10/11/2022
I actually live in Upstate New York about an hour from Kingston. I live in one of the other cities mentioned as a capital in the article.
True story I'm a 13th generation Dutch settler of what is today called New York.
In the 1650s one of my relatives was scalped in Kingston at the Esopus Massacre and their grave memorial marker is literally kitty corner from this Senate House at the Dutch Reformed Church.
True story this is the oldest unchanged four corner intersection in our country.
All four corners have the original building that stood there circa 1790s.
ANSWER to yesterday’s 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸DAILY QUIZ🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
NAME the state capital burned by the British following the Battles of Saratoga in October of 1777.
KINGSTON had just been made the Capital of New York in September when nearly all its buildings were burnt to the ground in retaliation for the British defeat at Saratoga. The British sailed up the Hudson River from New York City to Kingston, located on the Hudson, 91 miles north of NYC and set afire fields and buildings in Kingston on October 16, 1777.
Many of the men were fighting the British elsewhere so most of the residents abandoned their homes ahead of the arrival of the British fleets sailing up the Hudson. Some brave colonists were able to save key documents and ledgers of the county and new state capital. Within a few hours, the British had burned down over 300 buildings and left Kingston in ruins. However, the resilient Kingston residents soon returned, and quickly rebuilt the city.
State government quickly evacuated to Hurley, then Poughkeepsie, where it remained until the capital was permanently moved to Albany in 1795.
During my research I discovered a book written in 1884 by the granddaughter of Rachel DuMont, who turned fifteen on the day the British burnt her home and many others in Kingston. The title is “Rachel DuMont, A Brave Little Maid of the Revolution” by Mary Westbrook. The story captures Mary’s grandmother’s tale of her experience that day. It was written for girls and boys and older people, according to the title page. The wording of the story is dated, but quaintly preserves a personal account of that day.
Pictured is the simple stone house in Kingston where New York's first Senate met in the fall of 1777.