photo #9346839

This is one of the last Revolutionary War veterans in New York, photographed in 1862 in the final year of his life. He is sitting in front of a fort he built himself. Nicholas Veeder enlisted in 1777 at sixteen, in the Albany County militia. He came home, built boats, and lived a long quiet life. But as the men of the Revolution died off one by one, Veeder did something about it. He built a small stone fort behind his house and filled it with muskets, weapons, and relics of the war he'd collected for decades. He turned the loft into a museum. People came from all over to take his tours, where he'd hold up the guns and tell the stories himself. He led parades carrying a Liberty flag. He died in 1862, a few months after his 100th birthday.