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Dirck
Bradt Van Schoonhoven
Dirck Bradt Van Schoonhoven was baptized in the Albany Dutch church in February 1720. He was the second son of the seven children born to Albany native Susanna Bradt and upriver landholder and one-time Albany resident Jacobus G. Van Schoonhoven.
By
1747, he had married Volkie Vandenbergh - another
Albany native. Their ten children were baptized in
the Albany Dutch Church between 1748 and 1767. These
Van Schoonhovens set up housekeeping in a modest
dwelling along upper Market Street near the northern
city line. Sometimes Dirck was called a resident
of Rensselaerswyck or Watervliet. On other occassions,
he was identified as a citizen of Albany.
Although
he had practiced the carpenter's trade and was an
aspiring landholder, by the 1750s, Dirck had established
himself as skipper of the sloop "Rising Sun" carrying cargoes between Albany and New York City. Over the next decades he was a well-known Hudson River slooper - hauling country produce downriver and returning with valuable cargoes on behalf of Albany merchants and Sir William Johnson as well.
Like
his father, Dirck B. Van Schoonhoven was prominent
in the Albany County militia. In 1755, he was commissioned
an ensign in the Rensselaerswyck company. He served
the city government as well - being appointed firemaster
for the Third Ward in 1750 - first documenting a
long-term connection to the Albany government that
culminated in his election as assistant alderman
in 1766.
In
1766, he joined a number of Albany people in opposition
to the Stamp Act by signing a "constitution" of the Albany Sons of Liberty. Ten years later, he was running errands for the Albany Committee of Safety and was sent with a crew to serve as a carpenter at Ticonderoga. While not distinguished in any particular way, Dirck Bradt Van Schoonhoven was a well-known Albany personage during the 1770s and could be counted on to lend his support on behalf of friends and neighbors. After the war, he received a land bounty right for service to the American cause.
Abandoning
the river trade, he seems to have retired to his
Watervliet home. His only recorded public act of
the post-war period was to sign an Antifederal petition
in 1788. He died in August 1795 at the age of seventy
five and was buried from the Albany Dutch Church
where he was a lifelong member.
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Notes: The
life of Dirck Bradt Van Schoonhoven is CAP biography
number 5884. This profile is derived chiefly from
family and community-based resources. His distinctive
name (from his mother's family) makes him relatively
easy to track. The difficulty in assigning a firm
place of residence probably stems from eighteenth-century
uncertainty regarding the "line" between city and
patroonship!
"Support" here means he signed a number of petitions on behalf of unfortunate
neighbors, witnessed several wills, and also witnessed a number of marriage contacts
or "bonds."
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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