Rachel Groesbeck Van Santvoord

While transcribing some Dutch Reformed burial ground inscriptions from one of Joel Munsell's many and always useful volumes of Albany history, one particular inscription stood out from the long list.

In memory of Rachel Groesbeck, Wife of Anthony Van Santvoord, who departed this life in the middle Dutch church, the 8^th day of March, 1835, aged 60 years, 2 months and 3 days. 

 While seated in the house of God To worship him she loved, He called her from his house below, To worship him above.

It's the first time I've encountered the epitaph of someone who passed away during church services and I was certain that, while I didn't recall seeing that part of the epitaph, I had indeed seen the name on headstone and photographed it.  It took a bit of searching, but I finally located the photo in a folder full of iron fences, toppled tombstones, fallen trees, and other odds and ends from the Cemetery's North Ridge.

It's an old marble slab-style headstone now flat and embedded in the ground on the same high hill as David Strain, the Lockwood family and the Lochner monument with its pretty urns.  Between the usual darkening of the stone and the overlapping turf, it was easy to miss the complete inscription at the time the photo was taken.

The daughter of Anthony Groesbeck and Cathalyntje De Forest, Rachel was born on January 5, 1775.  She married Anthony Van Santvoord (also spelled Santvoort) in 1806. She was his second wife;  his first wife, Maria Roff, had died in 1800 at the age of thirty-four.  

Anthony Van Santvoord, who resided on Market Street (now Broadway), was a merchant and, like Captain Bogart, one of the last of Albany's Hudson River skippers.  He died in 1852 at the age of ninety.  After his death, he was extensively profiled in Munsell's Annals of Albany.

Captain John Bogart - The Last of The Dutch Skippers

The grave of Captain John Bogart (also spelled Bogert) on the Middle Ridge.

The anchor that adorns this monument is a fitting symbol of sentiment carved below it (Hope Is The Anchor of Soul) and of the man who rests here.

John Bogart was born in Albany in 1761, the son of Hendrick Bogart, a surveyor and Hudson River skipper. Fifteen when Revolutionary War began, he joined the Albany militia, took part in the escort of British prisoners, and served on his father's sloop, Madeleine, transporting supplies for the Continental Army. By the age of seventeen, he was skipper of the sloop.

After the Revolution, young Bogart continued on in his father's profession. He was a respected skipper on the Hudson River and, in the 1790s, was appointed the city surveyor. He served in a number of other civic positions during his life, including alderman, fireman, and treasurer.

When he died in 1855, he was known as "the last of the Dutch skippers." The last line carved on his monument reads, An Old Man and Full of Years; at ninety-two, Bogart was reportedly the oldest man in the Albany at the time of his death.

His monument is located on the Rural Cemetery's Middle Ridge. The white marble is flanked by two smaller headstones marking the graves of his wives, Catherine Ten Broeck (d. 1792) and Christina Vought (d. 1836). Both women were originally buried elsewhere and transferred to the Rural Cemetery to rest beside the Captain's monument. Catherine appears in the list of interments in the Dutch Reformed section of the old State Street Burying Grounds.

A closer look at the monument shows a small broken shot glass resting on the ledge near the anchor. Perhaps someone stopped to drink a toast to the Old Dutch Skipper.