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Henry
Van Schaack
Henry Van Schaack was born in Kinderhook in 1733. He was the eldest son of Kinderhook merchant Cornelis Van Schaack and his wife, Albany native Lydia Van Dyck. At age 14, he was apprenticed to a New York City countinghouse.
The
young man was a fur trader who ranged far into the
Indian country where he forged business relationships
with British officials including Hitchen Holland
- his future father-in-law, and William Johnson.
He married spinster Jane Holland in 1760. Their only
child was born the following year.
During
the Seven Years War, he was an officer in a New York
Regiment - serving with distinction at Lake George
and Niagara. He also held a number of administrative
positions within the New York forces.
Wartime
service recommended him for political patronage.
He served as Albany postmaster from 1757 to 1771.
During that time, he settled in Albany - ultimately
taking over the farm located south of the city and
in possession of his ailing father in law. He joined
St. Peter's Anglican church although he also supported
the Albany Dutch church. During that time, he was
emerging as an Albany-based conduit for goods and
products between London and the Great Lakes outposts.
His relationship with William Johnson merchant proved
mutually advantageous! He also accompanied John Bradstreet
on his expedition against the Indians in 1764.
However,
in 1765, he was suspected of applying for the position
of Stamp Tax collector. Early in 1766, that possibility
occasioned quite a reaction from his Albany neighbors
who came together as " sons of liberty" to denounce the Stamp Act and anyone who would seek to enforce it. Van Schaack was quick to explain himself in a letter to the provincial attorney general.
By
1770, he had left Albany and returned to the place
of his birth. He served Kinderhook as a justice of
the peace and as supervisor. In 1775, he was elected
to the Albany County committee of correspondence
from Kinderhook. However, before long he was under
suspicion for anti-Revolutionary sentiments. He was
examined, arrested, confined to the Tory jail, and
ordered banished to Connecticut. But
in October 1776, he was permitted to return to Kinderhook
to care for his gravely ill father. Following his
father's death, he was ordered to Connecticut.
He
made his way to Great Barrington and, by the end
of the war, to Pittsfield where he built a landmark
home. He lived in Pittsfield for more than two decades
as a gentleman farmer and magistrate. He was a prominent
western Massachusetts Federalist.
In
1808, he removed to Kinderhook Landing where he died
in 1823.
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Sources: The life of Henry Van Schaack is CAP biography number
4036. This profile is derived chiefly from community-based
resources. See H. Cruger Van Schaack, Memoirs of
the Life of Henry Van Schaack (1892). Online resource.
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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