Anna Staats Visscher Roorbach
by
Stefan Bielinski


Anna Staats was born in December 1703. She was the daughter of Albany and Rensselaerswyck residents Barent and Neeltje Vandenbergh Staats.

In February 1728, she married thirty-year-old Albany native Johannes Visscher. By 1743, their ten children were baptized at the Albany Dutch church where she was a longtime pewholder and occassional baptism sponsor.

These Visschers lived in Albany's third ward where Johannes served as alderman. He was a prominent businessman and landholder. His will, filed in 1744, named Anna as co-executor and left her the income from all rents. Johannes Visscher died in April 1749. In 1748, she also was left a share of her father's estate.

By the 1760s, she had become the wife of newcomer schoolteacher and then businessman John Roorbach This middle-aged couple may have had children but they were not baptized at her church. This family probabaly lived in Albany during the War for Independence as several of Anna's sons became local Revolutionary-era operatives. But with the coming of peace, Roorbach relocated to the Mohawk Valley.

Anna Staats Visscher Roorbach was deceased in March 1789, when an inventory was made of her estate at the request of her still surviving husband - John Roorbach. An accompanying affidavit claimed that she had not administered her first husband's will

biography in-progress



notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Anna Staats Vischer Roorbach is CAP biography number 4552. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.




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first posted: 6/20/04