when did albany became capital of new york
History of Albany, New York Henry Hudson first claimed this area for the Dutch in 1609. Fur traders established the first European settlement in 1614; Albany was officially chartered as a city in 1686. It became the capital of New York in 1797. It is one of the oldest surviving settlements from the original thirteen colonies, and the longest continuously chartered city in the United States. Modern Albany was founded as the Dutch trading posts of Fort Nassau in 1614 and Fort Orange in 1624; the fur trade brought in a population that settled around Fort Orange and founded a village called Beverwijck. The English took over and renamed the town Albany in 1664, in honor of the then Duke of Albany, the future James II of England and James VII of Scotland. The city was officially chartered in 1686 with the issuance of the Dongan Charter, the oldest effective city charter in the nation and possibly the longest-running instrument of municipal government in the Western Hemisphere.[1]
Albany Plan The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 45) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several Northern and Mid-Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France. The Plan represented one of multiple early attempts to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary defense and other general important purposes."[1]