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Chapter Three The Landlord and the Ex-convict Who will remember the beneficent Stephen Van Rensselaer? The myriads of ambitious mortals who have preceeded [sic] us are forgotten. So we of the present generation who are wearing down our strength in climbing precipices and descending caverns, cannot hope to be remembered but a few years. Why should Van Rensselaer send us here at great expense, when he too is so soon to be forgotten? It must be that he has ungovernable propensities to do good, which are as unmanageable as the thirst of the drunkard. —Amos Eaton, private journal, 1824 Stephen Van Rensselaer is largely forgotten today, but he was an extraordinarily rich and powerful man who influenced pivotal events in the early American republic . Born in New York City in 1764, Van Rensselaer was brought up among the colonial aristocracy. He was initially sent, as Aaron Burr had been nine years ahead of him, to Princeton College but completed his studies at Harvard in 1782. Young Stephen’s prominence in society was guaranteed. As scion of the Patroon of Rensselaerwyck, Van Rensselaer inherited the largest landed estate in North America, a remnant of the Dutch system of colonial land grants. The new Patroon would become America’s first millionaire, but unlike men who got rich (fairly or unfairly) on land speculation in the unsettled West, Van Rensselaer’s land empire was concentrated in the midst of New York State’s capital district. Over the course of his life, he accumulated and maintained the legal title to virtually all the private property in New York’s Albany and Rensselaer counties, as well as half of Columbia County. Owning everything in these long-settled and populated counties, Van Rensselaer bore a closer resemblance to a medieval feudal lord than anyone else in the history of the United States. One contemporary visitor from Poland made the comparison explicitly: “The word Patroun is pronounced 64 Exploring New York State by everyone with deference and a certain fear. He holds here the place held by the Radziwills in Lithuania.”1 Natural Aristocrat Like other Hudson valley manorial landowners, such as the Livingstons and the Van Cortlandts, Van Rensselaer pursued a career in politics—a textbook case of noblesse oblige. Though he was a Federalist, his political fortunes were curiously intertwined with those of the anti-federalist Clintons. Van Rensselaer launched his political career in 1789, serving as a twenty-five-year-old elected representative to the New York State Assembly. DeWitt Clinton would initiate his political career in much the same manner eight years later, when he was twenty-seven. Meanwhile, DeWitt’s uncle George was firmly entrenched as New York’s first state governor. In 1794, the nation’s chief justice stepped down from the Supreme Court to challenge George Clinton. New Yorkers responded positively, electing as their first team of Federalist chief executives Governor John Jay and Lieutenant Governor Stephen Van Rensselaer. When Governor Jay decided to retire in 1801, the party chose Van Rensselaer to run, but he was defeated by a resurgent George Clinton. The Patroon’s extensive domain turned out to be a mixed blessing in this election, for while it ensured influence over his many tenants, it also suggested that he was out of step with the country that had just swept advocates of Jeffersonian democracy into power in many states. A decade later, the War of 1812 dramatically altered Van Rensselaer’s leadership prospects. The New York governorship had changed hands and parties with some frequency during the first decade of the nineteenth century, consistently favoring the Clintons’ interest over Van Rensselaer’s. DeWitt Clinton’s support had enabled the Federalist jurist Morgan Lewis to defeat Aaron Burr in 1805. Governor Lewis was replaced in 1807, however, by Clinton’s newest Republican protégé Daniel Tompkins. Tompkins was reelected in 1809 and again in 1811, bringing DeWitt Clinton along with him this time to serve as lieutenant governor. In June 1812, war was declared. Like most Federalists, Van Rensselaer opposed the Republican rush to fight a war with Great Britain, but he was nevertheless immediately caught in the snare of patriotic duty. Historians surmise that Tompkins selected Van Rensselaer to serve as major general of the state’s volunteer militia because it would be an opportunity to embarrass the Federalist most likely to challenge his bid for reelection the following year. Alan Taylor likens the situation to “a political game of chicken” in which Van Rensselaer had...

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