June 6 Schuyler Sites

So today we learned about Maj. Gen. Phillip Schuyler. He was an important army general in the American Revolution. He had two estates, Albany and what was then Saratoga; we had the privilege to visit both historical site among a few others. We started our day like normal, reading blogs and such in Hart 206. When we finished with this, we ventured into Albany. There was a slight mix up in the scheduling, but we still got our tour through Schuyler Mansion. It was a beautiful house, it was definitely meant to impress people. The picture below shows a diorama of what the Schuyler Estate looked like in the 1700's. The Albany estate was an 80 acre farm, the other estate was a 2000 acre farm. The house was built in a Georgian Manor style which was English and unusual for the time; most of the homes were built in a Dutch style. Phillip Schuyler married Catharine Van Renselear, who came from money herself. Their family was well off to say the least. The Schuyler's gave birth to fifteen children, though only eight of them survived;they lost two sets of twins and a set of triplets. This in itself was unusual, multiples were not very common back then, and for Catharine to survive these births and give birth to more children was very unusual.   

Diorama of Schuyler Estate 

Fireplace

 The fireplace in the picture above really stuck out to me. I enjoyed the style that it was carved and the inner lining of marble. To me it was a grand accent to the room.The picture below shows windows that had a scene painted on them. The historical society had this scene painted on the windows to replicate the view of Albany from the second story of the house. I though this was amazing, considering what Albany looks like now just outside the borders of this estate. For me it is hard to picture Albany with nothing but Farmland and rich settlers.

A scene that was painted on the windows to replicate the original scenery 

Clothes that Catharine would have worn

 I enjoyed the tour of the mansion a lot and if I get the chance I would like to visit this site when they are having one of their events. When we left the Schuyler Mansion, we venture to Schuylerville. We took a pit stop along the way to eat lunch. We ate at a building called the block house. It was a replica of a fort from the battle of Saratoga. Though this tour was not planned, since we were already there we got to talk about the battle of Saratoga and even learn some of the history. Lunch was enjoyable, we even got a chocolate chip cookie to go along with our sugar cookies. So after lunch we continued our venture to Schuylerville. We arrived at the house a little early so we sat on the back porch to wait for the next guided tour. I thought it was funny that the workers referred to each other as rangers, i had never heard that before. I thought the tour was enjoyable. We were not able to take pictures inside the house; and our tour guide was intense, but it was still enjoyable. Something was off about the house though. I'm not exactly sure what was off, but something didn't feel authentic.

Schuyler estate in Schuylerville

Schuyler House

 When we left the Schuyler house, we took an unplanned detour to the Saratoga monument. This building was stunning. Almost everyone climbed the 188 steps to the top, but me and Rose stayed down; Michael even did it with his sprained ankle. I was impressed. I stayed on the bottom and talked to the park ranger. We talked about school, and our class that we are taking, he was a very nice man, though I regret to say that I do not know his name. We finished at the monument and continued on our adventure. Next stop, Hudson River Dredging.

Saratoga Monument

So if my computer was cooperating, I would have a picture of the machines used in the dredging, but that is not the case. The dredging is one of the biggest cleanups in the United States. It is the clean up of PCB's that were dumped in the river from GE back in the early 1900's. The workers work 24 hours a day for a period of time because there is a limited window in which they can work. Barges are brought in to put the waste in and the waste is sent to Texas to a hazardous waste landfill that can handle the PCB's. All in all we had a really good day, though it was a very long day. I enjoyed each stop that we took. Next week is going to be an adventure since we will be staying overnight in Newburgh.