Margarita Schuyler

• stanford.edu....;
• Margarita Schuyler was born in Albany in 1682. She was the first child of mayor Pieter Schuyler and his first wife, Engeltie Van Schaick. Losing her mother before she was ten, her three siblings also died before they reached adolescence. Margarita was left without the close family that characterized most early Albany households. Her father remarried in 1691 and began a second family. Thus, she grew up more under an extended family umbrella than in the Court Street home of Pieter Schuyler.
• In 1697, she married thirty-four-year-old Robert Livingston, Jr. A few months shy of her sixteenth birthday, Margarita was one of the youngest brides in early Albany history. The early marriage of surviving children of first marriages would help the parent's second marriage proceed without compromise. Margarita's match with a man more than twice her age was uncommon but also typified the arrangements that ordered the lives of early Albany mainliners. The first of their six children was born a year later. Settling into a comfortable State Street home, her husband became a successful merchant and official who served as mayor of Albany from 1710 to 1719.
• These Livingstons were active members of the Albany Dutch church. Albany native Margarita was a particularly visible communicant - sitting in the first row of women and sponsoring more than two dozen baptisms over the next fifty years.
• Robert Livingston, Jr. died in 1725. His will left the forty-two-year-old Margarita all of his substantial estate as long as she did not re-marry. As her five surviving children had married and left the city, Margarita continued to live in their State Street home and was attended by her servants.
• As time passed, Margarita Livingston became known as one of the grand dames of colonial Albany - managing her expanded holdings and enjoying visits from family as offspring came from New York, the lower Hudson, and Canada. She survived two colonial wars. In 1756, she shared her landmark home with the British Colonel Daniel Webb. During the War for Independence, her home and other Albany houses were occupied by her children's families as they fell back on Albany as refugees.
• Margarita Schuyler Livingston was dead by the end of the war. Late in 1784, the executors of her estate were offering the last of her property for sale. This extraordinary widow may have lived to be over a hundred years old!
• robertsewell.ca....;
• The following account of the background and relatives of Robert "The Nephew" Livingston's wife, Margaretta Schuyler, is quoted from W. Darcy McKeough in The McKeough Family Tree, Section #44, Livingston.

• "Margaretta Schuyler was the daughter of Col. Peter Schuyler (1657 -1724) and Engeltie Van Shaik. Col. Peter (shown in the portrait) was a Lieut. of Cavalry in the Albany Militia, became the first Mayor of Albany in 1686 and head of the Board of Indian Commissioners. In 1690 and 1691 he led expeditions to Canada; and was the acting Governor of the State of New York in 1719-1720. They had four children - three dying the fourth being Margaretta Schuyler.
  
• "His second marriage in 1691 was to Maria Van Rensselaer - three sons - one of whom was Phillip who married Margaretta Schuyler, daughter of Johannes (a brother of Col. Peter) Schuyler (1688 - 1747) and Elizabeth Statts.
  
• "Col. Peter Schuyler was the second son of Phillip Pieterse Van Schuyler (d. 1683) who came to Albany between 1629 & 1639 from Amsterdam, held the offices of Magistrate and of Captain under both Dutch and English governors. Phillip Pieterse Van Schuyler married Dec. 12, 1650 to Margarita Van Schlichtenhorst (1628 - 1711). They had ten children, seven living children when she died.
  
• "Margarita Van Schlichtenhorst was the daughter of Brant Arentse Van Schlichtenhorst (d. 1660 in Holland) who came to New Nederland in 1648 from Nykerk in Gelderland as Resident-Director of the Patroonship, or colony, of Rensselaerwek. His wife had died and he came with two children - Margarita above and Gerrit.
  * (Note: Gerrit Van Schlichtenhorst was involved in selling brandy to Indians, and he had a combination sword/wrestling/fist fight with Jochem Wessels. Click on Gerrit Van Schlichtenhorst for details.)
• "A sister of Col. Peter Schuyler, Alvida, married first to Nicholas Van Rensselaer, and married second to Robert Livingston “the Grantee” (1654 - 1728) the first Lord of the Manor."