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Stephen Van Rensselaer III

Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

May 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 5 Comments

Stephen Van Rensselaer III (Natural Portrait Gallery)Stephen Van Rensselaer III (1764-1839), was orphaned at the age of ten. His father had died when he was five and his mother remarried Reverend Eilardus Westerlo, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany. She died five years later and Stephen was raised by Abraham Ten Broeck (later Brigadier General) and his wife (Stephen’s aunt) Elizabeth Van Rensselaer.

Stephen attended the John Water’s School in Albany, grammar school in Elizabeth Town, New Jersey and Classical School in Kingston. He then attended college at Princeton, but withdrew to Harvard because of the dangers in Northern New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. In 1776, Stephen’s grandfather Philip Livingston (who had married Ten Broeck’s sister Christina) had signed the Declaration of Independence. [Read more…] about Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Abraham Ten Broeck, Albany County, Albany Institute For History and Art, Anti-Rent War, Battle of Queenstown Heights, Canada, Erie Canal, Legal History, Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, RPI, Schenectady County, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, Van Rensselaers, War of 1812, Williams College

Thurlow Weed, Stephen Van Rensselaer III and the Disputed Election of 1824

October 7, 2021 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

A Young Thurlow Weed (2)Thurlow Weed was born on November 15, 1797, the son of Joel and Mary (Elis) Weed, in Cairo, Greene County, NY where his grandfather settled after the Revolutionary War. His father was a farmer who was apparently hard working but never prosperous, occasionally spending time in jail for debt.

In 1799, the family moved to Catskill where young Weed received a small amount of schooling. His first job was pumping a blacksmith’s bellows while the blacksmith formed heated iron. He made six cents per day. At nine, he got a job as a cabin boy on a Hudson River sloop. [Read more…] about Thurlow Weed, Stephen Van Rensselaer III and the Disputed Election of 1824

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Catskill, Catskills, Cortland County, Greene County, Martin Van Buren, Onondaga County, Political History, Stephen Van Rensselaer III, Thurlow Weed, Van Rensselaers

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