visitor up State
Street will note the beautiful and commanding spire of "St. Paul." The
Cathedral is also a grand structure. The population of Albany is now
100,000, and its growth is due to three causes: First, the Capitol
was removed from New York to Albany in 1798. Then followed two great
enterprises, ridiculed at the time by every one as the _Fulton Folly
and Clinton's Ditch_--in other words, steam navigation, 1807, and the
Erie Canal, 1825. Its name was given in honor of the Duke of Albany,
although it is still claimed by some of the oldest inhabitants that,
in the golden age of those far-off times, when the good old burghers
used to ask the welfare of their neighbors, the answer was "All
bonnie," and hence the name of the hill-crowned city.

* * *

Canals, long winding, ope a watery flight,
And distant streams and seas and lakes unite;
From fair Albania toward the fading sun,
Back through the midland lengthening channels run.

_Joel Barlow._

* * *

To condense from H. P. Phelps's careful handbook of "Albany and the
Capitol:" in 1614 a stockaded trading-house was erected on an island
below the city, well defended for trading with the Indians. In 1617
another was built on the hill, near Norman's Kill. The West Indian
Company erected a fort in 1623 near the present landing of the Day
Line. In 1664 the province fell into the hands of the English and the
name was changed to Albany. In 1686 it was incorporated into a city.
It was the meeting place of the Constitutional Congress 1754,
the proposed Constitution of which, however, was never ratified.
Washington visited it in 1783. The Erie Canal was opened in 1825,
a railroad to Schenectady in 1832, the _Hudson River_ in 1851, a
consolidated road to Buffalo in 1853, and the _Susquehanna Railroad_
to Binghamton in 1869. State Street at one time was said to be the
widest city thoroughfare in the country, after Pennsylvania Avenue in
Washington. The English and Dutch Churches and other public buildings,
once in the midst of it, but long since removed, account for its
extra width. The State Capitol has a commanding site. The old Capitol
building was completed in 1808. The corner-stone of the present
building was laid June 24, 1871, and it has been occupied since
January 7, 1879. According to Phelps, "the size of the structure
impresses the beholder at once. It is 300 feet north and south by 400
feet east and west, and with the porticoes will co