Day 15 6/06

Schuyler Land

It is finally Friday and I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Today we went to The Schuyler Sites, and a Dredging Site. Our first stop of the day was, The Schuyler Mansion Historical Site. After sorting out a scheduling issue, we began our tour. His Mansion was similar to the houses we visited the past few weeks (although I thought his wallpaper was cool), like Fort Johnson and Johnson Hall. They were set up similarly and part of that was to entertain guest. Philip Schuyler accomplished a lot in his life he played a huge role in the fur trade, he was one of four generals under George Washington, a businessman, and more importantly a family man. Philip and his wife Catherine had 8 children, 5 girls and 3 boys. Four of his girls eloped, however his second oldest daughter Elizabeth, married Alexander Hamilton. Something that stuck out to me was how many famous historical figures visited Philip Schuyler’s house. There were people we learned about in our history classes that stayed over with Schuyler, like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr (who killed Hamilton in a duel), Ben Franklin, and many more. Whether it is true or not I liked the story about the mark in the staircase. I shouldn’t laugh at this, but I found it hilarious that they forgot the baby in the living room while they retreated to the master bedroom.  Philip and Catherine actually fought over whether they should save the baby or not, obviously Catherine said they should save her but Philip wasn’t sure hat was the best idea. While they were fighting one of the other daughters snuck down to save her sister.  After Schuyler’s Mansion we drove to a blockhouse to break for lunch.     

Tomahawk Chop in railing
 

Hudson River.

Once again I had no chocolate chip cookies. I sat at the picnic table with some of the girls. We had a nice view of the Hudson River. After eating we got a look inside the blockhouse. There set up allowed them to be ready for attack. They had cannon ball holes to fire at on coming attackers. After the Blockhouse we next went to another Schuyler site, Schuyler’s House.

 

Saratoga Monument

At the Schuyler we ended up with other tour guide like Alice (although not as bad) we named her Alice’s Sister. The Schuyler house was not as impressive as the mansion, and the tour wasn’t as good either. We were not aloud to take pictures, and we could not leave the brown carpet. I didn’t learn anything new everything they told us we already knew from the previous site. After the tour we went to the Saratoga Monument. Some of us decided to climb to the top, up all 185 steps. Once at the top, I realized it was worth the effort the view was awesome. After we all made it down safely we went to the van to head to our last stop, a dredging site.

The night before Krista, Rose and I watched the dredging video on Moodle. Sadly they were on break and were not doing any work. Toby talked to us about the dredging. I was surprised to hear that the PCB cleanup is one of the biggest in the U.S. I noticed what looked like a rope swing, I love those they are a lot of fun (I seriously need to start wearing my bathing suit under my cloths). We then returned to the Van to head back to Troy, some people took this time to take a nap. Once back at Troy Krista, Precious, and I ended the day with a trip to Burger King.