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Dr.
Peter Gansevoort
Dr. Peter Gansevoort was born in July 1725. He was the youngest son of Leendert and Catharina De Wandelaer Gansevoort. He grew up at the family brewery facing Market Street and along the Albany waterfront.
With
traditional family enterprises staked out by his
older brothers, young Peter embarked on a more unique
career path when he was sent to Boston for medical
training. The particulars and duration of that education
have not yet been uncovered. But by the 1750s, he
had returned home, married, and set up an Albany-based
medical practice that led to a lifetime of service
to family members and their kin.
In
1752, he married Gerritje Ten Eyck - sister of a
former mayor of Albany. By 1770, their ten children
had been baptized in the Albany Dutch Church where
he was a pewholder.
Known
in local circles as "Dr. Gansevoort," he does not seem to have been an active participant in business or trade and mostly stayed out of civic affairs. He lived comfortably in a house inherited from his parents, did serve in the militia, supported other community-based activities, and later occasioned some note as a classical scholar.
His
wife died in 1782. By the 1790s, he was a grandfather
who had retired to his substantial Market Street
home under the care of his grown children. Dr. Peter
Gansevoort died in March 1809 - shy of his eighty-fourth
birthday. His will passed probate two months later.
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Sources: The life of Dr. Peter Gansevoort is CAP biography
number 4670. This profile is derived chiefly from
family and community-based resources.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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