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Philip
Van Rensselaer
 Philip Van Rensselaer was born in May 1747. He was the second son and the ninth child born to Killiaen Van Rensselaer of Greenbush and the East Manor and his first wife, Schenectady native Ariaantie Schuyler Van Rensselaer.He
was the grandson of onetime city father, Hendrick
Van Rensselaer.
Initially,
his career path was less defined by the mighty Van
Rensselaers and instead came through the Sanders
family when he married Maria, daughter of Robert
Sanders in February 1768. The first of their twelve
children was born that December. By 1793, eleven
more Van Rensselaer children were baptized in the
Albany Dutch church where both parents were members.
These
Van Rensselaers took up residence in the family house
on the east side of Pearl Street from where Philip
carried on his late father-in-law's extensive and
complex businesses. Like Sanders, he was primarily
an importer of West Indian products, cloths, and
metalware - accepting farm and forest products in
return. For twenty years, he was a well-known Albany
storekeeper. During that time, he shipped cargoes
along the river on his own sloop. He also began to
develop a farm on Van Rensselaer land running back
from the river and south of the city line.
Philip
Van Rensselaer was an early supporter of the crusade
for American liberties. Following his father to the
Albany Committee of Correspondence, he was elected
as a member for the second ward beginning in May
1776. He served through the life of the committee
and proved a valuable liaison with the supply side
of the war effort. Previously, he had served the
ill-fated Canadian invasion - corresponding and transacting
business with family and associates on duty to the
North.
By
that time, he had been appointed storekeeper by General
Schuyler and placed in charge of ordnance and other
important military supplies. During the war, he kept
the "public storehouse" and at one time had charge of ten men. What became an artillery park south of the city probably was located on his land - which was under development and constituted at least a seasonal residence!
With
the coming of peace, Van Rensselaer maintained a
broad-based profile - maintaining his Albany store
and using the Pearl Street home to be elected alderman
for the second ward of Albany beginning in 1782.
During the 1780s, he also purchased several parcels
within the city, leased a tavern on property five
miles west of the Hudson, speculated in land north
and east of Albany, and continued to develop the
farm known as "Cherry Hill."
About
1787, he built a new home on the South Albany property
- replacing an earlier structure that previously
had been the home of Hitchen Holland and then Holland's
son-in-law, Henry Van Schaack. That Georgian mansion
survives today as a historic house museum. By 1790,
his Cherry Hill farm was approaching a thousand acres
and featured a tannery and brew house. His household
was a prominant feature on the census for Watervliet
with ten family members and five slaves. He was elected
to be the first supervisor of the new town of Bethlehem
in 1794.
Philip
Van Rensselaer filed a will early in 1798. It provided
for his wife and eleven living children. He died
on March 3 - two months shy of his fifty-first birthday.
Maria Sanders Van Rensselaer and her children resided
at Cherry Hill until her death in 1824.
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Notes: The life of Philip Van Rensselaer is CAP biography
number 5105. This profile is derived chiefly from
family and community-based resources. An additional
and very useful study is Roderic H. Blackburn, Cherry
Hill: The History and Collections of a Van Rensselaer
Family (Albany, 1976). This thoughtful and
well-illustrated work provides background narrative
on the Van Rensselaer family, tells the story of
the Cherry Hill property, and catalogs its collection.
Particularly enlightening and intriguing are its
discussions of the material culture of Van Rensselaer
and his family. No bibliography of the Van Rensselaers
would be complete without noting Catharina V. R.
Bonney's A Legacy of Historical Gleanings,, a compendium
of useful family materials.
Miniature of Philip Van Rensselaer undated but attributed to
New York City-based Irish miniature painter John
Ramage. It is in the collection of Historic Cherry
Hill. Copied (poorly) from and described in Blackburn,
Cherry Hill, p. 48.
Storekeeper: The exact nature of Van Rensselaer's appointment
or commission is elusive. At various times he was
referred to as the "storekeeper," "public storekeeper," "storekeeper
for the army," and as the "Deputy Commissary of Stores
and keeper of the armory." A
descendant said he was appointed in May 1776. We seek more
definitive documentation on his service.
The
best history of the farm is found in Blackburn, Cherry
Hill, chapter 2. See also, pp. 153-54
for the building of Cherry Hill in 1787.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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