Albany City Stock - New York 1852

Beautiful certificate from the Albany City Stock issued in 1852. This historic document was printed by Rawdon,Wright,and Hatch and has an ornate border around it with various vignettes. This item has the signatures of the City's Mayor, William Parmelee and Chamberlain and is over 157 years old. Minor ink burns.


Certificate Vignette


Certificate Vignette

In 1609, when explorer Henry Hudson reached the end of the river that bears his name, he found a thriving community of Mohican Indians on the site of present-day Albany. In 1624 Dutch settlers established a permanent trading community there to replace one that had burned ten years earlier, and they named it Fort Orange. The British captured the fort in 1664, renaming it Albany in honor of England's James, Duke of York and Albany. The resident Dutch were permitted to retain their own language and customs. Albany became a fur-trading center and a residence for owners of the ships that carried produce down the Hudson River to the Atlantic and on to the West Indies.

In 1754 Benjamin Franklin presented his Plan of Union, a forerunner of the U.S. Constitution, at Albany, earning the city its nickname of "Cradle of the Union." Following the American Revolution, the city served as a supply center for settlers heading west. Albany was declared the capital of New York State in 1797. Banking, iron manufacturing, and lumber trading enriched the city's economy during the nineteenth century and, with the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the creation of the New York Central Railroad in 1853, Albany became an important commercial center as well.

By the early 1900s supplies of iron ore and lumber from the Adirondacks were dwindling, and Albany's industries declined. At the same time, the state of New York became increasingly important in national politics, with Albany nurturing such prominent figures as Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Thomas E. Dewey, and Nelson A. Rockefeller. By the 1980s government had become the city's chief activity.

Albany, despite its reliance on government as its primary economic sector, was affected by the economic downturn of the late 1980s and early 1990s that resulted from a decline in the high technology sector. Gradually resurfacing through increased efforts at economic development and downtown restoration and beautification, the city recovered by the turn of the century. Republican George E. Pataki was first elected governor of New York in 1995 and was reelected to a third term in November 2002. Pataki, referred to as a catalyst for increasing New York's presence in the high technology industry, committed state funds totaling more than a billion dollars for research centers in support of this industry. Albany became the site for one of just six of these centers throughout the state, and the resulting Albany NanoTech, a university-based research facility that opened in 2003, promptly drew such high technology leaders as chip equipment manufacturer International Sematech. The first of many such partnerships, including those with Tokyo Electron Ltd. and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), the Sematech deal was such a boon for the region that Governor Pataki stated that it " . . . could be the most important thing to happen to the upstate economy since the Erie Canal."

Historical Information: New York State Museum, Cultural Education Center, Room 3023, Albany, NY 12230; telephone (518)474-5877

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William Parmelee 1846 to 1848 and 1854 to 1856. He was a Lawyer and also served as City Attorney, Judge and Recorder.

Son of Elias and Fanny (Fitch) Parmelee, was born at Lansing- burgh, N. Y., November 28, 1806. His parents emigrated from Connecticut to Lansingburgh, about the year 1800, and were of English descent. He was fitted for college in Lansingburgh, under the instruction of the late Hon. G% A. Simmons, of Keese- ville, 1ST. Y., who was an excellent teacher and scholar.

William entered the class of 1825, at the begining of the Sophomore year, in the fall of 1822. During his Junior year he was compelled by sickness, to leave college for several months, when on his return, he joined the class of 1826, at the commencement of its Senior year.

After graduating, he studied law about two years with Mr. Simmons, in Keeseville, and spent a year in the office of the late Samuel Stevens, of Albany, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court in 1830. He commenced the practice of law in Albany, where he resided until his death.

In 1836 he was appointed City Attorney by the Common Council. In 1839 he was appointed a Judge of the County of Albany, from which bench, in 1840, he was appointed Recorder of the city of Albany, and ex-officio a member of the Common Council, and remained in that office until 1846, when he was elected Mayor of the city. In. 1847 he was elected Judge of the County of Albany, under the judiciary act of that year, making Judges elective, and held that office till 1852. In 1855 he was

again elected Mayor, which office he held at the time of his death, which occurred March 18, 1856. His disease was cancer of the tongue. His sickness was painful, but he retained his mental vigor through the whole of it; and died at last from exhaustion of the vital powers, quietly and happily.

The following is an extract from the Albany " Evening Journal" of that date.

"The Hon. William Parmelee, Mayor of our city, who has for more than two months suffered painfully and patiently, and with the assurance of his medical attendants, confirmed by his own convictions, that his malady must terminate fatally, expired at one o'clock to-day.

Although this event has been daily, and almost hourly anticipated throughout the city, it will fall heavily not only upon the hearts of those connected with him, but upon a community with which he has been so long, and in so many relations connected.1'

In June, 1838, he married Miss Margaretta Wright, of Baltimore, Md., who died in December, 1842, leaving a daughter, Margaretta, now the wife of Henry Homans, Esq., of San Francisco, Gal.

In November, 1848, he married Miss Helen L. Beck, daughter of T. Eomeyn Beck, of Albany, by whom he had two children, William, who died in 1856, aged about three years, and Harriet C., who resides with her mother's sister, Mrs. Pierre Van Cort- landt, at the Manor House, Croton Landing, N. Y.

Mrs. Parmelee died in November, 1863, and is buried in Cald- well, N". Y, on the west shore of Lake George, to which place the remains of Mr. Parmelee had been removed.

Mrs. Helen L. Parmelee was a fine writer. Since her death, a volume of her Poems, Eeligious and Miscellaneous, has been published, which evince a truly poetical genius ; a refined and highly cultivated taste ; a beautiful souvenir for surviving friends.

A Biographical Sketch of the Class of 1826, Yale College By Yale University Class of 1826, Selden Haines