Anthony Van Vechten

Anthony Van Vechten was born in January 1748. He was the son of Anna Bogardus and the "gravely ill" Albany taylor Benjamin Van Vechten. His father died the following August. He was known as "Anthony" or "Antony" but apparently not as "Teunis/Tunis" - the name of contemporary kinsmen.

After five years, his widowed mother remarried and brought him to the third ward home of an Albany mainliner and to a marriage that would produce several additional children. His mother appears to have survived until 1787.

As Anthony was the only surviving child, his father's will eventually bestowed on him about half of the estate. In 1766, his house and property was valued on an Albany assessment roll. In 1767, he was identified as a member of an Albany militia company.

He is said to have married Maria Fonda at the Dutch church in Stone Arabia in April 1770. In November 1771, their son was christened at the Albany Dutch church. At least seven more children followed but they were baptized in Stone Arabia.

After 1771, his name dropped from Albany rolls. It appears that following his marriage to a daughter of Jellis Fonda, he relocated to the Mohawk Valley, became a prominent patriot officer in Tryon County, and was living in Caughnawaga in 1790. We have not actively followed his life after his time in Albany.

Thus, he would have been the Anthony Van Vechten who died October 14, 1812 in "the 68th year of his age." That individual had a forty-eight-year-old son named Benjamin. Perhaps Anthony had lost his wife in 1800 when Mary Van Vechten was buried near him in June.

Sources: The life of Anthony Van Vechten is CAP biography number 2392. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.