Volkert Oothout

by


Volkert Oothout was born in October 1692. He was the son of Hendrick Janse and Catharina Douw Oothout. He grew up a middle child in the large family of an Albany and Rensselaerswyck businessman and brewer who also held property in New York City.

He may have started out as an Indian trader as during the early 1730s he was among those Albany people charged with unlawfully trading to the westward and fined by the province of New York. After that, he seems to have settled in Albany and succeeded to his father's brewery.

In January 1735, he married Catharina De Ridder at the Albany Dutch church. This marriage of older partners appears to have been childless. In May 1742, he witnessed a baptism at Linlithgo with his wife. He was an occasional sponsor in Albany as well.

In October 1738, Volkert Oothout was identified as the eldest surviving son and heir-at-law in the will filed by his aged father. However, that document stipulated that he already had received his inheritance and was further indebted to his father.

In August 1741, he was a named a partner in a royal patent for 13,000 acres of bottomland in what became Otsego County.

In 1756, he was identified as a brewer on a census of Albany householders made by the British army. His father and grandfather had been brewers as well.

In 1763, he was listed among the Albany freeholders. In 1767, his house and property were valued on an Albany assessment roll for the second ward.

A younger Volkert Oothout married in 1774 and raised a family in Albany over the next decades.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Volkert Oothout is CAP biography number 693. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.





first posted: 7/30/09