City of Bethel, CT Website
City of Bethel, CT Website
In the year 1609, Henry Hudson established a Dutch claim to the river valley that would bear his name, and there by enabling, thirty years later, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a prosperous diamond merchant from Hasselt, Holland, to purchase 700,000 acres along both sides of the river and to establish a Manor of Rensselaerswyck.
By 1632, the first east bank settlement, being among the earliest in America and known as DeLaet’s Burg, gathered at the foot of DeLaet’s Mill Creek and Waterfalls. And by the year 1655, DeLaet’s Burg would come to be known as “t’Greyn Bos” or green woods and later Greenbush and continue to grow around one of Kiliaen’s younger son’s home, Crailo, such that, by 1815 it was incorporated as the Village of Greenbush.
The first American railroads found it necessary to link new western lands to the established east, and thus in 1866, the Livingston Avenue, (Albany) bridge was completed, directly joining the shores of the Hudson at East Albany, thereby encouraging development of the lands north of Greenbush.
During the last decade of the 19th Century, a period of unparalleled American growth and affluence, the Rensselaer County Village of Greenbush and East Albany prospered to the extent that their boundaries become less meaningful and their citizens sought a more efficient means of governing.
Grown and prosperity in adjacent municipalities, demonstrated by the erection of the Town of Colonies, and the proposed incorporation of the city of Watervliet, from the Village of West Troy, the Centennial of the State Capital and construction of the new Capitol Building at Albany and the completion of the Rensselaer County Court House in Troy, encouraged in three Villages to reform and seek a unified municipal structure.
During the 120th Session of the New York State Legislature, at the Old Capitol in Albany, Assemblyman George Anderson of Castleton, in consultation with certain Village officials introduced on the 18th day of February, 1897, in the House of Assembly, “An Act to Incorporate the City of Rensselaer”.
Governor Frank S. Black of Troy did sign and enact on the 23rd day of April, 1897, Chapter 359 and thereby grant to the people a law erecting a new municipality to be known as the “City of Rensselaer”.
The first meeting of the Common Council of the City of Rensselaer was held on Tuesday evening April 27, 1897.
Charles S. Allen, Mayor of the City of Rensselaer called the special session the Common Council for the transitions of general business for Tuesday night April 27th, 1897 at 8:30 p.m.
To the Honorable Board of Common Council of the City of Rensselaer:
Gentlemen, I have the honor to open the first meeting of the Common Council with a gavel which was loaned to me by Mr. Agustus B. Kiernan his gavel has a history with it. It was presented to the father of Mr. Kiernan by Speaker James W. Heusted May 15, 1876. It was used in closing the final session in the Old Capitol and in calling to order the first session in the new Capitol and now used in opening the first session of the Common Council of this our new City of Rensselaer.
The City of Rensselaer at one time was Three Villages: Greenbush, East Albany and Bath.
http://www.rensselaerny.gov/Home.aspx
Copyright 2010
