McKownville
Improvement Association
- the Van Alen map of the Great Lots 1817
In 1817, the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of
Albany commissioned a survey, of land in the Liberty of Albany
northwest of a street called Magazine Street, by the surveyor Evert
Van Alen (or Allen). He was instructed to lay out lots significantly
larger than those the City had sold in prior years, in the areas
east of that same street, and these (and others farther west, surveyed
later) came to be called the "Great Lots", comprising areas 16
chains wide (1056 feet), many of them rectangular containing 57.4
acres, with others 40 to 47 acres, and some smaller. Van Alen
completed his map "of 27 lots westerly of Magazine Street" in
August, and it was registered in the Clerk's Office 13th September
1817.
The parts of McKownville occupied by the southern half of the
University, the upper parts of Norwood, Glenwood and Parkwood
Streets (the
"LaGrange lots"), and the area of Providence, Mercer and
Warren Streets (the "west Fuller
lots") are located in the seven Great Lots in the
southeasterly part of this map, bounded to the southwest by the old (pre-1871) Corporation
line.
Evert Van Alen map of 27 lots westerly of Magazine Street, 1817.
Original in the Albany
County Hall of Records. (click on the image to view
enlarged)
The City sold most of these lots early in 1818 (Chamberlain's lists of
Leases and Releases page 122), to some of the more prosperous
citizens, obtaining significant money from the sales, as much as
$1000 to $2000 for some of the lots in the southeastern area (see the conveyances in the list below).
The area divided mostly has the characteristically poor sandy soils
of the Albany Pine Bush, and excluded the bottom lands with better
soil along the main creek draining this area, Patroon Creek, which
is marked on Van Alen's map as reserved to (or perhaps previously
sold to) Stephen Van Rensselaer (III), the Patroon of the Manor of
Rensselaerwyck; he also purchased three lots (11, 12, and 27) the
day the map was registered, which gave him ownership of the full
course of Patroon Creek and land adjacent. Most of the other lot
sale deeds, and the documents in the original record book of the
conveyances, reserve "the rights to the use of the water on the said
premises" for the Trustees of the Albany Water Works (an example). These exclusions indicate
that the City government was already by 1817 considering the upper
Patroon Creek watershed as a source of water for the expanding urban
area of Albany, which was eventually achieved, but not until 1850.
The main access to this area was clearly intended to be the
centrally located axis of Lydius Street (later Madison Avenue), but
this never became completed in this area as the intended wide and
continuous feature. The nearby Great Western Turnpike
was already a busy thoroughfare; traffic to Schenectady had already
abandoned the old Kings Highway through this area and gone to the
Albany-Schenectady Turnpike opened in 1803, passing just off the map
to the northeast. Washington Street (later Avenue) became the other
preferred access from the City. After the Albany Country
Club purchased in 1913-17 land both north and south of the
line of Lydius Street (northern parts of lots 13-17, and most of
lots 3-5), public access to this street was completely blocked here
between the City and areas to the northwest. Fuller Road was not
constructed until about 1850, along the eastern edge of lot 18, a
sandy track 33 feet wide; this continued diagonally across lot 6 to
the Water Works and new dam across Patroon Creek.
The Evert Van Alen 1817 map redrawn from the dimension and
orientation data shown on the original map, and reoriented N up.
(click on the image to view enlarged)
The map includes the locations of two properties rented
by the City prior to the year of the survey. These are the land and
structures of City-owned hostelries on the old road to Schenectady,
the King's Highway (or Albany Path). The location of this old
roadway is shown on the map, likely accurately given the precision
of Van Alen's survey. This narrow track through the Pine Bush was
busy up to 1803, but after that most of this traffic went to the new
Turnpike. The deeds for lots through which this old road passed all
contain the wording: "Excepting and reserving.... the use
of the publick road or highway which intersects the said lot(s)
untill the said road shall have been altered from being conveyed
by this Indenture". Some repairs of the King's Highway were
organized by the City at times in the 18th century, but this legal
construct in these conveyances suggests it was intended to abandon
it as a public highway. Similarly, the sale of the lots containing
the two hostelries implies that they too were abandoned, as city
owned facilities at least, to whatever the new lot owners wished to
do with them after the leases expired.
southeast
corner of Van Alen 1817 map (click on the image to view
enlarged)
One of the rented properties shown (image above) is the inn/tavern
known as the Five
Mile House (up to 1808 rented by William McKown), marked on
this map "Lewis" "25 acres" and "Lease expires May 1st 1719"; the
date surely a drafting error, for 1819. The deed and conveyance for lots 14
and 15, in which this rented area falls, both state that the 25
acres are rented to S. Longyear and S. Cogswell, lease expiring in
1819. Perhaps the Lewis on the map, encountered by the surveyor, was
the barman employed by the lessees or, like McKown twelve years earlier,
they were subletting the place.
Also on this part of the map is a small 2.6 acre area of lot 13
adjacent to the Great Western Turnpike marked J Warren; James Warren
is listed in the conveyance for lot
13 as having been previously conveyed (not leased) that area.
As this was at the place where on leaving Albany the first tollgate was
located (until 1849), it is possible this was the property of
the tollgate keeper. However, the lot sale list
suggests it had been released(?) to John Tayler by 1819.
northwest
corner of Van Alen 1817 map (click on the image to view
enlarged)
The other rented property also contained a tavern and inn, located
in lot 12 toward the northwestern end of the map; this place was
known as the Verrebergh, or Seven Mile House, and while the map
shows a notation of "Lease for 40 acres expires 1824", the lessee
name is not given. In 1804 this property of the City of Albany was
listed as leased to Sybrant Douw, with his lease expiring in 1812.
There is another copy of the 1817 Van Alen map in the collection at
the Albany County Hall of Records; it shows "Douws" in the
annotation for this place (see left image below).
Otherwise this copy mostly is identical to the original, with the
exception of later inked notations in lots 20, 21, 22, and 10 that
they were the property of T[homas] Gould, or his estate, obtained
from John Tayler in the cases of lots 20 and 21. For the other City
hostelry, the Five Mile House, the notation of a "Spring" is
given at the nearby head of the eastern branch of the Krum Kill (see
right image below).
Conveyances and/or deeds from the Corporation
of the City of Albany for the Great lots in and near the area which
became McKownville
Lot 1 - Thomas Gould; book 9 of
conveyances p226; deed book 24
p457-8
Lot 2 - James Gibbons; book 9 of
conveyances p212;
Lot 3 - Thomas Herring; deed book 124
p70-2
Lot 4 - John Tayler; book
9 of conveyances p206; deed book 25
p2-4
Lots 5, 6 - Spencer Stafford; deed book 24
p400-1
Lot 13 - Charles D Cooper; book 9 of
conveyances p204
Lots 14, 15 - John Tayler; book
9 of conveyances p206; deed book 25
p2-4
Lots 16, 17 - R Westerlo & John J Evertsen (foreclosed in 1826);
- later (1846) purchased by
Jeanette LaGrange, wife of Christian P LaGrange; deed book 118 p149-50
Lots 18, 19 - Abel French & James McKown; book 9 of conveyances p210;
deed book
62 p33-5
Lots 20, 21 - John Tayler; book
9 of conveyances p206; deed book 25
p2-4
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