10 N Church St Schenectady

Mercer's Variety Store

Built about 1785, this is an example of late Dutch style architecture carefully modernized in the Greek revival period. Here Alexander Mercer lived and kept a variety store as early as 1787. After his death it was bought by David Camp­bell, whose furniture, listed in 1801, included an oriental rug, as well as a piano—the first in Schenectady. In 1807, Mrs. Daniel Campbell, his widow­ed mother, leased the house to the newly formed Mohawk Bank for its first offices. David Boyd, then cashier of the bank and later Mayor of Schenectady, estab­lished the Female Academy in this house