Philip Pieterse Schuyler

Colonel Philip Pieterse Schuyler or Philip Pieterse (1628 – 9 May 1683) was a Dutch-born colonist landowner who was the progenitor of the American Schuyler family. Early life Philip Pieterse Schuyler was born in Amsterdam, Holland in the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, in 1628 as the son of Pieter Tjercks (no family name) and Geertruyt Philips Van Schuylder. His father was a German-born Amsterdam baker. His brother, David Pieterse Schuyler, married Catharina Verplanck. They died in 1690 as a result of the Schenectady massacre of 1690. David was an ancestor of David Mathews, Loyalist Mayor of New York City during the American Revolution, as well as Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Career By 1650, he had emigrated to New Netherland, settling in Beverwyck. Although nominally a carpenter or gunstockmaker, he entered the fur trade, using the profits to buy land, beginning with the house he built in about 1659 on the corner of today's State and Pearl Streets in Albany. He also owned houses on Broadway and Beaver Street, where he resided at different times.