| Notes |
- Colonel Jeremias Van Rensselaer, the third patroon, son of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer and Anna Van Wely, was born in Amsterdam, Holland, in 1632, and died in Rensselaerswvck. October 12, 1674. Because he was the first patroon who resided in the colony, he was considered the first Lord of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck. It has constituted considerable confusion to distinguish in the series the proper numerical position of the patroon and the lord of the manor, many historians employing the terms as though synonymous expressions, in error. It fell to the lot of Jeremias Van Rensselaer to witness the overthrow of the Dutch rule at Fort Orange on September 24, 1664, and to find it again to revert to the Dutch government August 5, 1673, when the fort at Albany became known as Willemstadt. He continued the work of his father on much the same lines. His efforts saw the completion of the Dutch church edifice, a rude wooden affair, in July, 1646. One may form an excellent idea of the colony's aspects by what Father Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit missionary residing there, wrote thereof on August 3, 1646:
"There are two things in this settlement, first, a miserable little fort called Fort Orange, built of logs, with four or five pieces of Breteuil cannon and as many swivels. This has been reserved and is maintained by the West India Company. This fort was formerly on an island in the river. It is now on the mainland toward the Iroquois, a little above the said island. Second, a colony sent here by this Rensselaer, who is the Patroon. This colony is composed of about a hundred persons, who reside in some twenty-five or thirty houses, built along the river as each one found most convenient. In the principal house lives the Patroon's agent; the minister has his apart, in which service is performed. There is also a kind of bailiff here, whom they call the seneschal, who administers justice. Their houses are solely of boards and thatched, with no masonwork except the chimneys. The forest furnishes many fine pines; they make boards by means of their mills which they have here for the purpose. They found some pieces of cultivated ground, which the savages had formerly cleared, and in which they sow wheat and oats for beer, and for their horses, of which they have great numbers. There is little land fit for tillage, being hemmed in by hills, which are poor soil. This obliges them to separate, and they already occupy two or three leagues of the country. Trade is free to all; this gives the Indians all things cheap, each of the Hollanders outbidding his neighbor, and being satisfied, provided he can gain some little profit."
Petrus Stuyvesant became director-general for the Dutch in 1647, and immediately after his arrival at New Netherland there were strained relations between him and those in charge of the Rensselaerswyck colony. None of the name of Van Rensselaer had come over. Johannes Van Rensselaer, then only twenty-two years old and residing in Holland, was the patroon, and Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer did not come over to be director until four years late. It was necessary to have an able representative to cope with the cunning of Governor Stuyvesant. Brandt A. Van Slechtenhorst sailed from Holland, by way of Virginia, September 26, 1647, for Fort Orange. The Hudson river being frozen over, he did not arrive until March 22, 1648. While he would not admit any rule over his authority by Pieter Stuyvesant, still he did pay him due respect on his first visit of inspection of the fort, south of the Manor, it being recorded: "Whereas the council of the colony directed that the Heer General Pieter Stuyvesant should be honored, on his arrival and departure, with several salutes from the Heer Patroon's three pieces of cannon, the Director (Van Slechtenhorst) employed Jan Dircksen Van Bremen and Hans Eencluys to clean the same, for they were filled with earth and stones, and to load them, in doing which they were engaged three days, to wit: one day in cleaning them, the second day in firing at the arrival, and the third at Stuyvesant's departure, for which Van Slechtenhorst purchased twenty pounds of powder and expended ten guilders for beer and victuals, besides having provided the Heer General at his departure with some young fowls and pork," which was in July, 1648.
Stuvvesant 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, saying: "We request, by virtue of our commission, the commandant and court of the said colony to desist and refrain from building within a cannon-shot from the fort until further 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 householders and freemen of the colony shall appear on the 28th day of November of this year, being Tuesday, at the house of the honorable director, and them take the `'urggerlijke' oath of allegiance." On that day forty-five colonists appeared and took their oath, swearing: "I promise and swear that I shall be true and faithful to the noble Patroon and codirectors, 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 inhabitant to maintain and support, offensively and defensively against every one, the right and the jurisdiction of the colony. And with reverence 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 1, 1652, made at night a hideous outcry, discharging their muskets in front of the director's mansion. A piece of burning wad fell on the thatched roof and set it ablaze. The next day they assaulted Van Slechtenhorst's son, beating him and dragging him mercilessly through the mire. On January 15th Stuyvesant wrote to his man, Vice-Director Dyckman, to maintain the rights of the Dutch West India Company, and he went with a bodyguard to Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer's manor house, where the colonial magistrates were in session, making the request that Director Van Rensselaer read the proclamation from Stuyvesant 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 document 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 Dyckman, on March 5th, to erect a number of posts six hundred paces from the walls of Fort Orange, being about 3,083 feet (250 Rhineland rods of 12 Rhineland feet of 12 36-100 in.), marking each with the West India Company'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 magistrates 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 arrived at Fort Orange on April 1st to straighten out matters and have a clear understanding 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 Beverswyck, or the village of Beverswyck, meaning where beavers gathered. Having 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 insubordination he was imprisoned on April 18th, and matters did not mend for several years until both parties, fearing the advent of the English, adjusted matters amicably, fearing a common foe. On May 8, 1652, Jan Baptist Van Rensselaer's certificate was signed in Holland, authorizing him to be "Director" of Rensselaerswyck, and in 1658 he returned to Holland, 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 undertakings 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, Stuvvesant at New Amsterdam (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, surrendered Fort Orange. The name "Albany" was then bestowed, and Jeremias Van Rensselaer took the oath of allegiance to King Charles II.
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 Rensselaerswyck, 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) Loockermans, who died in May, 1684. Children of Jeremias Van Rensselaer and Maria Van Cortlandt:
Kiliaen, fourth Patroon and second Lord of the Manor, born at Rensselaerswyck, August 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.)
Johannes, died without issue.
Anna, born at Rensselaerswyck, August 1, 1665; married (first) Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, son of Johannes Van Rensselaer and Elizabeth Van Twiller, who died in 1687; married (second) William Nicoll.
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 Van Bruggen) and Catharina Roeloffse, daughter of Anneke Jans, and Catharina Van Bruggen died at Greenbush, December 6, 1730, having had but one child, Anna, born in 1719, who married John Schuyler.
Maria, born at Rensselaerswyck, October 25, 1672; married, at that place, September 14, 1691, Peter Schuyler (son of Philip Pieterse Schuyler and Margareta Van Slechtenhorst), who was born September 17, 1657; died at The Flatts, four miles north of Albany, February 19, 1724, being the first mayor of Albany, July 22, 1686 — October 13, 1694. The date of the death of Maria does not appear.
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Davis Uriah I | Born 1707
- 1674