Hendrick Quackenbush
by
Stefan Bielinski


Hendrick Quackenbush was born in August 1737. He was a middle son of Rensselaerswyck residents Peter W. Quackenbush and his wife, the former Anna Oothout.

Family tradition holds that he began as a trader who frequently ventured into the Mohawk Valley. After the fall of New France, he made a trip to Holland. Thus, he settled into an Albany life later than many of his contemporaries. Prior to his twenty-seventh birthday, he married Margarita Oothout of New Jersey in 1764. She died following the birth of their fifth child in 1770. In 1776, he married Elizabeth Roseboom. That marriage was probably childless. Hendrick was a member of the Albany Dutch church, baptism sponsor, and a church officer.

His home was on the Quackenbush property located on the northern border of the city. He also held lots along Foxes Creek which were used as tanning pits. His residence east of the road from Albany to the Manor House was an well-known landmark and still stands today! His household including nine slaves is listed in the Watervliet section of the census of 1790.

Hendrick Quackenbush served as a private in the colonial militia and fought in the last of the wars with the French. However, with the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, he was commissioned an officer in the revolutionary militia. In 1766, he signed the "General Association."He served at the battle of Saratoga and ultimately rose to be colonel of an Albany militia regiment. He also served as a stalwart member of the Albany Committee of Correspondence, Safety, and Protection.

With the end of the war, he returned to business - managing to offset losses incurred by loaning large sums of money to the Revolutionary cause. He then acquired tracts of investment land in northern New York and a number of farms in what became Saratoga and Washington Counties.

He represented Albany County in the New York State Assembly in 1779; served as a presidential elector in 1804, and was appointed one of the trustees of Watervliet in 1795.

Hendrick Quackenbush died on February 4, 1813 at the age of seventy-six. His will passed probate that June. His remains and stone are at rest at Albany Rural Cemetery.

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notes

the people of colonial Albany The life of Hendrick Quackenbush is CAP biography number 2111. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. Many very colorful anecedotes were compiled by his great-grandson, Henry Quackenbush Hawley, and have been related in QFA, pp. 66-72!



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first posted: 3/4/02; last revised 12/20/02