Joel Munsell in his “Men And Things in Albany Two Centuries Ago” (1876) described the now-long-gone historic house at the corner of South Pearl and State:
“What is now South Pearl street was only a narrow irregular lane leading to the Lutheran church and its burial ground adjoining on the south, bounded by the open Rutten kil, and all below, beyond the stockades, was called the plain. A gate swung across this lane at State street, and the house that stood on the lower corner is represented to have been elaborately finished compared with most of the houses of the time, being wainscotted and ornamented with tiles and carvings . . . Before Pearl street was opened to its present width, the corner house, removed for that purpose, was long known as Lewis’s tavern. In one of these twin houses Madame Schuyler, the American Lady of Mrs. Grant, resided, during the time her house at the Flats was being rebuilt, and in one of them Gen. Philip Schuyler of the revolution is said to have been born. The committee of safety held its sessions here also. The street was for many years known as Washington street.
“The house now remaining on that corner is regarded as the oldest edifice in the city. There formerly ran across the front of these two houses, under the eaves, in iron letters, the words Anno Domini; and below, over the first story, the figures, also in iron, 1667. When the upper house was taken away, the word ANNO was left on the house still standing, and remains there now conspicuously; and I well remember when the figures were there also; but the owner, who was proud of them for a time, conceived the notion that the great age of his house tended to depreciate its value, and removed them.”
On the site today? There wasn’t that much glass in the colony in 1695.
Long after this original post, we gave a much more thorough history of the Staats House site here.