Hester Ryckman was born in August 1726. She was the daughter of Schenectady residents Wilhelmus and Anna Wyngaert Ryckman.

By the late 1760s, she had become a resident of Albany and was a pewholder at the Albany Dutch church. She lived with her sister Susanna in a first ward family home nominally headed by her brother Pieter Ryckman. Sometimes she was named on assessment rolls and censuses as the head of the household.

Never married and living under a general family umbrella, Hester was one of a number of long-lived women who became an important but not historically articulate part of the Albany community during the era of the American Revolution.

Hester Ryckman died in September 1803. She was buried from the Dutch church on September 5. She had lived seventy-seven years.

Sources: The life of Hester Ryckman is CAP biography number 1694. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.