Escalation of Rebellion and the threat to Loyalty

By Louis Myers

Background

Less than a month after the bloody battle at Breed's Hill in Boston, Fort Ticonderoga fell to Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold who led a group of Green Mountain Boys and Massachusetts Troops in a daring midnight raid on May 10th 1775.

They looted the fort, removing the cannons to be used to break the “now siege “ of Boston.

Holding Ticonderoga gave the rebels control of everything between Montreal and Albany.

The New Englanders were taking action.

New York Colony however was stirring slowly in Albany.

An excerpt follows by Stefan Bielinski, a social historian at the New York State Museum for nearly five decades who compiled a one-of-a-kind historical database of Albany's history and inhabitants during the city's colonial period. Mr. Bielinski died in August 2024 at age 77.

The Committee of Correspondence by Stefan Bielinski:

The Albany Committee of Correspondence, Safety, and Protection was formed over the winter of 1774-1775 to mobilize local opposition to the so-called Intolerable Acts. Within a year, it would take over for an increasingly inadequate Albany Corporation which had governed the city since 1686. Although city-based, over the next two and a half years, the Albany Committee extended its authority and influence throughout Albany Countyand beyond.

Although some business was transacted during the latter half of 1774, the committee's first public meeting was held at Cartwright's Tavern on January 24, 1775. Abraham Yates, Jr.was unanimously elected chairman. Members were named from each of the city's three wards, from Rensselaerswyck, and from some of the other districts of greater Albany County. Almost from the beginning, the Schenectady committee met separately but under the general county umbrella. Overall, a structure for extra-legal resistance was created in the most populous county in the colony.

The next meeting seems to have taken place on March 1. By the end of the month, the committee had selected delegates to attend a Provincial Congress in New York City which in turn appointed delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Beginning in April, the committee met much more frequently. Its principal activities concerned transmitting information on "the Rights and Liberties of America" to the outlying districts, to New York, and beyond. By early May, the committee was meeting in the Albany City Hall. However, it also met at Widow Vernor's tavern.

As its function evolved in response to a deteriorated relationship between colonies and crown, the committee became the political arm of a growing revolutionary movement for huge Albany County. Its general direction was shaped by the enactments of the Continental and Provincial congresses. But its actual operations were left to the commitment of American "patriots" on the local level. The committee was composed of delegates representing each of the county's seventeen diverse and far-flung districts. However, virtually all of its leaders were prominent patriots who resided in the city of Albany.

The colonial city council met increasingly infrequently during 1775 and not after March 25, 1776. By June, Mayor Cuyler was a prisoner of the revolutionaries. And by the eve of Independence, the committee also assumed many of the municipal government's civic responsibilities - albeit in a more passive way than the pre-war common council.

This crisis is exactly what those loyal to the crown in New York and elsewhere feared. Prominent families in the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys would become affected and their actions will be discussed in a future article.