Photo: This image or media was taken or created by Matt H. Wade. To, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Philip Schuyler was born in Albany in 1733 into one of the wealthiest Dutch families in the colony. He served in the French and Indian War and built up large landholdings, mills and businesses.
In the 1760s he built a Georgian brick house on a hill south of the city. Schuyler Mansion still stands in Albany’s South End.
War and politics
Schuyler became a major general in the Continental Army and commanded the Northern Department early in the Revolution. He was replaced by Horatio Gates before the Battles of Saratoga in 1777, though the forces he built helped win them. His country house in Schuylerville was burned by the British during the campaign.
After the war he served as one of New York’s first U.S. senators.
Family
His daughter Elizabeth married Alexander Hamilton in the parlor of the Albany house in December 1780. The Hamiltons stayed connected to the house for years. Schuyler also held enslaved people at the mansion, a history the site now discusses openly.
Schuyler died in 1804, a few months after Hamilton was killed in his duel with Aaron Burr. The mansion is a New York State Historic Site open for tours.
