He was the youngest of five children born to Philip Jeremiah Schuyler (1768–1835), a U.S. Representative, and Sarah Rutsen (1770–1803), who died when he was young.
degree[1] from Harvard College in 1817,[6] where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa society,[7] and the Porcellian Club, along with Samuel Atkins Eliot, Wyllys Lyman, Samuel Joseph May, Thomas Russell Sullivan, Charles Henry Warren, and Francis William Winthrop.
[10] In 1838, he was president of the New York and Boston Transportation Company,[11][12] of which William W. Woolsey, Moses B. Ives, and James G. King were among the directors.
[15] He was involved with many of the leading bankers, financiers, and investors of the day including, Gouverneur Morris, Elihu Townsend,[16] Cornelius Vanderbilt, and August Belmont.
[4] From March 19, 1851, to July 3, 1854, Schuyler served as the first president of Illinois Central Railroad,[20] following his company's initial purchase of a finished portion of the railway from Jacksonville to Meredosia in the 1840s.
It was eventually discovered that Schuyler issued 19,540 shares in unauthorized stock certificates (worth approximately $2 million US$2,000,000 (equivalent to about $67,822,200 in 2023)) for the railroad.
[17][23] To compound matters, Schuyler had used the fraudulent stock as collateral against loans taken out by several people, including one from Cornelius Vanderbilt for US$600,000 (equivalent to about $20,346,700 in 2023).
[11][4] Due to Schuyler's vast business interest and prominence at the highest levels of New York society,[15] the discovery caused a shock and sensation throughout the northeast.
[28][29][30][31] Schuyler wrote to The New York Times in July 1855, attempting to explain away the scandal as a misunderstanding stating "I hope you will publish this statement, which I have prepared under great difficulty--without documents, and upon your report alone--in the greatest debility of body, and in broken spirit, but with clear recollection.
[11] However, when his eldest daughters wanted to marry, her fiancé discovered that her father was the famous Robert Schuyler and that she was, in fact, an illegitimate child.
[43] Following his death, his New York City home and its contents were auctioned off and reportedly became a brothel run by "Mrs. Van Ness.
[11] Through his daughter Julia, he was the grandfather of Major Robert Schuyler Lamson (1855–1876),[44] who died at 21 years of age at Darfour in Upper Egypt from malarious fever while serving in the Egyptian Army[39][45] as a mercenary,[46] and George Henry Lamson (1852–1882), a doctor in Paris who developed a morphine addiction, which was said to have caused him to murder his wife's brother.