Rensselaer [key], city (1990 pop. 8,255), Rensselaer co., E N.Y., on the east bank of the Hudson River opposite Albany; settled 1630 by Dutch, inc. 1897. Chemicals, textiles, and leather goods are among its manufactures. The city was formed by the union of several villages within the tract granted to Kiliaen Van Rensselaer by the Dutch West India Company. At the 17th-century Fort Crailo, now a museum, the British surgeon Richard Shuckburg is said to have written “Yankee Doodle.”
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