USA > New York > Hudson-Mohawk genealogical and family memoirs, Volume I > Part 3
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Stuyvesant had hardly returned to New Amsterdam when, July 23rd, he wrote Van Slechtenhorst that he must see to it that all buildings of the colony must be moved away from the range of the cannon in the fort, say- ing: "We request, by virtue of our commis- sion, the commandant and court of the said colony to desist and refrain from building within a cannon-shot from the fort until fur- ther orders, * *
* for both above and below there are equally suitable, yea better building sites." Van Slechtenhorst replied on July 28th in refutation to the assertion of rights of Stuyvesant, stating the claim of the colony to use of land all about Fort Orange,- that the Patroon's trading-house had stood a long time on the edge of the fort's moat, and he ridiculed Stuyvesant's order in view of the valueless quality of the fort as an adequate place of defence, saying: "So far as regards the renowned fortress, men can go in and out
of it by night as well as by day. I have been more than six months in the colony, and yet I have never been able to discover a single person carrying a sword, a musket or a pike, or have I heard or seen a drum beat, except when the Director-General himself visited it."
Stuyvesant was angered, and in September despatched both sailors and soldiers to Fort Orange with orders to demolish the house of Van Slechtenhorst, which news when received in the colony excited the men to prepare to take up arms, and as a result Commissary Van Brugge wrote to Stuyvesant that it was useless for him to stand against the inhabitants as they outnumbered his men and had Indians as allies. Consequently Stuyvesant recalled his men in October, and requested Van Slechtenhorst to appear before him on April 4, 1649.
In 1651, Jan Baptist, third son of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the first Patroon, came to the colony to be its director. It then became a mooted question whether he or Stuyvesant was to be superior. At once he sought to strengthen his position, and on November 23rd he had the council announce: "All house- holders and freemen of the colony shall appear on the 28th day of November of this year, be- ing Tuesday, at the house of the honorable director, and there take the 'burggerlijke' oath of allegiance." On that day forty-five colonists appeared and took their oath, swear- ing: "I promise and swear that I shall be true and faithful to the noble Patroon and co- directors, or those who represent them here, and to the honorable director, commissioners and council, subjecting myself to the court of the colony, and I promise to demean myself as a good and faithful inhabitant or burgher, without exciting any opposition, tumult or noise ; but on the contrary, as a loyal inhab- itant to maintain and support, offensively and defensively against every one, the right and the jurisdiction of the colony. And with rev- erence and fear of the Lord, and the uplifting of both the first fingers of the right hand, I say, So truly help me, God Almighty."
The soldiers of Fort Orange, on January I, 1652, made at night a hideous outcry, dis- charging their muskets in front of the di- rector's mansion. A piece of burning wad fell on the thatched roof and set it abloze. The next day they assaulted Van Slechtenhorst's son, beating him and dragging him mercilessly through the mire. On January 15th Stuyve- sant wrote to his man, Vice-Director Dyck- man, to maintain the rights of the Dutch West India Company, and he went with a body- guard to Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer's manor house, where the colonial magistrates were in
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'session, making the request that Director Van Rensselaer read the proclamation from Stuy- vesant to the inhabitants. Van Rensselaer was angered, maintaining that Dyckman should not have come with armed men upon his land, and he asserted: "It shall not be done so long as we have a drop of blood in our veins, nor until we receive orders from their high mightiness and honored masters." Thereupon Dyckman ordered the Van Rensselaer bell to be rung to call the inhabitants together ; but being refused, rang that of Fort Orange, and returned to Van Rensselaer's house for the purpose of reading this proclamation from his steps. Van Slechtenhorst snatched the docu- ment from his hands, and in tearing it, the seals fell from the paper. When Dyckman threatened that Stuyvesant would make Van Rensselaer suffer for the indignity, Van Slechtenhorst turned to the colonists and said, "Go home, good friends, it is only the wind of a cannon-ball fired six hundred paces off."
Governor Stuyvesant then ordered Dyck- man, on March 5th, to erect a number of posts six hundred paces from the walls of Fort Orange, being about 3,083 feet (250 Rhine- land rods of 12 Rhineland feet of 12 36-100 in.), marking each with the West India Com- pany's seal, and each with a board nailed thereon to hold the proclamation. On March 17th, Vice-Director Dyckman planted several posts as directed, and two days later the mag- istrates of Rensselaerswyck ordered the high constable to remove them. After that incident Stuyvesant sent word to Fort Orange that he should come there and take steps to see that his mandates were strictly obeyed. He ar- rived at Fort Orange on April Ist to straighten out matters and have a clear un- derstanding as to what was property of Van Rensselaer and what appertained to the fort. He despatched Sergeant Litschoe with a squad to lower the Patroon's flag, and, when Van Slechtenhorst interposed, the soldiers entered his yard, discharged firearms and lowered the colors. Stuyvesant then ordered that the land within the area which he had staked out around the fort be known as Dorpe Bevers- wyck, or the village of Beverswyck, meaning where beavers gathered. Ilaving given what was a fort the status of an actual locality, he instituted a court and appointed three judges. On the court-house he had his proclamation posted, but on April 15th Van Slechtenhorst tore it down, attaching that of Van Rensselaer instead. Because of this act of insubordina- tion he was imprisoned on April 18th, and matters did not mend for several years until both parties, fearing the advent of the Eng- lish, adjusted matters amicably, fearing a com-
mon foe. On May 8, 1652, Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer's certificate was signed in Holland, authorizing him to be "Director" of Rensse- laerswyck, and in 1658 he returned to Hol- land, and it was then that Jeremias became the third Patroon. It is known that he was in Rensselaerswyck in 1659, for history is filled with many of his important undertak- ings in adjusting matters with the Indians. An invasion of the French from Canada also caused fear. In October of that year he ordered the settlement to be surrounded by a high stockade, as the Esopus Indians were making raids along the river. Although on September 6, 1664, Stuyvesant at New Am- sterdam (New York city) drew up articles of surrender to the English fleet then menacing that place, it was not until September 24th that Vice-Director Johannes de la Montagne, for the Dutch West India Company, sur- rendered Fort Orange. The name "Albany" was then bestowed, and Jeremias Van Rensse- laer took the oath of allegiance to King Charles 1I.
Colonel Jeremias Van Rensselaer, the third Patroon, married, at New Amsterdam, July 12, 1662, Maria Van Cortlandt, born in New Amsterdam, July 20, 1645, died at Rensse- laerswyck, January 24, 1689, daughter of Olof Stevense Van Cortlandt, who came on the ship "Haring" to New Amsterdam in 1637, from Wyck by Duurstede, Province of Utrecht, Holland, as a soldier in employ of the West India Company, and died in New York city, on April 4, 1684, having married, February 26, 1642, Anna (Anneke) Loocker- mans, who died in May, 1684. Children of Jeremias Van Rensselaer and Maria Van Cortlandt :
I. Kiliaen, fourth Patroon and second Lord of the Manor, born at Rensselaerswyck, Au- gust 24, 1663, died there in 1719: married, in New York, New York, October 15, 1701, Maria Van Cortlandt, daughter of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, and Gertrude Schuyler. (See forward. )
2. Johannes, died without issue.
3. Anna, born at Rensselaerswyck, August 1, 1665 ; married (first) Kiliaen Van Rensse- laer, son of Johannes Van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Van Twiller, who died in 1687; married (second) William Nicoll.
4. Hendrick, born at Rensselaerswyck, October 23, 1667; resided in Greenbush, Rensselaer county (Rensselaer, N. Y.), where he died July 2, 1740; married, New York, N. Y., March 19, 1689, Catharina Van Bruggen, daughter of Johannes Pieterse Van Brugh (or (or Van Bruggen) and Catharina Roeloffse, daughter of Anneke Jans, and Catharina Van
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Bruggen died at Greenbush, December 6, 1730, having had but one child, Anna, born in 1719, who married John Schuyler.
(5) Maria, born at Rensselaerswyck, Oc- ttober 25, 1672; married, at that place, Sep- tember 14, 1691, Peter Schuyler (son of Philip Pieterse Schuyler and Margareta Van Slecht- enhorst), who was born September 17, 1657; died at The Flatts, four miles north of Al- bany. February 19, 1724, being the first mayor of Albany, July 22, 1686-October 13, 1694. 'The date of the death of Maria does not ap- pear.
(II) Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, son of Col- onel Jeremias Van Rensselaer and Maria Van Cortlandt, being the 4th Patroon of Rensse- laerswyck, was born there August 24, 1663, being "Friday morning towards eight o'clock," "and "was baptised the next Sunday." He ·died at Rensselaerswyck in 1719.
He was left in the management of the Man- or for account of the heirs of the first Pa- ttroon until 1695. At this date all the children of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the projector of the colony, were dead, except two, Eleonora and Richard, and the latter was the treasurer of Vianen, a legalized asylum in Holland for criminals. The Van Rensselaer estate was not yet divided among his heirs, but for near- ly fifty years had been held in common. Be- sides the manor there was a large estate in Holland (the Crailo) and other property. The time had now arrived for the heirs to make a settlement. Controversies had arisen among them, and, to end the disputes, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer (son of Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer) was delegated by the heirs in Holland to visit America and if possible make a complete settlement with the children of Jeremias, the third Patroon, as the only heirs in this country. Kiliaen, eldest son of Jere- mias, and the fourth Patroon, was appointed with power of attorney to act for the family of which he was a member. The cousins met and, after a prolonged discussion; in which, as is usual, both lost their temper, they at last came to an amicable agreement to their mu- tual satisfaction. The indenture is dated New York, November 1, 1695. The heirs in Hol- land released to the heirs in Albany all right and title in the manor, which was recipro- cated by the release of the latter to the former of all right and title to the land in Holland, known as the Crailo, and another tract in Guelderland. They also agreed to deliver the titles to three farms in the Manor, reserving the tenths, and to pay in addition seven hun- dred pieces of eight. They also released all ·claims on personal property in Holland, as well as on certain expectations from relatives
on their decease. Bonds were exchanged be- tween the cousins for the faithful perform- ance of the contract, and the work was com- plete. At last, in 1695, the vast estate of the old Patroon was settled, and the colony he founded in 1630, with its territory of prac- tically twenty-four by forty-eight miles, was in possession of one family consisting of Kili- aen, Johannes, Hendrick, Maria, wife of Mayor Pieter Schuyler, and Anna, wife of William Nicoll. Besides the Manor they owned another tract of land containing 62,000 acres, known as the Claverack patent, and quite commonly called the "Lower Manor." The latter was on the eastern side of the river, in the vicinity of what is now Hudson, New York. At this time the province was under the English law, and the eldest son was heir- at-law of the real estate belonging to his father.
To Kiliaen, the eldest son of Jeremias Van Rensselaer, deceased, a patent was granted May 20, 1704, for the entire Manor, including the Claverack patent. His brother Johannes having died without issue, there were only three others interested. Kiliaen conveyed to his brother Hendrick, on June 1, 1704, the Claverack patent and some 1,500 acres on the east side of the river, opposite Albany, later known as Greenbush, and then as Rensselaer, New York. To his sister Maria or her heirs he gave a farm of a few hundred acres adjoin- ing The Flatts, above Albany, and to his sister Anna or her heirs he gave a farm larger in extent, but at that time no more valuable, lo- ·cated on the west bank of the river, in the town of Bethlehem.
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer devoted much of his life to the public service. He was an of- ficer of the militia and one of the magistrates, and represented the Manor in the assembly from 1693 to 1704, in which latter year he was appointed to the council, remaining a member until he died in 1719. The settling of the Manor was much retarded by Indian wars. It was a common practice for the tribes to resell the lands to others after they had sold to Van Rensselaer in 1630. Kiliaen's grandfather's old miller, Barent Pieterse Coeymans, who came out in 1636, purchased from the Catskill Indians, in 1673, a tract of land eight miles along the river by twelve miles deep, which was actually the Manor land. He even procured a patent for it from Governor Lovelace, April, 1673, and the legal contest over it was not decided until 1706.
Of his children, two of the three sons, Jere- mias and Stephen, survived him, and these were successively patroons. Two of his daughters, Anna and Gertrude, married
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brothers, sons of Arent Schuyler, of Belle- ville, New Jersey.
It was while Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, 4th Patroon, was alive and at the head of the col- ony, that Albany became a city by charter granted by Governor Thomas Dongan, July 22, 1686. Naturally it created a serious state of affairs, for it meant the determination of the prescribed areas of Rensselaerswyck and Albany, which had been geographically very closely connected, for the legal security of which Van Rensselaer had secured purchaser's rights from the Indians.
Dongan came to Albany in May, 1686, and was requested by the most prominent men to issue a charter by which the village might acquire larger boundaries and by virtue of being a city would have a higher guarantee of property titles than that of magistrates. This forced Dongan to obtain a relinquishment of the Van Rensselaer claims to the land the people would include within the bounds, and his decision, as reported February 22, 1687, to the privy council of King James, regarding the rights of cach party, is as follows :
"The Town of Albany lyes within the Ranslaers Colony. And to say the truth the Ranslaers had the right to it, for it was they settled the place, and upon a petition of one of them to our present King (James 11.) about Albany the Petitioner was referred to his Matys Council at Law, who upon perusal of the Ranslaers Papers, made their return that it was their opinion that it did belong to them. Upon which there was an order sent over to Sir Edmund Andros that the Ranslaers should be put in possession of Albany, & that every house should pay some two Beavers, some more, some less. ac- cording to their dimensions, Pr annum, for thirty- years & afterwards the Ranslaers to put what rent upon them they could agree for. What reason Sir Edmund Andros has given for not putting these orders into execution I know not. The Ranslaers came & brought mee the same orders which I thought not convenient to execute, judgeing it not for his Matys Interest that the second Town of the Government & which brings his Maty soe great a Revenue, should bee in the hands of any particu- lar men. The town of itself is upon a barren sandy spot of Land, & the Inhabitants live wholly upon Trade with the Indians. By the means of Mr. James Graham, Judge (John) Palmer & Mr. (Ste- phanus van) Cortlandt that have great influence on that people, I got the Ranslaers to release their pretence to the Town and sixteen miles into the Country for Commons to the King, with liberty to cut firewood within the Colony for one & twenty years. After I had obtained this release of the Ranslaers I passed the Patent for Albany, wherein was included the aforementioned Pasture to which the People apprehended they had so good a right that they expressed themselves discontented at my reserving a small spot of it for a garden for the use of the Garrison. That the people of Albany has given mee seven hundred pounds is untrue. 1 am but promised three hundred pounds which is not near my Prquisits, viz. ten shillings for every house & the like for every hundred acres patented by mee."
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, the fourth Patroon,. married Maria Van Cortlandt, in New York city, October 15, 1701. She was born on her father's extensive estate, the Van Cortlandt Manor, near Croton, New York, April 4, 1680. She wrote her name "Maritje." Her father was Stephanus Van Cortlandt (born May 7. 1643; died Nov. 25, 1700), son of Olof Stevense Van Cortlandt and Anneke. Loockermans, who had married. September 10, 1671, Gertrude Schuyler (born Feb. 4. 1654; died after October 7, 1719), daughter of Philip Schuyler and Margareta Van Slech- tenhorst. Maria Van Cortlandt, when Van Rensselaer's widow, married Dominie John Miller, or Mellen. Children, born at Albany : 1. Maria, born July 31, 1702 ; married Frederic: Van Cortlandt. 2. Gertrude, born October 4, 1703; died May 9, 1705. 3. Jeremias, born March 18, 1705: died at Albany, and was buried May 8, 1745, without issue. He came of legal age in 1726, and was made the fifth Patroon, or third Lord of the Manor, and represented the Manor in the assembly from September, 1726, to September, 1743. In 1734 he visited Canada at the time of threat- ened rupture between France and England,. the Canadian governor reporting, "Patroon, Lord of Albany, in company with another in- fluential gentleman, visited us tinder pretense. of a tour." 4. Stephen, born March 17, 1707; died at Albany, and was buried at "the Mills" on July 1, 1747 : was sixth Patroon : married, July 5, 1729, Elizabeth Groesbeck (see for- ward). 5. Johannes, born December 10, 1708; died 1711, without issue. 6. Daughter, born August 28, 1710: died September 2, 1710. 7 .. Johannes, born November 15, 1711 ; died De- cember 9, 1711. 8. Jacobus (James), born March 29. 1713; died 1713. 9. Gertrude, born October 1. 1714; married Adoniah
Schuyler (born 1717, died 1763), son of Arent Schuyler and Swantje Dyckhuyse. 10. John Baptist, born, January 29, 1717; died' 1763, without issue. 11. Anna, born January 1, 1719; died 1791 ; married John Schuyler, son of Arent Schuyler and Swantje Dyck- huysc.
(III) Stephen Van Rensselaer, son of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer and Maria Van Cort- landt, was born at Albany, New York, March 17, 1707 ; was baptized March 23rd by Dom- inie Lydius, of the Dutch Reformed Church, with General Philip Schuyler, godfather, Maria Van Cortlandt and Elizabeth Johanna Schuyler, godmothers; died at the Manor Ilouse in Albany, and was buried "at the mills" on July 1. 1747.
Ile was the sixth Patroon, and known as the fourth Lord of the Manor. His elder-
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brother, Jeremias Van Rensselaer, had been the fifth Patroon, but died unmarried in 1745, as the oldest son of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. Stephen therefore succeeded him in control. Ilis constitution was not robust, and he never took a very active part in public affairs, and only two years after his succession died at the age of forty. The population of the prov- ince of New York at that time was 61.589. Colonel William Johnson was at that period sending bands of Indian allies into Canada, for in September, 1746, he had been appointed "chief manager of the Indian War and Col- onel over all the Indians by their own appro- bation." The savages had burned the farms at Saratoga ( Schuylerville) November 17, 1745, and the French were expected to move upon Albany at any time.
He married, at Albany, July 5, 1729, Eliza- beth Groesbeck, born at Albany, baptized Au- gust 17, 1707, and buried December 31, 1756. Her father was Stephanus Groesbeck, a trader, (son of Claas Jacobse Groesbeck, from Rotterdam in 1662), buried July 17, 1744, who married, July 16, 1699, Elizabeth Lansing (born 1679), daughter of Johannes Lansing (born in Hassel and buried at Albany, Feb. 28, 1728) and Gertrude Van Schaick. Chil- dren of sixth' Patroon Stephen Van Rens- selaer and Elizabeth Groesbeck: 1. Kiliaen, born at Albany, baptized December 8, 1730; died 1730, without issue. 2. Maria, baptized August 13, 1732 ; died 1734, without issue. 3. Elizabeth, baptized July 12, 1734; married, at Albany, November 1, 1763, General Abraham Ten Broeck (son of Mayor Dirck Ten Broeck and Margarita Cuyler), who was mayor of Albany from April 9, 1779, to June 26, 1783, and from October 15, 1796, to December 31, 1798; born at Albany, May 13, 1734, and died there, January 19, 1810. 4. Kiliaen, baptized April 17, 1737; died without issue. 5. Maria, baptized August 19, 1739; died without issue. 6. Stephen, seventh Patroon, born at Rens- selaerswyck, was baptized June 2, 1742, died at Albany, October 19. 1769 ; married, in New York city, January 23, 1764, Catherine Liv- ingston (see forward). 7. Kiliaen, born 1743: died without issue.
(IV) Stephen Van Rensselaer, son of Stephen Van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Groes- beck, was born at Rensselaerswyck, baptized June 2, 1742, and died at Watervliet, Albany" county, October 19, 1769. He was the sev- enth Patroon. His father had died when he was only five years old and the estate had to be managed for him. At about that time (in 1749) the population of Albany county was 10,634, and of the colony of New York 73,348. The boundary between New York
and Massachusetts was in dispute in 1752, as the manors of Hendrick Van Rensselaer and Robert Livingston, on the east side of the Hudson, were being encroached upon. In 1753 the Albany council petitioned Governor Clinton to levy a tax on the province in order to raise $30,000 to erect a stone wall about the city, claiming it required such defense as a frontier town. The various provinces sent commissioners to the colonial congress held in Albany, June, 1754, and 1755 marked the great conflict with the French, with serious engagements along Lakes Champlain and George, which were of vital concern to Al- bany. On September 17, 1755. General Philip Schuyler married Catherine Van Rensselaer, only daughter of Colonel John Van Rens- selaer, of the Claverack Manor, and grand- daughter of the original owner of the vast tract on the east side after the first division of the Van Rensselaer patent. In 1756 the population of Albany county had risen to 17,- 524. and The Schuyler Flatts were burned that year. So serious was the Massachusetts boundary dispute in July, 1757, that offers were made to take Hendrick Van Rensselaer dead or alive. Troops assembled here in great numbers under General James Abercrombie, in 1758, and following the death of Lord Howe, at Ticonderoga, July 6th, his body was brought here for burial in St. Peter's Church.
The Van Rensselaer Manor House, or the "Patroon's," as it was more commonly called, was built by Stephen Van Rensselaer in 1765. At the time of its erection it was unquestion- ably the handsomest house in the colonies, and as such exerted a wide influence over the architecture of the more ambitious dwellings. One or two, possibly three, other edifices, had been used by the head of the family before this, and likewise styled the Manor House : but they were poor affairs compared with this one or with the average residence of these days in a country village. The original house was built of brick of unusual size (9 x 4 1-4 x 2 inches) and it was painted in the colonial colors, cream and white. A short flight of steps led up to the Dutch "stoop," a small porch whose roof was upheld by two Doric columns. above which, in the second story, was the great Palladian window. The house was flanked at either end with octa- gonal wings one story in height. The walls were of unusual solidity, and the entire con- struction was the heaviest. The floor beams were of hewn pine, ranging from 3 x 12 to 9 x II inches. All about it were gardens and lawns, surrounded by enormous elms, and the gradual slope towards the Hudson river was beautified for acres with floral effects, foun-
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tain and statuary. Located one mile north of State street, it stood directly at the head of Broadway, which made a turn to the west in order to continue northward as the Troy road. Patroon's creek was the southern demarcation of the property, spanned by a massive brown- stone bridge, and at its edge stood the lodge where the keeper lived. It was to this hand- some home that Stephen Van Rensselaer brought his bride, Catherine Livingston ; but he enjoyed it only a brief spell, for within six years of his marriage he died.
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