Andrew Barclay (merchant)

Barclay was born in Albany in the Province of New York in British America in October 1719.[2] He was the son of Anna Dorothea (née Drauyer) Barclay, a Dutch speaker,[3] and the Rev. Thomas Barclay, a native of Scotland who became the first rector of St. Peter's Church in Albany,[4] himself the son of East Jersey Governor John Barclay.[5] Among his siblings was the Rev. William Henry Barclay, rector of Trinity Church in Manhattan[6] who graduated from Yale College in 1734 and was the father of Thomas Henry Barclay.[1]

Barclay, who was educated in Albany,[6] was the maternal grandson of Gertrud (née Van Schaick) Drauyer (a daughter of Levinius Van Schaick) and Capt. Andries Drauyer, a Dane in the Dutch navy.[2]

Following the death of his father in 1726, he was sent from Albany to New York City to learn business.[3] Barclay married into the prominent Roosevelt family, which allied him to the Dutch families of the province, and he became a successful merchant.[6] He owned a sugar house and works in conjunction with his brothers-in-law, Jacobus Roosevelt Jr. and Isaac Roosevelt.[6]

From 1759 to 1761, he served as the fourth president of the Saint Andrew's Society of the State of New York, of which he was a founder in 1756. He had previously served as vice-president from 1758 to 1759.[6]

Coat of Arms of Andrew Barclay

On June 14, 1737, Barclay was married to Helena Roosevelt (1719–1772), daughter of James Jacobus Roosevelt and Catharina Hardenbroek.[7] Helena's paternal grandfather was Nicholas Roosevelt (the last common ancestor of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts and the Hyde Park Roosevelts).[8] Together they lived at 45 Hanover Square and were the parents of eleven children:[6]

• Thomas J. Barclay, who died unmarried.[2]
• James Barclay (1750–1791), who married Maria van Beverhout.[9]
• Andrew H. Barclay, who died young.[2]
• Henry Barclay, who died unmarried.[2]
• John Barclay, who married Catherine Barclay.[9]
• Ann Dorothea Barclay (b. 1741), who married Theophylact Bache, brother of Benjamin Franklin's son-in-law, Post Master General Richard Bache.[6]
• Catherine Barclay, who married Augustus Van Cortlandt.[10]
• Sarah Ann Barclay (1745–1806), who married Anthony Lispenard, son of Leonard Lispenard.[6]
• Ann Margaret Barclay, who married Frederick Jay.[6]
• Helena Barclay (d. 1775), who married Maj. Thomas Moncrieff of the British Army.[6]
• Charlotte Amelia Barclay (1760–1778), who married Dr. Richard Bayley, the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College.[11]

His wife died in 1773,[12] and Barclay died on June 19, 1775.[2] In his 1763 will, he left his oldest son Thomas a special legacy of £100, in addition to the £600 he left to each living child.[6]