List of people associated with Albany County, New York explained
This is a list of notable people whose lives were significantly associated with Albany County, New York.
Chronological list
18th century
- Peter Van Brugh Livingston (1710–1792), born in Albany; politician who supported the American Revolution; presiding officer of the first New York provincial congress in 1775[1]
- Philip Livingston (1716–1778), born in Albany; local merchant; delegate to the Continental Congress; signer of the Declaration of Independence[1]
- William Livingston (1723–1790), born in Albany; newspaper publisher; member of the Continental Congress; first Governor of New Jersey[1]
- Henry Bogart (1729–1821), signer of the Sons of Liberty Constitution in 1766; elected representative of the first ward on the Albany Committee of Correspondence
- Abraham Cuyler (1742–1810), born in Albany; former mayor of Albany, merchant, land owner and British loyalist
- John Tayler (1742–1829), businessman and politician; represented Albany County in the New York State Assembly (1777–1779, 1780–1781, and 1785–1787); appointed City Recorder (Deputy Mayor) of Albany in 1793; justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1797; represented Albany in the New York Senate 1802–1813; Lieutenant Governor (1811-1822); Acting Governor in 1817; died in Albany and is buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands
- Peter W. Yates (1747–1826), lawyer and Continental Congressman; grew up in Albany and developed a prosperous legal practice there; served on the Albany City Council and in the county militia at the start of the American Revolution; represented Albany in the New York State Assembly and the Continental Congress
- Peter Gansevoort (1749–1812); colonel in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War; born and died in Albany[1]
- Isaac Mitchell (1759–1812), born in Albany; journalist, author, and editor of the Poughkeepsie Guardian, Albany Republican Crisis, and Poughkeepsie Republican Herald[1]
- Alexander Boyd (1764–1857), U.S. Congressman; born in Albany[1]
- James Cochran (1769–1848), U.S. Congressman from New York; journalist; born in Albany[1]
- Jacob Cuyler (1773–1854), born in Albany; British officer involved in the settlement of the 1820 Settlers to the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Harmanus Bleecker (1779–1849), U.S. Congressman; born in Albany[1]
- Herman Knickerbocker (1779–1855), U.S. Congressman; born in Albany[1]
- John Duer (1782–1858), born in Albany; jurist; author; chief judge of New York Superior Court[1]
- Harmanus Peek (1782–1838), born in Albany; U.S. Congressman from New York[1]
- Gerrit Y. Lansing (1783–1862), born in Albany; U.S. Congressman; bank and insurance company president[1]
- John K. Kane (1795–1858), born in Albany; politician, attorney, and jurist[1]
- Joseph Henry (1797–1878), born in Albany; inventor of low- and high-resistance galvanometers; first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution[1]
- Robert Sanders (1705–1765), mayor of Albany from 1750 to 1754[2]
19th century
- James Montgomery Bailey (1841–1894), journalist and author; founder of newspapers Danbury News and Danbury Evening News; native of Albany[1]
- William Bliss Baker (1856–1886), landscape artist in the Realism movement
- William Barnes Sr., attorney and Republican Party organizer[3]
- Herman Bendell (1843–1932), physician; Civil War surgeon; Superintendent of Indian Affairs Arizona Territory; American Consul Elsinore, Denmark; native of Albany
- James H. Blessing (1837–1910), mayor of Albany from 1900 to 1901[4]
- William Henry Bogart (1810–1888), member of the New York Legislature; author[1]
- Joseph Bradford Carr (1828–1895), born in Albany; Union Army general; Secretary of State of New York[1]
- Robert Carter (1819–1879), born in Albany; author and editor; involved in the foundation of the Republican Party[1]
- Nanette Comstock (1866–1942), born in Albany, stage actress[5]
- Roscoe Conkling (1829–1888), United States Congressman and United States Senator from New York; born in Albany[1]
- William Jermyn Florence (1831–1891), born in Albany; actor; comedian; improvisationalist[1]
- Joseph R. Grismer (1849–1922), actor, playwright and theatrical producer; born in Albany[6]
- Abraham Oakey Hall (1826–1898), born in Albany; mayor of New York City; author[1]
- Learned Hand (1872–1961), United States judge and judicial philosopher
- Henry James Sr. (1811–1882), born in Albany; Swedenborgian theologian; father of William James, Henry James, and Alice James[1]
- Lucy Stedman Lamson (1857–1926), businesswoman, educator
- Daniel Manning (1831–1887), born in Albany; journalist and later United States Secretary of the Treasury[1]
- Homer Dodge Martin (1836–1897), born in Albany; painter whose talent was not recognized until his death[1]
- James Campbell Matthews (1844–1930), New York's first African-American law school graduate and judge of Albany's Recorder's Court[7]
- John McKeon (1808–1883), born in Albany; district attorney for New York County and Southern New York; US Congressman from New York[1]
- Henry B. Metcalfe (1805–1881), born in Albany; prosecuting attorney, judge, and US Congressman from New York[1]
- John Pitkin Norton (1822–1852), born in Albany; chemist and educator; helped found the Sheffield Scientific School[1]
- Emily Sullivan Oakey (1829–1883), born in Albany; educator, author, poet, hymnist[8]
- John Rathbone Oliver (1872–1943), born in Albany; psychiatrist, medical historian, author, and priest
- Annie L. Y. Orff (1861–1914), journalist; magazine editor and publisher
- William Page (1811–1885), born in Albany; considered the leading American painter of his time[1]
- Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1809–1873), lawyer, judge, and U.S. congressman; born in Rensselaerville; the county's district attorney, 1838–1841; served on the New York Supreme Court, Third Judicial District (1861–1869) seated in Albany, then on the New York Court of Appeals (1870–1873); was lost at sea; his cenotaph is in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands
- Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1838–1909), New York state court judge and U.S. Supreme Court justice; son of Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1809–1873)
- Wheeler Hazard Peckham (1833–1905), lawyer and defeated nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court; son of Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1809-1873)
- Cy Seymour (1872–1919), native of Albany, major league baseball player[9]
- Theobald Smith (1859–1934), born in Albany; epidemiologist, bacteriologist, pathologist and professor
- Gilbert R. Spalding (1812–1880), showman and circus owner
- Frances E. Townsley (1850–1909), Baptist minister
- Luther Tucker (1802–1873), Publisher of The Cultivator and Country Gentleman
- Oren Elbridge Wilson (1844–1917), mayor of Albany from 1894 to 1895[10]
- Alice Ames Winter (1865–1944), litterateur, author and clubwoman
20th century
- Philip Amelio (1977–2005), actor and teacher; graduated from the University at Albany and received a master's degree in education from The College of Saint Rose in Albany
- Norman C. Armitage (1907, as Norman Cudworth Cohn–1972), Olympic medalist saber fencer
- Rita Chatterton (b.1957), professional wrestling referee[11]
- William Barnes Jr. (1866–1930), Newspaper publisher and Republican Party leader
- Talor Battle (b.1988), basketball player who is currently an assistant coach for Northwestern Wildcats
- Ann Curless (b. 1963), Exposé singer
- Edmund L. Daley (1883–1968), U.S. Army major general[12]
- Kirsten Gillibrand (b. 1966), current U.S. Senator from New York since 2009; born in Albany
- Kevin Huerter (b.1998), National Basketball Association (NBA) player for the Sacramento Kings
- Mary Mellish (1890–1955), soprano at the Metropolitan Opera; born and died in Albany[13]
- Howard C. Nolan Jr. (1932–2023), former member of the New York State Senate
- Martha Quinn (b. 1959), an original video jockey on MTV
- Emanuel Rackman (1910–2008), born in Albany, Modern Orthodox rabbi; President of Bar-Ilan University
- Andy Rooney (1919–2011), radio and television writer; 60 Minutes
- Shoenice, (b. 1969 as Christopher Schewe), American YouTuber and competitive eater
- Israel Tsvaygenbaum (b. 1961), Russian-American artist
- Anthony Vinciquerra (b.1954), former CEO of Fox Networks and current CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, born in Albany.
- William Kennedy (b. 1928), writer and journalist; wrote several books based in Albany, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Ironweed.
Dion Lewis
Alphabetical index
Notes and References
- Book: Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume, 1607-1896 . Marquis Who's Who . Chicago . 1963.
- Book: Reynolds, Cuyler . 1906 . Albany Chronicles: A History of the City Arranged Chronologically . Albany, NY . J. B. Lyon Company . 244 . InternetArchive.
- Book: New York State Bar Association . 1913 . Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting . Albany, NY . The Argus Company . 713–716 . . .
- Book: Fitch, Charles Elliott . 1916 . Encyclopedia of Biography of New York . New York, NY . American Historical Society . 42 . Google Books.
- Miss Nanette Comstock, 68, Retired Actress. The New York Times, June 24, 1942, p. 19
- https://books.google.com/books?id=1BpAAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Grismer+is+a+director+in+the+Commercial+Trust+Company%22&pg=PA210 Browne, Walter & Koch, E. De Roy-Who's Who on the Stage, 1908; pg. 209-210
- Book: Simmons, William J. . 1887 . Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising . Cleveland, OH . Geo. M. Rewell & Co. . 964.
- Book: Herringshaw, Thomas William. Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States; Illustrated with Three Thousand Vignette Portraits .... Public domain. 1914. American publishers' association.
- Book: Reichler, Joseph L. . The Baseball Encyclopedia . 1969 . 4th . 1979 . Macmillan Publishing . New York . 0-02-578970-8 . registration .
- Book: 1927 . The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography . XVII . New York, NY . James T. White & Company . 7 . Google Books.
- Web site: Riesman . Abraham . The First Female Referee in WWE Says Vince McMahon Raped Her . . December 25, 2023 . en . June 27, 2022.
- Brown . Horace M. Jr. . Spring 1970 . Obituary, Edmund Leo Daley . Assembly . West Point, NY . Association of Graduates, U.S.M.A. . 105–106 . Google Books.
- News: Opera News. 28. February 28, 1955. 17. 19. Opera Has Lost: Mary Mellish.