Schuyler participated in the military actions of an early French and Indian War in Canada in the 1690s.

In 1694, Schuyler traveled into north-western New Jersey to investigate rumors that the French were trying to incite the local Lenape population to attack English colonial settlements.

Schuyler found no evidence of such rumors, but discovered a rich fertile valley where the Lenape grew a variety of crops.

Schuyler reported his findings to his superiors and then convinced Major Anthony Brockholst, Samuel Bayard, Samuel Berry, Hendrick and David Mandeville, George Ryerson and John Mead to invest in the purchase of the land he referred to as the Pompton Valley.

Samual Bayard, however, was chosen to negotiate with the East Jersey Company, which maintained land rights over the area that is now Wayne.

His granddaughter, Katherine Schuyler (1737–1765), married Archibald Kennedy, Earl of Casselis, a Scottish peer who lived in the United States, and was the son of his widow, Maria Walter.