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Philip
E. Wendell
Philip Wendell was born in 1734. He was the twelfth child and youngest son of Albany attorney Evert Wendell and his wife Engeltie Lansing Wendell. Losing his father when Philip was sixteen, the boy would be well provided for in Evert Wendell's will.
For
many years, it appeared that Philip might live his
life as a bachelor like his much older brother and
mentor Abraham E. Wendell. These men lived together
following the death of their mother in 1769 in a
substantial first ward home - managing and improving
the mills and other assets from the estate of their
enormously successful father.
Philip
Wendell's inheritance included a budding milling
complex in the center of a large tract of bottomland
along Beaver Creek and some acreage on a family farm
on the Normanskill. For a time, he also held land
on the north side of the city along Foxes Creek.
He
was a well-known if not particularly distinguished
member of the Albany community during the third quarter
of the eighteenth century. Pewholder at the Albany
Dutch church, during the War for Independence he
often served as an express rider or courier for the
Albany committee. He also seems to have been involved
in procuring supplies on behalf of the Revolutionary
cause.
Like
his brother, Philip was quietly successful in managing
extensive properties and a number of slaves as well.
By the late 1770s, he was building a new house on
upper State Street on a knoll that would have presided
over his Albany pastureland and mills.
By
1790, his brother had died and Philip Wendell was
alone with five slaves in his Albany house. Five
years later, at age sixty-one he married young Sarah
Packard. They had six children born between 1796
and 1803. At that time, his occupation was given
as a "gentleman."
Philip
Wendell wrote his will in November 1808. It left
the bulk of his estate to Sarah as long as she remained
a widow. He died a month later at age seventy-five.
He was buried in the Dutch church plot at the new
city cemetery.
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Notes:
The life of name is CAP biography number 2702. This profile is derived chiefly
from family and community-based resources. He was
sometimes called "Philip E. Wendell" to prevent
confusion with other Philip Wendells then living
in greater Albany County.
Portrait
of Philip Wendell by John Heaton dated 1737. Collection
of the Albany Institute of History and Art.
The
history of "Wendell's Mills" will be explored further in the future.
The
Dutch church plot was in the new municipal cemetery
that opened in 1806 and was located in today's Washington
Park.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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