STEPHEN

See also:

• VAN

VAN

See also:

• RENSSELAER

RENSSELAER (1764-1839)  , American political leader and soldier, " last of the patroons," was born at New York City on the 1st of November 1764 . He was fifth in descent from KILLIAN VAN RENSSELAER (c . 1580-1645), the original patroon of Rensselaerwyck, New York, who acquired his large estates between 163o and 1637 . Stephen was graduated at Harvard in 1782 . In 1789-q0 he was a member of the New York Assembly, and from 1791 to 1795 served as a member of the state Senate . He was lieutenant-governor of New York (1795-1801) for the two terms in which John Jay was governor . In i8o1 he presided over the state constitutional convention, and from 18o8 to 1810 was again in the Assembly . He was an ardent promoter of the Erie Canal, and as a commissioner to examine the proposed route, &c., he reported favourably to the Assembly in 1811 . In the second war with Great . Britain he commanded the First Division of the detached militia of the state of New York, with the rank of major-general; and on the 13th of October 1812 was defeated at the battle of Queenston Heights . As he was a Federalist he was severely 'criticised and censured for this defeat and resigned from the army . At the close of the war the Erie Canal project was renewed, and from 1816 till his death he was a member of the board of canal commissioners, and for nearly fifteen years was its president .

In 1818 he was again elected to the Assembly; in 1819 he became a

regent of the State University of which he was for a time chancellor; and in 1821 he was a delegate to the New York constitutional convention . From 1822 to 1829 he was a member of the National House of Representatives,' and there voted for John Quincy Adams for the presidency, and .served as chairman of the committee on agriculture . In 1820-23 he sent out at his own expense Professors Amos Eaton (1776-1842) and Edward Hitchcock to make extensive surveys, results of which were published as An Agricultural and Geological Survey of the District adjoining the Erie Canal (Albany, 1824) . In 1824 he founded a school in Troy which was incorporated two years later as the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . He died at Albany, New York, on the 26th of January 1839 . See D . D . Barnard, A Discourse on the Life, Services and Character of Stephen Van Rensselaer (Albany, 1839) .