Jeremiah Van Rensselaer was born on August 27, 1738, at the main home of his family's manor, "Rensselaerswyck" in the Province of New York, in what is now the city of Watervliet.[1] His parents were Johannes Van Rensselaer (1708–1793) and Engeltie "Angelica" Livingston (1698–1747),[2] who married in 1734.[3][2] He was the third of six children: Catherine (b. 1734), Margarita (b. 1736), Jeremiah, Robert (b. 1740), Hendrick (b. 1742), and James (b. 1747).[2] His mother died before he was 10 years-old and his father remarried, to Gertrude van Cortlandt.
Van Rensselaer was tutored at the manor house, attended private school in Albany, New York, and attended college at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) where he graduated in 1758.[6]
His paternal grandfather was Hendrick van Rensselaer (1667–1740), director of the Eastern patent of the Rensselaerswyck manor, and his paternal grandmother was Catharina Van Brugh, daughter of merchant Johannes Pieterse Van Brugh (1624–1697).[8] He had many noteworthy cousins, including Killian K. Van Rensselaer (1763–1845), who was also a U.S. Representative that served in Congress from 1803 until 1811.[9]
His maternal grandparents were Robert Livingston Jr. (1663–1725) and Margarita Schuyler (b. 1682). His maternal great-grandparents were Pieter Schuyler (1657–1724), the first Mayor of Albany, and Engeltie Van Schaick (d. 1689).
Career
Van Rensselaer became a land agent, merchant, and surveyor. He owned slaves.[10] In 1766, he was a signer of the constitution of the Albany Sons of Liberty and became a member of the Albany Committee of Safety. During the American Revolutionary War he was commissioned as an ensign in the third regiment of the New York Line where he served as a paymaster.[1]
Although Van Rensselaer only had one son, he had many grandchildren, including:
Catharina Glen Van Rensselaer (1785–1866), who married Nanning Visscher,[3][14]
John Jeremiah Van Rensselaer (b. 1790), who died young,[3]
Jeremias "Jeremiah" Van Rensselaer (1796–1871),[2] a well known physician who was the first American to climb Mont Blanc, who first married Charlotte Foster and later Anne F. Waddington[3][15]
Glen Van Rensselaer (b. 1795)
Elizabeth Bayard Van Rensselaer (b. 1797)
Cornelius Glen Van Rensselaer (1801–1871), who married Catharine Westerlo Bleecker, daughter of John Bleecker and Elizabeth Van Rensselaer (the daughter of Stephen Van Rensselaer II)
Jeremiah Van Rensselaer (1738–1810), in Princetonians, 1748-1768: A Biographical Dictionary (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977). 252ff.