In the spring of 1776, a dramatic arrest and an uneasy imprisonment placed two prominent women, Lady Mary Watts Johnson and Angelica Schuyler, on opposite sides of the conflict and at the heart of a growing political storm.
On Saturday, March 28, 2026, at 2 pm, Johnson Hall and Schuyler Mansion State Historic Sites will offer a presentation on these Revolutionary Era women at the New York State Museum’s Huxley Theater. This event is free and open to the public. No registration required.
Historic site staff will explore these women in Revolutionary New York as part of the 250th commemoration of the American Revolution and in recognition of Women’s History Month.
Two talks by Ian Mumpton, Interpretive Programs Assistant at Johnson Hall, and Danielle Funiciello, Interpretive Programs Assistant at Fort Ontario, as well as a discussion moderated by Schuyler Mansion Historic Site Assistant Kayla Whitehouse, will detail how status, loyalty, family ties, and personal conviction shaped individual choices during the early days of the Revolution.
The program will also consider how Johnson’s and Schuyler’s actions may have carried consequences far beyond what appears in the traditional historical interpretation.
The event will be held at the New York State Museum, in the Huxley Theater. The New York State Museum is located in the Cultural Education Center at 222 Madison Avenue in Albany.
In recognition of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, New York’s state historic sites and state parks are hosting special exhibitions, offering dynamic programs, showcasing preservation projects, sharing digital resources and more. For more information, visit their website.
Johnson Hall is located at 139 Hall Avenue in Johnstown, NY. As the home of Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant, it served as a seat of trade and diplomacy on the borderlands of the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee and British colonial holdings in North America.
Schuyler Mansion is located at 32 Catherine Street in Albany’s historic South End. As the home of Major General Philip J. Schuyler, it served as the Albany Headquarters for the Northern Department of the Continental Army at the outset of the American Revolutionary War.
Illustration: Lady Mary Watts Johnson (left), and a print after a painting of Angelica Schuyler Church by Richard Cosway, circa 1790.
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