Cornelia Spoor Dunbar

by


Cornelia Spoor was born in April 1712. She was the third daughter of Gerrit and Mary Gilbert Spoor. She grew up in a moderate sized family in the second ward.

In May 1719, she was among the children identified in the will filed by her father. Gerrit Spoor died a year later and Neeltie's mother is said to then have removed her family to New York City.

In October 1732, Cornelia married innkeeper's son Robert Dunbar at the Albany Dutch church. Six months later, the first of their six children was christened at the Albany church where she was a pewholder.

Perhaps Cornelia's Robert Dunbar was a frontier operative who may have been one of those "taken at Albany" in February 1746, incarcerated at Montreal, and was the Albany man who escaped and died that December. In any event, Cornelia's husband no longer appeared in the Albany-based record after the baptism of their last child in September 1744.

At this point, we believe that widow Cornelia was the woman identified as a third ward householder living with her sons and nearby the house of her brother Johannes Spoor, on the city assessment rolls for the mid-1760s. After that, references to Cornelia Spoor Dunbar have not been found in the community-based record.

With outstanding questions on the her later life and passing, we move on for now!


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Cornelia Spoor Dunbar is CAP biography number 6526. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.




first posted 7/20/13