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Johannes
Wendell
Johannes Wendell was born in New Netherland in 1649. He was the son of Evert Janse and Susanna Truax Wendell. At the time of his father's second marriage in 1663, he was identified as aged fourteen and the eldest of five surviving children.
Shortly
thereafter, he entered the fur trade. By the 1670s,
he had married Maria de Meyer - daughter of a Manhattan-based
merchant and would-be Albany trader. That union was
shortlived and her death left him with two small
daughters. By the end of the decade, Johannes had
remarried - this time to Elsie Staats, daughter of
a prominent Albany physician. Over the next twelve
years, she bore him nine more children - making their
household among Albany's largest.
Johannes
Wendell prospered in the fur trade, established a
home on upper State Street, acquired frontier lands,
was appointed justice of the peace in 1684, commissioned
captain of the Albany militia company in 1685, and
was appointed alderman under the Albany city charter
of 1686. He also was a deacon and elder of the Albany
Dutch church.
He served as first ward alderman until the charter government was suspended during
the reign of Jacob Leisler. Unlike the other city
fathers, he did not repudiate Leisler's regime.
Instead, he accepted Leisler's commission to be mayor
of Albany in 1690. With the return of regular government
in 1691, Johannes Wendell found himself cut off from
city hall. He also began to experience trouble
in his business when he was brought before the Albany
court and fined for illegal trading with the Indians.
In
November 1691, this fifty-one-year-old merchant and
landholder made his will. He died early in 1692 leaving
a widow and eleven children to share in his extensive
estate.
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Notes: The
life of Johannes Wendell is CAP biography number
2942. We know of no substantial genealogical resource
or other biograhical narrative on his life.
The
exact place of his birth is unclear. He may have
been born in New Amsterdam - where he was baptized,
at Fort Orange, or in surrounding Rensselaerswyck.
Real Estate: After his house and lot above Pearl Street, Johannes Wendell
had acquired a share in the Saratoga Patent, land at Stone Arabia (today's
Rensselaer County), and acreage at Klinkenbergh in southern Albany County.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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