Colonel Philip Pieterse Schuyler or Philip Pieterse[1][2] (1628 – 9 May 1683) was a Dutch-born colonist landowner who was the progenitor of the American Schuyler family.
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.[5]
On 1 November 1667 Philip Pietrse was commissioned Captain (Kapitein) in the Albany militia in army of the Dutch Republic.[5] By 1672, he also had acquired land along the Hudson north of the Van Rensselaer manor house. That farm became a family summer home known as "the Flats". After he bought "the Flats", he built a new home on North Pearl Street, for winter use, in which he died. He also owned property in New Amsterdam, several hundred acres east of the Hudson below Rensselaerswyck, and lots in Wiltwyck and at Halfmoon as well.[6]
He took an active part in Indian Affairs.[5] In 1656, he was appointed by Governor Stuyvesant to the office of vice-director of Fort Orange until it was captured by the English in 1664.
On 12 December 1650 he married Margaretta van Slichtenhorst, daughter of Brant Aertsz van Slichtenhorst, the director of Rensselaerwyck, appointed by Johan van Rensselaer.[7] Together, they had ten children:
Gysbert Schuyler (b. 2 July 1652 in Beverwyck), and died after 13 March 1664/65
Schuyler was the progenitor of multiple generations of prominent New Yorkers as well as major players in American politics and business, including the Livingston family, the Bush family, and the Kean family.
^ abcThe name Schuyler is from the maternal line. The father, like most dutchmen of the time, had no family name. It was unusual but not unique for sons to adopt their mother's name. In the colonial records of the seventeenth century, the name of Schuyler is used irregularly; references to Philip Pieterse being as common as those to Philip Schuyler.Geni.com