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Correspondence and legal and business papers of Peter Van Schaack and his family. The collection includes letters to and from Egbert Benson, Henry Cruger, James Duane, William Laight, Theodore Sedgwick, Peter Silvester, John Vardill, and many others. The letters deal with such subjects as taxation, the siege of Boston, George Washington, Tories, the Jay Treaty, Shays' Rebellion, and the many prominent people with whom Van Schaack was acquainted, including the Jay family and Gouverneur Morris. There is a large number of letters to and from his brother, Henry Van Schaack (1733-1823). The correspondence contains many political and social opinions regarding America and England before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. Many of the legal documents concern the disputed claims to the Van Rensselaer properties in Claverack and Westenhook, N.Y., as well as land claims around Kinderhoek, N.Y. Henry Cruger Van Schaack added to the collection more letters from well-known people as well as legal and family papers. These are mostly dated in the mid-19th century, and deal in part with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, the Berkshire Iron Works, and similar business ventures. Many documents are Colonial-era deeds or concern early land disputes such as the New York-Massachusetts boundary dispute.

The collection contains documents about land holdings in and around Yonkers and Westchester and Dutchess Counties, New York owned by the wealthy Philipse, Gouverneur, Verplanck, Livingston, and other allied families. Included are grants, patents, deeds, indentures, transfers, wills, leases, accounts, maps, and records of civil and chancery court actions. These records not only chronicle legal actions, riots and uprisings of the European colonial settlers related to land disputes against these wealthy colonial settler families, but also record their interactions with the true landowners the Wappinger Confederacy.

A collection of letters, documents, manuscripts, and books collected by Dr. Michael Reynard and placed on deposit in The Rare Book and Manuscript Library.