Gerritje Van Schaick was born in September 1687. She was the eldest daughter of Albany residents Anthony and Maria Vanderpoel Van Schaick. She grew up in a large family in the Albany homes of a wealthy businessman and landholder.

Just past her seventeenth birthday, Gerritje married silversmith Coenradt Ten Eyck at her father's Albany home on September 24, 1704. Seven months later, the first of her ten children was baptized in the Albany Dutch church.

These Ten Eycks lived in the first ward where Coenradt was a prominent silversmith, businessman, and city official. Over the next decades, their fortunes were bolstered by substantial bequests from Gerritje's family - the Van Schaicks. By the late 1740s, they had moved across State Street to a "good house" in the third ward.

Gerritje lost her husband early in 1753. She inherited the use of his property and was a well-known Albany householder for the next decade. Eight of her children married and raised their own families in Albany and its hinterland. Her son, Jacob, became mayor of Albany in 1748. Daughter Anna Margarita married future mayor John Barclay in 1771.

In November 1756, widow Gerritje filed her will. It named her seven living children as beneficiaries of her real and personal estate. The will passed probate in October 1768. Gerritje Van Schaick Ten Eyck had lived in Albany for close to eighty years.

first posted 3/29/02; updated 10/21/13