Harmanus Schuyler
by
Stefan Bielinski


Harmanus Schuyler was born in April 1727. He was the first son of Albany natives Nicholas and Elsie Wendell Schuyler to be baptized in their new home in Schenectady. Groomed to follow the fur trade, he was left on his own following the death of his father in 1748.

He appears to have pursued the silversmith's craft and to have established himself in Albany. He also supplied leather products. Active in municipal affairs, first as a constable and firemaster, he was elected assistant alderman for the first ward in 1759 and 1760.

He married Claverack native Christina Ten Broeck at the Albany Dutch church in September 1754. Their nine children were baptized there between 1755 and 1771. Family demographics are chronicled in his bible. They lived in a landmark home at Albany's main intersection.

Harmanus Schuyler was appointed sheriff of Albany county in 1761. In 1766, he led a large force of deputies to suppress tenant rioters on Livingston Manor. Engaged by angry Yankee "squatters", his wig and hat were shot off his head and several of his party wounded. He served as sheriff until 1770!

About that time, he sold his Albany property and relocated north to Stillwater where he built mills and entered the lumbering business.

In 1776, his cousin and Saratoga neighbor, General Schuyler, apponted him Assistant Deputy Commissary General. He was building boats on Lake George and was in charge of the shipyard at Skenesborough when he was taken ill. He returned to Stillwater but still continued to support the transportation of supplies. In August 1778, he was identified as the storekeeper at "Still Water." His three sons served the Revolutionary cause!

Harmanus Schuyler resigned his post when his cousin was replaced by Horatio Gates. In 1783, George Washington stayed at his home while visiting the northern outposts.

After the war, he resumed lumbering and milling in the upper Hudson Valley below the present village of Stillwater. Harmanus Schuyler died there in September 1796.

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notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Harmanus Schuyler is CAP biography number 1321. This profile is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. He was the second Harmanus named for his mother's father. The first was born in 1722 but did not survive!

Bible records are printed in CSG, pp. 146-48. Additional family information is printed in the Ten Broeck Genealogy, 72-75.

1766: This episode is described in Don Gerlach's Philip Schuyler, p. 71.

His extensive wartime activities are chronicled in Gerlach, Proud Patriot, 119-20, 160, 206-07. A substantial collection of his Revolutionary War correspondence is held in the "George Washington Schuyler Papers"at Cornell University.


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first posted: 10/30/02; last revised 10/20/10