Eva Beekman Gansevoort

Eva Beekman (called Effie by her family) was born in June 1720. She was the daughter of Jacob Beekman and Debora Hansen Beekman. She grew up in a businessman's home on Pearl Street.

In 1738, she was named to receive a bequest from her father's estate. Her parents died while she was in her twenties. In 1747, she inherited a share of an Albany house. Perhaps she lived there until her marriage many years later.

In September 1764, Effie was forty-four when she married widower Johannes Gansevoort at the Albany Dutch church. Her daughter was born thirteen months later and buried a year after that in the church where she was a pewholder for the rest of her life. Perhaps the marriage produced another child.

These Gansevoorts operated the family brewery that had fallen to Johannes Gansevoort in 1762. Family tradition holds that the brewery went back to the Gansevoorts following Johannes's death in 1781.

Effie Beekman Gansevoort probably lived out her days in the homes of kin until she passed in September 1798. She had lived seventy-eight years.

Sources: The life of Eva Beekman Gansevoort is CAP biography number 3905. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.