Rachel Cuyler Schuyler
by
Stefan Bielinski


Rachel Cuyler was born in New York in 1674. She was the daughter of New Netherland pioneers Hendrick Cuyler and his wife Anna Schempoes.

Rachel married Albany native Myndert D. Schuyler in 1693. By that time, her family had re-located to Albany. Their only child was baptized in 1697 at the Albany Dutch church where both parents were members and frequent baptism sponsors.

As the wife of a prominent Albany personage, Rachel Schuyler presided over their State Street home - particularly during the times when her husband was in New York or attending to his numerous holdings.

By the 1730s, Rachel had become ill and was "bedridden" for many years. Nevertheless, in 1739, she was named co-executor and a principal beneficiary of her husband's estate. However, she died in 1747 at age seventy-three. She was buried from the Albany Dutch church.

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notes

the people of colonial Albany The life of Rachel Cuyler Schuyler is CAP biography number 605. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. A family bible record of her death states she was "bedridden 9 years." The principal published resource on her family is still Maud C. Nicoll, The Earliest Cuylers in Holland and America (New York, 1912), p. 18.

By the late 1670s, her parents already had removed to Albany where they established the Cuyler family in the upper Hudson region.



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