Lydia Dealy Van Benthuysen Beasley

by


Lydia Dealy was christened at the Dutch church in New York in March 1693. She was a young daughter of Manhattan residents John and Elizabeth Ober Dealy who had been in the community at least since the 1660s. Perhaps her father was of Irish ancestry.

In February 1707, she married Albany native Baltus Van Benthuysen at the New York City Dutch church. However, most of their five children born between 1708 and 1721 were christened at the Albany Dutch church. These Van Benthuysens then were living along the riverside in Albany's first ward next door to his widowed mother.

Following Van Benthuysen's early death, she married forty-five-year-old newcomer John Beasley in the Albany church on November 1, 1723. That marriage produced two more children who became Albany residents. She was an occasional baptism sponsor who later joined her second husband as members of St. Peter's Anglican church.

In 1720, Van Benthuysen's will had named her sole executrix but specified that Baltus's brothers would be the trustees and tutors of his children.

These Beasleys settled down in Albany's first ward where Beasley was a schoolteacher. With several grown children living in the community, they were Albany mainstays for the next thirty years.

In his seventies, John Beasley seems to have withdrawn from the active Albany scene by the 1750s. However, both he and Lydia Dealy Van Benthuysen Beasley were listed as communicants at St. Peter's as late as 1768.

We seek information on the later life and passing of Lydia Dealy, Beasley.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Lydia Dealy Van Benthuysen Beasley is CAP biography number 5402. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.




first posted: 12/15/06