Stockade Historic District

The Stockade District is a roughly wedge-shaped area at Schenectady's northwest corner, in area. It is bounded by the Mohawk on the north, the Binne Kill on the west and the former New York Central Railroad tracks, now used by Amtrak and CSX, on the east. Its southern boundary is mostly defined by the rear line of properties on the south side of Union Street, except for Washington Street, where the entire street is included all the way to State Street (NY 5), and a section of Church Street added by the boundary increase. On its southeast corner it borders the Union Street Historic District, providing a historic corridor which links it to Union College and the city's other two historic districts, the GE Realty Plot and Union Triangle. Residential and industrial areas are located to the east across the tracks. To the south is the western section of downtown Schenectady. Riverside Park (parkland) is located at the shore of the river, (northwest side). The village of Scotia is located directly across the river. The district is largely flat, reflecting the nearby river. It is densely developed, mostly with small two-story attached houses, and is centered on the intersection of Ferry, Front and Green streets, where a circular plaza is built around a statue of Lawrence the Indian, a Mohawk who helped restore the settlement after an early catastrophe. ==History==

For the colonial period and afterwards, the history of the Stockade District is synonymous with the history of Schenectady. Later, as the city industrialized and grew far beyond it, the district retained a distinct identity and sense of community within itself. 17th and 18th centuries A group of Dutch settlers, mostly merchants and fur traders looking to do business with Native Americans, settled the banks of the Mohawk in an area between the present Ferry, Front and State streets and Washington Avenue in 1661. This group of twelve houses surrounded by a wooden stockade, 200 Dutch feet (about 187 feet, or 56.6 m) on a side is considered the founding of the city of Schenectady. After the 1674 Treaty of Westminster ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War the settlement, like all established by the Dutch in New Netherland, came under British control as part of the Province of New York. By 1692 the community had been rebuilt and repopulated with a mixture of English, Scottish and Dutch settlers. During the Revolutionary War Schenectady served as headquarters for several of the local Committees of Safety. After independence, the stockade, which had begun to deteriorate from neglect during the war, was dismantled. Only some of the footings remain, mostly buried. The Revolution had led citizens to demand services a nation could provide, among them higher education. Union College was established in 1779, before the war had even ended, but was not formally recognized with a state charter (the first issued by the state Board of Regents) until 1795. Its first building was in the district, at the corner of Ferry and Union streets, later College and Union. It was America's first non-denominational college. In 1814 the college moved to its present location, the first planned college campus in the country. She served a single term and returned to medicine, retiring in 1960. Theodore Burr's bridge burned down in 1909 and was replaced with the first of the current bridges nearby that carry Route 5 to Scotia. One of the original stone abutments can be seen where Washington Street reaches the river. and, five years later, successfully lobbied the city to pass a zoning ordinance creating the historic district, the first one created in the state. ==Preservation==

The neighborhood is one of four historic districts recognized by the city of Schenectady. It comes under the purview of its Historic Commission, a seven-member body that meets once a month. Under the city's zoning regulations, any change to a historic building in a district that is visible from a public right-of-way must be approved by the commission. Within the neighborhood, the Historic Stockade Association works to organize residents and help preserve not only the historic nature of the neighborhood but its sense of community. and organizes tours and other special events in the neighborhood. Some other special events in the neighborhood are informal, such as the sing-along to the pink flamingos that a person or persons unknown has been placing in front of the statue of Lawrence every Valentine's Day for the last decade. ==See also==