An important merchant, Alexander was born on April 17, 1693, in New York City, the daughter of John and Maria (DePeyster) Schrick Spratt. In 1697 Alexander’s father died, and her mother married the smuggler David Provoost, whose surname the Spratt children adopted. Three years later Maria Provoost died, and Alexander moved into her maternal grandmother’s home.
Marrying her stepfather’s brother, Samuel Provoost, in 1711, Alexander invested monies gained from her mother’s estate into her husband’s importing ventures and served as his financial partner. Giving birth to three children before her husband died in either 1719 or 1720, Alexander gained sole control of her husband’s business. She wed James Alexander, an influential New York politician and attorney, in 1721, and they had seven children together. Alexander was kin to Scottish aristocracy, and the couple’s son William appropriated the title “Lord Stirling” during his military career in the Seven Years’ War.
A major New York City importer, Alexander expanded her mercantile pursuits originally obtained from her first husband, selling her own merchandise as well as items her husband received from clients bartering for legal work. According to tradition, she also provided goods for military campaigns, stocking the Fort Niagara expedition led by General William Shirley.
The Alexanders’ mansion was considered a nurturing environment for the city’s leading citizens to meet and discuss political and business concerns. Alexander was significant for the amount of power and influence she possessed as a businessperson in one of the colonies’ major seaports, representing the financial autonomy that the Dutch community encouraged women to obtain. She affected New York colonial political decisions and was credited, probably incorrectly, with advising Andrew Hamilton regarding legal proceedings for newspaper editor John Peter Zenger, acquitted of libel in 1735. Alexander died on April 18, 1760, and was interred in a vault at Manhattan’s Trinity Church.
Further reading: May King Van Rensselaer, The Goede Vrouw of Mana-ha-ta: At Home and in Society, 1609-1760 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898).
—Elizabeth D. Schafer
World History
