Van Rensselaer (Family)

The Van Rensselaers and Forts were land-owning families in eastern New York State during the 17th century. Collection consists of correspondence, accounts and land papers of the Van Rensselaer, Fort, Van Veghten, and other New York State families. Correspondence, 1729-1885, concerns business, social, family, and personal matters. Also, land papers for various towns and counties, local histories, and materials pertaining to boundary disputes, sale of slaves, servants bonds, and wills.

The Van Rensselaer family is a family of Dutch descent that was prominent during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in the area now known as the state of New York. Members of this family played a critical role in the formation of the United States and served as leaders in business, politics and society. The Van Rensselaers were of Dutch origin,[3] and the family originally migrated from the Netherlands to a large area along the Hudson River in the present-day area of Albany, New York. The Van Rensselaers and other patroons named this young colony New Netherland. Many members of the family were active in politics and in the military.[4][5] They are best known for the Rensselaerswyck estate of roughly a million acres, which although broken up by the Anti-Rent Revolt in the 1840s, had long cemented the Van Rensselaer family as one of the wealthiest in early America.