1797 and 1848 two wide-spread fires did a great deal of damage. The city has four or five miles of water-front, and for several hundred feet back from the river the ground is low and nearly level, so that when the water rises by reason of an ice-dam or from some other cause, it frequently overflows the lower streets, and in former years wrought great havoc at times. There are still living those who can recall how, during one spring freshet, a schooner floated in from the river and was found, when the waters had subsided, high and dry on State Street. As a curious anti-climax to the feudal system under which the people of Rensselaerwyk lived prior to the War for Independence, there occurred in the early half of the nineteenth century an agitation known as the anti-rent war, that stirred Albany and the surrounding country for many years. This trouble was the result of a persistent effort on the part of the heirs of the Van Rensselaer estate to collect rents which they claimed as their due upon pro- perty formerly a part of that domain. The tenants as persistently resisted, denying the claim. When the sheriff and his posse attempted to enforce an order in Digitized by Microsoft® 544 The Hudson River favour of the landlords a riot ensued. This experience was several times repeated, and the militia was called into service to quell what bid fair to be an insurrection. In many respects this trouble formed a parallel to those disturbances that have marked the relations of land- lord and tenant in Ireland. In a mock-heroic poem of ninety- three cantos, written after the style of Hudi- bras, and published anonymously in 1855, H. R. School- craft apotheosised the heroes of the anti-rent war, and pictures, among other things, the tarring and feather- ing of the sheriff. The anti-rent trouble was finally settled, in 1852, by the State, which issued titles in fee simple to those in actual possession of the disputed property. Other feuds marked the middle period in Albany's history, the transition stage between a somewhat over- grown village and the city of a hundred thousand in- habitants. For instance, there was the great battle on State Street, in which the principal actors were John Tayler and General Solomon Van Rensselaer, a num- ber of lesser combatants participating. The fray oc- curred in 1807, and was occasioned by some caustic resolutions presented at a Republican meeting and aimed at General Van Rensselaer and his fellow Fed- eralists. Mr. Elisha Jenkins was the secretar}'' of the meeting, and as he walked the next day on State Street the angry General overtook and caned him. Later in the day the Governor and the General met, almost in front of the former's house, and the civil officer took Digitized by Microsoft® An Old Dutch Town 545 the other severely to task for his assault upon Mr. Jenkins. In a moment the two irate partisans had squared off for an encounter in which every one with- in sight or hearing seems to have taken a hand. Dr. Cooper and Mr. Frank Bloodgood, both connections of the Governor, were in the thick of the fracas, the last- named dealing a blow from behind that completely felled Van Rensselaer. Even Tayler's daughter, Mrs. Cooper, was numbered among the combatants. When the opposing forces were at last separated, the parties began to think of legal redress for the hurts they had received, and a number of lawsuits was the outcome of the matter. It is interesting to note how impar- tially the arbitrators in the case — Simeon de Witt, James Kane, and John Van Schaick — distributed the damages for assault: Jenkin? against Van Rensselaer $2500 Van Rensselaer against Tayler 300 Van Rensselaer against Cooper 500 Van Rensselaer against Bloodgood 3700 From which it appears that the General, who com- menced the affray, had his wounds salved to the ex- tent of two thousand dollars, net. A perpetual warfare was waged, something over half a century ago, between the juvenile portion of the community residing on the hill (Arbor Hill being par- ticularly meant) and those who Hved under the hill. They had no dealings with each other except for war- like encounters, and woe to any urchin who was found 35 Digitized by Microsoft® 546 The Hudson River alone by those of the opposing camp. How this deep and long-continued animosity commenced history does not relate, but many an old Albanian will recollect the encounters that took place between the "hillers" and their adversaries, and recall, perhaps, the names of leaders more famous in their generation than any Schuyler or Clinton who ever guided the councils of the State. Mr. Gorham A. Worth, already quoted in this chap- ter,