Jeremiah Van Rensselaer

Jeremiah Van Rensselaer (August 27, 1738February 19, 1810), from the prominent Van Rensselaer family, was Lieutenant Governor of New York and a member of Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing New York in the 1st United States Congress. Early life Jeremiah Van Rensselaer was born on August 27, 1738, at the main home of his family's manor, "Rensselaerswyck" in the Province of New York, in what is now the city of Watervliet. His parents were Johannes Van Rensselaer (1708–1793) and Engeltie "Angelica" Livingston (1698–1747), who married in 1734. He was the third of six children: Catherine (b. 1734), Margarita (b. 1736), Jeremiah, Robert (b. 1740), Hendrick (b. 1742), and James (b. 1747). His mother died before he was 10 years-old and his father remarried, to Gertrude van Cortlandt. His older sister was Catherine van Rensselaer (1734–1803) who in 1755 married Philip Schuyler (1733–1804), a Revolutionary general and United States Senator from New York. This relationship made him the maternal uncle to Angelica Schuyler (1756-1814), who married British MP John Barker Church, Elizabeth Schuyler (1757-1854), who married Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, Margarita Schuyler (1758-1801), who married Stephen Van Rensselaer III, the son of Jeremiah's first cousin, Stephen van Rensselaer II (1742–1769), and Philip Jeremiah Schuyler (1768-1835), who also served in the United States House of Representatives.