Stephen Van Rensselaer III (November 1 1764 - January 26 1839) was Lieutenant Governor of New York as well as a statesman, soldier, and land-owner, the heir to one of the greatest estates in the New York region at the time. He was the father of Henry Bell Van Rensselaer, who was a politician and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. His younger brother Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer (1767-1824) was Mayor of Albany, New York from 1799-1812.