Schenectady's Stockade District is the country's oldest residential neighborhood, continuously inhabited for more than 300 years and containing the highest concentration of historic period homes in the United States. Located between the city's downtown and harbor, the area was once wilderness and home to the Mohawk Tribe of the Iroquois Nation. Dutch merchants and fur traders established an outpost here in 1661 because of its strategic location near the Mohawk River, and it quickly became the colonial gateway to America's western frontier. After the Erie Canal opened in 1825, commercial activity shifted a half-mile east to the area of present-day Erie Boulevard, and the Stockade developed into the residential neighborhood it remains today. The district covers 82 acres and includes 40 pre-Revolutionary homes. Union College, the state's first chartered college, opened in the Stockade in 1795 before moving to its current campus in 1814. In 1962, New York designated the Stockade District as the state's first Historic District. In 1775, George Washington spent the night at nearby 58 Washington Ave.
