Pieter Schuyler

In April 1685, he was appointed Judge of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. On 22 July 1686, Albany was incorporated as a city, and Pieter Schuyler was named its first mayor, serving for eight years.[2] As mayor, Schuyler was also chairman of the Board of the Commissioners for Indian Affairs.[2]

From 1692, Schuyler was a member of the executive council, which was the unelected upper house of New York's colonial legislature. He was the first man from Albany to be appointed to the council.[1] When Lord Lovelace died in May 1709, the lieutenant governor, Richard Ingoldesby, was absent. Under the terms of Lovelace's commission as governor, the executive council's most senior member was next in the line of succession, and Schuyler thus served as acting governor until Ingoldesby's return a few days later.[3] Ingoldesby was again absent later in the month, with Schuyler taking over as governor for another period of less than a week.

In July 1719, when Robert Hunter had his commission as governor revoked, Schuyler was still the most senior member of the executive council, and consequently served a third term as acting governor. The new governor, William Burnet, did not take office until September 1720. Burnet removed Schuyler from the executive council in 1721, along with another Councillor, Adolphus Philipse, who like Schuyler, was a New Netherlander.

Pieter Schuyler third son's granddaughter married Col. Philip Kiliaen van Rensselaer of "Cherry Hill" in Albany, great-grandson of Jeremias Van Rensselaer. His great-nephew was Continental General Philip Schuyler whose cousin Hester Schuyler married General William Colfax, the grandparents of Congressman and Vice President Schuyler Colfax, who married a niece of Senator Benjamin Franklin Wade and who was related to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.[5] His grand-niece, Philip Schuyler's sister, married Dr. John Cochran, the Director General of the Military Hospitals of the Continental Army, and were the grandparents of U.S. General and Congressman John Cochran.

His great-grandchildren included Richard Livingston and Col. James Livingston.

Schuyler's sister-in-law, Catherina Van Rensselaer (née Van Brugh) was the great-grandmother of Continental General Peter Gansevoort, who married Catherina Van Schaick, the sister of Continental General Goose Van Schaick. Catherine and Goose were the children of Albany mayor Sybrant Van Schaick. The Gansevoort's were the grandparents of author Herman Melville.