A statue of Gen. Philip Schuyler statue is displayed in front of Albany City Hall on Thursday. Mayor Kathy Sheehan announced Thursday that the city will be taking down the well known statue in response to calls about Schuyler’s history as a slave owner. (Provided photo —Will Waldron, Times Union)

SCHUYLERVILLE — A statue of Philip Schuyler may be coming to the village after the mayor of Albany ordered a towering figure of the Revolutionary general to be removed from the state’s capital city because of his ties to slavery.

Schuylerville Mayor Dan Carpenter said he contacted Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s office Thursday night after she signed an executive order to remove the decades-old statue from the city because of Schuyler’s history as a slave owner. Carpenter said he planned to follow up on the call sometime Friday.

“By no means do we condone or approve the owning of slaves, however, there’s a steep tradition in history that our village has with Gen. Schuyler,” he said.

Schuyler was one of four generals in the Continental Army and was tasked with leading the army’s northern forces. He led the army to victory during the Battle of Saratoga, considered by many historians to be a turning point in the American Revolution.

“Basically everything from Albany north was all under the purview of Gen. Philip Schuyler,” said Stuart Lilie, vice president of public history at Fort Ticonderoga.

Carpenter is hoping to have the statue relocated to the historical Schuyler House at the south end of the village, or to the Saratoga Battlefield. He said he plans to host a community forum so the public can weigh in.

“It has become clear that now is the time to act and confront the unfortunate history of our nation,” she said.

There is no timeline for the statue’s removal.

But calls to relocate the statue to Schuylerville were echoed by several prominent lawmakers Friday, including state Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-Halfmoon and Rep. Eise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville.

“Rather than taking down statues and seeking to erase important chapters in our nation’s revolutionary history as Mayor Kathy Sheehan proposes, our policymakers should be focused on enacting real and meaningful policy changes at the local, state, and federal level to ensure we eliminate racism and specifically address strengthening our law enforcement relations with our community,” Stefanik said in a statement.

Calls to remove historical monuments of prominent figures with ties to slavery and the Confederacy have grown in number in recent years. In some cases, the figures have been toppled by those demanding their removal.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, last week pledged to remove a prominently displayed statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Similar figures have been removed in cities across the South.

But there’s a difference between statues devoted to “treasonous Confederate generals” and the one of Schuyler, Carpenter said.

“I think to ignore all the other amazing things he did for this community, for this village, for this town during the Revolutionary War would be an injustice,” he said.

Lilie agreed it’s unfair to compare someone like Schuyler to Confederate figures like Lee or Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president.

“A figure like Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis, they are famous because they were prominent leaders in a rebellion against the United States government over the discontinuation of slavery,” he said.

Still, that doesn’t mean Revolutionary figures like Schuyler should be “left off the hook” for owning slaves, Lilie said.

Abolition movements were already beginning to emerge during the period and there was even discussions about ending slavery during the Continental Congress, Lilie said. “There were people who clearly saw this was a moral outrage and were quite vocal about it,” he said.

The order removing the statue calls for it to be given to a museum or an accredited institution “for future display with appropriate historical context.”

Schuyler and his family owned 14 slaves, which is believed to be more than anyone else in Albany during the period, according to the executive order.

Sheehan’s order came just weeks after the police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day, which has led to weeks of mostly peaceful protests across the country, calling for reform and an end to systemic racism. Some riots have broken out as well.

The decision to erect the statue, which has stood in front of Albany City Hall since 1925, “ignored a grim aspect of his life,” according to Sheehan’s order.

Albany saw its own peaceful protests turn violent just days after Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis, was killed while in the street by four police officers.

A Black Lives Matter banner is now draped across the front of Albany’s City Hall, just feet from where the Schuyler statue stands.

A spokesman for Sheehan did not immediately return a request for comment regarding Carpenter’s inquiry, but in a statement Wednesday, Sheehan said the time was right to remove the statue.

As far as the statue’s relocation, Lilie said Schuylerville would be a fitting place.

“Gen. Schuyler’s contribution to the Continental Army and the war effort in the northern theater was important. He did a lot, he made a lot happen,” he said.