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 DEDICATION 
 
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 of the 
 
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 May 30th, 1915 
 
 
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DEDICATION 
 
 of the 
 
 Eorti ^otoe iHemorial Knhltt 
 
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 in the 
 
 I 
 
 City of Albany 
 
 on 
 
 iUcmorial ^untiap 
 
 May 30th, 1915 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 THE BRANDOW PRINTINQ CO. 
 
 ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
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 ^ Contents 
 
 1. Extract from the Minutes of Vestry Meeting. 
 
 2. Letter of Mrs. William Gorham Rice. 
 
 3. Letter of Dr. John M. Clarke, State Geologist. 
 
 4. List of Donors. 
 
 5. Service of Dedication pronounced by the Rev. Charles 
 
 C. Harriman, Rector of St. Peter's Church, 
 Albany. 
 
 6. Address by the Hon. Joseph W. Stevens, 
 
 Mayor of Albany. 
 
 7. Address by James Austin Holden, Esq., 
 
 State Historian. 
 
 8. Address by Dr. John H. Finley, 
 
 State Commissioner of Education. 
 
 9. Address by the Rev. Walton W. Battershall, D.D., 
 
 Rector Emeritus of St. Peter's Church, Albany. 
 
Illustrations 
 
 1. The First St. Peter's Church, Albany. 
 
 2. Page of the " Church Book " containing entry of 
 
 Lord Howe's burial under date of Sept. 5th, 1758. 
 
 3. Page of '' The Boston Gazette."— Monday, July 17, 
 
 1758. 
 
 4. Photograph of Tablet. 
 
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X 
 
 ST. PETER'S CHURCH BOOK 
 
 Lord Howe Entry Sept. 5th; "To cash Rt. for ground to lay Body 
 of Lord how & Pall, £5. 6.0." 
 
LORD HOWE'S BODY BROUGHT TO ALBANY: 
 (Last Column. Third Line from Bottom.) 
 
 "The Body of the Right Honorable Lord George Viscount Howe was brought to Albany 
 
 last Monday " 
 
PHOTOGRAPH OP^ TABLET 
 
Extract from Minutes of the Vestry Meeting of St. 
 Peter's Church, Albany, held February 6th, 1914 
 
 " The Rector read a letter from Mrs. W. G. Rice 
 proposing a memorial in the vestibule of St. Peter's 
 Church to Lord Howe, whose remains are buried in a 
 vault beneath the vestibule. She submitted also a draw- 
 ing by Marcus T. Reynolds, Esq., and an estimate of 
 the cost of such a slab of black slate. 
 
 " On motion of Mr. Pruyn, Mrs. Rice's proposal was 
 referred to the Committee on Memorials with authority 
 to accept the tablet and to raise the sum specified. 
 
 " Mr. Wadhams moved that the Clerk be requested to 
 acknowledge the receipt of Mrs. Rice's letter and to 
 express to her the interest and appreciation of the Vestry 
 in her undertaking and to state the action of the Vestry 
 at this meeting. Carried." 
 
 Letter of Mrs. William Gorham Rice 
 
 February 4, 1914 
 
 To the Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Peter's Church, 
 Albany, N. Y. 
 
 Dear Sirs: 
 
 On July 6, 1758, a column of General Abercrombie's 
 army, which was marching toward Ticonderoga to meet 
 the French in battle, was bewildered in the dense forest 
 and, meeting with a company of French and Indians 
 familiar with the country, was surprised and overcome at 
 Trout Brook. The commander of this column was 
 George Augustus Viscount Howe, the controlling spirit 
 of the British army. In his death a hero and a man of 
 supreme power of organization, as well as a generous 
 and noble character, fell. 
 
 There has been great discussion as to where Lord 
 Howe was buried. Ticonderoga claims that he was 
 buried near where he fell; Albany claims that he was 
 buried in St. Peter's Church. 
 
The claims of Ticonderoga are as follows: 
 On October 3, 1889, some laborers while digging a 
 sewer trench in Ticonderoga found a partially decayed 
 coffin and a triangular shaped stone on which was cut 
 or scratched — 
 
 MEM 
 
 OF 
 
 Lo Howe 
 
 KILLED 
 
 TROUT 
 
 BROOK 
 
 The town insisted the grave was Lord Howe's. Joseph 
 Peterson of Ticonderoga claimed that his great-grand- 
 father, who was a stonecutter, had lettered this stone. 
 There are various surmises and quotations from journals 
 of the period speaking of where Lord Howe's body was 
 buried but so far as I can see this is all the actual proof 
 in favor of the body of Lord Howe having been buried 
 in Ticonderoga. 
 
 The claims of Albany are as follows : 
 
 1. Captain Moneypenny's letter saying " Lord Howe's 
 body was taken immediately to the rear, embalmed and 
 under the charge of Captain Philip Schuyler brought to 
 Albany." (Spoken of in Munsell's Annals, Vol. L) 
 
 2. The Journal of Lieutenant Samuel Thompson of 
 Woburn, Mass. This says, under date of July 8: '' Post 
 came from the Narrows and they brought Lord How to 
 ye Fort who was slain at their landing." 
 
 3. A copy of " The Boston News-Letter " for July 13, 
 1758, a printed publication issued weekly; also a copy of 
 " The Boston Gazette and Country Journal," of July 17, 
 1758. Both of these papers were found by the Rev. 
 Joseph Hooper in the Massachusetts Historical Society 
 two years ago. In both there is the following extract 
 from a letter of a gentleman in Albany to his friend in 
 Boston, dated July 10, 1758: " The body of the Right 
 Honorable Lord George Viscount Howe was brought to 
 Albany last Monday." A portion of these same letters 
 
 8 
 
describes the skirmish at Trout Brook and gives other 
 news of importance from Albany. 
 
 4. The Church Book of St. Peter's, Albany, containing 
 the Treasurer's Accounts, records of election and a pew 
 list, in which is the following entry: 
 
 *' 1758, Sept. 5th. To cash Rt. for ground to lay 
 Body of Lord how & Pall, £5,6s-0" 
 
 5. Chancellor Kent's address in 1828 to the New 
 York Historical Society, when, in speaking of General 
 Philip Schuyler, he said: ** He was with Lord Howe 
 when he fell . . . and he was appointed {as he himself 
 informed me) to convey the body to Albany, where he 
 was buried with appropriate solemnities in the Episcopal 
 Church." 
 
 6. General Abercrombie's letter to William Pitt after 
 the Battle of Ticonderoga, contains the following, refer- 
 ring to Lord Howe's death: '* I caused his body to be 
 taken from the field of battle and sent to Albany, with a 
 design to have had it embalmed and sent home, if his 
 Lordship's relatives had approved of it. But the weather 
 being very hot. Brig"" Stanwix was obliged to order it 
 to be buried." — in Albany, of course. See '* Corres- 
 pondence of William Pitt with Colonial Governors," 
 (Macmillan Company, 1906); also ''America and West 
 Indies," Vol. 87, pp. 297-302. This letter is in the 
 Public Record Office in London, where there is much 
 material as yet untouched by American historians. 
 
 **1« «!• «t* m^ ^ ^M mSs 4^ 
 
 ^^ ^^ *^ ^» ^^ *p ^^ r^ 
 
 It seems, therefore, positive to me that the body of 
 Lord Howe was brought to Albany and was buried in 
 St. Peter's Church. 
 
 In 1759 the General Court of the Province of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay voted the sum of £250 ($1250) to be laid 
 out in erecting a monument to the memory of Lord Howe. 
 This monument was placed in Westminster Abbey, is 
 very large and impressive and stands on the left hand 
 side of the great door of the nave directly after you enter 
 the Abbey. Does it not seem proper, if such a monu- 
 
ment stands to the memory of Lord Howe in Westminster 
 Abbey, that some tablet should mark the place where 
 his body lies ? 
 
 My purpose in this letter is to ask your consent to the 
 erection of such a tablet. A few people, mostly members 
 of St. Peter's Church, have become interested with me 
 in this undertaking and Mr. Marcus Reynolds has made 
 a beautiful drawing for a slate tablet, giving his services 
 as architect as his offering to the undertaking. I should 
 be greatly pleased if you will look over this drawing 
 which the Reverend Mr. Harriman now has with him for 
 your consideration. Mr. Reynolds proposes that the 
 tablet should be placed — as tablets were placed in the time 
 of Lord Howe — in the floor of the vestibule of the church 
 almost directly above the spot where the coffin lies. The 
 arms of Lord Howe which are drawn at the head of the 
 design have been obtained through an English friend 
 from the present Lord Howe, who has been so kind as 
 to write the Heralds' College in London for them. His 
 letter is inclosed. If you will give permission to have 
 some tablet to mark the resting place of Lord Howe's 
 body placed in the vestibule of the church, subject, in 
 design, to your approval, I shall be proud to do my 
 utmost to accomplish its erection. One hundred dollars 
 has already been subscribed for this purpose in four gifts 
 of twenty-five dollars each, so a good beginning has 
 been made. 
 
 Hoping that this undertaking may have your warm 
 approval and interest, believe me. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 Harriet Langdon Pruyn Rice 
 
 P. S. — Lord Arthur Browne, a descendant of the branch 
 of the Howe family to which Lord Howe and his younger 
 brother, who figured in the revolution period, belonged, 
 wrote our State Historian, Mr. Holden, recently that: 
 " practically all the Howe papers, despatches, etc., were 
 destroyed about one hundred years ago in a fire in which 
 the library at Westport House (Ireland) was burned 
 down." 
 
 10 
 
Letter of Dr. John M. Clarke, State Geologist 
 
 State of New York, 
 Education Department, 
 Science Division. 
 
 Director's Office, 
 
 Education Bldg., 
 Albany, Feb. 16, 1914 
 Mrs. William Gorham Rice, 
 Albany, N. Y.: 
 
 Dear Mrs. Rice : 
 
 Some years ago I was given the opportunity to examine 
 closely the Lord Howe burial stone then (and still, I 
 presume) preserved in the Black Watch Library at 
 Ticonderoga. My desire was to scrutinize the inscrip- 
 tion and ascertain how far the surfaces of the engraved 
 letters had shown the effect of weathering. 
 
 The slab is a dark limestone from the bed rock, at no 
 great distance from Ticonderoga. It was, I believe, ex- 
 cavated from the soil in the village about 25 years ago. 
 Presumably placed above ground in 1758, it should have 
 been exposed to the action of the weathering agencies 
 equally potent above and below the soil, for a period of 
 about 130 years. 
 
 My examination indicated to my own satisfaction 
 
 (1) That there had been no apparent lining or scratch- 
 ing of the letters since the exhumation of the stone; 
 
 (2) That the surfaces of the roughly cut letters did 
 not indicate the degree of weathering that should have 
 taken place on such a rock so situated during a period 
 of 130 years. 
 
 In my judgment, therefore, the lettering upon the 
 stone, from the intimate evidence borne upon its face, 
 is not of the date of 1758, and while I should not venture 
 to fix an approximate period for such weathering changes 
 as have occurred on the inscription, I believe it to be of 
 a much more recent date than 1758. 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 John M. Clarke, 
 
 State Geologist 
 II 
 
Donors of Tablet 
 
 Mrs. John V. L. Pruyn, Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. 
 Pruyn, Justice and Mrs. William P. Rudd, Mr. Harmon 
 Pumpelly Read, Mrs. William H. Sage, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Samuel W. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Perry, Mrs. 
 Charles S. Hamlin, Mrs. Philip Ten Eyck, Miss Caroline 
 Ten Eyck, Rev. Dr. Walton W. Battershall, Mr. Marcus 
 T. Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Rice, Mr. Jesse W. 
 Potts, Mrs. Abraham Lansing, Mr. Luther H. Tucker, 
 Mrs. Russell Headley, Mr. Frederick W. Tillinghast, Mr. 
 James W. Cox, Dr. John H. Finley, Dr. Thomas F. 
 Finegan, Dr. Augustus S. Downing, Dr. Charles F. 
 Wheelock, Dr. John M. Clarke, Mrs. W. H. Griffith, 
 Mr. W. G. Rice, Jr., The James Fenimore Cooper Family, 
 The Augustus H. Walsh Family, Mr. Frederick Rocke, 
 Col. Charles K. Winne, Mrs. George Douglas Miller, St. 
 George's Benevolent Society of Albany, Mrs. Richardson 
 Tardif, Perc6, P. Q.; Rev. A. R. Warren, Cape Cove, 
 P. Q., Mr. Samuel W. BayHs, Montreal. 
 
 12 
 
The Service of Dedication 
 
 Evening prayer for Trinity Sunday having been said, 
 the following Office of Dedication was pronounced in the 
 ■Porch of the Church by the Reverend Charles C. Harriman, 
 Rector of St. Peter's Church, attended by the Reverend 
 Walton W. Batter shall, D.D., Rector Emeritus of St. 
 Peter's Church, the Reverend Joseph Hooper, Historian 
 of St. Peter's Church, the Reverend Paul H. Birdsall, 
 Rector of Grace Church, Albany, the Reverend William 
 Francis Mayo, O.H.C., and the Reverend Raymond H. 
 Kendrick, Rector of St. Martin's Church, New Bedford, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 Amen. 
 
 Almighty God, Who hast called us out of darkness into Thy marvellous 
 light, mercifully accept our service, and graciously receive at our hands 
 this memorial tablet, which we offer and dedicate to Thee in memory of 
 George Augustus Viscount Howe, and in honor of Him, the brightness of 
 Thy glory, whom Thou hast given to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, 
 even Jesus Christ our Lord, Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost art one 
 God, world without end. Amen. 
 
 Almighty God, with Whom do live the spirits of those who depart 
 hence in the Lord, and with Whom the souls of the faithfiil, after they 
 are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; We 
 give Thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those Thy servants, 
 who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours. 
 And we beseech Thee, that we, with all those who are departed in the 
 true faith of Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and 
 bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy eternal and everlasting glory; through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 
 
 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the 
 fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen. 
 
 13 
 
The clergy having returned to the chancel, the following 
 addresses were made: 
 
 Address 
 
 By The Hon. Joseph W. Stevens 
 
 Mayor of Albany 
 
 I am deeply conscious of the honor which is mine 
 this afternoon in being chosen as the official represen- 
 tative of the whole city of Albany upon this occasion. 
 
 The thought which prompted the invitation which was 
 extended to me was indeed a most happy one. It testi- 
 fies to the feeling, which seems to be quite general through- 
 out our city, that whatever of moment concerns St. 
 Peter's Church is of interest to our whole municipality. 
 
 It has been my experience that it is not possible for 
 an Albanian who has journeyed many miles away from 
 home to speak or even to think of this beloved old city 
 without saying a word about, or giving a thought to, 
 this beautiful edifice on State Street, which stands like 
 many others throughout the length and breadth of our 
 land as a witness to our belief as a people in the existence 
 of a Supreme Being, the worship of Whom ennobles our 
 conduct and gives us spiritual peace. 
 
 In an occasion such as this one, for which we are gath- 
 ered here today, all Albany takes an interest, because it 
 takes place under the auspices of this historic parish of 
 St. Peter's, the " Mother Parish of the Diocese," if you 
 please, and carries our thoughts back to the strenuous 
 days of the early colonies, when men of true worth 
 endured untold hardships and even death in doing the 
 great work preparatory to laying the foundation for the 
 American civiHzation whose blessings we now enjoy. 
 
 The man whom we honor in memory on this occasion 
 represented a distinct type. Lord Howe was a soldier 
 and gentleman, one of the most popular men of the 
 Colonial period. It is eminently fitting that within this 
 dear old St. Peter's, which covers his remains and which, 
 in so many ways, is a connecting Hnk in the chain which 
 
 14 
 
connects us with our city's and country's early days, 
 of which we are so justly proud, this memorial tablet 
 should be placed and now dedicated. 
 
 On behalf of the people of Albany I congratulate those 
 responsible for this historic memorial. 
 
 I congratulate particularly the people of St. Peter's, 
 for as time passes, and the historians pen the story of 
 these days in which we live, this service will, in my 
 judgment, be accorded a prominent place as an added 
 event in the historic background of Albany, in which 
 this church and the people of this parish have played 
 so conspicuous a part. 
 
 St. Peter's Church belongs to all Albany. This happy 
 event, like many which have preceded it, extends the 
 usefulness of the church beyond parish lines and again 
 calls the attention of the public to the historic atmos- 
 phere which surrounds it. 
 
 I thank the Rector and the Vestry and the Wardens 
 of St. Peter's Church for the high privilege of partici- 
 pating in this small way in this interesting ceremony. 
 
 15 
 
Add 
 
 ress 
 
 By James Austin Holden, Esq., 
 
 State Historian 
 
 Although for years a vestryman, or warden, of the 
 church historic in my own city, it has never until now 
 been my privilege to address a congregation in a formal 
 manner. I shall, perhaps, be pardoned therefore by the 
 clergy, if I borrow for this impressive occasion a text 
 upon which to hang the little I have to say. It is to 
 be found in the Gospel according to St. Mark, eighth 
 chapter and eighteenth verse, and is as follows: " Hav- 
 ing eyes, see ye not ? And having ears, hear ye not ? 
 And do ye not remember ? " 
 
 This is a day sacred to memory, to remembrance, to 
 the past. It is a half century anniversary on which we 
 acknowledge with loving thoughts, with the beautiful 
 springtide flowers, with grateful thanks, our debt to the 
 boys and young men who preserved, by their valor, 
 their sacrifices, their wounds, their lives, a united country 
 to us, in those bitter, destructive days of the Civil War 
 of 1861-1865, whose closing era this present half circle of 
 the century's whole marks on the Calendar of Time. 
 As this then is Memorial Day in state and nation, it is 
 meet and right that we should gather this afternoon in 
 this sacred building, whose very site is so full of historical 
 importance, to honor a man, who, cut down in the flower 
 of his promising youth, in an unknown wilderness, far 
 from his native land, was nevertheless so great, so fine, 
 so grand and noble, that for over a century and a half 
 of the world's most fateful history, his name has lingered 
 on men's tongues, and in men's minds, like that of an 
 Admirable Crichton, as a paladin worthy of all men's 
 emulation and remembrance. 
 
 But " I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him." In 
 the brief time allotted to me in these exercises I cannot 
 attempt to give in extenso the proofs '' for the belief 
 
 i6 
 
that is in me " that under this sacred pile rest the remains 
 of Lord Howe. I know it is so, for I have proved it to 
 be so.i Up to that October day of 1889, when a laborer, 
 in digging a trench for the sewer from the Academy in 
 Ticonderoga, unearthed some bones and a stone on which 
 were the rudely scratched words, '' In Mem. of Lo. 
 Howe Killed Trout Brook," there had never been a 
 question about it. 2 In spite of that find, which made 
 so great a sensation then, I believe that the remains 
 of Lord Howe, killed in the first skirmish at Ticonderoga, 
 July 6, 1758, are at rest in the shadow of St. Peter's 
 tower in this city. When this matter first came out in 
 1889, as a newspaper editor, I had occasion to investigate 
 it, and, in common with local historians of Northern 
 New York at the time, decided that, while possible, it 
 was not probable, that the Ticonderoga remains could 
 really be those of Lord Howe.' In 1911, it was my 
 pleasure, in preparing a paper for the New York State 
 Historical Association, to unearth historical evidence 
 in Mss. in the shape of letters to the family from a staff 
 officer with Abercrombie, throwing new light on the real 
 burial place of Lord Howe. The letters had been fur- 
 nished by a branch of the family to which the deceased 
 viscount belonged, now located in Westport, Ireland, to 
 S. H. P. Pell, owner of Fort Ticonderoga, who sent the 
 copies to me. These proved beyond the perad venture 
 of a doubt to reasoning men, that he was positively 
 buried in Albany and not elsewhere.* 
 
 It has, however, been somewhat of a disappointment 
 
 1 See Proceedings New York State Historical Association, Vol. X, pp. 
 259-366, (Glens Falls, 1911). Also separate Monograph by J. A. Holden, 
 taken from above, and on file in vestry rooms of St. Peter's Church. 
 
 2 See " The Burial of Lord Viscount Howe," by Edward J. Owen, 
 A.M., read before Albany Institute, January 3, 1893; also Vol. X, supra, 
 " Lord Howe," by Frank B. Wickes, pp. 238-58, for Ticonderoga claim. 
 
 3 Ticonderoga Sentinel, Thursday, Oct. 10, 1889; Judge James Gibson 
 in Salem Review Press, Friday, Oct. 18, 1889; Albany and Troy and 
 Whitehall papers of contemporary issue; J. A. Holden in Glens Falls 
 Daily Times, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 1889. 
 
 *A letter from Lord Arthur Browne, January 17, 1911, vouching for 
 accuracy and authenticity of the Moneypenny letters is on file with my 
 Mss. relating to Lord Howe, see Vol. X, p. 271. 
 
 17 
 
to me, as it must have been to the " beloved disciple," 
 to have to say to some true but mistaken friends, Verily, 
 verily, I say unto thee, we speak what we do know, and 
 bear witness of that we have seen; and ye receive not 
 our witness." In the preparation of my paper four 
 years ago, at my request, the Archives of London were 
 searched, England's official manuscripts inspected, Amer- 
 ican libraries ransacked, members of the Howe family 
 written to, and the sum total of all this work was em- 
 bodied in my article, '* The Real Burial Place of George 
 Augustus Lord Viscount Howe," in Vol. X of the Pro- 
 ceedings of the New York State Historical Association, ^ 
 and latterly epitomised in your own publication, '' The 
 Messenger," of April, 1914, which my hearers can con- 
 sult if interested in the steps by which I arrived at my 
 conclusions. Very, very briefly the story as I have built 
 it up on the solid foundation of contemporary written 
 and printed evidence, is as follows: 
 
 At the head of his troops, in the disastrous expedition 
 of Abercrombie against Ticonderoga, at two o'clock on 
 July 6, 1758, Lord Howe was shot in the preUminary 
 skirmish with the French, and instantly killed. Captain 
 Alexander Moneypenny, Lord Howe's aide-de-camp, and 
 personal and intimate friend, took charge of the remains. « 
 Dr. Rea, the army surgeon, present at his death, writes 
 in his journal that " Lord How was Brou't in and 
 imbalmed." ' 
 
 General Abercrombie, in the real official report of the 
 expedition filed in London, and differing from that pub- 
 lished in our own New York State work. Vol. X, of the 
 Colonial Document series, in gazettes and magazines of 
 the day, says that he " Caused the body to be taken 
 ojff the field and sent to Albany." » 
 
 ^Vol. X, whenever referred to in the footnotes, means this work. 
 
 6 Vol. X, p. 272. 
 
 'F. M. Ray ed. Journal Dr. Caleb Rea, pp. 24-26. (Salem, Mass., 
 1881.) 
 
 ® See copy of this despatch in Gertrude Selwyn Kimball ed. Corres- 
 pondence of William Pitt, Vol. I, p. 297 (Macmillan Co., 1906), also copied 
 and sent me by F. B. Richards, Secretary New York State Historical 
 Association, from original Mss. in Public Record Office, London, in 1910. 
 Also, see Vol. X, N. Y. S. H. A. Proceedings, pp. 309-313. 
 
 i8 
 
A solitary boat was detached from service, and returned 
 with the body in sorrow and gloom to the head of the 
 lake, where it was met by the Colonial forces, and its 
 arrival noted by a Colonial lieutenant in his journal.' 
 Under date of July 8, he writes: '' Post came from the 
 Narrows; and they brought Lord How to ye Fort, who 
 was slain at their landing." From Lake George the body 
 was conveyed by soldier bearers, one of whom bore 
 witness of this act to his descendants, to Fort Edward, ^o 
 where its arrival was mentioned in a letter of Chief 
 Justice Shippen of Philadelphia to his father, at Lan- 
 caster under date of July 20, 1758.ii Then two Boston 
 papers printed a letter from Albany that announced the 
 arrival of the body in this city on Monday, July 10. 12 
 From Lake George to Albany, the remains were accom- 
 panied by Philip Schuyler, Lord Howe's intimate and 
 personal Colonial friend as he in later years informed the 
 able and learned Chancellor Kent. ^ 3 Messengers had 
 gone on ahead announcing the death of Lord Howe to 
 the Schuyler family and probably conveying to a Dr. 
 Huck, then in Albany, according to a letter from Captain 
 Moneypenny, instructions of the Captain as to the dis- 
 position of the body.i* The weather being very hot on 
 its arrival in this city. Brigadier General Stanwix, then 
 in command of the forces here, " was obliged to order 
 it to be buried. "I'i 
 
 In the records of this church still preserved are two 
 items which of themselves should have settled the ques- 
 tion forever. One is the item so well known to all of 
 you under the date of September 5, 1758, ''To cash Rt. 
 
 • W. R. Cutter ed. Diary Lieut. Samuel Thompson of Woburn, Mass. , 
 p. 9. (Boston, 1896.) 
 
 1° Narrative, Hon. Grenville M. Ingalsbe, ex-president New York State 
 Historical Association. 
 
 ** [Thomas Balch.] Letters and papers relating to . , . the Pro- 
 vincial History of Pennsylvania, pp. 126-27. (Philadelphia, 1855.) 
 
 12 Boston News Letter of Thursday, July 13, 1758, and Boston Gazette 
 of Monday, July 17, 1758. See photographs in Vol. X, op. pp: 269, 284. 
 
 " Address of Chancellor James Kent, president, in Collections, New 
 York Historical Society, 2nd series, Vol. I, pp. 19-20. (New York, 1841.) 
 
 " Vol. X, p. 274. 
 
 " Abercrombie's despatch, in London Record Office, in A. and W. I. 
 Vol. 87. 
 
 19 
 
for ground to lay Body of Lord how & Pall, 5-6-0. "i^ 
 It is safe to assume, that under the auspices of the 
 Schuyler family there was, even if no information exists 
 concerning it, a notable funeral. This took place, of 
 course, in the original English church of 1715, standing 
 in the center of State Street, opposite Chapel. Here 
 the body remained until 1802, when the second St. Peter's, 
 on the present site, and built partly on a bastion of Old 
 Fort Frederick, was erected. At this time, we know on 
 the authority of Elkanah Watson, a most reliable his- 
 torian of those days, that Lord Howe's body was exhumed 
 and the bones and cerements handled by him and an 
 assistant, Henry Cuyler of Greenbush, before they re- 
 solved themselves into dust.^^ From other authorities 
 we learn that the remains of Lord Howe had undoubtedly 
 been taken up and been buried with the twenty-four other 
 bodies found in the church of 1715, "in a trench along 
 the north foundation wall " of the church of 1802. When 
 the present edifice was erected in 1859, the remains which 
 had been placed along the north wall and which were 
 at this time again uncovered, were once more removed, ^^ 
 this time to the receptacle under the vestibule of the 
 present church, and somewhere near the spot where 
 today is embedded the beautiful memorial tablet in 
 honor of Lord Howe, which by the generosity of Albanians, 
 we are enabled here and now to dedicate with solemn 
 religious and civil observance. 
 
 In passing I may say that at the time I prepared my 
 original paper, I had no knowledge of, or acquaintance- 
 ship with, the investigations and conclusions of the Rev. 
 Joseph Hooper. i» All that came later, when I was finishing 
 
 ^^ Joseph Hooper, History of St. Peter's Church, op. p. 960. See Vol. 
 X, p. 316, for second document, " Receipt of Sexton for removal of six- 
 teen bodies etc." 
 
 " W. C. Watson, History of Essex County, pp. 87-88. (Albany, 1869.) 
 Munsell's Collections, History of Albany, Vol. I, p. 445. Joseph Hooper's 
 address before the Albany Institute, Vol. X, pp. 315-16. 
 
 ^* Albany Journal, March 30, 1859. (A copy of this issue may be found 
 in the Journal file for that year in the State Library.) 
 
 ^^ Rev. Joseph Hooper, Monograph, " The Burial-Place of the Hon. 
 George Augustus Scrope," (Lord Viscount Howe) read before Albany 
 Institute, Oct. 5, 1897. Also his History of St. Peter's Church. See 
 Index for Lord Howe. 
 
 20 
 
my researches. It is usually conceded that when two 
 independent historical investigators, even though they 
 uncover the same or similar facts, or lines of evidence, 
 arrive at the same conclusions, from different angles, 
 that the case is proved. 
 
 I am glad that the good and reverend historian is 
 here today, so we may say, as was said of St. John the 
 Divine, " This is the disciple that beareth witness of 
 these things, and wrote these things; and we know that 
 his witness is true." 
 
 But what of Ticonderoga's contention that she still 
 possesses the real body? 20 It is true that Ticonderoga 
 has some perfectly good bones of a skeleton and a rock 
 with an apparently appropriate inscription. But it is 
 also unfortunately true that on that rock there is hardly 
 one single significant key word that proves it contem- 
 porary or one that would probably have been used by 
 any soldier of that day. For instance take the words 
 " Mem. of," In the Union Cemetery, between Fort 
 Edward and Hudson Falls, where is also the grave of 
 that lamented martyr, Jane McCrea, is the weather- 
 beaten, crumbling headstone, of red granite, of Duncan 
 Campbell of the Black Watch, mortally wounded in the 
 attack on the Ticonderoga breastworks two days later. 
 Strangely enough, this does not read " In Mem. Duncan 
 Campbell," like the Howe stone, but " Here Lyes the 
 body of Duncan Campbell," the usual and regular be- 
 ginning of an epitaph in those days. 21 The other came 
 into use some years later. 
 
 Again, the word " Lo " for Lord is so rare in old manu- 
 scripts, as up to 1911, when I prepared my paper for 
 publication, never to have been found in documents on 
 this side of the water, and it is practically unknown to 
 
 ^° For my conclusions as to the Ticonderoga claim as a whole see my 
 article in Vol. X, pp. 287-307. Also conclusions Dr. John M. Clarke, 
 State Geologist, in Albany Knickerbocker Press, May 30, 1915, as to con- 
 temporary value of stone. Also Hooper's views in History of St. Peter's 
 Church, pp. 519-26 and Vol. X, pp. 313-21. 
 
 *^ R. O. Bascom, " The Fort Edward Book," Legend of Duncan Camp- 
 bell, pp. 80-88. (Fort Edward, 1903.) 
 
 21 
 
our archivists. The name '' Howe " was usually spelled 
 " How " by Colonials, and it was claimed the stone was 
 cut on the spot by a Colonial soldier. The words, "At 
 Trout brook," alone condemn the stone as unbelievable, 
 for the only cotemporary topographical sketch found 
 by my searcher in London showed no such name in 
 existence in 1758.22 On the French maps it is called 
 ** Birney " or " Bernets," on the English maps it is 
 unnamed. The noted ranger, Robert Rogers, who would 
 have known its name, if any one, called it the " River 
 that ran into the Falls." The name Trout Brook came 
 long, long afterward. 2 3 To the claims of the discredit ors 
 of the Albany interment, we may well apply the old 
 Latin maxim, ''Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus,'' and 
 dismiss the topic, until some more convincing evidence 
 than theirs is brought to light. 
 
 Not in my recollection of the matter has any real 
 proof been advanced of a rightful claim to Lord Howe's 
 place of sepulture by any place except Albany, or in 
 any place except the original English church, later St. 
 Peter's. The claim of Ticonderoga is so utterly unsup- 
 ported by facts, that, while the sincerity of its adherents 
 is not to be questioned, their refusal to accept written 
 proofs, to accept the evidence of their own eyes as to 
 official documents, and their reluctance to concede any 
 possibility of a mistake in identification, and their in- 
 ability to explain reasonably why the body they have, if 
 that of Lord Howe, should have been buried half a mile 
 or so from the place Howe was killed, and admittedly 
 well within the lines of the enemy, 24 place them in the 
 
 22 Vol. X, pp. 291-92. 
 
 23 In his Centennial address at Ticonderoga in 1864, Joseph Cook, the 
 noted writer, lecturer and historian, called it " Berney River." See 
 reprint, by Ticonderoga Historical Society, pp. 66-67. (Albany, 1909.) 
 
 2* One of the strong supporters of the Ticonderoga burial wrote me, 
 Nov. 3, 1910: " The ' Lord Howe ' question is a curious one; the stone 
 looks real, but site curious. The Albany record of cost of burial seems 
 positive, but then, why no inscription ? " Certainly the site is not only 
 a curious one, but all the circumstances connected with it just as curious. 
 
 22 
 
class referred to in the parable of Lazarus and Dives, 
 who, '' even if one rose from the dead," would not 
 believe. 
 
 Till new documentary evidence, then, can be produced, 
 that it is not so, we may rest assured, that, under the 
 pavement in this vestibule of St. Peter's, Albany, reposes 
 all that remains on earth of the lamented, heroic and 
 well beloved idol of his day and generation, George 
 Augustus, Lord Viscount Howe. 
 
 As I have already said, this is the day peculiarly 
 sacred to the memory of our Country's heroic dead. 
 Across the seas, Europe, as in 1758, is once more in 
 the bloody throes of a universal war. Once more, as 
 in 1758, our Mother Country is in deadly grapple with 
 her enemies, and her sons on " the far flung battle lines," 
 are dying in thousands for their ruler and country, for 
 democracy, and the world's progress along the lines of 
 sanity and safety. 
 
 Today, as we commemorate our own loved and lost 
 ones, let us here and now, in this, among the oldest of 
 our country's municipalities, as we dedicate this beautiful 
 tablet to the noblest British soldier of his time, pause a 
 moment, and symbolically lay upon his grave for all the 
 dead who have died for their country and mankind, a 
 wreath in which we have intertwined the aloes of grief, 
 the balm of sympathy, the rosemary of remembrance, 
 the pansies of thought, the sweet liHes of the valley for 
 recollection, and the amaranth of our love everlasting. 
 
 Among the ancients it was believed the departed of 
 this earth walked abroad in great meadows of yellow 
 asphodel, where they drank the waters of oblivion. 
 Today, in whatsoever fragrant fields of Christian immor- 
 tality our hero walks, he must know, that, though his 
 work in life is done, there will, so long as time remains, 
 in old St. Peter's, in older Albany, as well as in ancient 
 Westminster Abbey, in London, be a permanent and 
 enduring reminder, that, in the days when manhood 
 
 23 
 
counted much, he in this Province's estimation and that 
 of her sister Massachusetts, towered above his fellows 
 so high that there was none to equal him. 
 
 " Soldier rest ! thy warfare o'er, 
 Dream of fighting fields no more : 
 Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, 
 Morn of toil, nor night of waking." 
 
 24 
 
Address 
 
 By Dr. John H. Finley 
 
 State Commissioner of Education 
 
 When thousands are every day dying in battle; when 
 hundreds of thousands are perishing in a few months 
 from the wounds and exposure and sickness of war; 
 when milHons are going about in agony or anxiety over 
 their dead or missing; when news of adorable faiths and 
 valors are being brought almost hourly from conflicts 
 in air, in water, on earth or in the trenches under the 
 earth, it seems almost a travesty upon these losses, griefs 
 and valors to go back a century and a half to identify 
 the grave of a single officer, to rehearse his deeds and 
 lament his loss. 
 
 Why do we come ? Is it not because valor is time- 
 less ? And because that which it stirs knows not seasons 
 nor years ? This tablet set here is indeed a *' treasury 
 of regret " that " mocks the term by time for sorrow 
 set." We but proclaim, in remembering nobility so long 
 ago expressed in mortal bravery, that the courage which 
 is shown today will not leave the earth. And if the bones 
 of this officer had been found neither here nor at Trout 
 Brook, he would still have had the same timeless exist- 
 ence. This, despite the fact that there is no biography 
 of him. For he infused, as one who wrote of the war 
 said, a '' noble ardor into every rank." And I can no 
 more conceive of destructibility of spirit than I can con- 
 ceive of destructibility of matter. There is only eternal 
 transmutation from one life, itself immortal, into others. 
 Yet in his case the spirit touched not only the men of 
 the little army about him in the wilderness but the 
 spirits of men remote whose words have also an immor- 
 tality; as WiUiam Pitt, Oliver Goldsmith and Wolfe, 
 the hero of Quebec. 
 
 But why do we who are crying for peace in the world 
 and praising thrift and industry and commending the 
 
 25 . 
 
love of our fellow men, — ^why do we gather here in this 
 time of hateful strife and in the very house of peace, to 
 remember the virtues of this man who spent his short 
 life in the wars, who knew no industry except that which 
 led to a thriftlessness and a fine carelessness of his own 
 life and to the destruction of others ? 
 
 Are we consistent ? I have been repeating (and criti- 
 cized for repeating) to the boys and youth of this State 
 what President Wilson said of peace. (And I am dis- 
 posed to keep on repeating it since I can not say it better 
 myself.) But I should not utter or repeat such doctrine 
 if I thought that we were to lose through its practice the 
 qualities that produced such a man as this young officer. 
 There is no price too dear for a people to pay for the 
 breeding of such spirits as led this young democratic 
 nobleman to expose his body to peril of death in the 
 Ticonderoga wilderness. 
 
 But my contention is that we do not have to look to 
 war, as it has been for ages defined, to find a school for 
 the culture of the martial virtues that were in the breast 
 of Lord Howe and that must be kept in the breasts of 
 any virile race. 
 
 Perhaps there was no better school than this wilder- 
 ness war college for the culture of such spirit in his day 
 when the warfare with nature was itself such a rough, 
 semi-savage struggle. But as the colleges of arts and 
 science have found new disciplines for their curricula, 
 so civilization has found new occupations for fostering 
 chivalry, bravery, honor, justice, contempt of death and 
 all the other virtues that were thought to be grown only 
 of battle. 
 
 Wars must be till we reach a static paradise (unless 
 we fall back into a contented static hell), but they will 
 come to be, more and more, wars that are a real test, 
 not of relative skill in physical butchery, but of intel- 
 lectual and moral force, — wars waged against the real 
 foes of a people, of the race. And what our assembling 
 here this afternoon means, as I take it, is not that we 
 want to stir our youth and men to killing other youth 
 
 26 
 
and men but to carry into peace the qualities that made 
 men noble, even in killing other men. 
 
 I saw at this hour yesterday, on a hill-top in the midst 
 of Manhattan Island, a drama of Euripides which has 
 lived two thousand years to confront us with sad and 
 discouraging proofs of how little we have progressed in 
 some things. There, in the midst of this modern city, 
 noblest of all in its enterprise, stood a simulation of the 
 walls of ancient Troy and a representation of the horrors 
 of a war that was waged before history began, back in 
 the dim days of myth. Before these walls given to flame, 
 women were carried away to slavery of lust and a babe 
 was spitted on a spear. As Hecuba said in her age-long 
 anguish : 
 
 " 'Twas strange murder for brave men." Yet she but 
 hoped that that very babe would some day lead out all 
 captains to ride by her tomb and himself find blessed 
 death in falling fighting. 
 
 Falling while fighting, that is, indeed, the glorious fate 
 of men, yet only glorious if that fight be made of a pur- 
 pose that has no vengeance in it, no prize, no lust of gain 
 or wanton power, but only some fearless losing of a life 
 in seeking better, happier fate for human kind. 
 
 Cassandra from that doomed ancient city cries across 
 all historic time: 
 
 " Would ye be wise, ye cities, fly from war ! 
 Yet if war come, there is a crown in death 
 For her that striveth well and perisheth 
 Unstained: to die in evil were a stain." 
 
 There is a coward's '' peace at any price." It reckons 
 in pennyweights and pounds, in gallons and yards, in 
 broken bodies and ruined towns. But there is too a 
 hero's *' peace at any price " whose measurements are 
 not weight or bulk or lines of latitude or longitude but 
 of the purity and strength of men's spirits. We should 
 have two words for peace and two words for war. It 
 is because we use an undiscriminating vocabulary of 
 
 27 
 
another age that conscientious men seem to disagree. 
 May America write the new definition in the world's 
 lexicon ! 
 
 I have read the controversy about the resting place 
 of Lord Howe's bones, and, remembering the miracle 
 wrought by the bones of an ancient prophet, I have 
 wished that the test might be made here. When a Moa- 
 bite killed in battle was suddenly thrust into the sepulchre 
 of Elisha to get him out of the way, it is recorded in the 
 Book of Kings that as he touched the bones of the prophet 
 ** he revived, and stood upon his feet." If we find our 
 courage revived here in this place of the reputed burial 
 of Lord Howe we shall know for a certainty that we 
 have at any rate been in the presence of the fearless and 
 magnanimous spirit of him whom the brave Wolfe him- 
 self called the " noblest Englishman of his time." 
 
 28 
 
Address 
 
 By The Rev. Walton W. Battershall, D.D., 
 
 Rector Emeritus of St. Peter's Church, Albany 
 
 The distinguished and representative speakers who 
 have preceded me have clearly set forth the justifica- 
 tion and value of the action of the Rector, Wardens 
 and Vestrymen of St. Peter's Church in the City of 
 Albany in authorizing the placing in the vestibule of 
 the church the Memorial Tablet to Lord Howe, which 
 today we dedicate. 
 
 In behalf of the Vestry and in expression of my own 
 deep sense of the historic propriety of their action, I 
 thank those whose public spirit and reverence for history 
 have prompted them to devise and put in this sacred 
 House of Memories this monument over the burial place 
 of a notable soldier and Christian gentleman of the 
 olden days. 
 
 Those were days big with fate. England and France 
 were fighting for the continent. Its racial and political 
 destiny hung poised in a quivering balance. The suprem- 
 acy of the Anglo-Saxon or the Latin on the continent 
 was an open question. This question of the empire of 
 the New World, as today the question of the empire of 
 the Old World, was put to the arbitrament of the sword. 
 Then as now, when nations fell out, they brought their 
 cause into the court of last resort, where the sword 
 presides. 
 
 The world of today has inherited its yesterdays. 
 Blood-stained fingers are still turning the pages of its 
 history. But what of tomorrow ? We are beginning 
 to see that the wolf -theory of life is a brutal and incon- 
 clusive theory; that war itself is being killed by the 
 horror and deadliness of its science. May God hasten 
 the dawn of tomorrow. 
 
 The French-English war of the Provincial period of 
 
 29 
 
North America was war of the old type. It had its 
 scenes of savagery, but it was fairly and honestly fought 
 and it gave the continent to England. It committed 
 to her the fashioning of the initial, formative chapters 
 of American history. 
 
 As we dedicate today the tablet that designates the 
 grave of the brilliant soldier whose death, in the flower 
 of his splendid youth, sent a shock through England and 
 her colonies, it is fitting that we recall the tremendous 
 stake for which he fought, the vast bearings and illimit- 
 able results of the triumph, whose price was his life. 
 
 You know the story. On the morning of July the 
 sixth, 1758, as he led his army of 16,000 against the 
 French fortress of Ticonderoga through the forest-clad 
 hills that formed the chalice of the beautiful lake, named 
 by the French " Lake of the Holy Sacrament," his 
 column was attacked and, in the skirmish he fell, shot 
 through the heart. Around the dead body of their 
 gallant leader, the pride and idol of the army, the dis- 
 heartened Britishmen continued and concluded the fight. 
 The existing contemporaneous documents relating to 
 the death of Lord Howe prove that his body was brought 
 to Albany and was buried beneath the chancel of the 
 first St. Peter's Church, which stood in the middle of 
 State Street in the shadow of Fort Frederick, whose 
 North East bastion stood on the ground from which 
 springs the tower of the present St. Peter's. 
 
 The facts of history like the facts of physical science 
 are the residuum that remains in the crucible, the resi- 
 duum that has survived the fires of controversy and has 
 been subjected to critical scrutiny and test. The State 
 Historian has told you what he has found in the crucible. 
 It justifies beyond question what we have done this day 
 in reverent commemoration of a beautiful and tragic 
 figure in the early days of our national history, and of 
 an event that illustrates the part that Albany played 
 in the making of that history. 
 
 There is another justification concerning which I must 
 add a word after the words I have already spoken; the 
 
 30 
 
justification, in the present stage of the world's Hfe, of 
 the vocation of him, whose name we have inscribed on 
 the threshold of this shrine of Christ. 
 
 We pray for the day when war shall no longer be a 
 dominant factor in the shaping of the world's history. 
 But the civiHzation that bears the name of Christ has 
 carried over old paganisms. As long as there are criminal 
 nations, there must be armies for international poHce. 
 And moreover, when the distinctive virtues of the soldier 
 fade out in a nation's ideal of manhood, its Hfe breaks 
 and rots. Learning, scientific discoveries, artistic cul- 
 ture, a comfortable and luxurious civilization are no 
 guaranties of the qualities, which alone can save society 
 from decay and the state from that civic collapse that so 
 often has been registered on the pages of history. 
 
 The stone that marks a soldier's grave, one who has 
 died for faith and fatherland, is only less sacred than the 
 stone which men have hewn into an altar. Fitly it is 
 placed in the porch of the altar. In our frail, human 
 way, it repeats the sacrificial note in the undertone 
 that gives to life its mystery and its grandeur. 
 
 31 
 


 
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