Life
He was the only surviving son of Gerrit Bancker, a pioneer fur trader, and Elizabeth Van Epps - a trader's daughter with ties to the Mohawk Valley. He followed his father in the fur trade and used his earnings to acquire land. His Albany house was located on the South side of today's State Street just east of his father's home.
On September 24, 1686, he married Elizabeth Abeel, the sister of Johannes Abeel, Mayor of Albany 1694-95. Their family was large as they baptized thirteen children in the Albany Dutch Church between 1688 and 1710. He was an officer of the church and the friend of Dominie Johannes Lydius.
His father died in 1691, and he was named co-executor of the estate. Upon the death of his mother in 1693, he inherited a substantial family estate that included holdings in Albany and New York. He was among a number of Albany natives who maintained dual residency - being admitted to the "Freedom" of New York City in 1697.
He was elected to the Albany Common Council - serving as assistant for the First Ward in 1688 and as alderman beginning in 1689. He was one of the few City Fathers who accepted appointment to the Council during the regime of Jacob Leisler. Re-elected as alderman in 1691, he held that seat until 1707. Bancker was appointed the third Mayor of Albany in 1694 and served for a year. He was appointed mayor again in 1707, serving until 1709. He was elected to the Provincial Assembly of New York in 1702 and, with his brother-in-law Johannes Abeel, was appointed Master of the Provincial Chancery Court in 1705.
After the Peace of 1713, he retired from municipal affairs and gave the State Street property to his nephew Johannes De Peyster. He moved with his family to his farm in Guilderland, several miles west of Albany. He continued trading and maintained his position as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, making a number of trips to the Iroquois country.
Following the death of his wife in March 1734, he made his last will. The widower left his estate including the "farm where I now live" to his seven living children. Intending to live there under the care of his son, Johannes, he died in July and was buried on the Guilderland farm.
His grandson Evert Bancker was Speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1779 to 1783.
Read more about this topic: Evert Bancker (mayor)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. What are threescore years and ten hurriedly and coarsely lived to moments of divine leisure in which your life is coincident with the life of the universe?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... there has been a very special man in my life for the past year. All I’ll say about him is that he’s kind, warm, mature, someone I can trust—and he’s not a politician.”
—Donna Rice (b. c. 1962)