New York landowner, businessman, militia officer, and politician
1764 CE
to 1839 CE
Stephen Van Rensselaer III (November 1, 1764 – January 26, 1839) is a New York landowner, businessman, militia officer, and politician.
A graduate of Harvard University, at age twenty-one, Van Rensselaer takes control of Rensselaerswyck, his family's manor.
He develops the land by encouraging tenants to settle it, and granting them perpetual leases at moderate rates, which enable the tenants to use more of their capital to make their farms and businesses productive.
Active in politics as a Federalist, Van Rensselaer serves in the New York State Assembly and New York State Senate, and as Lieutenant Governor of New York.
After the demise of the Federalist Party, Van Rensselaer is a John Quincy Adams supporter, and serves in the United States House of Representatives for one partial term and three full ones.
Van Rensselaer is a supporter of higher education; he serves on the board of trustees for several schools and colleges, and is the founder of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He is also a civic activist and philanthropist, and is a founder of Albany's public library and the city's Institute of History & Arts.
Long active in the militia, Van Rensselaer attains the rank of major general; he commands troops on the New York-Canada border during the War of 1812, but resigns his commission after defeat at the Battle of Queenston Heights.
After Van Rensselaer's 1839 death, efforts by his sons to collect past due lease payments le-d to the Anti-Rent War, and the break up and sale of the manor.
As the heir to, then owner of, one of the largest estates in New York, Van Rensselaer's holdings make him the tenth richest American of all time, based on the ratio of his fortune to contemporary GDP.
