly of prominent Utica residents.  However, Palmer found that working on such a small scale was straining his eyesight.  He began producing larger reliefs in marble.  One early work is the allegory of Faith which hangs in St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in downtown Albany. He then progressed to

 larger marble works and, later, some bronzes sculptures such as the figure of Robert Livingston which represents New York State in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.

Dow’s Studio

Palmer relocated to Albany early in his artistic career, maintaining a home and studio first on Columbia Place and, later, on Lafeyette Street. He also kept a farm in Glenmont.

There is a curious tale told about Palmer’s passing and a final visit to his closest friend, the painter Asa Twitchell. The following was written by Anna Parker Pruyn on the reverse of a ca. 1900 photo of Palmer and Twitchell seated in the gallery of Lawson Annesley:

“Mr. Palmer died first. Mr. Twitchell lived out on N. Scotland Rd. and had no telephone. Mr. Annesley drove out to break the news to him, but Mr. Twitchell said he already knew it. ‘He came out 9 this morning – stood by his bedside and said “I- I’m going – I have come to say goodbye to you.'”

Palmer died at the age of eighty-six on March 9, 1904 and was buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Lot 15, Section 34. His monument was the work of Marcus T. Reynolds and the sides incorporate the marble reliefs of “Dawn” and “Evening” by Palmer. Palmer had a long history with the Cemetery. Not only did he create some of its finest monuments (including the Angel At The Sepulchre).  He also served as one of its Trustees.

Paula Lemire

There are more than 110 Revolutionary War soldiers buried in Albany Rural Cemetery

When the Battles of Lexington and Concord ended on April 19, 1775 word spread like wildfire through the Colonies. Everyone had been waiting for this, knowing it would come, and not knowing what would happen next. Except that it would be dangerous – 8 colonists died and 9 were wounded on that day.

Yet thousands of men rushed to serve. (Over 350,000 men served in the War over its 7 years.)

There are more than 110 Revolutionary War soldiers buried in Albany Rural Cemetery (and more waiting to be identified).

Some served in the Continental Army, others in state and county militias. Some fought in the local battles we’re all familiar with, like the Oriskany and Saratoga, while others served at Yorktown and Brandywine. Some lived in Albany when they joined the fight, others came to live here after the War. Some were lifelong soldiers, while others were members of minute man companies or the militia, ready to be called up at a moment’s notice.

We’ve put together several brief biographies of those interred at Albany Rural Cemetery that we hope provide you with a better sense of those who fought to forge a new nation.

Daniel Shields
Shields was born in Scotland, but lived in New York City. He enlisted in the Continental Army at the age of 14 (it appears he lied about his age). He served in a NYS regiment under Lafayette at the Battle of Yorktown. (He was discharged with the rank of captain.) Shields received a badge of merit signed by General Washington.

After the War Shields moved between Albany and Schenectady, trying his hand at different jobs. In 1824 Shields and Lafayette had a brief, but fond re-union when Lafayette visited Albany as part of his American tour. Shields’ granddaughter married Leland Stanford (also from Albany), the railroad mogul, politician and founder of Stanford University.

Shields died in 1835, and is interred in Lot 21, Section 11 of the Cemetery.

Goose (Gosen) Van Schaick
Van Schaick was the son of a merchant, who was once mayor of Albany. He’d fought in many battles in the French and Indian War. In 1770 he married a local girl, Maria Ten Broeck; the couple lived on Market St. (now Broadway).

Van Schaick represented his ward on the Albany Committee of Correspondence and would actively serve in the War. He was wounded at the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1777 (in the cheek-the site of a previous wound) and served at the Battle of Monmouth. He was also part of what has come to be known as one of the darker parts of our history, the Sullivan Raids in 1779, in which most of the Indian Nation in the western part of the State was brutally savaged by American troops.

At the end of the War Brevet Brigadier General Goose Van Schaick returned to Albany, still troubled by his cheek wound (which had been determined to be cancerous).

He died on July 4, 1789, age 53. Goose and Maria are buried side by side in Lot 5, Section 3.

Cornelius Van Vechten
Van Vechten was born in 1735, son of a Schagticoke landowner who also served as a firemaster in Albany for a time.

Van Vechten was one of the signers of the constitution of the Albany “Sons of Liberty” in 1766, and 1775 was commissioned Lt. Colonel of the 11th (a/k/a Saratoga) regiment of the Albany County militia. At the time of the Saratoga campaign, the family home at Coveville (Saratoga County) was burned by the advancing British under General Burgoyne. Van Vechten served in the militia until the War ended.

Following the Revolution, Van Vechten served in the State Assembly and, later, as the town clerk in Schaghticoke. He died at age 78 in 1815.

The Van Vechtens were originally buried in the Dutch Reformed section of the State Street Burying Grounds. They were moved to Lot 7, Section 38 at the Cemetery in 1859.

Walter Whitney
Whitney was born in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1760. He served in a unit of the Connecticut artillery as a teenager, from 1777-1779. He subsequently became a school teacher in Connecticut, but moved to outside Albany in the late 1780s (in the towns of Berne and New Scotland) where he also farmed, until his family came into the city in the late 1820s.

He died in 1846 while living at 26 DeWitt Street (now a very small cul-de-sac between Broadway and Erie Blvd).

Whitney’s white marble headstone on the North Ridge is decorated with patriotic emblems – an eagle with a banner bearing the words E PLURIBUS UNUM and a shield rises above a cannon. Look closely alongside the cannon to see crossed swords. Above the eagle are thirteen stars (some are worn and hard to see) for the original thirteen colonies and 76 is carved between the eagle and the cannon.

The Whitney grave can be found in Lot 159, Section 92.

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Abraham Eights
Abraham Eights was a second generation American (his grandfather was born in the Netherlands), son of a sea captain, born circa 1745. He settled in Albany in the 1760s, became a sailmaker and lived on Water St. on the Hudson River.

He was one of Albany’s original “Sons of Liberty” in 1766. At the start of War in 1775 he was commissioned a Lt. in the Albany County Militia, but later resigned. He’s found in subsequent records (1777-1779) serving as a private in the Albany County militia on an as needed basis. It appears that he helped the cause with cash and in-kind contributions (ensuring sails were in working order for the sloops that plied the River, and for his next door neighbor Capt. Stewart Dean, who was a commissioned privateer during the War, and with whom he served in the Militia).

Eights became a wealthy man and in later years was the Dockmaster of Albany. His grandson was James Eights who painted the wonderful watercolors of Albany that show us how the city looked in the early 1800s.

Abraham died in 1820, and is buried in Section 52, Lot 13.*

Josiah Burton
Burton was born Connecticut in 1741. The family then moved just across the border to Amenia in Dutchess County. Historical data suggest that Burton was a silversmith. In May 1775 he was commissioned as a captain in the Dutchess County Militia. It appears he resigned that commission because in 1777 he’s a first lieutenant in an Albany county militia regiment, mustered out of Kinderhook. He moved to Albany in the 1790s and is listed in the Albany County census in the first ward in 1800.

Burton died in 1803 at the age of 61. He’s buried in Section 49, lot 5. *

Benjamin Lattimore – African-American Revolutionary War Soldier
Benjamin Lattimore was born a free man in 1761 in Connecticut. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he was living in Ulster County, near New Marlborough, several miles south of Poughkeepsie. Lattimore enlisted (while still a teenager) with the 5th NY Regiment, Continental Army i(n 1776 once Black men were allowed to serve).

A few days later his company was sent to NYC where they took part in the Battle of Manhattan. Later that year he was on duty at Fort Montgomery (on the Hudson, just north of Bear Mountain) when he was captured along with hundreds of other Continentals by the British. Lattimore was re-captured by the Americans in Westchester, and re-joined the Continental Army.

Lattimore’s regiment was also part of the Sullivan Expedition in the western part of NY”, designed to punish the Iroquois for raiding frontier settlements.

By the late 1790s Lattimore and his family moved to Albany. He was licensed by the city as a “cartman” (authorized to haul cargo through the city streets). By about 1810 Lattimore also owned a grocery store, ad began to accumulate real estate.

Throughout the rest of his life Lattimore was active in advancing the conditions of African- Americans in Albany. He was part of a group that established the first “Albany School for Educating People of Color” in the ealry 1800s, was founding member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and was chairman of the Albany committee to celebrate the abolition of slavery in New York State in 1827.

He died in 1838 at the age of 78 and was buried in the AME cemetery. Records indicate that his remains were moved to Albany Rural Cemetery, but his headstone has gone missing.

*Abraham Eights’ daughter Catherine married John Burton, son of Josiah Burton in the 1790s (my 3rd great grandparents).

Thanks to Paula Lemire, Historian at the. Historic Albany Rural Cemetery for much of this information and to Stefan Bielinski, for the information he has discovered about Benjamin Lattimore in his Colonial Albany Project http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/welcome.html

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

Mary McPherson’s Gift to Albany

Mary McPherson was born in Scotland in 1804 to Lachlan McPherson and his wife, Mary Mitchell. In her childhood, she lived near the River Tay in a house built by Lachlan himself.

When Mary was about fourteen and her brother, John was twenty-six, the McPherson family moved to America. They had friends in Albany who looked after them and helped Lachlan to obtain work.

Her father became the custodian of the old State Hall at the corner of State and Lodge Streets and John became a carpenter. Both men were respected for their honesty and humor as well as for their skilled work. Mary would later work as a housekeeper for many years. The family lived in quarters on the upper floors of the State Hall where they were known for their thrift, though Mary was regarded as somewhat eccentric for her love of bright clothing even as she passed into spinsterhood. Her dress and hair were often adorned with flowers.

In 1839, Mary’s mother died and was buried in the Presbyterian lot of the old State Street Burying Grounds (now Washington Park), though her grave and modest headstone were later moved to Albany Rural Cemetery. Around this time, Lachlan, John, and Mary moved to a small farm on Patroon Street, now Clinton Avenue. That block is now called McPherson Terrace in honor of the family.

Lachlan died in 1859, leaving all of his money and property to both children. John died in 1881. With the loss of her family, Mary put aside her colorful clothing and wore mourning for them for the rest of her life.

Mary was now the sole heir to the McPherson estate. Her family’s thrift and her own saving made for a substantial amount of money, but Mary had no one to inherit it. She had never married, nor had John.
At the age of seventy-seven, Mary decided that she wanted her modest fortune to honor both her family and her country of birth in some public way. In drawing up her will, she made Peter Kinnear, a well-known businessman and another native of Scotland as my executor. While a portion of her money was set aside for the poor of Albany, the bulk of the estate would go to create a permanent tribute to the McPhersons and their homeland.

Mary died in 1886. She was buried in Lot 26, Section 15 where a monument of rose-colored Scottish granite marks the McPherson lot. Carved thistles, a symbol of her homeland, adorn the stone.

Peter Kinnear carried out Mary’s wishes, commissioning sculptor Charles Calverley to create a heroine bronze statue of the Bard of Caledonia, Robert Burns. The statue sits atop of pedestal with panels depicting scenes from the poets’ works such as “Tam O’Shanter’s Ride” and “Auld Lang Syne.” The monument stands near the eastern edge of Washington Park and the words, “THE MCPHERSON LEGACY TO THE CITY OF ALBANY” are carved on the back of the pedestal.

By Paula Lemire – Historian Albany Rural Cemetery

Albany’s Dianna Mingo (1767-1872)

An unmarked grave (Lot 8, Section 99) on the North Ridge is the final resting place of a woman who is said to be the oldest person buried at Albany Rural Cemetery; a former slave named Dianna Mingo.

Dianna was born in December 1767 as a slave of Matthew Bakeman (Beekman)* of Schodack . As a young woman, she witnessed the Revolutionary War firsthand and, in later life, would tell friends of her experiences.

The Revolution

Mrs. Mingo was nearly ten years old when the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, and well remembered the great rejoicings and illuminations in honor of that event. She saw Gen. Washington; and her recollections of many incidents were vivid and distinct; frequently she would delight her friends by recalling them; how when the British enemy were coming, the inhabitants would get up in the night and run for the woods, where they dug holes in the earth and buried their gold and silver, their plate and jewelry, and would also hide their treasures in their beds and lay upon them to protect them from marauding parties; how one of the ladies had a baby who cried, and how to stop its little tell-tale voice the mother lay over it and smothered it; how also the “tories” spurred into her master’s yard one day, killed the cattle and poultry, and fired the dwelling, burning it to the ground.

The venerable woman would also often tell her reminiscences of the war of 1812; and describe the visit of Gen. Lafayette to this city in 1825; his crossing from Greenbush to this city, when the people remained up all night in order to receive him, and strewed flowers and branches in the roads before him; his riding in the gorgeous yellow carriage of the Van Rensselaers, and the tumultuous joy of the people in welcoming him. Indeed it would take volumes to contain the oft-recounted memories of this really wonderful old woman; but what we have specified will show the great extent and interest thereof.

(from the “Albany Evening Journal”, July 30, 1872)

She was freed before the general emancipation took effect in New York (1827), married a man named Christopher Mingo who died in the 1830s, and eventually settled in Albany.

She worked first for the family of Mayor James Stevenson, as a cook at the Manor House of the Van Rensselaers, and later in the household of attorney Marcus T. Reynolds (grandfather and namesake of the architect). She spent several years employed in Newburgh, but returned to Albany after an attack of paralysis. She spent the last years of her life living in a modest wood frame house, at 385 State St. near the corner of Willett St. She remained active almost until the end of her life. With the help of her niece, Mary G. Jackson, she supported herself by taking in laundry.

Dianna Mingo died on July 25, 1872. She was said to be 105 years old. Her funeral was held at the Israel A.M.E. Church on Hamilton Street where she had been a beloved member. It was reported in the newspapers that her funeral was so well attended that mourners crowded onto the steps of the pulpit and spilled out the doors.

Writing of her passing, the” Albany Evening Journal” noted:

Diana Mingo was a truly remarkable instance of the preservation of both body and mind. Forty years ago, when she felt she was going old, she planted a seed in front of the house in which she died, from which has grown a horse-chestnut tree that still flourishes, green and delightful, like her memory to all who knew her.

*The Beekman family were early Dutch Settlers that by the middle of the 1750s extended from New Jersey to New York City through the Hudson Valley to the Albany and Troy area. Beekmans were among the “merchant princes” of the state, and some of the largest slave holder families across New York. But after the Revolution individual members started questioning the practice of slavery and by the mid 1800s were committed abolitionists.

By Paula Lemire, Historian Albany Rural Cemetery

Albany’s Baker Street Irregular: Frederic Dorr Steele – Sherlock Holmes Illustrator

“The Sherlock Holmes story started with ‘A Study In Scarlet” in 1887. Three or four English illustrators tried their hand at picturing the sleuth but the man who jelled the famous profile for the British was Sidney Paget. He was one of Sir Arthur’s favorite illustrators.

But Americans know Sherlock through the work of another artist, the late Frederic Dorr Steele, who illustrated most of the Holmes’ stories on this side of the Atlantic and whose sharp pen and ink sketches are almost as well known as the yarns themselves.”
— Rochester Democrat Chronicle, April 6, 1952

Frederic Dorr Steele was born in Eagle Mills, Michigan on August 6, 1873. His father, William Henry Steele, was a native of Albany, part of a large extended family. The Steele family had deep roots in Albany and their ancestors included early Dutch settlers and the Livingston family. His mother, Zulma DeLacy Dorr, was born in Ghent, Columbia County; she was an artist of some repute. His maternal grandmother. Julia Ripley Dorr, was a hugely popular and critically acclaimed novelist and poet of the Victorian period.

As a young man, Frederic moved to New York City to study art at the National Academy of Design. From the 1890s on, he worked as an illustrator for magazines such as The Illustrated American and Scribner’s.

In 1903, he began to illustrate Sherlock Holmes stories for Collier’s Magazine. He would produce numerous drawings of the legendary detective for the remainder of his professional career. He based his drawings of the legendary detective on actor William Gillette who portrayed Holmes on stage beginning in 1899 and in a silent film in 1916.

Between Gillette’s onstage image and Steele’s drawings, the image of Sherlock Holmes with his sharp features, calabash pipe, and deerstalker cap took hold in American culture, and has endured for over a century.

Steele married Mary Thyng in 1898 and the couple resided in Nutley, New Jersey until 1912 when he returned to New York City. Frederic and Mary separated in 1936.

Steele spent his last years living at 717 Greenwich Street and, on July 6, 1944, he died at Bellevue Hospital at the age of 70. He was cremated and, on October 30, 1945, his ashes were brought to Albany for burial in a very old family plot originally purchased by his great-grandfather, Lemuel Steele.

Frederic’s grave is a narrow, unmarked space between his father’s headstone and the southwest corner post of Lot 61, Section 5 on the South Ridge.

By Paula Lemire, Historian at the Albany Rural Cemetery,  from her Facebook Page: Albany Rural Cemetery – Beyond the Graves. Albany Rural Cemetery- Beyond the Graves

Albany’s Gertrude Valentine – World War I volunteer – killed in France

There are scores of World War I soldiers buried at Albany Rural Cemetery. Some, like sixteen year old James Armstrong and pilot George Goodwin died in the War. Others lived to serve in World War II. There are also several Army nurses buried here.

In Section 27, Lot 16, a large dark granite cenotaph bears the following inscription:

“In Loving Memory of Gertrude Crissey Valentine
Born April 8, 1890
Died in France June 11, 1919
while serving her God and Country
Buried in Le Mans Cemetery
American Officers Row No. 177 Sec A”

“She died in the line of duty.”

Gertrude was raised at 80 Chestnut Street in Albany. Her father, Clarence Valentine, was a partner in a firm making such wooden products as packing boxes, moldings, shingles, as well as felt weather stripping. Gertrude attended the State College for Teachers’ Model School from kindergarten, then went on to Vassar College where she graduated in 1913. She returned to Albany and continued her education at the State College with plans for a teaching career. She was also involved in local musical societies as newspapers mention young Miss Valentine playing the piano and coronet at various social functions.

During the War, she went to England and then to France with the YMCA. At the close of the War, while still serving as a canteen worker, she was killed in an automobile accident. Her grave is now in Plot C, Row 7, Grave 13, Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, Fere-en-Tardenois, France.

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Between 25,000 – 30,00 American women served overseas in World War I. Over 100 were women  from Albany.  They included nurses working at field hospitals and Base Hospital 33 (established by Albany Hospital-now Albany Med-in Portsmouth England, the Red Cross, the YWCA and the Salvation Army, many of whom worked close to combat areas.Gertrude Valentine was one of approximately 125 American women who died in the line of duty in the Great War.

Never forget that women who couldn’t even vote went off to war to serve their country.

By Paula Lemire from the Facebook Page Albany Rural Cemetery – Beyond the Graves

Miller’s Nook-Albany Rural Cemetery –

Prior to the acquisition of the land by the Albany Cemetery Association between 1841 and 1844, a portion of the grounds in and around the south ravine was occupied by several buildings, most notably a mill and a small schoolhouse.

According to Charles Heisler, a past Superintendent of the Cemetery who compiled an extremely detailed handwritten record of all the land purchases that comprise the present Cemetery site, about half of the original acres purchased by the Albany Cemetery Association had been owned by John Hillhouse, a West Point graduate and the engineer who did some of the earliest survey work on the site.

Hillhouse had inherited his portion of the site from his father, Thomas, and John attended the little school on the south bank of what became Consecration Lake. This land is described as “the South Ridge from about Section 104 east to the Chapel and from the southern boundary north to Moordanaer’s Kill, the stream between the South and Middle Ridges.” He also left behind a detailed account of what existed on this land prior to the laying out of the Cemetery:

“The brook (called by the old Dutch inhabitants of the valley ‘Moordenaer’s kill,’ from a tradition of a murder committed near the bridge that crossed its mouth at the time the road between Albany and Troy ran along the river bank), originally hugged the base of the hills bounding the dell on its northerly side. The school-house stood directly on its bank on the south side, at the base of the most prominent of these hills, whose top was crowned with a lofty pine. The mill was further up the stream, on the same side with the school-house, just at the point where it emerged from the ravine and entered the open dell. A bridge now occupies its site. It was called the “old oil mill,” and was originally built by my father for the purpose of preparing oil-cake for the fattening of cattle. The house was for the miller’s use. There were two dams on the creek above for the supply of water for the mill, one at the bend just beyond the high bridge, the other on the site of the present dam at the outlet of the lake above. From the former the water was conveyed in an open plank race carried along the slope of the hill, and discharged through a long, high trough upon the over-shot wheel. The mill and dwelling were erected about 1816. How long they served their original purpose I am not able to say exactly, but probably some five or six years….

About 1829, the mill, having been leased to some parties for the manufacture of printers’ ink, the school, with its fixtures and dunce-block, was removed to the new school building, which my father built and which is still standing on the south side of the Cemetery avenue. The manufacture of ink not proving a success, the work was abandoned and the school-house became thereafter the home of one of the farm laborers, while the mill was given up to the bats and flying squirrels, and suffered to go to decay. In this state they continued until 1846, when, in the purchase made by Gov. Wm. L. Marcy and Thomas W. Olcott for the Albany Rural Cemetery, they became the property and passed into the possession of that most worthy association and fell before the tide of improvement.”

Nothing, of course, survives of the “old oil mill.” The last traces of it appear on the first published map of the Cemetery in 1845. Just to the north of Consecration Lake, a curved open space is identified as “Miller’s Nook” (now the area of the Spaulding and Springsteen family plots in Section 62, Lots 97 and 98) and the site of the present stone bridge is called “Mill Side Bridge.” By 1858, however, when “Churchill’s Guide Through The Albany Rural Cemetery” was published, these names had disappeared completely from the new map.

1880s view of the area of the “old oil mill.” The stone bridge is just behind the large tree to the left of the fountain. The “Miller’s Nook” is on the right just behind the man on the shore of Consecration Lake.

The waterfall on the Moordanaer’s Kill.

The Hillhouse family plot in Section 4, Lot 1. The large monument on the left is reportedly the first granite one erected in the Cemetery.

From Albany Rural Cemetery- Beyond the Graves

Cuyler Reynolds and the Albany Rural Cemetery – He Got No Respect

Visitors who stop into the Albany Rural Cemetery Office for genealogical research often comment on the detailed burial index cards which are not unlike an old-fashioned library card catalog. A cache of old documents tell an interesting tale of the card file’s possible origin.

Cuyler Reynolds, brother of architect Marcus T. Reynolds, is best remembered as the Albany City Historian (which is noted on the black stone slab covering his grave in Section 17).

Cuyler was the first curator of the Albany Institute of History & Art after the older Albany Institute and Albany Historical & Art Society merged. He served as its curator from 1899 to 1909 and it was during his tenure that the museum’s famous pair of mummies was acquired.

In 1908, just after his work on the New York exhibits at the Jamestown Exposition, Cuyler Reynolds wrote a letter to attorney Marcus T. Hun (the Hun and Reynolds families were related – Marcus’ mother was the former Lydia Reynolds). The cover letter has not been located yet, but the typed statement that he enclosed reads:

“In February 1907, I addressed the Trustees of the Albany Rural Cemetery, meeting in upper room of the Mechanics & Farmers’ Bank, Dudley Olcott presiding, advocating the introduction of a card system for the records.

I submitted a tentative form of card which I had printed at my own expense.

The matter was considered to radical to be adopted at that time, and I then was appointed director of the N.Y.S. Historical Exposition at the Jamestown Exposition, where I spent the summer and fall of 1907.”

At the bottom of the typed statement, written boldly above his signature, Cuyler Reynolds wrote, “The idea was mine.”

The implication of this statement is that, after rejecting Reynolds’ proposal for a new way of filing burial records, the 1907 board adopted a strikingly similar card system in his absence. It appears that Reynold was seeking credit for the design and compensation of some sort.

Marcus T. Hun’s reply seems somewhat uninterested in taking up the cause:

“As to the Cemetery Association the matter seems to rest with you and Mr. Burns, and possibly if you wish to get closer to the trustees, with Mr. Dudley Olcott.

I hope you will be be able to make some arrangement that will be satisfactory to you, as it seems to me that it would be to the advantage of the Cemetery to have you clear up these defects in the old records.”

Marcus T. Hun would later serve as president of the Albany Cemetery Association until his death in 1920.

This is where the paper trail ends for now. Did Cuyler ever resolve the issue and receive any credit for his design which is indeed strikingly similar to the file system in use now? The answer might lie in the long missing Trustee minutes which have not been seen since they were misplaced during one of the many mergers and moves of local banks, including the old Mechanics & Farmers.

Cuyler Reynolds, “widely known as a collector and historian, and official historian of the city of Albany” (and likely designer of the Rural Cemetery’s card system) died on May 24, 1934. He was buried in the large Dexter-Reynolds family plot in Lot 1, Section 17. More of his story will be told another time. Marcus T. Hun is also buried in the same lot.