Anna Margarita Ten Eyck Barclay
by
Stefan Bielinski



Anna Margarita Ten Eyck was born in 1721. She was the daughter of Albany silversmith Coenradt Ten Eyck and Gerritje Van Schaick. The eighth of ten children, younger daughters sometimes did not marry - or they married much later than the norm.

Anna Margarita fit this pattern. Not until after her fifty-first birthday did she wed widower John Barclay in September 1771. The new couple set up their Albany home in one of her family's houses on Court Street.

In March 1761, "Anna Margreta Ten Eyck" had been among those family members named in the will filed by her maiden aunt.

Her new husband was a fifty-one-year-old Anglican minister's son, landholder, and teacher who, ironically, achieved prominence in the crusade for American liberties culminating in his appointment as mayor of Albany in 1777. Unfortunately, he became ill and died early in 1779 leaving the widow alone in the Court Street home.

In 1782, now sixty-one-year-old Anna Margarita made out her own will. Perhaps she also was ill. However, she may have lived for another two decades. She maintained her pew at the Albany Dutch church. By 1790, she had re-located to Watervliet and was living with six other people. Her name was not on the census of 1800. Her will passed probate in December 1802. Childless, she left her substantial estate to neices and nephews.

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notes

the people of colonial AlbanyThe life of Anna Margarita Ten Eyck Barclay is CAP biography number 4836. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.



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first posted 4/5/01; last updated 11/11/13