Press

ALBANY – On June 11 the State Museum will unveil a new exhibition, Beneath the City: An Archaeological Perspective of Albany, which shows how archaeological research has led to a more complete understanding of the history and development of one of North America’s oldest European cities.

Through archaeological research stemming from scientific excavations over the past 40 years, the exhibition connects visitors to the everyday lives of Albany’s past residents. Objects found during excavations beneath the city’s streets, sidewalks, backyards and buildings, will be on display, revealing information about the people who created and used them. Although documents are important historical records, they are most often associated with the literate and wealthy. Beneath the City provides insight into the lives of ordinary people – some very poor—through the things they threw away or left behind.

The exhibition provides lessons about Albany’s past through the exploration of the 17th-century Dutch settlement, an 18th-century rum distillery, late 18th-early 19th-century commercial activities, and the 19th-early 20th century county almshouse. Beneath the City is located in the Charles L. Fisher Gallery, dedicated to the Museum’s former curator of historic archaeology, who planned the exhibition but died in February before he could see it completed.

The excavations resulted from the development and expansion of Albany. Federal and state laws require archaeological exploration prior to most major construction.

A timeline in the exhibition traces Albany’s earliest history back to 1614 when a post was established on Castle Island. Continuous settlement began in 1624 with the establishment of Fort Orange, near the present-day junction of Routes 787 and 20. The town of Beverwyck, which grew adjacent to the fort, became Albany after the English peacefully took over the Dutch colony in 1664. As a Dutch settlement among Native Americans and then a Dutch settlement under English rule, Albany is a distinctive American city with a unique heritage.

One of the most striking elements of the exhibition are two seven-foot diameter fermentation vats that were once part of a rum distillery built in 1758-59 near the Hudson River, just outside the city limits.
Archaeologists discovered the vats and other remains of the colonial rum distillery in 2001during
excavations at the location of a proposed city parking garage in Quackenbush Square. The two vats, among 21found at the site, were treated at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum Conservation Laboratory in Vergennes, Vt., through funds donated by Alan Goldberg and George McNamee. The vats illustrate the story of the rum industry in colonial Albany, which was a vital part of the economy. Rum was an important element of colonial social life and a favorite of soldiers. The distillery was built outside the city limits to avoid a city ordinance that prohibited selling rum to soldiers within the city boundaries.

Fort Orange, built in 1624, was the most important archaeological discovery in Albany, chronicled in the exhibition. Dr. Paul. R. Huey and a team of archaeologists identified the remains of a moat, stone wall and four houses they uncovered in 1971during excavations prior to the construction of Interstate 787. Before this discovery, scholars did not believe evidence of the fort or other early Albany sites still existed.

Another widely publicized excavation, which led to important new archaeological information, was at the Albany County Almshouse site. Archaeologists excavated the site in 2002 prior to the construction of a medical research facility on New Scotland Avenue. In existence from 1826 until 1926, the Almshouse cared for the very poor who needed temporary public assistance due to injuries, illness, old age or hard luck. Scientists studied the 1,205 individual remains that were excavated, before they were reburied at Albany Rural Cemetery. Facial reconstructions were completed for nine of the burials, restoring features to an urban underclass that was once unseen, and providing a way to tell individual stories of people unknown to history. Some of those reconstructions are on exhibit.

Another significant excavation was at the Lutheran Church Lot (c. 1670s-1820) on Pearl Street, carried out in 1998. Archaeologists unexpectedly uncovered the remains of several skeletons not removed when an early cemetery was relocated, including that of a woman whose face was reconstructed from a cast of her skull. Now part of this exhibition, it was formerly on display in the Museum lobby. Objects from the site, dating from the late 1600s to the mid-1700s, include a coffin and a delft wall tile depicting a church.

Artifacts from China were discovered at the site where Stewart Dean’s house and well were once located. Dean was a merchant and Revolutionary War hero. After the war, in 1785, he sailed to China in a ship he built that became the second U.S. vessel to enter the important trading port of Canton. Dean’s waterfront property was excavated in 1999 prior to the construction of the SUNY parking garage off Broadway. Objects uncovered from the well include an extremely rare sandware teapot with a Chinese cartouche and an ivory cricket cage from China, where people often carried crickets for good luck.

Beneath the City is made possible with major support from The Bender Family Foundation,
Alan Goldberg, George McNamee, Hartgen Archeological Associates, the Office of the Governor of New York State, the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department. Started
in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection
survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, it is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5
p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.