veral washouts by the Hudson River spring floods, and a final severe one in 1617, the Dutch moved on to the mainland and built Fort Orange, which in 1970 was partially excavated before an exit from I-787 was placed on top of it.
While Fort Nassau was abandoned, the island became the home for several farms; the first called Rensselaerburgh was leased in 1630. Other tenants on the island were Brant Peelen, Adriaen Vanderdonck, first Sherriff in the Dutch colony and first promoter of democracy in the new world, Cornelis Segerse, and Martin Gerrittse Van Bergen. The farm sites may also be available on the island for archeological exploration.
By the 18th century, the island was called Patroon’s Island and was leased to John Bradstreet. Upon the death of the Patroon, the land became the property of his wife Catherine who may have renamed it Westerlo after her new husband Dominie Eilardus Westerlo in 1775. By the 19th century it not only was producing crops but two ironworks occupied the northern part.
In 1909 Albany became the first city to have a public airport when part of the island became an airfield called Quenton Roosevelt Field (after the president’s son who was killed in WW I) and famous aviators such as Amelia Earhart, James Doolittle, Clarence Chamberlain, Glenn Curtiss and Charles Lindbergh landed here. Lindbergh landed his “Spirit of St. Louis” at 2:06 PM on July 27, 1927, shortly after his historic flight to Paris, and was greeted on the island by 10,000 people.
Curtiss on May 29, 1910, left Albany and flew to Manhattan down the Hudson making the first true cross country flight in the United States.
In 1931 the Albany Port Authority was created and filling and dredging began until the Port of Albany, as we know it today, was transformed.
Global Companies’ plans to build a facility to heat crude oil at the Port of Albany is in the general vicinity of where Albany historian John Wolcott has determined that the original Fort Nassau is located. Wolcott was also responsible for finding the remains of the original Fort Orange in the early 1970s.
It is imperative that a complete archeological excavation takes place on the entire parcel that Global Companies’ is proposing. Because of the physical dimensions of the site, the building, stockade, moat and breastworks and the overall size of the Fort, a complete excavations is warranted, not a sample size, or Phase II survey.
A complete excavation of the site is needed to determine if this most important archeological site, and beginning of Albany’s European history, can be revealed and plans made to preserve as much as possible if the boiling plant is approved.
It is ironic that Fort Nassau would now be newsworthy as it was also in January, four hundred years ago, that Fort Nassau was being built and setting the stage for the Dutch occupation of New York and the beginning of Dutch principles of tolerance and pluralism which make up the foundation of American democracy.
It is also ironic that the celebration of Albany’s four hundred anniversary would be marked by its ultimate destruction by an oil boiling plant.