Blandina Bleecker Dudley

Blandina Bleecker Dudley and Charles Dudley provided the initial funding and the name for the Dudley Observatory. Blandina Bleecker (1783-1863) was a descendant of one of Albany's early settlers and the daughter of Rutger Bleecker, a leading Albany merchant and land speculator who amassed a fortune by the sale of lands confiscated from Tories during the Revolutionary War. She married Charles Dudley (1780-1841), who had been born in Johnston Hall, Staffordshire, England immigrated to the U.S. in 1794, and came to Albany from Newport, Rhode Island, where he began his career as a clerk in a merchant's counting room. In Albany he was successful as a merchant and in the insurance business. He also served as a New York State Senator, as mayor of Albany, and in the U.S. Senate. He died in 1841.

Blandina, who was childless, sought appropriate philanthropic opportunities for the family fortune. Discussions with her friend and financial adviser, Albany banker Thomas Olcott, as well as correspondence with one of the nation's leading scientists, Albany native Joseph Henry, helped her decide that an astronomical observatory would be an appropriate memorial to Charles. She made a series of contributions, eventually totaling $105,000, that made possible the construction of the first Dudley Observatory building and the creation of a $50,000 endowment.

During the Dudley Observatory controversy she backed the scientific council in its unsuccessful efforts to wrest control of the observatory from the trustees. Eventually she became reconciled with the trustees, and endorsed the hiring of the Observatory's second director, Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, in 1860. Blandina Dudley died in 1866.

This bas-relief was sculpted by Erastus Dow Palmer.