“In this house and for my clients,” Lucille says, “I create warmth using American Colonial motifs with functional furniture, mixing New England antiques, painted Southern furniture, and the Baroque. This one is particularly well dressed homeowner Lucille Vuncannon is a decorator, her husband a builder/renovator, and their son a residential designer. Their rooms interpret the good old days as, perhaps, we wish they had been. These New England “Colonials” were modern, built with electric kitchens, ductwork, closets, and mid-century bathrooms. The designer was Boston architect Royal Barry Wills (1895–1962), the renowned proponent of adapting traditional New England house designs, especially Capes (but also garrisons, saltboxes, and churches). Initially a straightforward, gable-end block with a jetty or overhang at the second floor (making it a garrison house), it’s a solid postwar example. The house, built in 1949, shows how comforting the style can be. The house is, nevertheless, a mid-20th-century reproduction built in North Carolina’s Piedmont, not far from Raleigh. Given its historical motifs, the architect’s famous name, and this owner’s perfect pitch, no wonder this garrison Colonial looks so authentic. Young is a good example of those not included here.A formal garden ties the garrison Colonial to the garage and breezeway. Who served and/or lived in Albany but not as members of the garrison Not included here are the names of soldiers Of the soldiers who settled in Albany will appear here as their biographiesĪre added to the website. Some muster rolls are printed in the Annual Report of the State Historian. Foote, The American Independent Companies of the British Army, 1664-1764 (Ph.D. Pargellis, "The Four Independent Companies of New York," in Essays in Colonial History Presented to Charles McLean Andrews by His Students (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1931) and William A. The principal overview sources for these troops are: Stanley M. We continue to seek defining information for the garrison for the years after 1710. Third, to provide insights on the life of a soldier on garrison dutyĪlthough the fort was manned until the end of the French and Indian Wars, the garrison records trail seems to diminish during the peace of 1713-44. Of the soldiers on the growth and development of the city of Albany. The officers and men who served in the Albany garrison and became Provide access to the individual stories of This web page will serve several purposes. Pay lists, contractor bills, and city government records provide enough information to begin to talk about the soldiers and officers in a coherent way. Several sets of documentary resources permit us to begin to reconstitute the Albany garrison during the 1690s. At that point, outsiders became kin and integral members of the Albany community.Īlthough some information on these soldiers has been gleaned from traditional resources, we have found no rosters or pay lists until after New York became a royal colony in 1684. These contacts led to relationships with local women that sometimes blossemed into families. Officers and enlisted men frequently boarded in Albany homes. Some soldiers found ways to supplement their wages by working for local interests or for themselves.
Taken as a group, these newcomers were a major component of the colonial community's demographic mosaic.Ī roster of Colonel Richard Ingoldsby's company of Grenadiers in 1698 included a number of future Albany rsidents.įor the most part, garrison duty at Albany was not a full time occupation. A number of these families persisted for several generations (and even permanently) in Albany. However, several dozen garrison soldiers settled in the community before 1776 - establishing English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry families in Albany for the first time. Most of them moved on after their tenure at Albany. Several hundred young Britons came to the fort during the colonial period. These frontier troops were part of what has become known as the " Four Independent Companies of New York." These mostly foreign-born, "professionals" (meaning that soldiering was their prime activity) are distinct from the citizen-soldiers who served in the militia. They were, however, paid by the government of New York. The intersection of State and Pearl streets.Īfter New York became a royal colony in 1684 (and particularly after 1691), the fort was garrisoned by soldiers who were recruited in Europe and technically belonged to the British army. To that, smaller detachments of the Duke's soldiers were headquartered Sending numbers of soldiers to serve at the newįort built above what had become his settlement at Albany.