Repairs To A Van Rensselaer Gravestone

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Times Union - Patroon Van Rensselaer plot at Albany Rural to be repaired.

The photo above shows the headstone to be repaired and was taken in late March. 

The Burial Places of Abraham Ten Broeck

General Abraham Ten Broeck was laid to rest twice before coming to his current and final burial place at the Rural Cemetery.

Born on this date (May 13) in 1734, his name is still a familiar one as a historic home, a street, and a neighborhood all carry it.  

The son of Albany merchant Dirck Ten Broeck and Maria Cuyler, Abraham Ten Broeck was educated in business under the supervision of his brother-in-law (and Signer of the Declaration of Independence) Philip Livingston.  Abraham Ten Broeck applied his learning to the lumber business; exporting lumber cut from forests north of Albany and importing other goods for sale.  Before the Revolution, he owned a dock, lumber yard, and substantial amounts of residential and commercial real estate.  In 1763, he married Elizabeth Van Rensselaer, sister of the Patroon, Stephen Van Rensselaer II.  When Stephen died at the young age of twenty-seven, Abraham Ten Broeck became an administrator of his estate, the vast Manor of Rensselaerwyck, until Stephen's son and namesake came of age. Ten Broeck's public service included two tenures as Mayor of Albany.  During the Revolution, he served with the Albany County Militia and led them at the Battle of Saratoga.  He eventually attained the rank of Brigadier General.

In 1798, Abraham Ten Broeck built a handsome brick mansion on a hill just north of Albany.  This house, then called Arbor Hill, still stands as a museum and headquarters of the Albany County Historical Association. 

When he died on January 19, 1810,  the seventy-six year old Abraham Ten Broeck was laid to rest in a private vault on his own estate.  The site of the vault (shown in the recent photograph above) was just behind the mansion along what is now Livingston Avenue.  The condition of the vault, however, deteriorated, and the remains of General Ten Broeck and his family were removed to the private vault of the Van Rensselaers.  This vault was located on the Manor, near the corner of modern day North Pearl and Pleasant Streets This vault was torn down after 1849 and no trace of it survives today.  All the remains it had contained were brought to the new Rural Cemetery where they were placed in a large underground vault.  Above the vault, a white marble monument forms the centerpiece of the lot.  Among the members of the extended Van Rensselaer family laid to rest here was Abraham Ten Broeck. 

Ten Broeck's name does not appear on the Van Rensselaer monument, but a small bronze marker and flag-holder at the base honor his memory.  It was placed there in 1950 by the Ten Broeck Chapter of the Daughters of the War of 1812.

Idol of His Command

The grave of Colonel Walter A. Van Rensselaer (1836-1879) is set into the slope of the Middle Ridge just above the Burden family vault (one of the sculpted Burden dogs can be seen in the background on the left). 

A descendent of two of Albany's most prominent families - the Van Rensselaers and the Schuylers, - he served with the 20th NY Militia and was wounded in the neck during Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.  An 1858 graduate of Albany Medical College, he became a physician after the war. 

The inscription on his simple granite headstone reads:  Idol of His Command, Chosen Comrade of His Peers, Pet of His Superiors.

Rensselaer Westerlo

This large, simple sandstone cross is located in the oldest section of the Cemetery's North Ridge, an area called Beaulieu Hill and Kennesau Hill on the oldest maps of the grounds and Landscape Hill on later maps.

The cross marks the grave of Rensselaer Westerlo who represented New York's 9th District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1817 to 1819.

Rensselaer Westerlo was connected to several of the area's most prominent families.  His father was the Reverand Eilardus Westerlo, a native of Holland who served as the greatly influential pastor of Albany's First Dutch Reformed Church during the Revolutionary War.  His mother, Catharina, was the daughter of Philip Livingston, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.  By her first husband, Catharina was the mother of Albany's "Last Patroon," Stephen Van Rensselaer II.  Rensselar Westerlo's wife, Jane, was the daughter of the State Chancellor, John J. Lansing.

This handsome stone was erected by Rensselaer Westerlo's children following his death on April 18, 1851.  He was less than a month away from his 75th birthday.  The base of the monument is carved with words from The Book of Genesis:  He was not, for God took him.

Several other members of Westerlo's family are buried in this lot; an inscription on the east side notes that a son named Eilardus died in California in 1859.

The Westerlo lot is quite close to the Lochner, Gould, and Disney plots.

Captain Cortlandt Van Rensselaer

This sarcophagus-style monument on the South Ridge marks the grave of Captain Cortlandt Van Rensselaer.

The lichen-spotted sandstone is carved with laurel wreaths at each end and a sword above the names of some of the Civil War battles that Captain Van Rensselaer fought in - Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Mission Ridge.

Captain Van Rensselaer was the son and namesake of Rev. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer and Catherine Ledyard Cogswell.  His father was well-known for his missionary work among slaves in Virginia prior to the Civil War.

Born in 1838 in Burlington, New Jersey where his father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, the younger Cortlandt Van Rensselaer served in the 13th U.S. Infantry before his death on October 7, 1864 of wounds received at Mission Ridge.  He was twenty-six.

Captain Van Rensselaer was also a descendent of William Paterson.

William Paterson, Signer of the Constitution

In addition to a President, Governors, and scores of other prominent statesmen, the Albany Rural Cemetery is also the final resting place of a Signer of the United States Constitution.

Buried in the Van Rensselaer family plot along the Cemetery's South Ridge Road, William Paterson also served as first Attorney General of New Jersey, Governor of New Jersey and as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The namesake of Paterson, New Jersey, he died at the age of sixty in Albany while en route to Ballston Spa where he meant to visit the mineral springs in the hope of easing his recovery from injuries caused by a carriage accident. Paterson's daughter, Cornelia, had married General Stephan Van Rensselaer in 1802 and it was at the Van Rensselaer Manor that Justice William Paterson passed away on September 9, 1806.

Originally buried in the private family cemetery at the Manor, Paterson was reburied in the Rural Cemetery when the remains of the Van Rensselaer family were transferred there.