05/24/2023
Schuyler Mansion was a home to one of the founding fathers of the United States, Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general and a U.S. senator. He and his wife Catherine raised eight children in this elegant Georgian-style house, which they completed in 1765 on an 80-acre tract of land, about half a mile outside the city of Albany.
Their daughter Elizabeth married Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, in the mansion’s parlor in 1780. The mansion also witnessed many events of military and political significance during the war. Philip Schuyler operated a network of spies out of his home and survived a failed attempt to kidnap him by British loyalists in 1781. The mansion also hosted distinguished guests such as George and Martha Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the Marquis de Chastellux, and James Madison.
After Philip Schuyler’s death in 1804, none of Schuyler’s surviving children wanted the mansion, as they had already established themselves elsewhere, so the house became a home to a number of local residents and even hosted a presidential wedding, when Millard Fillmore married his second wife Caroline Carmichael in 1826. Starting 1886 the mansion was used as an orphanage for children under 7, and, when the orphanage ran out of space, was sold to the state of New York in 1911 to be opened to the public as a state historic site.
