Beverwyck Hall

Beverwyck Hall is named for the City of Albany's third name, Beverwyck, or Town of the Beavers. In 1652 Peter Stuyvesant overthrew the Van Rensselaer patroon's control of Fort Orange and renamed the village Beverwyck. The main business of the Dutch West India Company in Beverwyck, which Stuyversant represented, was the export of beaver pelts. The original name for the settlement, the first permanent walled settlement north of St. Augustine in the present day United States, was Fort Van Nassau (1613). The settlement was relocated and renamed Fort Orange (1621). The boundaries of Beverwyck, 3,000 feet from the walls of Fort Orange, were established by firing a cannon north and south of the fort's walls. The patroon's men were not allowed administrative control with the boundaries of Beverwyck. Stuyvesant introduced a civil court to the village, allocated land for settlers, and set aside a common pasture and land to support the poor. With the English conquest of the New Netherlands in 1664, Beverwyck was renamed Albany, in honor of the Duke of York's Scottish title.