Note 215 — Chapter XXXIII · RETURN ON THE ERIE CANAL AND THE RIVER HUDSON TO NEW YORK—VOYAGE TO EUROPE

The Mohawk and Albany Railway was projected by George W. Featherstonehaugh, an Englishman of some eminence, who had married an American and settled near Albany. A friend of George Stephenson of England, Featherstonehaugh conceived the idea, as early as 1825, of uniting Albany and Schenectady by a railway. The next year a company was incorporated, whose president was Stephen Van Rensselaer. Delay was incident upon construction, and the line was not opened until August, 1831, when the locomotive "Detroit Clinton" drew a train of carriages from Albany to Schenectady. The Mohawk and Albany Railway was the progenitor of the present New York Central and Hudson River Railway. See G. S. Roberts, Old Schenectady (Schenectady, 1904), pp. 143-152.—Ed.