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Evert
Wendell
 Evert Wendell was born in Albany in 1681. He was a son of shoemaker and trader Jeronimus (Harmanus) and Ariantie Visscher Wendell - both members of the first generation of Albany-born children of New Netherland.
In
1710, at age twenty-nine, Evert married young Engeltie
Lansing. Several years older than most Albany grooms,
he had spent considerable time trading on the frontier
beyond Albany. After his marriage, he settled down
in Albany. Between 1711 and 1734, ten children were
born in their upper State Street home.
Initially,
Evert Wendell made his way selling "strong liquor" and other items and performing chores for the Albany government including auditing books and collecting taxes. But after he appeared for his mother in a case against the city in 1703, he began to build a following as an attorney who represented his Dutch speaking neighbors before Albany courts. Known as a lawyer, he would continue to practice law in the Albany area for the remainder of his life.
Wendell
was elected to the Albany Common council in 1712
- serving as assistant alderman for the first ward
for several years. Over the first half of the eighteenth
century, his home was an Albany landmark.
In
July 1749, Evert Wendell filed his will. It detailed
some of his extensive holdings as he parcelled them
out to his sons and daughters. He died in 1750 and
was buried in the Dutch church cemetery. An able
representative of the third generation of one of
early Albany's principal families, this Evert Wendell
was an Albany insider who combined business sense
and legal skills to transform his family fortune
into real estate - not the least of which was a large
chunk of city land from State Street south to the
Beaverkill.
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Notes: The
life of Evert Wendell is CAP biography number 2657.
He did not come of age until the deaths of his
grandfather, Evert Janse - founder of the family,
and his uncle, Evert Janse Wendell, Jr. Thus, this
prominent eighteenth-century Albanian was known simply
as "Evert Wendell." This profile is derived chiefly
from community-based resources and from provincial
records. His business records are partially detailed
in an account book in the collections of the New-York
Historical Society.
Portrait
of Evert Wendell attributed to Nehemiah Partridge
and dated 1718. In the collection of the Albany Institute
of History and Art. Nine Wendell portraits are reproduced
and considered in Janet R McaFarlane, "The Wendell Family
Portraits," The
Art Quarterly (Winter 1962), 385-92.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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