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Margarita
Bleecker Collins
Margarita Bleecker was born in Albany in October 1714, the daughter of Rutger Janse and Catalina Schuyler Bleecker.
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.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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