SCHUYLER, PHILIP JOHN American sol dier, was born at Albany, N.Y., on Nov. II, 1733. The Schuyler family was established in the New World by Philip Pieterse Schuyler (d. 1683), who migrated from Amsterdam in 165o, and whose son, Peter (1657-1724), was the first mayor of Albany.
The family was one of the wealthiest and most influential in the colony and was closely related by marriage to the Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts and other representatives of the old Dutch aris tocracy. Philip Schuyler served in the Provincial army during the Seven Years' War, first as captain and later as major, taking part in the battles of Lake George (1755), Oswego River (1756), Ticonderoga (1758) and Fort Frontenac (1758). From 1768 to 1775 he represented Albany in the New York assembly, and he was closely associated with the Livingston family in the leader ship of the Presbyterian or Whig Party. He was a delegate to the second Continental Congress in May, 1775, and on June 19, was chosen one of the four major generals in the Continental service.
Placed in command of the northern department of New York, he made preparations for an invasion of Canada. Soon after the ex pedition started he was prostrated by rheumatic gout, and the actual command devolved upon Gen. Richard Montgomery. On the death of Montgomery and the failure to take Quebec the army retreated to Crown Point, and its commander, Gen. John Sullivan,
was superseded by Gen. Horatio Gates. Gates claimed prece dence over Schuyler and, on failing to secure recognition, in trigued to bring about Schuyler's dismissal. The necessary with drawal of the army from Crown Point in 1776 and the evacuation of Ticonderoga in 1777 were magnified by Schuyler's enemies into a retrograde movement, and, on Aug. 19, 1777, he was superseded. A court martial appointed in 1778 acquitted him on every charge. He resigned from the army in April, 1779. In 1788 he joined his son-in-law Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and others in leading the movement for the ratification by New York of the Federal constitution. He served in the United States Senate as a Feder alist in 1790-91 and was again elected in 1797. He was also active for many years as Indian commissioner and surveyor general and helped to settle the New York boundary disputes with Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In 1792-96 he carried to a suc cessful conclusion a project for connecting the Hudson with Lake Ontario by way of the Mohawk, Oneida lake and the Onondaga river. He died on Nov. 18, See Bayard Tuckerman, Life of General Philip Schuyler (1903).