Recently, while conducting research in the Schuyler Mansion neighborhood in Albany, I noticed an anomaly on one of the streets.

The street known today as Catherine Street has one of the more curious naming histories in the Capital District.

Over the past century, the street has repeatedly appeared in public records as “Catharine Street” and “Catherine Street,” with the spelling shifting back and forth in official documents and even street signs. While the street itself dates to the early nineteenth century, the oscillation between spellings is largely a phenomenon that reflects evolving spelling conventions, municipal bureaucracy, and local tradition.

The street developed in the early nineteenth century on land that had once been part of the estate of Revolutionary War general Philip Schuyler. His Georgian mansion, now the National Historic Landmark Schuyler Mansion, stands at 32 Catherine Street and served as the anchor around which the neighborhood grew.

When the surrounding property was subdivided after Schuyler died in 1804, new streets were laid out in what became Albany’s South End neighborhood.

The name “Catherine” likely reflected eighteenth-century spelling conventions connected to the Schuyler family itself, particularly Catherine Van Rensselaer Schuyler, the general’s wife and a prominent figure in colonial Albany society. The first maps drawn when the Schuyler Mansion area was subdivided show Catherine with an ‘e,’ like the General’s wife, and an ‘a’.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, spelling was far less standardized than it is today. Personal names such as Catherine, Catharine, Katharine, and Katherine were all considered acceptable variants derived from the same Greek root. Because of this, early maps and property records often used the form Catharine Street, but also Catherine. As an example, here are the spellings on specific maps:

• 1806 map, Catharine. This is a copy of the Cluett map of 1806 by someone in 1919.

• 1808 map, Catherine Street, surveyed by John Randal in 1808

• 1833 map, Catherine St.

• 1843 map, Catherine St.

• 1876 map, Catharine St.

• 1878 map, Catharine St.

• 1879 map, Catherine St.

• 1892 Sanborn Insurance map, Catherine St

• 1901 map Catharine St.

• 1902 Sanborn Insurance map, Catharine St.

• 1919 Map, Catharine Street (from survey of 1881-1884)

• 1934-50 Sanborn Insurance map, Catharine St.

The city directories always spelled Catharine starting in 1828 (the earliest I could find).

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American English spelling had become more standardized. The spelling “Catharine” gradually became the most common form of the name in printed materials, government records, and postal directories.

This shift affected many place names. In Albany, postal listings began increasingly using Catharine Street instead of Catherine Street during the early decades of the twentieth century.  The change was not always formalized through legislation; rather, it often occurred through usage in maps, mail routing systems, and administrative documents.

Postal authorities frequently encouraged standardized spellings to avoid confusion in mail delivery. As a result, city clerks and printers sometimes adopted the “modern” spelling even when the older form remained on deeds or street signs. Such informal changes created a patchwork of spellings that could persist for decades.

At several points during the twentieth century, Albany officials attempted to regularize street names and spellings across city departments. During these administrative reviews, some historic spellings were restored, including Catherine Street, because it reflected the name originally used when the street was laid out in the early 1800s.

In some instances, the name restoration was intentional. Municipal officials sometimes felt that historic spellings preserved local heritage and distinguished Albany’s early street grid from later developments. Yet these corrections often created confusion when residents, businesses, and government agencies were already accustomed to the more common spelling “Catharine.”

Consequently, the spelling reverted again in various records and signage. City directories might list one form while tax rolls used another. Maps printed for schools or utilities sometimes adopted whichever spelling was more familiar to the cartographer. Over time, the cycle repeated.

Another factor behind the alternating spellings was the decentralized nature of city administration. In the twentieth century, different departments such as public works, tax assessment, police, postal authorities, and map publishers often maintained separate records. Without a single centralized database, each office might adopt a slightly different spelling.

Street signs themselves were periodically replaced, and the spelling used at the time of manufacture often became the de facto official version until the next replacement cycle. Cartographers producing city atlases or insurance maps also introduced variation depending on which source they followed. During the Bicentennial in 1976, I had the city rename (temporarily) all the city’s streets back to their 17th-century names.

Thus, the spelling changes were rarely dramatic political decisions; rather, they were the by-product of bureaucratic inconsistency combined with evolving language norms.

Because both spellings refer to the same name and both have appeared in official records, neither has ever been eliminated. As a result, the street’s identity has remained somewhat fluid.

The story of Catherine, or Catharine Street, illustrates how urban landscapes are shaped not only by buildings and people but also by language. Street names, like the neighborhoods they mark, evolve gradually through habit, bureaucracy, and the passage of time.

In Albany’s South End, the street that runs past the Schuyler Mansion has endured for more than two centuries. Houses, such as number 13,  built in the early 1800s, still stand along its blocks, reminders of the city’s early growth. The shifting spelling of its name over the last hundred years is a minor historical curiosity, but it also reflects a broader truth about cities: even something as simple as a street sign carries layers of history.

Whether spelled Catharine or Catherine, the street remains an enduring link to Albany’s colonial past and to the influential families who once shaped the city’s development. The street was never formally renamed multiple times. Instead, the spelling oscillated as maps, directories, and bureaucracies alternately favored the historic form (Catherine) or the standardized modern form (Catharine).

Today it’s Catherine. Or is it?

Got History? Don is the author of a dozen books about his hometown. You can reach him at drittner@aol.com

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