Background
Van Dam was born in 1660, in Fort Orange, Albany, New York. He was of a Dutch family living in New Netherland before the English conquest.
His parents were Claas Ripse van Dam, a carpenter, and Maria Bords.
Van Dam was born in 1660, in Fort Orange, Albany, New York. He was of a Dutch family living in New Netherland before the English conquest.
His parents were Claas Ripse van Dam, a carpenter, and Maria Bords.
Early in life Rip voyaged to Jamaica in command of the sloop Catharine. He subsequently embarked in trade, and at the age of thirty was listed among the merchants of New York City. He was also concerned in shipbuilding on the North River.
In 1693, he was elected a member of the board of aldermen, a station which he filled for three successive years, but he was not conspicuously active in politics until 1702. In that year, the seizure and condemnation of some of the vessels in which he had investments, under Acting Governor Nanfan, head of the Leisler party, aroused his antagonism to the popular element of his day as well as to the unpopular Navigation Acts.
Van Dam's resentment embraced the lieutenant-governor, the collector who seized the ships, and the chief justice who condemned them, and he sent petitions attacking these officers to the King, but the trouble subsided later the same year with the accession of Queen Anne to the throne, the arrival of Lord Cornbury as Nanfan's successor, and the elevation of Van Dam to the Council.
Van Dam was a counselor for more than thirty years. During most of this time, he took no prominent part in controversy, though in 1713 there was friction between Gov. Robert Hunter and the Council; two years later the legislature approved an act for appointing a London agent to take notice of measures in Parliament injurious to the colony; and Hunter's successor, Gov. William Burnet, had trouble with the Assembly. Meanwhile Van Dam built houses, supplied provisions for the troops, furnished money for the colonial treasury, and filled contracts for repairs and improvements to the royal fort. He also invested in forest land, being interested in large patents in the Hudson River region and the Mohawk region.
In 1731, by the death of Gov. John Montgomerie, Van Dam as senior member and president of the Council became the executive head of the province. For thirteen months he exercised the powers of the office and received the salary. Then Gov. William Cosby arrived, and demanded an equal division of the emoluments, by virtue of an order from the King.
When Van Dam refused, inasmuch as Cosby's receipts from the governorship while still in England had been three times as great as the disputed salary, the Governor sued in "the Equity side of the Exchequer. " Cosby's report of his grievances to the home government described Van Dam as pleading that no such court as the Equity side of the Exchequer existed, that the judges' commissions were void, and that "no Supream or other Court had any being, Jurisdiction, or authority by prescription".
Van Dam's plea was overruled; but he continued the war with formal charges, alleging that Cosby had failed to fortify the port against the designs of the French. Cosby complained to London, and the Lords of Trade recommended Van Dam's dismissal from the Council. He was suspended by Cosby on November 24, 1735. He failed to recognize this action as removal, however, or George Clarke as the new president of the Council, and appointed municipal officers for New York City after Cosby's death in March 1736, whereupon Clarke issued a proclamation of warning against these appointments.
The threat of civil war was dispersed when dispatches from England brought recognition of Clarke as president; his appointment as lieutenant-governor soon followed, and Van Dam's public career came to an end. In the struggle for popular rights and against prerogative, Rip Van Dam won leadership with William Smith and James Alexander, two of the ablest men in the colony.
Van Dam died in New York City on June 10, 1749.
Van Dam heard complaints of his senility issuing from quarters where there was more reason to complain of his vigor.
As a counselor, he was often called upon to settle the disputes of the Reformed churches and other religious societies, a difficult task in view of the unsettled state of those congregations at that period.
A disposition to conciliate and tranquilize marked his efforts in this field.
Van Dam married Sara van der Spiegel in September 1684 and had a number of children, of whom two sons and three daughters reached maturity.
One of his granddaughters became the wife of Robert Livingston, third proprietor of the Manor of Livingston.