• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Van Rensselaers

Stephen Van Rensselaer III: The Last Patroon

May 4, 2022 by Peter Hess 4 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

Berne’s West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church: Some History

January 18, 2022 by Harold Miller Leave a Comment

West Mountain ME Church in BerneThe 1609 voyage by Henry Hudson up the river that bears his name caused the Dutch to claim the adjacent land. In 1621 these lands, the home of the Mohawk and Mohican people, were granted to the Dutch West India Company. The company established the Patroon System to attract settlers. A Patroon was given a large tract of land to sponsor settlers to colonize their land.

In 1629 the new Patroon, Killaen Van Rensselaer, was granted land to create the Manor of Rensselaerswyck in exchange for helping settle the land with Europeans. It incorporated most of the area in Albany, Rensselaer, Greene, and Columbia counties. Fort Orange (later the city of Albany), became the center of the Dutch fur trade. [Read more…] about Berne’s West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church: Some History

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Berne, German-American History, New Netherland, Palatines, Religious History, Rensselaerswijck, Schoharie County, Van Rensselaers

Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady

January 12, 2022 by Peter Hess 5 Comments

In 1652, New Netherland Director General Peter Stuyvesant declared that Fort Orange and everything around it, including the village outside the fort, often called Oranje after the fort, was independent of the ownership of the Van Rensselaer family. He named the small mostly Dutch village “Beverwyck.”

Possibly at the urging of the Van Rensselaers, their earlier manager Arendt Van Curler (Corlear) began planning the construction of a new village. [Read more…] about Colonial Conflict, Native People, Anti-Catholicism & The Burning of Schenectady

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills, Mohawk Valley, New York City Tagged With: Abenaki, Albany, Albany County, Arendt Van Curler, Canada, Catholicism, Dutch History, Early American History, Esopus Wars, Fort Crailio, Fort Frederick, Fort Orange, fur trade, https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/tags/fort-frederick/, Hudson River, Indigenous History, Iroquois, Jacob Leisler, King Philips War, Massachusetts, Military History, Mohawk, Mohawk River, Mohican, New France, New Netherland, Peter Schuyler, Peter Stuyvesant, Political History, Religious History, Rensselaer, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswyck, Schenectady, Schenectady County, Van Rensselaers

Life In Dutch Albany When The English Took Over

December 29, 2021 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

New Netherland map published by Nicolaes Visscher II (1649–1702)In 1664, Charles II, King of England, bequeathed to his brother, James, Duke of York and Albany, all the land in the Hudson River Valley and Long Island from the west side of Connecticut to the east side of Delaware Bay, in short, all of Dutch New Netherland.

He also bequeathed four men-of-war and 300 soldiers under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls to take possession of New Netherland from the Dutch. Learning of this, the Dutch in New Netherland appealed to the Dutch West India Company asking for a loan of five or six thousand guilders to prepare fortifications. No loan or assistance appeared. [Read more…] about Life In Dutch Albany When The English Took Over

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, New York City Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Colonial History, Cultural History, Dutch History, Hudson River, New Netherland, Social History, Van Rensselaers, womens history

Palatines In The Helderbergs: The Zeh and Warner Sawmill

December 26, 2021 by Harold Miller 3 Comments

part of Cockburn’s 1787 survey map The people we call Palatines were displaced during the turmoil of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). More than 13,000 mostly, though exclusively, Protestant Germans from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire first fled to England.

Known then as “Poor Palatines,” opposition to their immigration resulted in nearly 3,000 of them (about a third the size of the population of the city of New York) being sent to the colonial Province of New York in 1710. Many were forced to work off their passages at at work camps on Livingston Manor.  In 1712, more than a hundred other families, sought new lives in the Schoharie Valley, then a frontier between the English, French, and Native People. From there, some moved to the Helderberg Escarpment, in what is now Western Albany County. [Read more…] about Palatines In The Helderbergs: The Zeh and Warner Sawmill

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Albany County, Berne, Palatines, Rensselaerswijck, Schoharie County, Schoharie River, Van Rensselaers

The Third Patroon & The English Take-Over of New York

December 6, 2021 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

Van Rensselaer Stained GlassThe third patroon was Kiliaen Van Rensselaer II (1655-1687) son of Johannes, who was the first patroon to live at Rensselaerswyck, the van Rensselaer Patroonship in most of what is now Albany and Rensselaer Counties, along with parts of Columbia and Greene Counties.

Kiliaen II was only seven years old when his father died however, so his uncles continued to manage the colony. Jeremias was director in 1664 when the English seized New Netherland and renamed Beverwyck “Albany.”

Jeremias’ constant conflict with Stuyvesant and his possible establishment of overland fur trade with the English in Massachusetts, avoiding Peter Stuyvesant’s tax collections in New Amsterdam (New York City), may have facilitated the English take-over. [Read more…] about The Third Patroon & The English Take-Over of New York

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills, New York City Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Dutch History, Fort Frederick, Fort Orange, Hudson River, Indigenous History, Livingston Manor, Military History, Mohawk, New Amsterdam, New Netherland, New York City, Peter Stuyvesant, Political History, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Robert Livingston, Van Rensselaers

Rensselaerswyck, Beverwyck & Schenectady: The Stuyvesant, Van Rensselaer and Van Slichtenhorst Conflict

December 5, 2021 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

Fort Orange, 1635, L. F. TantilloIn spite of his involvement and investment, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer never visited his new patroonship Rensselaerswyck; it was managed by his agent, and cousin, Arendt van Curler, commissioner general of the colony of New Netherland.

The second patroon, Johannes Van Rensselaer (1625–1662) succeeded his father after his father’s death in 1643 but also never came to America. He governed through an agent, Brant van Slichtenhorst. [Read more…] about Rensselaerswyck, Beverwyck & Schenectady: The Stuyvesant, Van Rensselaer and Van Slichtenhorst Conflict

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Dutch History, Fort Orange, Hendrick Theyanoguin, Hudson River, Indigenous History, Mohawk, Mohawk River, Native American History, New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, Rensselaer, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Schenectady, Schenectady County, Van Rensselaers

Early Settlers at Albany: The Founding of Rensselaerswyck

November 23, 2021 by Peter Hess 1 Comment

New Netherland map published by Nicolaes Visscher II (1649–1702)In 1620, the English Puritans landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts and the following year the Dutch West India Company was chartered and given the exclusive right to conduct trade in New Netherland.

In 1624, eight families joined the Dutch traders at Albany arriving on the ship New Netherland captained by Cornelis May.

These settlers built homes and cultivated farms; they also constructed Fort Oranje (Fort Orange) on the west bank of the Hudson River. [Read more…] about Early Settlers at Albany: The Founding of Rensselaerswyck

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Colonialism, Columbia County, Dutch History, Fort Orange, fur trade, Hudson River, Indigenous History, Mohawk, Mohican, New Netherland, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Transportation History, Van Rensselaers

Early Settlement Above The Helderberg Escarpment

October 19, 2021 by Harold Miller 1 Comment

Detail of John Bleeker made a map of the van Rensselaer's patroonship, Rensselaerswijck, 1767, showing unidentified farms above the Helderberg escarpmentFrom 1630 until the Anti-Rent Movement of the 1840s, most of what is now Albany and Rensselaer Counties, along with parts of Columbia and Greene Counties, was part of the estate of the van Rensselaer family. They leased the land, but did not generally sell it.

Running north-south through Albany County is the Helderberg Escarpment, a vertical limestone cliff hundreds of feet high (Thatcher Park forms a part of this geologic feature) that separates the Hudson Valley lands in the eastern part of the county from the lands to the west, above the cliffs. Because the land above was difficult to reach, and the soils poorer, that area was settled somewhat later by Europeans. [Read more…] about Early Settlement Above The Helderberg Escarpment

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany County, Anti-Rent War, Berne, Geology, Rensselaerswijck, Schoharie County, Van Rensselaers

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

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 5
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Support Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Katie L Williams on “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks”: Building the Adirondack Railroad
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Slug Slime: A Secret Weapon
  • Stefani on Jet Ski Invasion of NY Harbor Rounds Manhattan’s Tip
  • Debby Starck on Coyotes: Decoding Their Yips, Barks, and Howls
  • Sean on A Brief History of the Mohawk River
  • Helise Flickstein on Susan B. Anthony Childhood Home Historic Marker Dedication
  • Art and Fashion Teachers Opportunity: Quilts, Textiles, & Fiber Exhibitions Looking For Entries DEADLINE August 14, 2022 – Keeper of Knowledge on Quilts, Textiles, & Fiber Exhibitions Looking For Entries
  • Margaret on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Kathleen Hulser on Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George
  • Alison, descendent of Thurlow Weed on Albany’s Thurlow Weed: Seward, Lincoln’s Election, & The Civil War Years

Recent New York Books

off the northway
Horse Racing the Chicago Way
The Women's House of Detention
Long Island’s Gold Coast Warriors and the First World War
Public Faces Secret Lives by Wendy Rouse
adirondack cabin
Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York
ilion cover
Spare Parts

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide