Stay Calm and Bake Cake- Make America Cake Again! Election Cake.. an Albany Tradition?

Presidential elections in America have always been a big deal – the day for voting was merely the culmination of a “national crisis’. In 1831 Alexis de Toqueville traveled across America; upon his return to France he wrote: “A presidential election in the United States may be looked upon as a time of national crisis…” “Long before the date arrives, the election becomes everyone’s major, not to say sole, preoccupation. The ardor of the various factions intensifies, and whatever artificial passions the imagination can create in a happy and tranquil country make their presence felt. . . . As the election draws near, intrigues intensify, and agitation increases and spreads. The citizens divide into several camps, each behind its candidate. A fever grips the entire nation. The election becomes the daily grist of the public papers, the subject of private conversations, the aim of all activity.”

And when voting day arrived, it was time of celebration. Voting is a strenuous business and requires feasting and drinking. Time for cake! Election Cake!

An 1886 book says that, “Election cake was served in private homes and sold outside polling places, so it was frequently made in large batches” . “Mothers sat up all night to watch the batch of twelve or twenty loaves, or called their daughters long before cock-crowing to make investigations; nay, some were known to faint from fatigue while mixing the materials.”

The first recipe for Election Cake fittingly appears in the first uniquely American cookbook published in this country – “American Cookery” by Amelia Simmons in 1796 in Hartford, CT. The cookbook was a huge success. A follow-up edition was published the same year since “the call has been so great, and the sales [of American Cookery] so rapid that [the author] finds herself not only encouraged but under a necessity of publishing a second edition.”

This second edition, larger than the first with many additional recipes, was published by the Webster Brothers, George and Charles, of Albany. Their printing shop was on the northwest corner of State and Pearl – the “old Elm tree” corner. (A Citizen’s Bank is located there today.) It was the largest printing establishment in Albany.

The Albany edition appears to be the definitive edition because contains a statement that the person Amelia employed to prepare the first edition omitted essential recipes and included others without her consent. One of recipes omitted was Election Cake, featured prominently in the 2nd edition.

For years it was assumed that Amelia was from Connecticut (the cake recipe is often referred to as the “Hartford Election Cake”) and its genesis was the “muster cakes” prepared for the annual colonial militia musters in Connecticut. But some historians have concluded Amelia was probably from the Hudson Valley, very possibly Albany. Amelia uses the leavening agent pearl ash (a precursor to baking soda) in many of her recipes, which is derived from leaching large amounts of wood. In the late 1700s, the Albany area was a center for the production of potash, i.e., the unrefined source of the pearl ash. Additionally Amelia includes, for the first time in America, recipes for cookies. The word cookie is derived from the Dutch “koekje” – a staple in the Dutch baking. She also included the frst recipe for “slaw” koolsla – Dutch for cabbage salad. Albany Election Cake? Maybe. .

In the 1850’s ads for Election Cake can be found at Mrs. LaGrange’s Tea Cake Bakery on Steuben St. In a nod to Prohibition, the recipe for Election Cake in a 1920 Albany Evening Journal says to substitute lemon juice for booze.

Election Cake was an annual staple in this country until it fell out of fashion in the 1960s, but this year it has been re-discovered and is all the rage.Since we can make a good case for it as another Albany cake, we thought we would jump on the election year cake wagon.

ORIGINAL RECIPE FOR ELECTION CAKE – Amelia Simmons
Thirty quarts of flour
10 pound butter
14 pound sugar
12 pound raisins
3 doz eggs
one pint wine
one quart brandy
4 ounces cinnamon
4 ounces fine colander seed
3 ounces ground allspice
Wet flour with milk to the consistence of bread overnight, adding one quart yeast; the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has rise light work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which work in when going into the oven.

Updated recipe for Election Day Cake from the Cooking Channel (We selected this one because others exclude the booze.. we like tradition.)
Two .25-ounce envelopes dry active yeast
1 cup warm, but not hot, water (about 105 degrees F)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing the pan
1 cup mixed dried fruit, such as golden raisins, cranberries and pitted prunes, chopped if large
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup American whiskey, bourbon or rye
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons milk
Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a medium bowl. Stir a few times and let stand to allow the yeast to dissolve and begin bubbling, 1 to 2 minutes. Sift 1 1/2 cups of the flour into the bowl and stir until mostly smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for about 30 minutes. The mixture will expand, loosen in texture and will have large bubbles on the surface.

While that sits, generously butter a 12-cup Bundt pan and set aside. Place the dried fruit, 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar and all of the whiskey in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Heat in the microwave until hot and bubbling, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir and set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, whisk the remaining 1 1/2 cups flour with the cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt.

Beat the butter with the remaining 1/2 cup brown and the granulated sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until combined (the mixture may look slightly curdled at this stage), and then add 1 teaspoon of the vanilla. Beat in the yeast mixture and then reduce the speed to medium-low and gradually beat in the flour mixture. Add the plumped dried fruit with any remaining liquid and beat on medium speed until the fruit is well blended. The dough should be soft and elastic at this point.

Transfer the dough to the prepared Bundt pan and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until the dough fills the pan about three-quarters of the way, about 2 hours. When is the cake is almost done rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake the cake until golden brown and a skewer inserted comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes in the pan on a wire rack. Loosen the sides with a small metal spatula and turn onto the wire rack to cool completely.

Before serving, stir the confectioners’ sugar with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon milk. Gradually add as much as needed of the second tablespoon of milk to make a thick glaze that will just gently run. Spoon over the top of the cake, allowing the glaze to slowly run down the outside and inside of the cake.

Note: Some of this material came from online article in the Hartford Courant by Leeanne Griffin (2016) and a blog post “Biography of America’s Earliest Cookbook Author – Amelia Simmons” by Barbara Wells Sarudy.(September 2014)

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

Read all about it. Albany’s First Newspaper.. a HUGE deal

The first issue of Albany’s first newspaper, the “Albany Gazette”, was published yesterday, November 25 in 1771. It was also the first newspaper published in New York State outside of New York City. The publishers were 2 Scotsmen, the Robertson brothers. There is some disagreement regarding their shop location; either Court St. (tiny chunk of what is now Broadway, south of State, near Beaver and Hudson) or Chapel near Pine St. We’re not sure how long the paper lasted, but the Robertson brothers were Loyalists and fled Albany in 1776 for Canada; the paper ceased publication at least 2 years before they left.

In 1782 Charles Webster and Solomon Balantine started the “Northern Gazetteer or Northern Intelligencer”; but there was trouble in paradise. A year later Webster dissolved the partnership and left for New York City. When Balantine left Albany, Webster returned to Albany, and in 1784 he started printing the “Albany Gazette” again. Shortly thereafter, his brother George joined him in the business.

(NOTE: Joel Munsell, printer and historian of Albany in the mid-1800s, reports that it was once suggested to the Websters that they print the Gazette in Dutch, in whole or in part, given the number of people in Albany and surrounding areas who did not speak or read English.)

The Great Fire of 1793 destroyed he Webster Brothers print shop on Middle Lane (a short alley connecting State St. to Maiden Lane; now James St.). In 1794 a new, much larger shop was erected at the corner of State and Pearl and came to be known as the “White House”. That corner is the famous “Old Elm Tree Corner”, after a tree planted by Philip Livingston in the 1730s. That tree stood for about 150 years, until being cut down in the late 1800s.

The “Albany Gazette” merged with the Daily Advertiser in 1817 and became known as the “Albany Gazette and Daily Advertiser”. It suspended publication in 1845.

PS. Look carefully enough and you will an old plaque embedded in the wall of the bank that stands on the Old Elm Tree Corner commemorating Philip Livingston and the Tree, but sadly nothing about the “Albany Gazette”.

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

It’s National Cookie Day! Yay!

You can’t talk about cookies without the Dutch and New Netherlands and you can’t talk about New Netherlands without talking about Albany.

By now you all know that the word cookie comes from the Dutch “koekje” (little cakes). As the Dutch adopted English customs, recipes of some Albany women refers to “cakes” and “wafers”, the English terms for cookie-like things, but you also see use of the words koeks (cakes) and koejkes sometimes interchangeably. A famous example is the “dood koeks”.. dead cakes, which were actually cookies served at New Netherlands Dutch funerals.

In some Albany Dutch family recipe collections (Maria Schuyler Van Rensselaer- sister of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton) by the late 1700s koekjes becomes “coekjes”. The first time the word “cookie” appears in publication is in Amelia Simmons “American Cookery” (the definitive second edition was published in Albany in 1796) as cookies and cookery. But the term cookie doesn’t seem to catch on right away.. (I know.. so not possible.. but true). In the “Frugal Housewife” in 1829 (Lydia Maria Child) perhaps the most well-known of the early 19th century cookbooks, there is nary a cookie to be found. But there are little cakes and jumbles, and we know by the recipes that these are actually what we think of as cookies.

And then we have a cookie explosion after the Civil War.(I’m thinking those New York boys spread the word about the glory of the cookie all across the North and South.) By 1880, there is not a single cookbook that doesn’t include cookie recipes.

So to celebrate the fact that today is Cookie Day (which really SHOULD be an Albany holiday) we’ve included a collection of old Albany cookie recipes, with some updates by the brilliant New Netherlands food historian, Peter Rose, and some newer (100 year old ) recipes that you can make today without pounds of flour, hog lard, pearl ash and a dozen eggs.

 

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

Re-discovering Sibbie: the Last Schuyler Slave

 

In 2016, I came across a burial index card for a woman identified as “Libbie,” a servant of the Schuyler family. At first glance, it seemed this might be the same Libby who is recorded as being a slave at the Schuyler Manison (The Pastures) in Albany as well as the family’s farm at Saratoga. The search for her headstone at Albany Rural Cemetery uncovered a different story.

In recent years, there has been much attention given to the slaves of the Schuyler family at The Flatts. In 2005, excavations at a commercial site across Broadway (Route 32) from the Schuyler Flatts Park uncovered the bones of slaves buried in a plot separate from the Schuyler family’s own burial ground.

A Chronology of The Flatts History
After a period of examination by experts at the New York State Museum, these remains were reburied in a special public ceremony at the historic Saint Agnes Roman Catholic Cemetery near their original resting place. The reburial took place on June 17, 2016.
The names of those slaves are unknown, their stories pieced together as much as possible from their bones and the circumstances of their original burial.

Just across the fence dividing Saint Agnes from the neighboring Albany Rural Cemetery, however, is the long-forgotten grave of a woman who was the last known slave of the Schuylers at The Flatts.

Located on the North Ridge at Albany Rural, the tilting headstone is small and almost completely illegible. The white marble has eroded to the point where its inscription is only visible through rubbings. A flag and Grand Army of The Republic marker misplaced from some other grave might give the impression that it is the burial place of a Civil War soldier; there are several Union veterans and one Confederate buried in the same section and it’s probably the metal G.A.R. marker was accidentally moved from one of the former.

Inside the Rural Cemetery’s office, the Single Grave Book identifies the grave as that of “Libbie” Schuyler. (Colored). Widow Schuyler’s servant. The entry is handwritten, the name “Libbie” is traced over in red ink.

A stamp on the page notes that “this record was made from the lot,” meaning it was transcribed from the headstone. However, when it was transcribed, a small, but significant mistake was made.

The front of the headstone reads, A Faithful Servant of The Schuyler Family Died Nov 24 1862. The curved top edge is carved with the name, LIBBIE.

Significantly, what appears to be an “L” is, in fact, an “S.”

The woman buried here is Sibbie (also known as Sibina or Sibby), the last documented slave at The Flatts.

The following obituary appeared in the West Troy Advocate in November, 1862.

“DEATH OF AN AGED COLORED WOMAN – Many of our citizens may have seen or heard of the infirm and decrepit colored woman living at the residence of Mrs. SCHUYLER – at the SCHUYLER homestead in Watervliet. She is now no more, death having closed her existence on Sunday night last. Her history is somewhat peculiar. She is supposed to have been born as a slave in Tarrytown Westchester Co. – her first “massa” being a man named Storms, by whom she was held for several years when she was sold to a family name VANDENBURGH then residing in Schaghticoke, Rensselaer Co. She lived here several years, when, about 60 years since, she became the property of the late Philip S. SCHUYLER, and was brought to this town where she has ever since resided. When the act abolishing slavery in this State took effect, she, of course, became free but she preferred to remain with her former master. SABINA – ‘SIBBY’ as she was called was thought highly of by the descendants of her former master, and by them for the past 12 years (during which time she has been almost entirely helpless) she has been tenderly cared for. Her age was not positively known but could have been very little, if any, short of 90 years. Her funeral took place yesterday afternoon and was quite largely attended. Her remains were interred in the cemetery.”

A search of census records from Westchester County shows several individuals named Storm or Storms who were slaveowners, including a Thomas Storm who had three slaves according to the 1790 census and one in the 1800 census. Another Storm is recorded as living in the Schaghticoke area, too. There is probably a familial connection which might have facilitated Sibina’s sale to the Vandenburghs. The possible buyer of Sibbie might have been one Lavinus (Livinus) Vandenburgh who is identified in census records as owning two slaves in 1790, but none after 1800. Another family connection may have played a role in her sale to the Schuylers; Philip S. Schuyler who purchased her was married to one Rachael Vandenburgh.

The Philip S. Schuyler who purchased Sibbie and brought her to The Flatts in Watervliet is not to be confused with his more famous cousin, General Philip Schuyler of Albany. Philip S. Schuyler was the son of Stephanus Schuyler and Engeltie Van Vechten. In 1810, Philip S. Schuyler is listed as owning four slaves there. One of those four slaves would have been Sibbie.

When the gradual abolition of slavery in New York State took full effect in 1827, Sibbie would have been emancipated. She remained with the Schuylers at The Flatts. By this time, she would have been between fifty-five and sixty-five years old. Perhaps starting a new live as a free woman of color would have been too great a challenge for her.

It appears that Sibbie stayed on as a servant to the “Widow Schuyler” listed in the Cemetery’s Single Grave Book. This “Widow Schuyler” is most likely Angelica Lansing, widow of Philip S. Schuyler’s son, Lucas. Lucas Van Vechtan Schuyler died in 1852 and Angelica lived with the extended Schuyler family at The Flatts as a widow until her own death in 1874. The name “Angelica Schuyler” appears frequently in city directories and other records from this period, but because of the tendency for some of Albany’s older prominent families to repeat names quite frequently (even withing the same generation), it’s difficult to say if any of these Angelicas are the same as the Angelica Lansing Schuyler at The Flatts.

By 1850, Sibbie’s health had begun to fail. The death notice stated that she had become “helpless” in her advanced age and that the Schuyler family cared for her “tenderly” for her final twelve years. The 1850 state census mentions her as one “Sylva Sabina” in the Schuyler household and gives her age as seventy-five. The 1860 federal census lists her as “Sibina Jackson,” colored, and gives her age as eighty. The origin of the surname Jackson is unknown at this time. It is the only instance where she is known by a last name and it is not known if she ever married. Also, it is not known if she was indeed eighty years old or this was an estimate of her age with her actual birth year being unknown. Her cause of death is also unknown, but it can be safely attributed to her advanced age.

By the time Sibbie died in 1862, the old slave burial grounds were not in use. The site where slaves had been buried was no longer part of The Flatts; it had been sold and redeveloped.

The Schuylers had a very old burial ground for the family close to their house, but by the 1860s, it was used infrequently. Lucas and Angelica were probably among the last buried there. In 1874, the same year Angelica Lansing Schuyler was buried there, publisher and historian Joel Munsell wrote that the old Flatts cemetery was in a neglected condition and that “the approach of streets and dwellings indicates an invasion at no distant day of this enclosure, and the removal of these bones and monuments to the cemetery over the way.” Some Schuylers, including Philip S. and Rachael, Lucas, and Angelica, were removed to new family plots at Albany Rural in the 1870s. In the 1920s, the remaining graves at The Flatts were indeed removed to Albany Rural and arranged behind the monument to General Schuyler in Lot 2, Section 29. Stephanus Schuyler and his wife, Engletie, are among those in Section 29

The original Schuyler Flatts burial ground
So, Sibbie, the last documented slave at The Flatts, was buried not buried at The Flatts which had been her home for six decades, but at the Albany Rural Cemetery. She was interred in Grave #1, Tier #1, Section 98 on the North Ridge.

Sibbie’s simple headstone was most likely purchased by the Schuyler family, perhaps by the Widow Schuyler. Over the years, the elements eroded the soft white marble so, when the inscription was transcribed to the Single Grave Book, her name was recorded as “Libbie.” With the misplacement of a G.A.R. marker, her grave became easily mistaken for a soldier’s and the grave of this former slave easily forgotten.

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Copyright 2017 Paula Lemire