Van Rensselaer
Van Rensselaer names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Van Rensselaer STEPHEN, an American military officer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
STEPHEN, an American military officer; born in New York, Nov. 1, 1764; was graduated at Harvard College in 1782; elected to the New York Assembly as a Federalist in 1789; was a State Senator in 1791-1796; lieutenant-governor in 1795; and a mem- 1891-1893). Among his other important ber of the State Assembly in 1798 and works are: 1808-1810. He became major of militia in 1786, was promoted colonel in 1788, and major-general in 1801; and in 1812 was assigned to the command of the Northern frontier, in which capacity he commanded at the battle of Queenstown Heights, Oct. 13-14, 1812. On Oct. 24, he resigned his commission because of public dissatisfaction with his conduct in that engagement. He was chosen chairman of the Erie Canal Commission; became a regent of the University of New York; made a geological survey along the line of the Albany and Buffalo canal in 1821-1823; founded the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N. Y.; and was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1821, and of Congress in 1823-1829. He died in Albany, N. Y., Jan. 26, 1839.
Van Rensselaer HENRY KIL- IAN, an American patriot of Dutch descent
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY KIL- IAN, an American patriot of Dutch descent; born in Albany, N. Y., in 1744; commanded a regiment in the Revolutionary War; distinguished himself on several occasions; and in October, 1777, aided in the actions which led to the surrender of Burgoyne. After the peace a famous mutiny broke out among his troops. He died in Greenbush, N. Y., Sept. 9, 1816.
Van Rensselaer MRS. MARI- ANA (Griswold)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MRS. MARI- ANA (Griswold), an American art critic; born in New York City, Feb. 23, 1851. She contributed largely to current periodicals on art and architecture, and published the valuable books: "Art Out of Doors"; "English Cathedrals"; "American Etchers" (1886); "Henry Hobson Richardson and His Works" (1888); and "One Man Who Was Content, and Other Stories." She died in 1914.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts stand much as Collier's set them out in 1921, with two corrections worth making. Collier's gives Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer's death as 1914; she in fact lived until 1934, long enough to be honoured as a pioneering American critic of architecture, and her "History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century" (1909) is now rated among her most durable works. Stephen Van Rensselaer's own monument has outgrown the single clause given it here: the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute he founded at Troy in 1824 is today a research university of several thousand students, and the battle Collier's calls "Queenstown Heights" is now standardly spelled Queenston. The leasehold estate he headed as the last patroon did not survive him — the Anti-Rent War of the 1840s broke up the manorial tenures on which the family's wealth rested.
Written for this edition, 2026.