Outside observers who came to Albany during its first two hundred years have left us their impressions and observations. Traditionally, their accounts have been central resources in the writing of early Albany history. Early on, the Colonial Albany Project began to experience great difficulty in reconciling outsider outlooks with the Albany that emerged from our comprehensive sweep of community based resources. Nevertheless, those narratives are extremely interesting and bear repeating. Links have been arranged chronologically. This chronology is in its early stages and will be augmented in the future!

1680   Jasper Danckaerts

1695   Reverend John Miller

1700s   Reverend William Burgiss

1744   Dr. Alexander Hamilton

1749   Peter Kalm

1760s   Anne Mc Vickar Grant

1774   A Tour Through Part of the North Provinces of America, 1774-1775, by Patrick M'Robert (first printed for the author in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1776). Republished in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (April 1945); and offprinted individually by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Mc Robert noted the farm of newcomer John Tunnicliff.

1787  The American Journals of Lt. John Enys, edited by Elizabeth Cometti (Syracuse, 1976), pp. 183-88.

1789   Men and Times of the Revolution, the memoir of Elkanah Watson as completed and presented by his son in 1856.

1794  Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight, recalling his travels which included a trip to Albany in 1794. First published in four volumes between 1821 and 1823.

1800   John Maude's Journal (June 25 - July 1)

1810    Description of Albany about 1810 by Englishman John Melish.