Benjamin Birdsall Jr. (c1767-1861) was a tenant leader from Copake in the upper portion of the Livingston Manor lands from the 1790s until 1814. MVB served as counsel to a number of petitions that Birdsall and other Republican tenants submitted to the county courts and state assembly, protesting the Livingston family's claims to the manor's title as well as the Livingston's demands for the collection of back rents. When MVB was ultimately unsuccessful in meeting the tenants' full desires through the courts, Birdsall and others led an uprising in 1812, which resulted in tenants shooting a deputy sheriff and burning landlord Mary Livingston's house, for which Birdsall was indicted for conspiracy in 1814.