Long before the first shots of rebellion echoed at Lexington and Concord, Albany occupied a position of extraordinary strategic importance in colonial North America. Situated at the head of navigation on the Hudson River, where ancient trails branched westward into Iroquois country and northward toward Canada along the Lake George–Lake Champlain corridor, the city was less a sleepy Dutch trading post than a nerve center of empire. When the colonies broke with Britain, Albany's geographic centrality transformed it into something no other American city quite became: the logistical heart of the northern war, a staging ground for invasion, a bulwark against counter-invasion, and a political crucible where the Revolution's survival was debated, organized, and very nearly lost. To understand how the United States won its independence, one must understand what happened in and around Albany between 1773 and 1783.
PEOPLE
Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler
Schuyler Family Matriarch, Estate Manager, Patriot Supporter
Philip Schuyler
Continental Army Major General, Landowner, Continental Congress Delegate
Alexander Hamilton
Continental Army Officer, Washington's Aide-de-Camp, Treasury Secretary
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
Schuyler Family, Wife of Alexander Hamilton, Patriot Supporter
KEY EVENTS
Albany Becomes Northern Department Headquarters
Jun 1775
Albany Stages the American Invasion of Canada
Jul 1775
Albany Supports Fort Stanwix Defense
Aug 1777
Frontier Raids Threaten the Mohawk Valley
Jan 1778
Schuyler Organizes Northern Supply Lines
Aug 1775
Catherine Schuyler Burns the Wheat Fields
Sep 1777
STORIES
MODERN VOICE
Where Every Road Led During the Revolution
Albany does not get the recognition it deserves in Revolutionary War history. People know Saratoga, they know Valley Forge, they know Yorktown. But they do not always understand that Albany was the re...
HISTORICAL VOICE
The General's House That Ran a War
Philip Schuyler's mansion in Albany was a private home that functioned as a military headquarters. From its rooms, Schuyler organized the supply lines, troop movements, and intelligence networks that ...