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Christopher
J. Yates
Christopher J. Yates was born in August 1738. He was the eldest son of Albany blacksmith and landholder John Yates and his wife, Albany-born Rebecca Waldron.
He
married Rensselaerswyck native Catharina Lansing
in 1761. Their nine children were baptized in the
Albany Dutch church between 1763 and 1774.
Like
his father and several members of the Yates family,
Christopher was a blacksmith. He probably learned
the trade in his father's Albany shop and inherited
John Yates's tools as his birthright on the death
of his father in 1776. He also was left the Rensselaerswyck
farm where he was living and would receive another
east manor farm on the death of his mother. In 1781,
he petitioned for city land at Tiondoroge.
Christopher
J. Yates was one of a number of early Albany people
who lived outside the core city but whose business
(in this case a smithy and stables) made them part
of the everyday community economy. His real estate
holdings placed him above most Albany artisans. In
1790, his Rensselaerswyck household was served by
three slaves.
During
the 1760s, he served in the Rensselaerswyck company
of the provincial militia and was awarded a bounty
right under the Fourth Regiment of the Albany County
Militia during the War for Independence. He probably
had passed before 1800.
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Notes: The
life of Christopher J. Yates is CAP biography number
4459. 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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