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 Marksman

General Simon Fraser was a good battlefield commander. He was out where you would expect a good battlefield commander would be—out with his men, observing, directing their officers, encouraging his men by his words and his example. Everywhere he went up and down the battle line, the units under his gaze seemed to respond to orders with a little more speed and precision, formed up and discharged their weapons with a little more alacrity, fought a little harder. With a practiced eye he looked out across the fields and scattered woodlands and observed where the enemy was gathering and advancing and where the weak spots were developing in the enemy's line.

General Benedict Arnold was also very much a front line-combat general. He saw what needed to be done and gave the order to Colonel Morgan who relayed it to a dozen of his best marksmen.

General Fraser probably noticed the small party of rebels roughly in front of him, hiding behind fallen logs and trees, but he probably didn't give them a second thought, firing, as they were, from an impossibly long distance. They certainly didn't look like soldiers, either, dressed in linen hunting shirts, and floppy farmers hats. One of them was even climbing a tree! Besides, he had more important concerns as the rebels had pressed them hard, pushing them out of the wheatfield, and his line was beginning to falter. When a rifle ball clipped the mane of Frasier's horse, one of the general's officers suggested he was their target and perhaps he should retire to a safer location.  Rejecting his junior officer's suggestion, he spurred his horse into a gallop to continue down the line, when another puff of smoke emerged from that tree top. A searing pain split the General's abdomen and he toppled from his horse. The General would die the next day.

General Fraser marker at the Barber Wheatfield Battlesite

• THE SHOT THAT KILLED
  GEN. FRASER
  OCT. 7, 1777
  WAS FIRED FROM NEAR HERE
  BY TIMOTHY MURPHY
  OF MORGAN'S RIFLEMEN.
  Location: SARATOGA NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
  (Original NYSHM marker removed when new Signage was installed) 
  

 Where Fraser fell
at the edge of the
Wheatfield

Hibernian marker Honoring Murphy

The man in that tree top was a 26 year old farmer/frontiersman from the Minisink region along the Delaware River*. Though they didn't look the part, Timothy Murphy and his companions were battle hardened soldiers. Murphy had joined the Continental Army in June 1775, as part of Thompson's Rifle battalion, and marched to the siege of Boston in June or July. He fought in skirmishes before and during the Battle of Long Island and retreated with Washington's beaten army across New Jersey. In December he had crossed the icy Delaware River with Washington's troops to defeat the Hessians encamped at Trenton and fight the British at Princeton, a few days later, before retiring to winter encampment at Morristown. That winter, George Washington ordered Daniel Morgan, of the 11^th Virginia Regiment to raise an elite corps of riflemen. Five hundred  of these men, including Murphy, were dispatched to the Northern Department to support the troops opposing Burgoyne's invasion in July 1777.

  

Following the Saratoga battles American artillery and Morgan's Riflemen kept up the pressure on the camp Burgoyne's army had retreated to, encouraging them to surrender

--Corner Rte 32 and Mennen Rd., Victory


After Murphy's detachment returned to the main army outside Philadelphia,  Morgan's riflemen
skirmished with the British during their withdrawal from Philadelphia, and the following year Murphy and other riflemen were again sent north to help garrison the forts along the New York frontier that were being thrown up to counter the threat of Indian attacks.  Murphy and others were sent to the Schoharie Valley where he was stationed at the Middle Fort, at the Dutch/Palatine settlement of Weiser's Dorf that would one day be renamed Middleburgh. From there he participated in

"scouts" to look for signs of Tory/Indian activity.  The following year he rejoined the rest of Morgan's Riflemen  in the Sullivan Campaign against the Iroquois.  Toward the end of that campaign, deep in Seneca territory he was with the ill-fated scouting party led by Lieutenant William Boyd that was ambushed. Murphy and a few others managed to escape but the others were killed and Boyd, and his Sargent were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois.

In 1780 Murphy's enlistment was up and he chose not to reenlist, settling, instead, back in the Schoharie Valley where he was attracted by the rich farmlands and the young daughter of John  Feeck, perhaps the wealthiest man in the valley whose house, enclosed within a stockade, served as the central building in the Upper Valley Fort. The Feecks were unimpressed by this brave but illiterate frontier soldier whose future seemed destined to end with his scalp hanging on a trophy pole in some distant Iroquois longhouse. So, Timothy Murphy courted Margret in secret; had the banns of matrimony published at the Middle fort and with the connivance of friends and fellow soldiers manage to elope to Schenectady, where they were married. Only when Murphy threatened to leave with his bride to the Pennsylvania frontier, did Mr and Mrs Feeck warm to their new son-in-law, and Murphy and his bride settled near them after war's end.

Not surprisingly, Murphy joined the militia and volunteered for hazardous patrols deep in Iroquois territory, but he became best known for his actions when the Middle Fort was attacked late in October of 1780.

NY Rte 30, south of Middleburgh (both)

After raiding Johnstown in May of 1780,  Joseph Brant launched a second assault from the southwest, following the Indian trail that followed up the  Susquehanna, through the Charlotte valley, and the Panther creek to the upper (southern) end of the Schoharie Valley. Brant shared command with Lt. Col. Sir John Johnson and together they commanded a mixed force of 90 British Regulars, 130 Butler's Rangers, 250 King's Royal Regiment (Loyalists), 30 German Jagers, 80 Indian Department Men** (under Brant) and some 200 Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Delawares.  With them on sledges they pulled a small bronze cannon on removable legs that fired a 3" solid ball, called a "grasshopper" and two mortars (probably Coehorns) that lobbed 4" hollow exploding cannon balls. Brant chose such a late date to begin his raid because a main objective was to destroy the grain harvest after it had been collected into barns up and down the Schoharie  and Mohawk Valleys.

                                                                                                                                                Schoharie Co. Rte 20, Summit          

             NY 30, Fultonham                                                                          
                         
                                                                                                                  





                        Replica Coehorns at a
Monument on the Ticonderoga Battlefield
Johnson's were slightly smaller 4"mortars.




In command of the three Schoharie Valley forts, stationed at the Middle fort, was a Continental officer, Major Melanchthon Lloyd Woolsey,  apparently a dashing, charming figure known for his equestrian jumping ability. Major Woolsey, however, had a flaw fatal for a military officer.

NY 145, Middleburgh

Brant and Johnson's force by-passed the Upper Valley Fort, hoping to get nearer the center of the valley to begin torching barns and homes before they were discovered. But then a party from the Upper fort stumbled into the rear of their column, and soon an alarm cannon was sounding from the Upper fort.  A scouting party, that included Murphy, was sent from the Middle fort to investigate,  and was forced to  make a fighting retreat back to their fort north of Weiser's Dorf.  The Crown forces quickly surrounded the Middle fort as the Indians and their Indian Department handlers fanned out to systematically burn and pillage, and the Regulars employed their meager artillery against the fort.  Johnson, after a short while, became disappointed at the seeming lack of effect his artillery was having on the Fort, so he attempted a different tactic--he would try to negotiate a surrender.

Meanwhile, inside the fort the exploding shells were having a negligible effect, except on the fort's commander.  Major Woolsey was gripped by fear--uncontrollable fear.  No doubt his fear was heightened by the knowledge that the fort had not received a promised allotment of gunpowder, and had precious little to withstand a determined or protracted assault. Perhaps from his vantage point he could get a sense of how outnumbered his garrison was. (There were actually less than 250 defenders to repel nearly 800 attackers.)  And of course there was the awful specter of the fort being overrun with the carnage and scalpings and mutilations and ritual tortures of survivors that characterized this war on the frontier. Woolsey must have shown a palpable sense of relief when he saw a green uniformed Tory officer coming forward with a fifer and flag bearer carrying a white banner to discuss surrender terms.  He retired to get ready to meet them when he heard a shot ring out from his own palisade warning them off. Enraged, he raced up on the firing platform, pistol in hand, demanding to know who had fired the shot. As the fort's officers gathered around, Timothy Murphy spoke up declaring he had. Woolsey threatened to shoot him if he attempted to fire again. Murphy responded that rather than see the flag enter the fort, he would put a bullet through the major's heart.  Woolsey ordered Murphy's arrest but the fort's officers were on Murphy's side, and no one moved.  Woolsey stormed off, hesitating only when he heard Murphy's rifle chasing back the Tory officer for a second time***.

NY 30, south of Middleburgh on the roadside turnout

Johnson, perhaps observing the dissension in the fort, sent his officer out a third time, only to be chased back a third time by a shot from Murphy's rifle; and the battle resumed. The major sought cover in a protected area of the fort where the women and children were being sheltered but was driven out by their threats and derisive comments. Seeking shelter between buildings near a cellar that served as the fort's magazine, Woolsey encountered militia Colonel Peter Vroman****, bringing up powder and shot. (Vroman had chosen to carry the powder himself, so the defenders didn't realize how short they were of gunpowder.) Vroman asked  Woolsey why he wasn't up in the fort directing his men.  The Major abjectly replied that the men refused to follow his orders and now Vroman was in command. Just then a cannon shot from the Tories' 3" cannon ricocheted between the buildings and fell at the Colonel's feet. Vroman picked it up and playfully ordered Woolsey to return it to the Tories.

Burial site marker for P. Vroman at the Old Stone Fort Church

Woolsey made an obscene comment and Vroman replied he regretted he had left his sword behind when he came to fetch the gunpowder for otherwise he would run him through with it.

After the Brant's Indians and Tories had completed their work of destruction in the vicinity of Weiser's Dorf, Johnson's forces melted away as suddenly as they had come, continuing down the valley to Schoharie. They surrounded the Lower Fort, a palisade encircling the stone Schoharie Dutch Church, and commenced burning barns and houses in the area. They kept up a desultory fire for a few hours before moving on to set up overnight camp near what became Sloansville, and continued their raid up the Mohawk Valley. The following day, Major Woolsey mounted his horse and left the Schoharie Valley, never to return.

The "Old Stone (Lower Valley) Fort" Fort Rd., Schoharie

Rte 30A, Sloansville

Early the following year Timothy Murphy enlisted in the Pennsylvania Line, under "Mad" Anthony Wayne, participating in the Southern Campaign that culminated in the surrender of Cornwalis at Yorktown. After the war he returned to the Schoharie Valley, became a successful farmer, ran a gristmill, and although he never learned to read or write, entered local politics. He had several children with Peggy and after she died in 1807, he remarried and moved to the Charlotte Valley where he continued to farm and raised a second family.  In his final year he returned to Fultonham and when he died was buried in the Middleburgh Cemetery next to his first wife, in 1818.

                               At the Murphy home,
                                       Charlotteville, NY

Rte 145, south of Middleburgh

*In recent years historians have backed away from the assertion that Murphy was the rifleman that killed Gen. Fraser. The only evidence comes from Jeptha Simms who says he got the story from one of Murphy's sons who reported his father told him he had made the fatal shot. Another witness claimed he had seen an old farmer with an exceptionally long rifle shoot the General. (Rifles at that time were individually crafted, and could be made to a buyer's specifications.) Daniel Morgan, who spoke about the incident on several occasions never identified the shooter, however, there is no doubt that Murphy was at the battle, and acknowledged as one of the best marksmen in the corps, he would likely have been one of those chosen for the assignment.
**Indian Department men were quasi-military leaders whose job it was to accompany the Indians and act as liaisons between
the warriors and the British military. 
***Murphy was said to own a rare double barreled rifle which though perhaps to heavy to carry on long patrols, he probably had with him on garrison duty. 
****Also written as Vrooman.

It Happened Here -- Days of Decision: 

Schoharie, summer 1777

Rte 30, South of the 30A Intersection, Scoharie

 In 1711 Governor Robert Hunter bought land from the Schoharie  Indians on which to settle Palatine immigrants who had been brought to the Hudson valley in a failed experiment to produce tar for the Royal Navy. Some soon left for the Mohawk valley, and others to Pennsylvania, but the majority stayed on, clustered in little villages (german-- "Dorf"s) up and down the valley.









 The first Dutch
settlers came to the Schoharie Valley from Schenectady in 1714 when Adam Vroman obtained a patent from the English authorities.

Rte 30, south of Middleburgh

For nearly two generations they farmed and lived 
in a state of semi-isolation,  several days journey from Albany and its politics. One of their main contacts with the outside world was with Sir William Johnson and his family and associates who bought their agricultural surpluses and traded with them, and the Schoharie Indians.

As war approached, in 1775. a Schoharie Commitee of Safety was created, mainly to keep an eye on the local Indians and insure their neutrality, and to prevent Tory recruiters from operating in the valley.

Main village of the Schoharies Rte. 30, south of Middleburgh

  A militia regiment was organized in 1776. It had trouble attracting recruits and remained undersized with only three companies. Several prominent valley leaders felt obliged to accept officer positions in the newly formed regiment but felt deeply ambivalent.  Perhaps most valley residents would have preferred to believe the rising tide of troubles was mainly a dispute between the Yankees along the coast and the Crown, but events in 1776--the British invasion of New York City, the Continental Congress' Declaration of Independence, and the Johnson Family's abrupt departure for Canada--left valley residents feeling events were spinning out of control.

By the following summer the situation had worsened.  A British army was making its way down the Lake Champlain corridor.  It had already taken Fort Ticonderoga and appeared unstoppable. A second army was approaching from the west.  In the valley, at the southern end of Vrooman's Land, a prominent farmer, Adam Chrysler, had announced his support for the Crown and was actively recruiting men for Tory regiments. He was joined by John MacDonald (also spelled McDonnell), a former associate of the Johnsons, who had built a farm along the Charlotte river, south of the Schoharie Valley.  Mac Donald had fled with Johnson when he escaped in the spring of '76 but he appealed to the rebel authorities to be allowed to return home in March 1777.  However, once home, he appeared to be more interested in recruiting Loyalists than in farming. (He was, in fact, a Captain in a Loyalist regiment attached to Burgoyne's army.) Between them they recruited some seventy Tories and Indians.

Finally, beginning on August 4th  matters began to come to a head. General Phillip Schuyler directed Albany County Militia General Ten Broek to mobilize the  county militias to send them north to Stillwater to oppose the Burgoyne invasion. Over the next few days Col. Peter Vroman assembled his men and their equipment at Captain George Mann's Tavern in Fox Dorf,  at the head of the road to Albany, at the northern end of the valley.

Rte 443, Schoharie

Vroman wanted a personal commitment from his men that they were willing to fight, so he arranged for his three company captains to each give an inspirational talk. Afterwards the vast majority of them were expected to confirm their support. But then the unthinkable happened.  Captain Mann, of the first company, who had led previously led expeditions to round up Tory organizers, made an impassioned speech supporting King George and his government and concluding with the challenge, "whoever is in favor of King George, follow me!"

Several militiamen left with Mann while the rest milled around in uncertainty and stunned confusion. Colonel Vroman, hoping to prevent a total disaster sent two runners to Albany to summon reinforcements but they were apprehended by other groups of Loyalists on the road from Beaverkill (Berne) coming to support Captain Mann.

Col. John Harper of Harpersfield, commander of the 5th Regiment, Tryon County Militia was in the Valley either to witness the send-off of the Schoharie Militia or to oversee his company of rangers shadowing the activities of Tories at the southern end of the valley or providing support for militiamen garrisoned in Weysertown (Middleburg). Observing the confusion and the growing Tory strength at Fox Dorf  Harper seized on the same plan that Vroman had attempted. Spurring his horse he surged past Tory pickets and galloped up the road toward Duanesburg and Schenectady.  Two Indians were dispatched to bring him down but he fended them off with his sword and pistols.

The following day both newly minted Tories, and confused and disheartened militiamen at Fox Dorf were startled by the staccato call of a cavalry bugle as Harper and twenty eight troopers from the
 2nd Continental Light Horse came thundering into the tiny hamlet.  On charging muscular mounts, with crisp uniforms, polished plumed helmets and gleaming sabres the cavalrymen stunned both Tories and militiamen alike.  Confirmed Tories were quickly rounded up*; many recent converts had a change of heart; and the more steadfast Patriots found new resolve to drive their enemies from the valley.  En masse they marched south through the valley to Weysertown where the Becker stone house served as the Valley's  new southern defensive post. (Within a few weeks it would have a palisade around it and sprout swivel guns.) With darkness falling, and nowhere to contain their Tory prisoners, some creative mind conceived of the idea of forcing them up onto the rooftop, of the large stone structure, then removing the ladder for the night!


The following day, Col. Harper and the 2nd Continental Light Horse, with members of the 15th (Schoharie) Albany County Militia trotting behind, went looking for the enemy. They found them near Adam Chrysler's place on "die Flache" (German--"the Flats") when the Tories fired from ambush. Though three troopers fell; including their lieutenant, the cavalry charged, scattering the Tories.  The number of Tory dead and wounded was unrecorded but about half a dozen were transported to prison back in Albany. The Battle of "Flockey," as it came to be known, was the United States Army's first cavalry charge.

Adam Chrysler, John Mac Donald and many Tories fled the Schoharie Valley but they would return time and time again. (Adam Chrysler would stage one of the last attacks of the war
on July 26, 1782.) But now, at last, the battle lines had been drawn.

*George Mann escaped in the confusion and went into hiding. Friends encouraged him to give himself up and he was imprisoned in Albany for the duration of the war. They also got his trial postponed until the war was over and because he appeared sorry for his actions he was released without further penalty. The tavern was judged to be the property of his father, so it was not confiscated.


Marker of the Week-- ...and another one bites the dust!

 

This weekend I returned to Schoharie to get a clearer picture
of the Gerlach Dorf sign only to find it was the apparent victim of another automobile accident. Hopefully money will be found for a replacement!