Albert
Andriesse Bradt
Albert Andriesse was born in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1607. He probably was the son of Andries and Eva. The family subsequently relocated to Amsterdam, Holland where there was a substantial Norwegian community. Coming to New Netherland in 1637, he was the patriarch of the Bradt family in America.
In
1632, Albert Andriesse married Anna Barents in Amsterdam.
At that time, he was twenty-four years old and gave
his occupation as "a sailor in the merchant marine." The marriage produced at least eight children born before Anna's death in 1661. About 1663, he married Pieterje Jans, the widow of his former partner. After her death in 1667, his third wife was Geertruy Coeymans Vosburgh - another widow. The last two marriages produced no children!
Albert
Andriesse emigrated to America to serve at Rensselaerswyck,
a plantation in the upper Hudson Valley. Settling
along a steam south of Fort Orange later named "The Normanskill" in his honor, he was a woodcutter, sawyer, and tobacco planter.
Those
enterprises and some fur trading brought him success
in America. He acquired additional acreage in the
upper Hudson and some property at New Amsterdam as
well. Distancing himself from the Van Rensselaers
(trading and exporting on his own), Albert Andriesse
became quite wealthy yet somewhat detached from the
evolving center of power emanating from newly established
Beverwyck. During the third quarter of the 1600s,
he was most prominently represented in the Albany
community record as a frequent litigant before the
local court.
As
his children matured and established their own identities
in Albany and the larger region, Albert Andriesse
frequently found himself alone. Separated from his
third wife in 1670, his biographer characterizes
him as "irascible" and of growing concern (we might add embarrassment) to his children. Not totally anti-social, he was, however, one of the elders of the Albany Lutheran church.
Continuing
to decline, the old man left the Normanskill and
moved into the Albany home of his son Dirck Albertse
Bradt. In 1685, his new neighbors asked the court
to remove "the old Noorman" as "he throws fire around the house and threatens to burn his son Dirk."
Shy
of his eightieth birthday, Albert Andriesse Bradt
died in June 1686. His children established this
important Norwegian-ancestry New Netherland family
in the city of Albany.
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Sources: The life of Albert Andriesse Bradt/Brat (also known
as "the Noorman") is CAP biography 4180. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. The seminal work on Albert Andriesse has been presented by Peter R. Christoph. He also is the subject of a sketch in VRBM, 809-10.
His
self-determination is chronicled more fully in Christoph,
A Norwegian Family, 24-29.
His
later years are chronicled by Christoph, A
Norwegian Family, 67-72.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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