The Schenectady Committee of Correspondence, which more correctly should be called the Committee of Correspondence, Safety and Protection, was formed on May 6, 1775 at a public meeting of freeholders and inhabitants of the Township of Schenectady. Its formation, along with the other 17 districts or wards in Albany County, were called into existance at the request of the Albany Committee of Correspondence. The Albany Committee, which had been meeting in secret for some time, called a public meeting on May 1st, 1775 when the events of April 19th, 1775 (The Battles of Lexington and Concord) were reported to them.

The purpose of the Schenectedy Committee was fourfold. One reason was to help coordinate the effort between the various towns and cities in the area toward the American cause. The second was to ferret out and identify those who were still loyal to the Crown and to either place them under watch, punish, or expell them from the community. The third reason was to settle disputes between residents and levy fines where needed. The fourth reason was to help dole out and set prices on necessary items in short supply.

The minutes that follow were taken from the two volume set Minutes of the Albany Committee of Correspondence 1775 - 1778 / Minutes of the Schenectady Committee 1775 - 1779 and Index, published in 1925 by Albany - The University of the State of New York. The minutes of the Schenectady Committee are in Volume II, Albany's in Volume I.

To read the minutes, please click on the month whose minutes you wish to view. There are navigation buttons at the bottom of each set of minutes so that you can view the next or previous set of minutes or return to the index.

These are transcripts of actual historic documents and the reader should be aware that the spellings of words have not been altered from these documents. Before the 19th century, the spelling of words had not been standardized. Therefore, individuals who could write frequently spelled words as they sounded. This led to the "creative" spelling of words shown in these minutes. Also note that capitalization was used as much for emphasis as identifying proper names and places and that the use of capitalization seems at times optional. Also note that several times the dates are out of order or there are multiple entries for the same date. These are as they appear and are not typos.

Also note that all months are not available. Those months that are highlighted in blue are online; those in black have not been placed on this site yet but will be shortly. Months with a dash (-) in them have not yet been found and are unavailable. If anyone should come across any information on any Committee of Safety records that are not present here, please contact us immediately as we would like the information.