Holidays in Colonial New York

By Ian Mumpton

There are well over a dozen holidays celebrated between December and January worldwide, but if we were to time-travel to colonial Albany, what festivities might we partake in? Well, that depends on who you were celebrating with!

In the 17th and 18th centuries, this region was home to a multitude of national, cultural, and spiritual holiday traditions. In December, people of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee celebrated the End of Seasons and prepared for the Midwinter Rites in January- a time for renewing the relationships and responsibilities with their communities and with the earth as the year began anew. Likewise in January, Mahicans observed the New Year with the Bear Sacrifice ceremony and hopes for a bountiful sap season to come.

European Christian colonists, both Protestant and Catholic, observed a panoply of secular and religious traditions from the Netherlands, England, Scotland, France, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, and beyond, as well as new traditions born in the colonies. This included not only Christmas Day, but the Feast of St. Nicholas for the Dutch, Epiphany (also called Twelfth Night), and a variety of New Years’ celebrations.

While largely prohibited from public observance, Jewish colonists (mostly Sephardim and Ashkenazim) were part of the community since the late 1650s would have observed Chanukah within their own homes by lighting oil menorahs, making sufgonyot (oil cake donuts) and singing songs such as Al Hanissim (“On the Miracles”) and Ma'oz Tzur (“Refuge, Rock of my Salvation”, commonly known today as “Rock of Ages”). 

Enslaved and free Africans brought with them traditions from Ghana, Dahomey, the Kingdom of Kongo, and beyond. Some were from Christian communities in Africa, while some others converted in the colonies, and would have marked Christmas as a religious holiday. Others were Muslim and may have commemorated Islamic holidays in December or January when the Islamic and European calendars aligned.

With so many overlapping traditions interacting in a relatively small community, many groups were influenced by the celebrations of others, especially when it came to secular aspects of their revelry! What about the Schuylers? While there are surprisingly few references to the holidays in their documents, we can get a general idea from by looking at how others in the community celebrated, and at letters between family members. 

The Schuyler family was of Dutch descent. They were part of a large kin group of powerful Dutch families, the parents spoke Dutch at home growing up (as did at least their older children), and they attended the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. In this Protestant Dutch tradition, Christmas itself was observed as a quiet, often somber, holy day preceding the more raucous festivities of New Years and Epiphany. Even as the Schuylers adopted more and more English cultural expressions in the 1760s forward, Christmas day may have taken on a more festive air, but English tradition still emphasized the weeks after the 25th of December as the best time for revelry.

While others on the community may have partied it up on New Years, however, family correspondence suggests that the Schuylers saved their big celebration until still later in the holiday season. Philip Schuyler wrote to Alexander Hamilton on January 2nd, 1802, to inform him that “My Coachman Toby is very Much Indisposed. My other Servants abroad on their holyday frolick [sic], that I can only send Anthony to morrow [sic] morning[.]” From this letter, it appears that the Schuylers participated in the custom of giving the people they enslaved time at New Years to gather and celebrate with friends and family. With only two servants remaining in the household, one of them ill, it is highly unlikely that the status-conscious Schuyler family intended any sort of major celebration on New Years or the days immediately after, at least by this time.

If the Schuylers did throw a big party, it was most likely for Epiphany (also known as Twelfth Night). Both Dutch and English traditions held this as time for music, food, and togetherness, as well as lively (often chaotic) celebration.  It was also a time for the wealthy to show their largesse to friend and stranger alike. What would Twelfth Night look like in the Schuylers’ home? Well, come visit us on Saturday, January 7th, between 4PM-7PM and see for yourself!