Early schooling in Albany

That last post was dry toast even by Hoxsie’s standards, so here’s something a little less factual and figural.

The earliest settlers of Albany did without a system of education until 1650, when the congregation of the First Church built a school house and chose Andrass Jansen as the teacher, who instructed the children of the school’s patrons. Schooling continued in Dutch until the English took control of the colony. In 1665 Governor Nicolls proclaimed that “Whereas the teaching of the English tongue is necessary in this government, I have therefore thought fit to give license to John Shutte to be the English Schoolmaster at Albany; and upon condition that John Shutte shall not demand any more wages from each scholar than is given by the Dutch to their Dutch Schoolmasters. I have further granted to the said John Shutte that he shall be the only English Schoolmaster at Albany.”

Important as Albany was to trade and commerce in those early days, it was still a very small town, and even some decades later the city was only in need of a single schoolmaster, as the Common Council expressed in 1721:

“Whereas it is very requisite and necessary that a fitt and able schoolmaster settle in this city for teaching and instructing of the youth in spelling, reading, writeing and cyffering and Mr. Johannis Glanssdorf haveing offered his service to settle here and keep a school if reasonably encouraged by the Corporation, it is therefore Resolved by this Comonalty and they do hereby oblige themselves and their successors to give and procure unto the said Johannis Glanssdorf free house and rent for the term of seaven years next ensueing for keeping a good and commendable school as becomes a diligent Schoolmaster.”

By the time of the Revolution there appear to have been multiple schoolmasters in Albany, but it wouldn’t be until 1779 that a true academy of higher learning would be established.