It Happened Here--The Battle of Minisink Ford
Part 1--The Sack of Peenpack and Machaghkamik  

Mid summer 1779, Mohawk Joseph Brant was on the warpath again with his "Volunteers".  On this raid Brant's irregulars numbered about sixty  (mostly Mohawk, Seneca and some Tuscarora)  Indians and twenty seven Tories disguised as Indians. As in the previous year Brant's objective was to terrorize rebel farmers on the frontier,  disrupt their farming operations which provided food for the rebel armies, and provide food and captured supplies for his own troop and perhaps even his home base at Fort Niagara.  Like privateers in a maritime war, given legitimacy through a Letter of Marque*, Brant's Volunteers acted under the official sanction of His Majesty's Government,  but operated semi-independently; they received some military supplies but were not paid by the Crown. Many of Brant's Loyalist Volunteers were hardened frontier farmers who had been hounded to sign loyalty oaths to rebel governments by local Committees of Safety,  had lost their farms when they refused and perhaps been imprisoned for periods of time and even tarred and feathered before fleeing or being expelled by their local communities.  Unwilling or unable to submit to the discipline and constraints of regular army life in a King's Ranger or Loyal American regiment they gravitated to the charismatic Brant to satisfy their need for revenge.

The Minisink Valley (today known as the Upper Delaware Valley, at the intersection of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) was chosen by Brant because of the relative prosperity of the farms there and because attacking there would avoid strong rebel forces that had been operating both north and south of the Mohawk Valley where Brant and other Tory raiders had been so successful the previous year.  A rebel army had recently attacked the Onondaga Nation burning many of its villages,  and another large force was known to be gathering at Otsego Lake.

Small parties of marauding Indians had been attacking isolated farms early in the year,  throughout the frontier, like the Bevier's and Sax's on Fantinekill Creek (May 4, 1779), bringing back intelligence. There had  been indications that preparations were being made in the Wyoming/Susquehanna valley for a rebel attack up the Susquehanna River into the heart of the Iroquois homeland. An attack of the Minisink settlements might divert rebel attention/resources to defense of that area.

U.S. Route 209, north of Ellenville

The 2nd N.Y. Continental Regiment had camped            along the Neversink River on their way to join the Sullivan Campaign in May, that year.  
--Neversink Dr., Port Jervis

U.S. Rte. 209, Town of Deerpark

Flowing into the Minisink (Delaware) River was the Neversink River.  Along the upper reaches of the Neversink was the settlement of Peenpack;  Along its lower reaches, and to the west was the settlement of Machaghkamik or Minisink.

U.S. Rte 6 and 209, Port Jervis

Down from Fort Niagara  Brant and his Volunteers came, through the heart of Iroquoia;
down past Ouaquaga,**  Brant's former base that the rebels had burned the previous October when his Volunteers were out attacking the Minisink Valley for the first time; down the Susquehanna; across to the Delaware; down the Delaware to the Mongap River a few miles from Machagkamik/Minisink; along the old Peenpack trail; out into the Neversink valley


       

Rte 209 and Peenpack Trail, Deerpark

The details of the raid  are fragmentary and contradictory from one narrative to the next. One of the better accounts may be from Joseph Brant , himself, in a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Mason Bolton,  post commander of Fort Niagara 7/29/1779.         "...(I) was a good deal disappointed that I could not get into that place (the settlements) at the time I wished to, a little before day; instead of which I did not arrive  'till  noon, when all the cattle was in the Woods (out grazing) so we cou'd get but a few of them.  We have burnt all the settlement called Minisink,  one Fort excepted, round which we lay before, about an hour, & had one man Killed & one wounded.  We destroyed several small stockaded Forts, and took four Scalps & three Prisoners; but did not in the least injure Women or Children.  The reason that we could not take more of them, was owing to the many Forts about the Place (fortified houses with stockades around them) into which they were always ready to run like ground Hogs."

Ft, Gumaer at Peenpack fought off Brant --Rte 209 Deerpark

Militia Colonel John Hathorn in his official report to Governor Clinton on July 27,1779*** described the settlements' losses:
        "they Burnt Major Deckers House and Barn Samuel Davis's House Barn & Mill Jacobus Van Vlecks House .                                    & Barn, Daniel Vanokers Barn. here was Two Indians Killed from a Little Fort round the house--which was                                    Saved, Esquire Cuykindall's house and Barn,  Mertinus Deckers Fort, house, Barn and Saw Mills                   
        and Nehmiah Pattersons Saw Mill.  Killed & Scalped Jerimiah Vanoker Daniel Cole Ephraim Ferguson  &                
        one Travern.  took with them Several Prisoners, most Children with a great Number of Horses Cattle, & Valuable
         Plunder.  some Cattle were resqued and returned to the owners..."

                                                             



     (described as Vanoker's)

                                                                                                         
           
(Jacobus  Van Vleck's  ?)                                                     









                 
               Indian Raid                                                                  Indian Raid
     Tavern & Home of Peter                                             Grist Mill on this Stream
      Kuykendall, Justice of                                                Built by Salomon Davis
      the Peace, 1731-1743                                              About 1730, was Burned in
   Burned by Brant's Raiders .                                                   Brant Raid
         July 20, 1779                                                                  July 20, 1779

   (Esquire Cuykindall's)                                                        (Samuel Davis'  ?   )       


              Indian Raid                                                              Indian Raid
    House and Barn of Simon                                      Maghaghkamik Church, built
        Westfall on this Site                                               1743 on this site was
   Burned by Brant's Mohawks                                    Burned in raid by Joseph
       and Tories July 20, 1779                                    Brant's Mohawks and Tories
   --S. Maple Ave, Port Jervis                                               July 20, 1779
                                                                         --St,Mary's Ch. Cemetery, Rte 6, Port Jervis

Lt. Col.Wisner summarized the losses in a letter to General Sullivan on July 28,1779: "(Brant's attack) killed 4 men, took 15 prisoners, burnt 10 dwelling houses, one church, 12 barns and one grist mill, a large quantity of hay and grain, took a great quantity of horses and cattle, and much other plunder."
In addition to official correspondence,  letters, and newspaper reports, stories passed down in families reveal the personal experiences of settlers who endured the raid, though different versions often contradict one another in details.                                                James Swartwout was visiting the Van Etten forge when the Indians appeared.  While  the Van Etten family escaped, James hid in the large chimney flue above the forge hearth, and the Van Etten's  slave, "Pompey" met the raiders. (Although some African Americans had supported the Revolution since it beginnings, at this time, in the North, Indian raiders often assumed  Blacks to be non-combatants and with no bounty paid on black scalps, and little value placed on them as hostages for exchange for Loyalist prisoners,  Blacks were likely to be ignored.)  As some of the Indians set fire to the house and barn, and other raiders looked around the forge for portable plunder,  one Indian absent-mindedly or playfully started to pump the forge's bellows. "Pompey" quickly distracted him, saving Swartwout from being asphyxiated or cooked alive!  (Other versions of the story have the blacksmith Van Etten hiding in the chimney or the event, itself, taking place in Brant's first raid in 1778.)                                                                                                                                   

Neversink Drive and Painted Apron Terrace

A famous incident is said to have occurred at the Black Rock School in the Neversink settlement.
As the raiders approached, the teacher, Jeremiah Van Auken, was tomahawked as he (version 1) ran to head off the Indians before they could enter the school or (version 2) as he abandoned his charges and attempted to flee. A couple of  children were (or were not) tomahawked.  Joseph Brant interceded, taking a brush and a pot of paint to place "a mark," a "totem" or a "Masonic symbol" on the aprons and dresses of the girl children, telling his men that the marked children should be left alone, while they attempted to round up the boys as captives. The Indians were largely unsuccessful, as apparently only two (actually boys from the area--not pupils) were taken.  The girls saved several of the boys by hiding them under their painted aprons or dresses. As with the incident at the forge, there is confusion as to when this occurred. It would seem more likely  the school would be in session in the Fall (ie. October 1778)  than in mid-summer  when the raid of July 1779 occurred..


















Both sides put a premium on capturing prominent enemy leaders. Major Johannes Decker, head of the Orange county militia was of special interest to Joseph Brant's raiders.  On the morning of July 20th, Major Decker was returning from a funeral when the raiders attacked and burned his house.  Having missed him, initially, they set an ambush for him when he returned.  Realizing his peril, Decker galloped through the ambushers amid a hail of musket fire.  He was wounded in his side and bleeding, but managed to escape. When his horse became entangled in the branches of a fallen tree the Colonel ran into the woods on foot. According to one source he managed to escape by hiding in a hole. According to another, he made his way to an abandoned wolf's den he had discovered while hunting. One version dramatically describes how he held his breath as an Indian peered into the cave's darkness, so close he could see glint of his eyes, while Decker clutched his jackknife, ready to slash his pursuer's throat if he was discovered.  Decker escaped discovery.

127 West Main St, Port Jervis

The raiders torched the Maghagkamik 
Church before turning west and burning the stockaded house of Martinus Decker, the sole structure from the period of the raid that survives today. (Fourteen years after the attack, the house was rebuilt from its burned out stone shell.)








 The depth of mutual animosity between Tory volunteer and patriot homesteader was intense, as evidenced by some of the stories that were passed down. Supposedly, during the burning of one of the Decker homes (wether Martinus' or Major Johannes' is unclear) an Indian approached the cradle of an infant of a family sheltering there, with the intention of killing it. But, when he reached for the baby it smiled at him and the warrior was unable to kill it. A Tory, disguised as an Indian, who the settlers recognized as "Daniel Cole" or "Cornelius Cole" rebuked the Indian, "Is your heart too tender for your work?" and taking the child by the heels, swung its head into a doorpost, killing it. The fact that the child or its family remains unidentified in the story along with Brant's assertion that they "did not in the least injure women or children" throw some doubt on the story's authenticity but the fact it was created and attached to the name of a particular Tory, shows the intensity of hatred between rebel families and their former Tory neighbors.

205 East Main, Port Jervis 
The Cole family were early settlers in the area. Cole's Fort in addition to being a place of refuge in the French and Indian War was a center for defense of the upper Delaware in the Revolution. Pulaski"s  Cavalry Legion and support infantry were quartered here in 1778 until they were transferred to the war in South Carolina and the 2nd New York Regiment was headquartered here until it was sent to Easton in the early summer of 1779. Colonel Hathorn reported another "Daniel Cole" "killed and scalped" in the raid; Samuel Cole was Captain of the 3d Regiment, Orange Co. Militia at the Battle.

Their work completed, Brant's Volunteers retreated with their plunder and prisoners, driving their captured horses and cattle before them, up along the Delaware.  They moved quickly for they expected Rebel forces would be in hot pursuit. Next  Time:  Part 2--The Battle in a "Howling Wilderness."




Marker of the Week--   Actually, That would be Uncle George!

Though most of the above is true enough, the last line is not. (Note the attempt at correction.) While Dewitt Clinton was one of New York's most famous governors, having promoted and overseen the building of the Erie Canal, he was the sixth, not the first New York State governor.(1817-23, 1825-28).   Uncle George was the first. (1777-1785, 1801-05) and served as Vice President (1805-12).  But then, New York suffers from no shortage of famous Clintons. During the Revolution, George also serving as Brigadier General of the New York Militia, would be joined by his brother James Clinton, serving as Brigadier General in the Continental Army to defend the Hudson Highlands (at forts Montgomery and Clinton) against a British attack headed by Sir Henry (no relation) Clinton.  Even today there are a couple of famous Clintons living in Chappaqua, New York.


*"Letters of Marque" were issued by governments authorizing individuals to outfit ships to prey on vessels sailing under the flag of a declared enemy. From the 16th to the early 19th century privateering was an accepted practice. Essentially operating as private contractors, privateers generally didn't receive any support or provisioning by the governments that authorized them, but they were encouraged to make war (mainly) on an enemy's commercial shipping and could keep any ships and cargoes they managed to capture.

**See  8/7/2016  It Happened Here--The Lost Towns of the Revolution
***This report was lost until 1973 and presumed destroyed in the New York State Library fire of 1911. It was discovered in the Draper Manuscripts of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin by Vernon Leslie.

It Happened Here--The Judge's Youngest Brother Visits  

                 

  William Crane was a pillar of the community in Port Jervis, New York in the 1890's. A prominent lawyer, the sobriquet of "judge" had stuck with him though he had served but one year as a temporary judge for Orange County.  In 1891 his brother Stephen came for what would be several extended visits.

 Born in Newark, N.J., Stephen was the youngest of fourteen Crane children.  Four of Stephen's  siblings closest in age to him had died in their infancy so there was a large gap in age between the youngest Crane and his surviving brothers and sisters, who often served more as mentors and parents than peers. His sister Agnes, fifteen years his seniors, was largely responsible for his early upbringing and education, and first stirred his interest in writing and self-expression. The Cranes' father, Rev. Jonathan Townley Crane who became the pastor of the large Drew Methodist Church of Port Jervis was consumed by church business as was his mother in the Women's Christian Temperance Union and various church charities and other church functions. Reverend Crane died suddenly when Stephen was eight.

Stephen's brother Edmund became his caretaker, taking him to Hartwood New York. Later his mother moved to the Methodist community of Ashbury Park, N.J. enrolling him in the Ashbury Park School and two years later Pennington Seminary.  Stephen rebelled against the seminary's strict behavioral code. He  declared he wanted to pursue a military career and prepare for West Point.

Rt.9H Claverack

His family next enrolled him in Claverack College, a combination quasi-military-college preparatory school and junior college, also affiliated with the Methodist church. By now, a teenager in full rebellion, the youngest Crane was at loggerheads with a school administration  that promoted a highly structured classical education, that discounted creativity; one that promoted strict  Methodist behavioral standards.  Though he excelled at military drill and exercises, and participated in literary societies, he hated his courses and would often stay up late (smoking and playing poker),  then sleeping in and

Last surviving building on Claverack College campus*

missing his classes. After two and a half years the young scholar was still a freshman!

The family, being at wit's ends, brother William intervened.  William Crane, who was something of an amateur historian had enchanted young Stephen with stories of the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.  Stephen's Uncle, Wilbur Fisk Peck had been an army surgeon's assistant and had become the head of the Army hospital at Yorktown, though the experience had left him a shattered man and an alcoholic. Stephen carried Uncle Wilbur's sword in military exercises at Claverack.  So it was left to William to express to Stephen a belief that another war was not likely in Stephen's lifetime and consequently, opportunities for military distinction and advancement would be unlikely for someone pursuing a military career.  Much of the Crane family's wealth had come from shares of Pennsylvania coal stock.  Perhaps he should consider a career in mining engineering!

In 1890 Stephen was off to the mining-engineering program at Lafayette College in Easton, PA.  Lafayette, like all of his previous educational experiences was church-rooted--in this case Presbyterian, not Methodist, with bible study and daily chapel attendance required. It featured a fixed four year program, that allowed no elective courses. It didn't take long for Stephen to realize he had probably jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The first semester he took seven courses and failed five of them.  His worst grade was in "Theme Writing"  (a Zero!)  Being an engineering program, students enrolled in it were required to write on assigned technical subjects using specialized jargon.  Stephen wasn't interested.

The realization that her son was not cut out to be a mining engineer led Stephen's mother to seek a place for him at Syracuse University. Because her wayward son had attended Claverack, one of the University's preferred  college preparatory schools, and because Stephen's grand-uncle was Bishop Jesse T. Peck, one of the University's founders, Mrs. Crane pulled some strings and got him admitted with a scholarship.  She even arranged for him to board at the Bishop's widow's residence.  Stephen probably agreed only because Syracuse had a good baseball team;  he was passionate about baseball and an excellent catcher in his own right.  His housing arrangement lasted only a few days before the Bishop's wife and the rebellious, unconventional Crane mutually agreed to part company. While at Lafayette, Stephen had pledged at Delta Upsilon fraternity and soon found lodgings at the DU house on the Syracuse Campus.  There he became something of a leader of his fraternity's rebels, occupying an unused, unheated  cupola in the fraternity house to smoke, play cards and sing bawdy drinking songs, with his new friends.  Crane took courses mainly in history and literature that he thought would interest him, and did not follow a degree program.  As one semester turned into two semesters Stephen spent more and more time writing stories, beginning a novel  Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and often going out into the streets to observe people. By the third semester he failed to register for a single course.   For  a few summers he had worked for his brother Townley as a reporter hustling up leads and stories for him along the Jersey shore summer communities, for Townley's news service that provided copy for several large and small newspapers.  When one of his professors confronted Stephen about his lack of interest in academics, and Stephen confessed he was more interested in writing and journalism, Professor Little offered to try to get him a reporter's job. Stephen started as the Syracuse correspondent for the New York Tribune, and soon he was frequenting the police courts, tenements and red light district of Syracuse.  By the end of his Spring semester Crane would inscribe on the wall of his fraternity house cupola 'Sunset--1891--May--Steph. Crane'.

Summer 1891 would begin a period where Stephen would divide  his time between visiting his brother Edmund, in Hartwood, and camping with family in rural Sullivan county; staying with brother William in Port Jervis; and living a bohemian lifestyle with other artists, on the edge of the Bowery in NY City. There he would continuing gathering material for, and revising and polishing "Maggie."  From his experiences in the country would emerge several short stories, several published at the time and posthumously collected into Stephen Crane:  Sullivan County Tales and Sketches.

After experiencing frustration at getting "Maggie" published**, Crane was at a friend's in New York and considering writing a civil war pulp fiction/action story or novel to get some quick cash.  (A new generation of readers was discovering the civil war  as both a subject of romantic/action fiction, and as a more serious historical object. )  As he poured over a stack of Century Magazines containing a series on "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War"*** he realized they all focused on what happened and what their main actors said and did,  not what their participants thought and felt and how they were effected by events.  The germ of the idea for Crane's greatest novel, the one that would make him famous, was born.

Port Jervis would be the source of several of the images and insights that Stephen would be incorporated into his stories and novels.  Orange Square is a small city park, diagonally across from the Drew Methodist Church.  The summer before his father died, Stephen witnessed a catastrophic accident. Two black Civil War veterans of the U.S. Colored Volunteer Heavy Artillery  were readying a cannon for the start of the annual Forth of July celebration.  Suddenly a horrific fireball blew the two artillerymen across the park. One died shortly; the other survived with the features of his face largely blasted away and charred, with but one staring eye intact--a terrible memory for an eight year old boy to carry with him. In 1892 a second incident would occur across from William's house, days before Stephen's return from a sojourn doing correspondent work on the Jersey shore. A black man, falsely  accused of raping a  woman was hanged twice by a mob of some 2000.  William and a few others had tried in vain to stop the hanging.  He had given a deposition at the inquest. Stephen would have learned all about it from his brother, and Tribune articles when he returned. Undoubtedly he participated in many conversations about human nature, prejudice, fear and mob violence. Five years later the emotional freight of these two incidents would appear in Crane's "The Monster".

In 1886 Orange Square received a monument dedicated to Civil War veterans.  It became a focal point for Fourth of July celebrants and veterans, principal among them, veterans of the 124th New York State Volunteer Regiment raised in Sullivan and Orange Counties, nicknamed the "Orange Blossoms".  After Crane had decided to write something about the Civil War he began to frequent the park to talk to veterans about their experiences. They quickly disabused him from any lingering notions of inherent glory in combat he may have had,  but they also galvanized him into returning to William's house to write a first draft of The Red Badge  of Courage.

The Red Badge of Courage would catapult Stephen Crane into literary fame.  His desire to experience life close to the characters he was attempting to create would lead him to a life of hardship and adventure the next few years: sailing with "filibusters" trying to aid the Cuban revolutionaries, being shipwrecked in an open boat, attempting to reach the Greco-Turkish War, reporting on the Spanish American War  and charging up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders.  In seven years of writing he would produce five novels, two novellas, two collections of poetry, over 200 stories and sketches and dozens of newspaper reports. But Crane's "strenuous  life" along with heavy smoking would have consequences for the slight-built author.  By the summer of 1900 Crane would be dead of tuberculosis, at age 28.

*For years, a private residence, this building, built in 1869, was  owned by Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin and is up for sale as of 7/1/19--asking price $1.7 million. 
**Popular themes were either of the downtrodden girl with a heart of gold saved by the wealthy hero, or moralistic tales of wanton girls eventually brought down by the wages of sin. "Maggie" was neither of these, but instead a naturalistic unblinking look into life in the Bowery. Eventually, Stephen would self-publish his novella, using his inheritance from his mother's estate. To Crane's great disappointment, it would go largely unnoticed.
***Ulysses Grant contributed  to this series and it would launch him on his life's final project as an autobiographer.  See
NYSHM:  It Happened Here--Ulysses S. Grant on Horses, Smoking, Dying and Determination   7/ 9/18. 

In addition to the usual Wikipedia/ online sources, Paul Sorrentino's Stephen Crane, A Life of Fire. Cambridge, MA. 2014. is readable and multifaceted.


Marker(s) of the Week--   First things First!

Rte. 23, Windham

Sometimes among the first early settlers on the frontier were people of extremely limited resources. For these hearty souls getting their first crops into the ground and harvesting them so they would have food superseded all other needs including building a decent home.  A few NYSHMs suggest to us  the precarious nature of their existence.

Rte. 7, Duanesburg

                                                                 

It Happened Here--The Palatines

Part 2, the Diaspora

King's Highway, Saugerties

The Palatines generally greeted the news of Governor Hunter's abandonment of the Tar-making project and of them, with excitement, as a release from servitude.  Many of those in the West Camp, who were less involved in tar-making continued on the lands in which they were settled,  eventually buying them. New settlements grew. A few miles west of West Camp the Palatines built, with their Dutch neighbors, a stone church, inscribing their names on a wall of this church at "Katsbaan".

Old Kings Highway, N. of Katsbaan (off of Rte. 32)

Some of the Palatines petitioned the Crown
 for the land bought by Gov. Hunter for
the tar-making project, but apparently their efforts were fruitless.

 

Similarly, they attempted to purchase land from Robert Livingston, but Livingston would not budge, only offering tracts for "three life leases." A few Palatine families accepted his terms.

Inscribed stones from old church in wall of the1867 Church

Rte 9, cor. 9G, north of Rhinebeck

After Robert Livingston rejected their offers to purchase land, about thirty families moved south to the adjoining patent owned by Henry Beekman. Beekman welcomed them and sold them land.  In 1713 they named their village after their homeland (the Rhine) and the landowner who treated them fairly (beck or beek).

Rte. 146 at Wagner Rd., Guilderland Ctr.

Most of the Palatines, however, continued to hope  they could find homes in their "promised land," "Scorie." After Governor Hunter's declaration that the Palatines must "shift for themselves" seven leaders of the villages,  the "list men" who kept records of the people in their jurisdiction, set off for the Schoharie headed by John Conrad Weiser. They hired an Indian guide who led them from Albany to Guilderland, into the Helderberg Mountains, then along the Fox Creek to Schoharie. They found the Indians in the Schoharie valley "hospitable" and readily to gave them permission to settle. After turning the last fifteen miles of the twenty-four mile track from Albany to Scoharie from a narrow Indian trail to a cart road, the first group of fifty families set out. They were followed in March 1713 by a second group of about one hundred and fifty families. The first winter the Palatines survived mainly because of the generosity of the Indians who gave them maize and showed them how to forage for edible native plants, roots and nuts.

Knox-Gallupville Rd., Knox

The Palatines settled in seven villages (dorfs or dorps), overseen by the listmasters.  Weiser's Dorf, and Hartman's Dorf, (named for Hartman Winedecker) were located in what is today Middleburgh. With Brunnen Dorf, named for the springs that flowed from the hillside, and Fuch's Dorf, named for its location where the Fox Creek enters the Schoharie Creek, was Smith's Dorf in the area that became "Schoharie".  North of them was Gerlach Dorf, and on the Cobleskill Creek, Kniskern's Dorf.

Rte 145, Main St., Middleburgh

     As in the camps, they built schools, churches and parsonages

Rte 30, N. of Middleburgh

Rte 30, Schoharie

Rte 30, Schoharie

Rte 30, Scoharie

Parsonage, Warner Hill Rd., Schoharie

The immigrants had barely settled into their new homes when they came under legal attack from none other than Governor Hunter. Though Hunter had "temporarily" released them from servitude and told them they must provide for themselves, he did not expect they would they would form permanent self-sufficient communities and he blamed them for the failure of the tar-making project, which threatened his financial ruin. 

The first assault on the Palatines claim to the valley began with Samuel Bayard's scheme to sell the Palatines titles to their land. Bayard's father Col. Nicholas Bayard had received a patent for almost the entire valley given to him by Governor Benjamin Fletcher (1692-1697), no doubt for a "consideration." (Fletcher was recalled for corruption and association with pirates, and had retired from the governorship an estimated  £300,000 wealthier) But in 1698 the Crown repudiated his "extravagant" land grants.* Though the exact nature of Samuel's scheme remains unclear, the younger Bayard entered the valley with a document he circulated offering title to the Palatine landholders. He was unceremoniously expelled from the valley by the Palatines.

A more serious threat came from Adam Vrooman of Schenectady. Vrooman had claimed to have bought some land from the Schoharie Indians in 1711. In the summer of 1714 Gov. Hunter issued him a patent for much of the land in the upper valley, including Weiser's Dorf. The Palatines were outraged. Enticing the local Indians with alcohol they re-marked their boundary claims, and bought additional land on the hillsides for 300 Spanish dollars. They began a campaign to harry Vrooman from the valley by driving their horses at night over the land Vroman attempted to plant and pulling down a stone house he was attempting to build. His son was pulled from a wagon and beaten, and Vroman's life was threatened. He too left, but his name remains in the valley as the name of a rocky promontory looking down on the fertile fields of the valley south of Middleburgh, "Vroman's Nose."

After failing to peddle his titles to the Palatines, Samuel Bayard assembled five partners to invest in Schoharie lands. Though he appears to have failed to sell them title to the lower Schoharie Valley, they applied directly to Hunter himself and received a patent in November 1714. Three years later  two other partners joined them with interests in the area of the Fox Creek. They informed the Palatines they must buy or lease their lands or leave. The partners appealed to the court in Albany to get the Albany County sheriff to deliver papers requiring the settlers to "pay up" and to surrender John Conrad Weiser, who they identified as their ringleader. At Weiser's Dorf a riot occurred, led by the women of the village. They pulled Sheriff Adams off his horse, beat him up, dragged him through the filth of their barnyards and carried him out of the valley on a fence rail, depositing him, with two broken ribs, on the road back to Albany.

The next year, when the Governor visited Albany.** He ordered a committee of three men from each dorf to come to Albany to explain their people's actions. Angrily he forbade the Palatines from planting crops until they had bought or rented their land.

Johann Conrad Weiser and two others made a bold attempt to go over the Governor's head and seek an audience with George I, Britain's new German king from Hannover.  Sneaking out of the valley, they made their way to Philadelphia and boarded a ship bound for England.  But a short distance from port their ship was taken by French pirates who took everything of value off the ship, including the money raised by the Palatines to support the trio while seeking to get a royal audience. The ship refitted in Boston then sailed on to London.  They arrived penniless and managed to subsist for a while on commercial and personal loans, but the loans came due, and they were no closer to their goal. They were thrown into debtors prison, where one of the petitioners died. Finally, money to pay their debts and free them from prison arrived. Weiser soldiered on alone after his other companion returned to America, where, his health broken, he also died. By then Governor Hunter was back in London seeking reimbursement for the tar making fiasco. Though unable to advance his own cause, he used what influence he had left to sabotage the Palatines' efforts. After five years of fruitless lobbying Weiser, also, returned home. Then, in what could be described as a karmic twist of fate, Hunter got a ruling from the Board of Trade. The Board would consider reimbursing Hunter if (1) he produced receipts for expenditures to Robert Livingston and others, (which he expected) and (2) he produced affidavits from the Palatines that they had been adequately provisioned, supported and compensated for their efforts! (Needless to say, no such affidavits would be forthcoming from the Palatines!) In 1719 Hunter's commission as governor of New York was revoked and he was replaced by William Burnett in 1720.

With the government's support, and the arrest of several Palatine leaders, the seven partners were able to force about 1/3 of the Palatines to buy or rent their land from them.  Another group of thirty three families moved to the Tulpehocken valley in Berks county Pennsylvania where other Palatines and several sects of German religious dissenters had successfully settled.

Early in his tenure as New York's new governor, Burnett addressed the Schoharie problem by granting himself a patent on land in the Mohawk River Valley with several Palatine leaders named as co-patentees.  Before this, the Mohawk clans had vigorously resisted attempts of European settlers to occupy their lands but now they were feeling vulnerable. Disease and war had reduced their numbers from several thousand to about 600. In the last century a large number of their people had been converted to Catholicism by the Jesuits and had decamped for lands around Montreal.  The last war had seen their homelands raided by the French and Algonquin enemies.  Their experience with the Palatines in Scoharie had been generally positive. The Palatines, more than the English and Dutch, seemed to respect Indian peoples and their life-styles and they were generally good neighbors. If the Mohawks could lease land to them it might limit uncontrolled European settlement.  Having Palatine neighbors might increase their security in the next (inevitable) war with the French.
The new governor also saw the benefit of creating buffer communities of non-Britons located between invading French and Indian raiders, and the exposed towns of Schenectady and Albany.

Rte 30, N. of Schoharie (now missing)

             "Gerlach Dorf

    Johan Christian Gerlach
  Palatine Listmaster Settled
      near this site in 1717
Gerlach along with most of this
Dorf's Palatines Removed to the
  Mohawk Valley in 1722-1723
 Schoharie Valley Bicentennial 1995"

The Burnett Patent allowed nearly 92 heads of families, over 300 people, to settle on lands from  Little Falls, 24 miles west along both sides of the Mohawk. The settlements of Palatine, Palatine Bridge, Stone Arabia, Oppenheim, German Flats, Frankfort and others came into being between 1723 and 1726. Their numbers were swelled by the arrival of another ship of Palatines that arrived in 1722.  Included with them was the "Erghtmer" (Herchheimer or Herkimer) family.

For thirty years the Palatines lived in peace and growing prosperity along the Mohawk River until the last French and Indian war when their homes and farms were twice attacked and burned by  the French and their Algonquin allies in 1757, 1758 and again, by their Loyalist neighbors and Iroquois former-friends, twenty years later in the American Revolution.  Nicholas Herkimer, son of Palatine immigrants led the defense of the valley from Fort Herkimer in the last "French War" and turned back a British, Loyalist, Indian invasion in 1777, being mortally wounded in the Battle of Oriskany.  

Rte. 5,  North Illion

Gen. Herkimer Statue, Park Ave. Herkimer

For many years much of this part of the Mohawk Valley remained unoccupied.  After the wars some Palatines returned to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, but many moved elsewhere, completing the last chapter of the Palatine diaspora.

*Another of Fletcher's thirteen "extravagant " grants revoked by the Crown was one used for the West Camp settlements.
**New York City was the seat of the Colony's government, as New Amsterdam had been the seat of New Netherlands in Dutch times.


Addenda--On 5/12/13 I wrote on a piece on "New York's Wooden Roads." Since then I have taken photos at a couple other sites. The newer Pomeroy sign makes an interesting observation about the noise arising from wood planks laid over wooden stringers under the wheels of wagons.

County Rte.110, Broadalbin

     

1315 Township Rd. Altamont



Note--This installment of NYSHMs has been delayed due to technical problems. These have included being unable to download several photos which if corrected, will be shown in the next installment's  Addenda

It Happened Here--The Palatines
Part 1, the Tar makers

Robert Hunter must have felt quite pleased with himself as he left Britain to return to America early in 1710.  He had put together a plan to address two of Britain's most pressing problems, successfully presented it to the Board of Trade and gotten the Queen's approval.  One of his major political supporters in America stood to profit significantly from it and hoped to populate his long nearly-vacant manor with tenant farmers.  And Robert Hunter was returning as the new governor of New York--New Jersey.

The two problems Hunter's plan addressed stemmed from two long wars, the "War of the Grand Alliance" and the "War of Spanish Succession" that spanned the period of 1684 to 1713.  During that period German peasants in the patchwork of tiny duchies and principalities along the lower Rhine (known collectively as the Palatinate) were driven first one way and then another by French armies and alliances of German forces, sometimes aided by the British. Crops and towns were burned, suspected partisans were put to the sword, and once prosperous farmers were impoverished by high taxes and the requisitioning of crops and livestock by occupying armies. The chaotic succession of rulers also demanded the populace follow first, Reformed, then Lutheran religious practises and back again, followed by Roman Catholic rites and beliefs.  To add to their difficulties Europe was then in the grip of what today is recognized as the "little ice age" that caused winters to be long, summers to be wet and cold and livestock to perish and crops to rot or freeze.  By early 1709 many desperate peasants had had enough and were on the move, down the Rhine to Amsterdam. At first the government of the Queen looked favorably on these, their Protestant brethren and with government and private charity enabled them to come to England. But soon the stream of refugees became a torrent! Thirteen thousand of the poorest, sickest people poured into southeast England and tent cities sprang up around London. What to do with all these people? A few thousand were transported to Ireland but many soon returned to the London area. Some were transported to the Carolinas, but it was said agents of some of the patent-holders there were making the situation worse by recruiting peasants in the Palatinate. A small group led by Rev. Joshua Kocherthal directly petitioned the Queen and were successfully settled in a town they called Neuberg (Newburgh) along the Hudson. But transportation to America was expensive.   How to pay for it?

NEW BURGH

SETTLED 1709, BY EXILES FROM

RHINE PALATINATE, OUSTED BY

FRENCH, GRANTED LAND HERE

BY QUEEN ANNE; LED BY PASTOR,

JOSHUA DE KOCKERTHAL

--originally on Rte 32, Newburgh

A second problem emerged from the wars. The British Navy burgeoned as demands to protect a growing mercantile fleet grew. Sturdy English oak could provide the ribbing and planking for new British ships.  But tall, straight, strong, supple pine spars and masts could only be obtained abroad, and with them pine tar and "pitch."  Pine tar was an essential waterproofing product used by shipbuilders and mariners.  Mixed with hemp fibers (oakum) it was hammered into the spaces between hull planks to prevent leaks. Coating standing rigging (shrouds, ratlines), it prevented rotting of these essential support components. (Pine tar could be used to waterproof sailors' clothing and "Taring" and caulking were such essential maintenance tasks that British sailors were often called "tars".)  Pitch was a sticky processed pine tar that hardened into a glossy waterproof shell. Collectively these were known as "naval stores." The pine forests bordering the Baltic Sea had been traditional sources of these naval stores but the wars had dramatically increased their cost, and revealed how vulnerable the supply lines were to these areas.

A third problem confronted Robert Livingston, a Hunter supporter in America*. Livingston had been granted a Royal Patent and "purchased" the land from the local Indians. He had hoped to develop a patroonship like the Van Rensselaers,  populated by tenant farmers, paying annual "quit-rents" to him and his family in perpetuity.  But Livingston got few takers. There were other places in New England,  the Jerseys, and the Carolinas where settlers could buy their land out-right, develop it as they saw fit and sell it with their improvements at its' market value. Livingston was not making money on his investment.

Palatine Park Rd., Germantown

Robert Hunter's plan was to transport some 3000 Palatines to the shores of the Hudson River and settle them in two camps. There they would produce tar for the British government and work off the costs of their transportation to America. (As an inducement each family was promised 30 acres of land after they had worked off the costs of the voyage, but in fact no such land was set aside for this payment.)  Robert Livingston sold the project a parcel of land, the "East Camp" and nearby pine stands. Livingston was contracted to be the victualer for the camps, producing daily quantities of bread and "ship's beer" for the workers. He also hoped that while some of the immigrants would continue to work producing pine tar, others could be induced to sign life-leases on his manor.  (German peasants would become American peasants!)  A second camp on the opposite side of the river, "West Camp" was established on land that the colony's assembly had taken back from its original patentee Capt. John Evans.  Rev. Joshua Kockerthal, from the Newburgh settlement became the spiritual leader and spokesman for the West Campers.

• WEST CAMP (sign missing)
  SETTLED 1710 BY PALATINES
  FROM THE RHINELAND FOR
  PRODUCTION OF NAVAL STORES.
  BUILT CHURCH AND SCHOOL
  DURING FIRST WINTER.
  Location: US 9W AT WEST CAMP

Rte 9W. West Camp

 By coincidence, in 1710, Peter Schuyler, Mayor of Albany and a delegation from New York were in London attempting to appeal to Parliament and the Queen for more support to counter raids by the French and their Indian allies. To garner maximum attention, he brought along three Mohawk and two Mohican sachems (chiefs). Though one died on the voyage, the remaining four, dressed in native costume caused a sensation in London. They were shown around the city, wined and dined, had their portraits painted and got an audience with the Queen. On one of their sight-seeing trips they encountered the "poor Palatines" in one of their tent encampments.  On meeting with the Queen, one of the Mohawk chiefs offered them their hunting grounds in the Schoharie Valley, to which the Queen assented.   The Palatines seized on this as if it were their God-given promised land. Going to "Scorie" became the dream of the first generation of immigrants.**

Rte 30, Middleburgh

About three thousand Palatines set out with Robert Hunter in ten ships. The Palatines, while recovering from the effects of their long, disease-ridden ocean voyage, in which some 470 died, built their settlements--four villages (Dorfs) in the East Camp and three in the West Camp.  They quickly established churches and schools and began learning the trade of tar making.

Rte 9, Germantown

Colony leaders had hired an "expert," John Bridger to teach the Palatines tar-making.  He worked briefly with them, then returned to New England and found excuses not to return to New York, perhaps realizing but not willing to tell authorities that the Hudson pine tar project was likely to fail.

Rte. 9, Germantown

In colonial times, pine tar was made by digging a conical shaped pit, with clay channels at the bottom leading to a collection barrel. It was filled with specially prepared pine trees and branches, stacked to drain into the clay channels. Covered with a layer of soil and mosses, a fire was built on top. Over a period of days, the pine logs would be converted to charcoal and and the pine tar boiled out of them, to be collected in the barrel at the bottom. Too cool or too hot a fire could result in either a disappointing yield, or a flaming disaster. To yield maximum tar,  channels needed to be cut in the logs, through the outer bark into the inner bark, but not into the wood itself, (not unlike traditional techniques for collecting latex from rubber trees.)
Counter intuitively, the most tar could be produced, not from green wood but from trees that had been cut, grooved and seasoned for about two years. Unfortunately,  the Palatine peasants, farmers and vine-dressers knew almost none of this. Disappointments alternated with disasters and after a year almost no pine tar had been produced. Discouragement set in as the Palatines realized what hard, filthy dirty work they were condemned to.  And there was another factor--most pine tar was produced from Pitch Pines and closely related species. The White Pines of Livingston's forests were a poor source for pine tar.

The pine tar project on the Hudson had been almost certainly doomed to failure from its conception. Governor Hunter had to send soldiers to quell the growing dissatisfaction in the camps and to keep the Palatines working. Support dried up with a change of governments from Whig to Tory.  One of Hunter's predecessors, a political enemy who hated Livingston,  Edward Hyde--Lord Cornbury did everything in his power to sabotage the project. Governor Cornbury had been recalled in disgrace to London in 1708,  but after a few years had managed to restore himself to the Queen's favor after inheriting his father's title Earl of Clarendon.  As Secretary of the Treasury he blocked all funding for the Palatine tar making project, denying reimbursement of Hunter's expenses.  By September 1712 Hunter was at the end of his financial resources and was forced to set the Palatines loose to fend for themselves to "accept any employment from farmers and others in this Province or New Jersey, until recalled by Proclamation" to return to the project. (They never were.)

Next week-- The Palatines, Part 2 Diaspora

Addenda--

Back on  12/31/14 I wrote an article It Happened Here -- N.Y.'s Ghost Towns.    Recently I came across another striking example of a "New York Ghost town" a short distance south of Rte  20 in 

   Otsego County.

    




Corner Butternut Rd. and Cemetery Rd.
Richfield Springs

Federal Corners rated not
one, but two NYSHMs 

Federal Corners, today.

*see "It Happened Here--the Tough, Wiley Scotsman and his Diligent Vrouw". New York State Historical Markers:  It Happened Here  6/30/13

**It turns out this Mohawk sachem had absolutely no authority to offer this land.  Domestic issues were the province of the clan mothers, not male warriors and could only be reached by consensus of them all.  Indeed, all matters were reached by consensus/compromise. If an individual/family and the clan were at loggerheads the only recourse was for the dissenters to move away. Throughout Iroquoia there were scattered villages of dissenters, often with peoples from different clans and even different tribes. Onaquaga was one of these. (see "Lost Towns of the Revolution." New York State Historical Markers:  It Happened Here  8/7/16) The Schoharie Valley had at least two. The main one was called Wilder Hook by Dutch settlers and was a village of mainly Mohawk dissenters. Another village was predominantly Mohegan.  Mohawks, Mohegans, Tuscororas, and Delawares could all be found there. The possibly even exists that that the sachem had not even offered Schoharie to the Palatines, but merely cited the Schoharie Valley as an example of how his people dealt with other people who did not fit in. We will probably never know.