Cuyler Reynolds Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. That many hundreds of persons have shown their personal interest in the publication of these volumes is sufficient evidence that it is a deserving field in historical literature. But this is by no means the limitation, for these family sketches will be a matter of daily reference by persons throughout this country, and thus they will lie rendering a proper service, warranting the painstaking labor expended in their preparation. As time goes on, a work of this nature will be considered as a godsend.<br><br>But aside from individual interest in family matters and the consequent inclusion of historical information, there is a special and pertinent value in this work, for instead of being an affair which some would heedlessly consider lightly, the effect on the student of these matters is known to be an inspiration, because through understanding the hardships and the successes of our ancestors, and reading of worthy feats, one certainly becomes imbued with an esprit de corps which builds character, and good results invariably follow.<br><br>In the times when the French and Indian wars were engaging the attention of every colonist from Maine to Florida, who never was able to rest easily at home lest the savage pillage his house within the high palisade, the settlements near Albany, although protected in the crude fashion of that day, were the subject of attack time and time again. This was, in part, because the vicinity of. Albany was the seat of settlement of several tribes of continually warring Indians, principally the Mohawks and Mohicans. Not only were the bergs of Albany and Schenectady surrounded in entirety by stockadoes, and the villagers warned not to build outside of them, but the residents erected their dwellings for defense, much in the manner of individual forts, by providing their walls, massive in those days, with portholes through which the musket could be directed at the enemy; and such houses, although rare, are still standing t