Stephen van Rensselaer II


Stephen van Rensselaer II was the six and youngest child of Stephen van Rensselaer I and Elizabeth Groesbeck.

Early life

Van Rensselaer was born on June 2, 1742. He was the sole-surviving son born to Elizabeth Van Rensselaer and Stephen Van Rensselaer I, who became patroon in 1745 upon the death of his older brother, Jeremias Van Rensselaer, who died unmarried and without issue. Young Stephen's older sister, Elizabeth van Rensselaer, was married to Abraham Ten Broeck.
His father was the second son of Maria Van Rensselaer and Kiliaen van Rensselaer, who served briefly as Patroon and Lord of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck. His maternal grandparents were Stephanus Groesbeck and Elizabeth Groesbeck.

Career

As sole-surviving son, he inherited the Manor of Rensselaerwyck when he was 5 years old; the Manor was administered by his brother-in-law Abraham Ten Broeck until he came of age, serving as the eighth Patroon of Rensselaerwyck from 1747 to 1769, and the fifth Lord of the Manor. At the age of twenty, Stephen II was commissioned a captain in the Albany County Militia.
Shortly after his 1764 marriage, he built the new Manor House in 1765, "from where he sought to rehabilitate the manor that had lacked active leadership since the death of his father almost two decades earlier."

Personal life

In January 1764, he married Catherine Livingston, daughter of Philip Livingston, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his wife Christina Ten Broeck, and had the following children:
Stephen Van Rensselaer II died in October 1769 at the age of twenty-seven. After his death, his widow remarried to Dutch born minister Eilardus Westerlo, with whom she had Rensselaer Westerlo, who was later elected to the United States Congress.