But though the Company had backed the Go\'ernor in his action, the StatesGeneral, before whom the matter was finally brought, decided that Fort Orange stood within the limits of the patroon's estate, while the corporation did not own a foot of land in that part of the country. The second patroon, also a non-resident, was Johannes Van Rensselaer, whose half-brother, Jan Baptist, succeeded Van vSlechtenhorst as agent. Johannes visited his possessions on one or two occasions, but returned to Holland. It was not till the third proprietor of this princely estate came to his own that the people of Rensselaersw}xk enjoyed the novelty of ha\4ng their landlord make his home among them. There is not space to go into the genealogical records of this great family, or to note the marriages by which it became allied with all of the leading men of the colony.
The Van Cortlandts, Schuylers, Livingstons, Nicollses,Wattses, and others were thus connected, and formed an aristocracy about which cluster the traditions of a day that is dead. Writing of the pomp and circumstance attending the mo\xments of the Van Rensselaer chief, Mrs. Lamb, the historian, says: To many of the present generation a simple sketch of the style of life of these old feudal chieftains would read like a veritable romance. Upon the Van Rensselaer manor there were at one period several thousand tenants, and their gatherings were similar to those of the old Scottish clans. When a lord of the manor died, these people swarmed about the manor-house to do honour