the slave girls were executed by hanging on March 14, and Pompey on April 11, 1794. In 1797, the state capital of New York was moved permanently to Albany. From statehood to this date, the Legislature had frequently moved the state capital between the city of New York, Kingston, Hurley, Poughkeepsie and Albany. Albany is the second oldest state capital in the United States. (The oldest is Annapolis, Maryland.) As the state capital, Albany drew many visitors in the 1780s. As historian John Bach McMaster has explained, they did not enjoy their visit: Travellers of every rank complained bitterly of the inhospitality of the Albanians, and the avarice and close-fistedness of the merchants. [The environment had not] modified one jot the cold, taciturn, stingy Dutchman. They admitted that Albany was a place where a man with a modest competence could, in time, acquire riches; where a man with money could, in a short space of time, amass a fortune. But nobody would ever go to Albany who could by any possibility stay away, nor, being there, would tarry one moment longer than necessary." 1800 to 1942 Albany has been a center of transportation for much of its history. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, Albany saw development of the turnpike and by 1815, Albany was the turnpike center of the state. The development of Simeon De Witt's gridded block system in 1794, which gave Albany its original bird and mammal street names, was intersected by these important arterials coming out of Albany, cutting through the city at unexpected angles. The advent of the turnpike, in conjunction with canal and railroad systems, made Albany the hub of transportation for pioneers going to Buffalo and the Michigan Territory in the early and mid-19th century. In 1807, Robert Fulton initiated a steamboat line from New York City to Albany, the first successful enterprise of its kind. By 1810, with 10,763 people, Albany was the 10th largest urban place in the nation. The town and village known as "the Colonie" to the north of Albany was annexed in 1815. In 1825 the Erie Canal was completed between Albany and Lake Erie. By connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, it formed a continuous water route from the Midwest to New York City, enabling the shipment of lumber and other resource commodities through the Great Lakes and to New York, strengthening