Maria Douw Ten Eyck

by


Maria Douw was born in October 1760. She was the youngest child in the large family of Volkert P. and Anna De Peyster Douw. Her father was a businessman who served as mayor of Albany during the 1760s. She grew up at landmark family homes in Albany and across the Hudson at "Wolvenhook."

In January 1782, she married Revolutionary army veteran John De Peyster Ten Eyck at the Albany Dutch church. The union may have produced only two children.

These Ten Eycks made their home on lower State Street where John was a businessman and official who was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1788. In 1790, their home was attended by four slaves. During the early 1800s, widow Maria freed her slaves.

Maria lost her husband when John died in 1798. The thirty seven-year-old widow lived on as the head of the houshold in their 82 State Street home with her son, also named John DePeyster Ten Eyck, for the next twenty years.

Maria Douw Ten Eyck died in March 1818. She had lived almost fifty-eight years.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Maria Douw Ten Eyck is CAP biography number 2162. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.




first posted: 6/10/07