Margarita Bleecker Collins

Margarita Bleecker was born in October 1714. She was the daughter of Albany leaders Rutger Janse and older Widow Catalina Schuyler Bleecker. She grew up in a large combined family in her mother's comfortable house on Market Street.

She married Edward Collins in the Albany Dutch church on December 9, 1733. Their marriage produced no children. Instead, the couple served as godparents to a number of Albany children.

On the death of her husband in 1753, Margarita inherited his entire estate which included real and personal property and a number of "negroes and negro wenches." She also inherited a third of her father's personal property and received a settlement from her brothers a few years later. Still young, she did not remarry but was listed as the head of an Albany household on the city census taken by the British army in 1756.

Margarita Bleecker Collins died at age 45 and was buried in the Dutch Church cemetery on May 1, 1760. Her will, filed on April 28, noted her "being sick" and listed as heirs her brothers, John R. and Jacobus Bleecker.

Sources: The life of Margarita Bleecker Collins is CAP biography number 212. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.