1924–1925. Jeremias Van Rensselaer was baptized in Amsterdam, Holland, on Friday, May 18, 1632, and died in Crailo, Rensselaerwyck, on October 12, 1674. Maria Van Cortlandt was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church, New Amsterdam, America, on Sunday, July 20, 1645, and died on January 4, 1689. They were married in New Amsterdam, America, on Saturday, July 12, 1662. She took the name Maria Van Rensselaer. He is the son of Kiliaen and Anna (Van Wely) Van Rensselaer. She is the daughter of Oloff Stevensen and Anna (Lookerman) Van Cortlandt. They had six children:
| i. | Kiliaen Van Rensselaer: He was born August 24, 1663; married Maria Van Cortlandt on October 15, 1701; Fifth Patroon, Third Lord of Rensselaerwyck.1 (She was the daughter of Stephanus and Gertrude (Schuyler) Van Cortlandt.) | |
| ii. | Anna Van Rensselaer: She was born August 1, 1665; married: (1) Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, (2) William Nichol1 | |
| iii. | Hendrick Van Rensselaer [#962]: He was born in Greenbush, (New York), on October 23, 1667, and died in Crailo, his home in what is now Rensselaer, New York, on July 2, 1740. | |
| iv. | Maria1 Van Rensselaer: She was born October 25, 1673; married Peter Schuyler | |
| v. | Johannes Van Rensselaer: He died unmarried before June 2, 1704. | |
| vi. | Jeremias Van Rensselaer: He was born after his father's death. |
Jeremias was the Third Director, Fourth Patroon, and Second Lord of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck. On August 3, 1654, he sailed from Holland to join his older brother, Jan Baptist, at Rensselearwyck. He returned to Holland in 1655 but came back to Rensselaerwyck in the following year. Upon the return of Jan Baptist to Holland, Jeremias assumed full control of the estate.
Maria's funeral spoon was engraved "4 Jann, Ano 1688/9" and is in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
From American Ancestry, Columbia County:
Jeremias Van Rensselaer came from Holland to America, and succeeded his brother, Jan Baptist, as "director of the colonie," 1658. He married July 12, 1662, Maria, dau. of Oloff Stevense Van Kortlandt, who died Jan. 29, 1689, leaving two sons, the eldest of whom, Kiliaan, was the first Lord of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, and the other, Hendrick, became first patroon of the "lower manor" of Claverack in Columbia county. From Kiliaan and Hendrick are descended the numerous members of the family in America; Jeremias, who died Oct. 12, 1674, was the son of Kiliaan Van Rensselaer, a merchant of Amsterdam, Holland, director of the Dutch West India Company of the Amsterdam chamber established in 1621, and who was sixth in descent from Henry Walters Van Rensselaer of Hemegseet, Holland, who does not appear to have ever visited America, but he is the progenitor of all the Van Rensselaers in the United States; he married 1st, Hillegonda Van Bylant, the mother of Johannes, who died without issue, 2nd, Anna Van Wely, by whom he had the following sons, Jeremias, above mentioned, Jan Baptist, the first of the family to visit the colonie, Nicolaas, the first Episcopal clergyman in Albany, and who preached in the Dutch church, 1675–1677, and was for a time director of Rensselaerswyck. Jan Baptist and Nicolaas died without male issue, Jeremias had two sons, Kiliaan and Hendrick. The crest of this historic family is an iron basket of flames, and the coat of arms the cross with the Dutch motto niemand zonder, no one without it, but some of the Albany family seem to have adopted the motto omnibus effulgemus, we shine for all. See Munsell's Collections; Munsell's Annals; O'Callaghan's History of New Netherlands. |
From The Swartwout Chronicles:
As the site of Fort Orange began to be regarded about this time [1650] by the Van Rensselaers as a part of Rensselaerswijck, some of their colonists erected dwellings around it. The knowledge of this false impression having reached Director-General Stuyvesant, the circumspect official concluded that it would be well to efface it. He therefore, in 1652, peremptorily ordered the colonists to transfer the buildings beyond the range of a ball fired from a cannon on the ramparts of the fort. As a consequence, an area of ground six hundred paces north of Fort Orange, bordering the river, became in April, that year, the seat of the village (dorp) of Beverswijck (Beaver-district), which name was changed twelve years later to that of Albany. |