Arent Andriesse Bradt
by
Stefan Bielinski


Arent Andriesse Bradt probably was born before 1620 in Fredrikstad, Norway. He probably came to America with his older brother Albert Andriesse in 1637.

Arent settled in Rensselaerswyck with his brother's family on the Normanskill where he worked for Albert Andriesse as a tobacco planter. After a decade, he ran his own sawmill, perhaps did some trading, and may have kept a tavern. He spent time at the downriver settlement of Esopus (where one of his children was born), and travelled to Manhattan and Long Island on business.

During the late 1640s, he married Catalina De Vos of Rensselaerswyck. The last of their six children was born in 1661.

Arent relocated to Beverwyck and was among the first proprietors when houselots were partitioned in 1652. The next year he took the oath that gave him full municipal rights. He also had a lot on the river north of the village. In 1658, he leased an island in the Hudson and paid rent in wheat in oats.

In 1662, he was among the first patentees of Schenectady. Failing to reach his fiftieth birthday, Arent Andriesse Bradt died in 1663. His children married the children of Schenectady's leading families and established strong Bradt presence on the Mohawk as well!

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notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Arent Andriesse Bradt is CAP biography 4181. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. It relies heavily on Peter R. Christoph's A Norwegian Family in Colonial America (1994), 186-90. See also, the "Bradt Book", 2-3. A profile included in the published Van Rensselaer papers has fueled much of the subsequent interpretation, 840. We acknowledge some apprehension and uncertainty regarding external sources and profiles of Albany's earliest residents.

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first posted: 6/25/02