ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Two experts in Colonial history say a plan to build a crude oil facility at the Port of Albany would destroy the buried remnants of the first Dutch settlement built in what would become New York state.
Albany-area historians Don Rittner and John Wolcott say the port was the site of Fort Nassau, built on an island in 1614 by Dutch explorers as a trading post. Spring floods along the Hudson River later forced them to relocate to a nearby site and build Fort Orange, which later became Albany.
Wolcott says the remains of Fort Nassau are located in a section of the Albany port where a company wants to build a facility to heat crude oil hauled in by trains before it’s transferred to ships for transport.
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