Jeremiah Van Rensselaer (1793–1871), physician and geologist, was born in Greenbush, Rensselaer County, New York. He graduated from Yale College (later Yale University) in 1813 and studied medicine with his uncle in New York. Van Rensselaer traveled around Europe for three years and became one of the first Americans to climb Mont Blanc in 1819. He returned to the United States in that year and was practicing medicine in New York City by 1821. Van Rensselaer published on geology, and he contributed articles on lightning rods and fossils to the American Journal of Science, and Arts. He was a recording secretary of the New York Literary and Philosophical Society, a founding member and officer of the New York State Horticultural Society, corresponding secretary of the Medical Society of the City and County of New-York, a director of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, and a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin. Van Rensselaer retired in 1852 to his family estate in Greenbush where, in 1860, his real estate and personal property combined were valued at $105,000. He traveled to Europe again in 1867, returned to the United States three years later in poor health, and died of pneumonia in New York City (Dexter, Yale Biographies, 511, 609–11; N: Van Rensselaer Family Papers; Van Rensselaer, “Account of a journey to the summit of Mount Blanc,” American Journal of Science, and Arts 2 [1820]: 1–11; Longworth’s New York Directory [1821]: 445; New-York American, 12 Jan., 25 Mar. 1824, 12 Jan. 1825, 11 Jan. 1826, 15 July 1828; Van Rensselaer, Lectures on Geology; being outlines of the science [New York, 1825]; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 13 June 1829; DNA: RG 29, CS, N.Y., New York City, 1830, 1850, Rensselaer Co., East Greenbush, 1860; New York Evening Post, 9 Mar. 1871; Boston Daily Advertiser, 13 Mar. 1871).

Van Rensselaer had sent TJ a copy of An Essay on Salt, containing notices of its Origin, Formation, Geological Position and Principal Localities, embracing a particular description of the American Salines; with a view of its uses in the arts, manufactures and agriculture. Delivered as a Lecture before the New-York Lyceum of Natural History (New York, 1823). James Madison also received this essay around the same time (Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 3:187).