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Whitehall

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a village of Washington (disambiguation)|Washington county, New York, U.S.A., in a township of the same name on the Poultney river and the Champlain Canal, at the head of Lake Champlain, and 78 m. by rail N. by E. of Albany. Pop. (1890) 4434; (1900) 4377, of whom 547 were foreign-born; (1905) 4148; (1910) 4917. Whitehall is served by the Delaware && Hudson railway, and is the N. terminus of the new barge-canal system of New York state. It is situated in a narrow valley between two hills called West Mountain and Skene's Mountain, and Wood Creek flows through the village and empties into the lake with a fall, from which valuable water-power is derived; there are various manufactures, and the village owns and operates the water works. In 1759, to strengthen the British hold on Canada, a large tract of land at the S. end of Lake Champlain was granted to Colonel Philip Skene (1725-1810), who fought at Ticonderoga in 1758 and in 1759, and who established here in 1761 a settlement of about thirty families which he called Skenesborough and which was patented in 1765. Skene was a Loyalist, and in May 1775 Skenesborough was seized by a party of American volunteers. In Burgoyne's expedition (1777) Skene and his son, Andrew Philip Skene (1753-1826), served as guides, and Skenesborough was recovered by the British after most of it had been burned by the Americans. At the close of the war Skene's estate was confiscated and in 1786 the place was named Whitehall. In the War of 1812 Whitehall was fortified and was a base of supplies for American operations against Canada. It was incorporated as a village in 1806.