Schuylerville

Schuylerville was built in 1720 on the Saratoga patent. After building about 20 houses around the Fish Kill and fortifying the site, Schuyler’s settlement was destroyed by a French and Indian raiding party in 1745. Visiting the area in 1749, Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm noted that the grain fields and meadows “lay waste” on account of the war.

Philip Schuyler (1733-1804), a resident of Albany and champion of the Champlain Canal, rebuilt his family’s estate in 1760. Schuyler’s “farm at Saratoga” as it was known, was a diversified plantation participating in the international “triangular trade” that brought raw materials from the colonies to England, slaves to the West Indies, and sugar and rum to the colonies. Schuyler’s advocacy for the Champlain Canal was largely motivated by the desire to expand his own economic interests. The route of the original Champlain Canal crossed through the heart of Schuyler’s estate.

In the post-revolutionary period, industry grew and thrived along the powerful falls of the Fish Creek and along the Champlain Canal. By 1831, Saratoga was renamed Schuylerville to honor the family and the man who put it on the map. Immigrants flooded into Schuylerville throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, beginning with the Scots-Irish indentured servants of General Schuyler, followed by the Irish who came to dig the Old Champlain Canal, French Canadians who ventured south to work in the mills; and the Italians who came to build the Barge Canal in the early 1900s. Many other immigrants also flocked to Schuylerville, coming by canal or rail to find work in the mills.

After a period of decline in the post-mill era, Schuylerville is enjoying a renaissance, marked by the development of the Hudson Crossing Bi-County Educational Park at Lock 5, and the participation of the Old Saratoga on the Hudson Project in community revitalization efforts. Yet each year, on the first Sunday of August, a parade passes in sight of the Saratoga Battle Monument, Schuyler House, the Old Champlain Canal, and the Hudson River to commemorate the American Victory here at Saratoga in 1777 and the turning point of the American Revolution. Click here for parade information.

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Schuylerville

Latitude: 43.1000755 Longitude: -73.5817825 Elevation: 127 ft

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