One such group made up of members of this diaspora, the Saint Andrew's Society of Albany, New York, was established in 1803 and consisted of Scottish Americans.

In 1886, Mary McPherson, a wealthy Scottish immigrant in Albany, died and left in her will funds to build a monument to Robert Burns.

[2] In March 1886, Kinnear traveled to New York City and, upon the recommendation of noted painter William Hart, commissioned Charles Calverley to design the monument.

This caused a slight disruption among the crowd, and the band played "Ye Banks and Braes" before Collyer continued his speech without further interruption.

[15] After Collyer, The Reverend George C. Lorimer of Albany's First Baptist Church gave a brief speech, which was followed by a rendition of "There was a Lad was born in Kyle" performed by Thomas Impett of Troy, New York.

[22] In total, celebrations had continued until past 2 am[23] In 1890, Calverley was commissioned to create a bust of Burns for Andrew Carnegie's personal library.

Carnegie had been aware of the statue in Washington Park before commissioning Calverley and was so pleased with the result that he had a second bust cast in 1891 for display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[25] The bas-reliefs attached around the pedestal are illustrations of scenes from four of Burns's poems: "Tam o' Shanter", "To a Mountain Daisy", "The Cotter's Saturday Night", and "Auld Lang Syne".