On Sunday, Dec. 14, 1924, Mary Magrane Glynn, wife of New York state’s first Roman Catholic governor, Martin Henry Glynn, went to Mass alone. When she returned to their home at 28 Willett St., the former governor lay dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Times Union, a newspaper Glynn had at various times written for, edited and published, reported that he died of “acute dilation of the heart.” The truth would not emerge for decades.
Glynn, who served as governor for 14 months between October 1913 and December 1914, features prominently in the items unearthed in the time capsule that was entombed beneath the statue of Philip Schuyler for almost a century. Among the materials contained in the capsule were editions of the Times Union from December 1924 “containing accounts of the death and burial of Hon. Martin H. Glynn,” according to a note found with the preserved items.
Of all the things and people Albany’s civic leaders could have chosen to preserve for posterity, why would they choose to commemorate someone whose only claim to fame is that he happened to briefly serve as the state’s executive? At the time of his death, Glynn was one of Albany’s most beloved sons. He was a standard-bearer for the city’s Irish population and wielded immense power among the Democrats who ran the city.
“Martin Glynn was a tough guy and a revered figure” in his day, said Albany’s foremost chronicler novelist William Kennedy. “He was everything you hope for in a politician and if he hadn’t incurred the wrath of Tammany Hall, I think he would have been a potential presidential candidate.”
Glynn was born in 1871 in Valatie, which at the time was one of the leading mill towns in the country. His family would come to own a tavern on Main Street. He was an Irish Catholic Democrat at a time when those three things were…
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