Members of this family played a critical role in the formation of the United States and served as leaders in business, politics and society.

The Van Rensselaers were of Dutch origin,[3] and the family originally migrated from the Netherlands to a large area along the Hudson River in the present-day area of Albany, New York.

The Van Rensselaers and other patroons named this young colony New Netherland.

[4][5] They are best known for the Rensselaerswyck estate of roughly a million acres, which although broken up by the Anti-Rent Revolt in the 1840s, had long cemented the Van Rensselaer family as one of the wealthiest in early America.

Herman Melville, a descendant of the Van Rensselaer family, mentioned them in the first chapter of his novel Moby-Dick: "It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes."