A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bleecker, Anne Eliza
BLEECKER, ANNE ELIZA,
One of the early poetesses of America, was born in New York, in 1752. Her father was Brandt Schuyler, of that city. In 1769, she married John J. Bleecker, and afterwards lived chiefly at Tomhanick, a little village not far from Albany. It was in this seclusion that most of her poems were written. The death of one of her children, and the capture of her husband, who was taken prisoner by a party of tories, in 1781, caused a depression of spirits and melancholy from which she never recovered. She; died in 1783. Several years after her death, her poems were collected by her daughter, Mrs. Faugeres, and published in one volume. There are no wonderful traces of genius in these poems; but they show a refined taste, and talents which might have been cultivated to higher efforts, if the circumstances surrounding the author had been propitious. There Is a pure current of conjugal and maternal reeling to be traced in all her effusions. In her descriptive poetry she seems to have observed nature with the loving eye of a woman, rather than the searching glance of the artist; and she appropriates the scenery, so to speak, to her own affections.