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Harmen
Gansevoort
Harme Gansevoort was born in April 1712. He was the first child born to brewer Leendert Gansevoort and his wife, Catharina De Wandelaer Gansevoort. He grew up learning the workings of business and trade at the family properties that ran from Market Street to the river.
After
some time as a frontier trader, Harme opened a store
on Market Street in 1739. Soon, he was importing
directly from London. His multi-faceted business
career carried the Gansevoort family out of the production
and service classes and into Albany's commercial
elite. He held the ferry for several years and the
new dock built behind his house during the mid-1760s
was known as "Harme Gansevoort's wharf." By that time, he was among the city's wealthiest merchants and his riverside home was an Albany landmark!
In
May 1740, he married Albany native Magdalena Douw
at the Albany Dutch church where he was a lifelong
member, church officer, and occasional baptism sponsor.
Their nine children were baptized there between 1741
and 1759. The marriage united two former Lutheran,
New Netherland families and brought both into the
provincial mainstream.
In
1736, Harme was appointed constable for the third
ward. In 1748, he was elected assistant alderman
and then alderman. He served on the city council
for more than ten years and was active in its operations.
Transformed beyond ethnicity, this English speaker
was closely connected to the British establishment.
In 1750, he was appointed Albany city and county
clerk - a potentially lucrative position that brought
him into closer contact with the royal government.
However,
bitterness over loss of the clerkship in 1764 and
the emergence of issues with the British in the years
that followed, brought this third generation American
to the realization that America's destiny might not
be compatible with the British colonial plan. His
sons followed in Harme's commericial footsteps and
also became leaders in the course of action that
brought Albany from resistance to rebellion and then
to revolution.
Although
his sons became the visible heads of the family during
the era of the American Revolution, Harme continued
in business, managed expanding real estate holdings,
and presided over a Market Street complex that was
served by numerous slaves - including a Pawnee captive
named Jan who lived with the Gansevoorts for a decade.
Harmen
Gansevoort lost his wife in 1796. He died in March
1801 at the age of eighty-eight. His will passed
probate in September.
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Sources: The
life of Harman Gansevoort is CAP biography number
4662. This profile is derived chiefly from family
and community-based resources.
His
trading venture to the "Far Indians" in 1735 was described for many years. Gansevoorts of Albany, pp.38-39. Alice Kenney's family history provides unparalleled illustrative material on Harme's career that fosters hope that we may be able to similarly articulate the lives of his contemporaries!
In
1771, William Johnson described Jan as "a Pawnee captive" who lived with Harme
for nine years and instructed his agent to sell him as a slave in the West Indies.
The Papers of Sir
William Johnson, vol. 12, p. 909.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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