It was provided that every Patroon, to whom privileges and exemptions should be granted, should, within four years after the establishment of a colony, have there, as permanent residents, at least fifty persons over fifteen years of age, one-fourth of whom should be located within the first year. Such privileges were granted to Killian Van Eensselaer, a pearl merchant of Amsterdam, and one of the directors of the West India Company, and by his direction the commissary and under commissary of Fort Orange, around whose site the city of Albany now stands, purchased of the Indians a tract of land in that vicinity. Another district was afterwards purchased, and Killian Yan Eensselaer and three others became the proprietors of a tract of land, twenty-four miles long, upon each side of the Hudson, and forty-eight miles broad, containing over 700,000 acres of land, and comprising the present counties of Albany, Rensselaer, and a part of Columbia. Yan Eensselaer held two shares, and the others one share each. They were his equals in privileges and exemptions, except in the title of Patroon, which, with all the feudal honours, was vested in him alone, the partners binding themselves to do fealty and homage for the fief on his demise, in the name and on behalf of his son and heirs. The manor did not become the sole property of the Yan Eensselaer family until 1685.

The Patroon was invested with power to administer civil and criminal justice, in person or by deputy, within his domain, and, to some extent, he was a sort of autocrat. These powers were abolished when the English took possession of the province in 1664, and with it fell many of the special privileges, but, by the English law of primogeniture, that princely domain, farmed out to many tenants, remained in the family until the Eevolution in 1775, and the title of Patroon was held by the late General Stephen Yan Eensselaer, until his death, early in 1840, when it expired.