Margaret Shaver Austin

Based on subsequent information, Margaret Shaver (aka "Peggy") was born about 1760. Family-based materials online are puzzling and inconclusive. Perhaps her maiden name was Mead. We seek defining information on her origins and path to Albany.

Probably during the mid 1780s, Peggy married Revolutionary war soldier Benjamin Austin. Shortly afterwards, they relocated to Albany where they were Albany mainstays for more than fifty years. By 1798, at least the last six of their children were christened at the Albany Presbyterian church.

These Austins made their home on the Southside of Albany where the address of Benjamin Austin, cartman at 33 Beaver Street, appeared in all city directories beginning with the first issue in 1813. During the 1790s, however, Austin had been known in Albany as a sailor and a slooper.

Their offspring seem to have spread the Austin name across nineteenth-century New York and beyond.

Margaret Shaver Austin died in December 1842 and was buried in the Presbyterian plot. She had lived 82 years. Her husband passed on two years later.

Sources: The life of Margaret Shaver Austin has no CAP biography number. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.
        Our present inability to define Peggy's maiden name (Shaver or Mead) prevents moving forward on this character.