USA > New York > Dutchess County > Pine Plains > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 13
USA > New York > Dutchess County > North East > History of Little Nine Partners of North East precinct, and Pine Plains, New York, Duchess county, Vol. I > Part 13
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ty to examine the American forests relative to ship timber, and the pro- duction of naval stores, and who was still in the employment of the govern- ment at a yearly salary of 200 pounds. For this reason and for his supposed knowledge of making tar, Governor Hunter called him from New England, where he was then engaged, to assist in the location, and make the survey of the Palatine lands. The number of Palatines located on their lands by the middle of November, 1710, according to the Post Commissary, James Du Pre, was two thousand two hundred and twenty seven.
Thus the Palatines were located, but this was not the end. They were still the objects of the "unlimited compassion and constant goodness" of the English parliament. Twelve thousand seven hundred pounds, two thous- and seven hundred more than the original grant, had already been ex- pended "in subsisting and settling of those people." The governor was in need. Necessity pressed. Winter was at hand, with a prospective wolf at the door. The Palatines had been quarantined on Governor's (Nuttin's) Island all summer. They had raised nothing from the soil, to aid in sub- sistence, and it was now too late to prepare the pine trees for making tar. The expense was still eating, because the same must the Palatines.
Immediately after the Palatines were located-November, 1710-Gov- ernor Hunter sent Du Pre, the commissary, to England with the bills for sustenance up to this time, to present to the board for allowance. Bearing upon this during the previous summer and early fall, official letters ex- pressing flattering prospects of the production of naval stores, had been written to the English board of trade. As late as November 14, Hunter writes: "I myself have seen Pitch Pine enough upon the river to serve all Europe with Tar." John Bridger, the Queen's surveyor, whom at that time Hunter had employed to superintend the Palatines in the production of tar, wrote about the same date, in substance the same. These two let. ters -- Governor Hunter's is embodied in an official report -- were also carried by Du Pre. Hunter wanted money, and this report was favorable to his object. But it was discovered, and had been so reported to the English board of trade by John Bridger and others experienced in tar making, that tar could not be produced from the pine trees short of two years. Not a pine tree had been touched by the Palatines and in the report of Governor Hunter, from which the above extract is taken, he writes: "I compute that £15,000 a year for two successive years will be sufficient to defray the expense of their subsistence." The two years were to commence at "mid- summer, 1710."
This changed "the unlimited compassion and constant goodness" of some of the lords to limited compassion and inconstant goodness. Lord Cornbury, now Earl of Clarendon, the Queen's cousin, thought as much naval stores could be made and brought to England without the Palatines as with them, that Hunter had made a mistake in purchasing lands of Liv- ingston, as Livingston's object was to make money out of his brewery and
WILLIAM MASSEY. [See Lineage.]
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"victualing of those Palatines;" that there were better lands for the pur- pose in other places; that Livingston would get all the money; that after the two years are expired, subsistence for two more will be wanted, "and so on ;" "that no person that has his limbs, and will work, can starve in that country, as every man or woman above 15 years of age may earn two shillings and three pence New York money per day;" that joiners, smiths, masons, and other handicrafts can earn five shillings, and that nothing but willful laziness will bring those people into danger of starv- . ing." He claimed also that Hunter had made no deduction in his bills for the deceased, "because it is certain many of them are dead." (The price per day allowed the Palatines for sustenance was a York shilling for those over ten years of age and 8 cents for those under ten-an English 6 pence and 4 pence.) The Earl, who was formerly Governor of New Jersey, and unpopular, may have been touched with jealousy, or taken a dislike to Robert Livingston, through some former alleged crooked act of his. What- ever the cause, and whether the earl was right or wrong, many held the same opinion in regard to the Palatines. To add to the embarrassment England was pressed for other colonial expenses, to meet which, she was agitating the question of raising money by a revenue, which had hereto- fore been done principally by grants.
The villages laid out in the Palatine townships were Hunterstown, Queensbury, Elizabethtown, Annsbury, and Georgetown. These included the residents on both sides of the Hudson in the vicinity of what is now Coeymans and Georgetown. Annsbury, on the west side, was surveyed by Livingston's son, had 65 lots of 40 acres each, and had sixty-three families. In these the majority spent their first winter in America. A few went to Albany, some to New York, and all were not slow to hear and learn about this new country, and who and what was in it. They found there was bet- ter land in other places which offered them a better living than making tar. Discontent broke out and became an infectious disease. "We came to America to establish our families," said one, "to secure lands for our children, on which they will be able to support themselves after we die, and that we cannot do here." "Have patience," replied another. "Patience and hope make fools of those who fill their bellies with them," answered the first. The discontent became mutinous among those located on the west side of the river, who had determined to leave and settle on lands in "Schohary." They had formed a "secret association," and resolved not to make tar, and forbid the surveyors to lay out any more lots for them. (Forty acre lots according to the contract.) A similar mutinous feeling ex- isted among those on the east side.
The governor sent for a detachment of sixty soldiers from the garrison at Albany, to meet him at the Manor of Livingston, where he held a coun- cil with the Palatines, who were represented by their deputies, and in an- swer to the reason of hindering the surveyors, said their lands were "worth
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nothing," and it was needless to survey it, for they would have no more, but wanted the lands at Schohary, "which the queen had ordered them by their contract." The governor replied "that those lands the Indians had not parted with, and besides, they had obliged themselves to settle on such lands as he should assign them." The deputies still insisted on moving to Schohary, whereupon the governor, "in writing, told that since neither their duty, allegiance or regard to her Majesty's unparalleled charity and goodness in taking them up, and providing for them when they were starving, and abandoned by all the world besides, had been of any force to keep them within the bounds of their duty, and since they had no regard to a solemn contract signed by them, he was come to require and enforce the execution of it. copies and translations of which they had in their own language." The deputies took a copy of the proceedings to submit to their representative and the council adjourned to meet the following day. The council met, the deputies returned answer, and "told his excellency that they would rather lose their lives immediately than remain where they are, that they are cheated by the contract, it not being the same read to them in England. There it runs thus, that seven years after they had had forty acres a head given them, they were to repay the Queen by hemp, mast- trees, tar and pitch or anything else, so that it may be no damage to any man or his family. Upon these terms they will perform the contract, but to be forced by another contract, (the original contract was read to them in High Dutch at this council .- I. H.) to remain on these lands all their lives, and work for her Majesty for the ship's use, that they will never do. What does it signify to promise them this land that they shall make pitch and tar. They will be obedient to the Queen, but they will have the prom- ise kept that Mr. Cast (John or Jean Cast was acting commissary, and watching over them this winter .- I. H.) read to them in High Dutch in England, and that upon that land which was promised them they will be there, and if they cannot, they desire that three or four men may goe for England and lay their case before the Queen." The council was sud- denly terminated by the arrival of a messenger informing the governor "that there was a great body of men in arms on the other side of the brook." The governor, reinforced since the day previous by another de- tachment of seventy men, marched the detachment "immediately" over the brook and "the Palatines were run home to their houses." The result was, they were all disarmed on both sides of the river, all military commis- sions were revoked and they were put entirely under the command of their overseers and directors as the Queen's hired servants." By refer- ence to the covenant it is seen that they were bound, in the payment for their transportation and outfit "by the produce of our labors in the manu- facture of all manner of naval stores on the lands to that end to be allotted to us." Every other industry was excluded, which they claimed was a
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fraud, and if their recollection in regard to this be correct it is a most sig- nificant part of their history. They wanted to raise hemp and spin and weave linen. But their requests were disregarded and they were forced into silence, but not submission.
In his lair, Fix'd passion holds his breath until the hour Which shall atone for years.
The Palatines' first American winter had passed, and Rev. Joshua De- Kocherthall and Rev. John Frederick Hagen or Hager were with them. Kocherthall was with those on the west side, and said his people "will not listen to tar making." Governor Hunter, as an officer faithful to his gov- ernment, could do no less than he did by suppressing the insurrection, and further, be it said to his praise, he had during the winter supplied them with provisions and tools obtained by his personal credit, meanwhile wait- ing and hoping for the English board of trade to send him allowances. He was perplexed, and impatient for the return of DuPre, the commissary, whom he had despatched to England with the bills in the middle of No- vember last. It was now the 7th of May, and he had not arrived. The time also for fitting the pines for tar making had come, but John Bridger, the Queen's timber agent and surveyor-who the summer before surveyed the Palatine townships. and whom Hunter then employed to superintend the manufacture of tar, for which service the governor recommended a special yearly salary of one hundred pounds-was on the Piscataqua river in New England, protecting the forests of her Majesty by filling his purse with the avails of the privileged cuttings of pine masts and the building of saw mills by a few favorites of his. He could not come, and the Governor em- ployed as superintendent Richard Sackett, "who hath lived three years in the Eastern countries among the manufacturers of tarr, and gives a very rational account of the method of preparing the trees."
Sackett went to the "Camp" May 24, 1710, and set the Palatines to preparing the pines for tar, according to his method, which is thus describ- ed: "In the spring when the sap is up, he barks the north quarter of the circumference about two feet in length, where the sun has least force to draw out the turpentine. In the fall before the sap falls down, he barks the south quarter about two feet and four inches; next spring, the east quarter for the former reason about two feet and eight inches, and in the fall the remaining quarter near three feet, after which the part above what is barked being full of turpentine, is cut down, split and put into kilns for tar." By this "method"-about the first of June-the Pala- tines are supposed to have prepared about 15,000 trees a day.
The summer of 1711 passed, and September came, the Governor mean- time supplying the Palatines from his personal effects and credit, rather as he says, "than let drop so beneficial a project." "I have launched out all the money and credit I could raise in the pursuit of it," he writes Septem-
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ber 12, of that year, "tho' I have as yet no returns to my first bills I have drawn on my Lord Treasurer." The bills went to the English Lords of Trade first, then to Lord Dartmouth, her Majesty's principal Secretary of State. He consulted Lord Cornbury, now Earl of Clarendon, as he was familiar with the New York colonies, having been governor of them some years previous, and moreover was known to be bitterly opposed to the whole Palatine scheme. The Secretary referred the bills back to the lords of trade for correction, coupled with objections and queries and ob- jections. This was the red tape, see-saw policy, which financially embar- rassed and greatly perplexed Governor Hunter.
The objections above referred to are the queerest papers in this Pala- tine correspondence, and considering the time they were made-in Decem- ber, 1711, after a correspondence and discussion of two years upon the sub ject matter involved-they become ridiculous and a mockery.
The objections are:
1st .- "That there was no need of the Palatines to set the manufacture of naval stores on foot, because others might have done as well.
2d .- "That the Governor did not settle the Palatines on the most con- venient place for raising such stores.
3d .- "That the Governor has fallen into bad hands when he contract- ed with Col. Robert Livingston, he being represented to have defrauded the crown of great sums of money when he subsisted the forces at Albany.
4th .- "That the Palatines might have hired themselves to day labor and have earned their own living."
DuPre, the commissary and agent of Hunter, had now been in London over a year urging the allowance of the Palatine bills, assisted by Micajah Perry and John Keill. These three constituted the committee in behalf of Governor Hunter, and to them the above objections of the lords of trade were referred.
December 11, 1711, they returned answer. To the first objection, they reply that while others can make naval stores, the Palatines are bound by a contract, and have "thereby obliged themselves to make it their sole bus- iness." To the second objection they answer, the lands selected were the only available lands to be had for the purpose, and the location is in all re- spects the most advantageous. To the third they answer that Robert Liv- ingston has been exonerated from the alleged misconduct and fraud refer- red to, by a "Committee of Council," who examined his accounts; that the contracts between Livingston and Governor Hunter in regard to the Pala- tines, were drawn by Chief Justice Mompesson, by which Livingston was strongly bound to furnish bread and beer at the rates the magistrates of the city of New York should from time to time set upon them, and if at any
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time the Palatines or their overseers objected to the quality of bread or beer so furnished, Mr. Livingston "did oblige himself to take it back and give better in lieu thereof." ; To the fourth objection they reply by pleading the contract. "The Palatines could not have hired themselves to day labor," say the committee, "without disbanding themselves after their arrival at New York, which his Excelleney could not have given his consent to, without disobeying the Queen's Royal Instructions, which are positive for settling them in a body and for subsisting them until they could subsist off the pro- duet of their labour." These were substantially the answers of the com- mittee to the four objections. They might have said, My Lords, you have furnished us a large manger in her Majesty's New York colonies. To this we are tied with a strong rope. There is abundant provender in the man- ger, but beside it lies the English bulldog.
These proceedings, however, wrung an answer in February, 1712, from the London board of trade, addressed to Governor Hunter, compli- menting him on his management, and entrusting the future "method" of their support to him, but without any present financial relief, or promise of any such relief in future.
March comes, and with it "uneasiness" to the Governor, because the old bills are not paid. Still he prosecutes the work, "having her Majesty's command to that effect." Mr. Sackett is with the Palatines to superintend during the "barking season," and thus the summer passes, the Palatines, meanwhile being encouraged by the promise of half the profits of the tar. October 18, DuPre arrives from England, bringing no money or promises of any, from the English board. Governor Hunter was discouraged, and on the thirty-first writes, "my substance and credit being exhausted, I had 10 remedy left but by a letter to the managers of the works, to intimate to that people that they should take measures to subsist themselves during this winter upon the lands where they were planted." This practically ended the English supremacy over the Palatines, for immediately upon the receipt of these instructions to the overseers and to the Palatines, many left for Schoharie, and during the fall and winter were busy in cutting a road to Schenectady. Others remained where they were domiciled until the spring of 1713, when they scattered in all directions in quest of homes. Some eut their way through the wilderness to the Susquehanna, built canoes and paddled their women and children down that beautiful river, and set up their household gods in the present limits of Pennsylvania, whither many afterwards immigrated from Germany, founding a German colony beyond the jurisdiction of the British lion. Many settled in the valley of the Mohawk, and of them the hour came,
Which shall atone for years.
which was August 6, 1777, at the battle of Oriskany. It was a sarcasm with a double edge. Sixty-eight years before, the English board proposed to locate these "poor Palatines on the frontier of New York whereby they
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will to: a good harrier between her Majesty a subjects and the French and their Indiana in these parts, and in process of time they may be capable of rendering very great service to her Majesty's subjects there It was the tripartite campaign and Lieutenant Colonel Barry St lager the western limb of the triped, with his "French and their Indians was to invade the valley of the Mohawk by way of Fort Stanwix General Nicholas Herki. mer, the son of Johan Sont Hereheimer, the Palatine with Palatine de. acendants for soldiers, marched up the Mohawk to stop this invasion The terrible and desperate Battle of Oriskany followed it leger was checked, Bourgogne was compelled to surrender and Amencan Independence was secured Studied clearly the Palatines Become a most significant factor in the loss of England & American colonies
The Palatines drifting saat after the break up of 1:13 asteled in the valley of the Boloef Jansen to the "fertile flatts of the Taghkanics and np the valley of the Shacamere to the Borders of the present toone of Pine Plains and Stanford. Probably nine tenthe of the settlers in the above lo- calities previous to 1150 were Palatine descendants the southern portion of Winchell Mountain to the Oblong in the vicinity of America Union through the influence of Richard beckett their apperin- tendent who owned land in that locality. But few if any settled on the saat aide of Winchell Mountain in the vicinity of Milerton, as that part of the Harlem valley was principally settled from the New Haven or Conner- tient and Mamachusetts colonies.
These are the Palatines of special interest to this locality Those mor. ing into Schoharie have an interesting history in regard to their settle- ment, covering a period of twenty years or more, the principal difficulty bring in obtaining title to the landa. Other Palatines also came to Amer. ica subsequent to the "second immigration" we have mentioned colonia- ing in Ulster county and in North Carolina. Wherever any of them ob- tained a foothold, nocle were formed which received accesions be immi- gration They were tenacions of their religions dogymnas, which were. transmitted to their descendants. Their industry was remarkable and their descendants are among the most prosperous and distinguished farm- ers of America. Especially ia this true in Pennsylvania, which received the greatest number of Palatine immigrants for the first ten or fifteen years subsequent to the "break up' on the Hudson River in the spring of 1113.
The enterprise of making naval stores provedl a failure, as England win discovered, and her violation of the contract and ill treatment of Governor Hunter in consequence, cannot well be plead as an excuse there. for. Judged by the documents, his action in regard to the Palatines way faithful, consistent and conscientione. He advanced 20,000 pounda, as he claima, on his own account, to carry out the project of making naval atores, for which England withheld payment for several years, if the ever paid at all.
CHAPTER XIII.
EARLY SETTLERS IN PINE PLAINS.
The earliest record of any white residents living in Pine Plains is in the diaries of the Moravian Missionaries, who came here in 1740. The set. tlers so-called at that time were squatters, for no title could be given by any of the "Little Nine Partners" until after the division allotment by the respective "Partners" or their heirs or assigns, Oct. 19, 1744. Previous to this the interests and ownerships in the whole tract were undivided. The diaries of the respective missionaries from 1740 to '46 would probably give names of some settlers in this locality at that time. But these diaries are yet in manuscript in the Moravian archives at Bethlehem, or in the other archives at Hurnhut, Europe, From what has been published of these diaries it is evident there were squatter settlers in this town in 1740. They mention "the neighboring Christians" and "some white people" at Shaca meco, and personally "John Rau"-Rowe-who lived on the south part of the Steger farm, and "Hendrickson's Mountain," referring to Briggs Hill, where Hendrick Kiefer lived. From other records Johan Tice Smith was a resident in October, 1741, but not an owner of land. These are the ear- liest settlers in this town of which I have any record. The old "Booth House" west of the village had been built before that in about 1728 or '30 and used as an Indian trading post. Of these earliest settlers little is known to me in history except John Row, of whom I make personal men- tion. Johannes Rauh -- Rau, now Rowe-was one of the Palatines who settled on the east bank of the Hudson. He was born in 1696 in Germany, and is supposed to have come to this country with his father, Nicholas, with the first immigrations of the Palatines in 1710 to '15, when he was yet a minor of fifteen or eighteen years, and located on the Hudson at Germantown, then a part of Livingston Manor, Columbia Co., N. Y. Rich- ard Sackett, a native of New England, and enterprising, was appointed commissioner in 1711-'15 to look after the Palatines at "the camp" in Ger- mantown on the Hudson River, in making pitch, tar and turpentine for the English navy. He had previously, in 1704, obtained a patent for a tract of land in the Oblong, and through his acquaintance and influence with the Palatines he induced some Palatines to settle on his tract in the Oblong. John Rowe appears in 1741 as purchaser of three quarters of "Gore Lot, No. 3." "The Gore," a little strip of land between the Great and Little Nine Partners, was surveyed and divided into four lots in April, 1740, by Jacob Ter Bush (Judge Bush). Lot three was owned by Jacob
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Hoff and Isaac Germond of Crum Elbow, one quarter; Cornelius Van Wyck and Theodorus Van Wyck of Rombout, each one quarter, and the heirs of Jan DeGraff one quarter. August 15, 1741, "Johannes Rau, of Crum Elbow, yeoman," bought of Cornelius Van Wyck and Theodorus Van Wyck their interests, one quarter each, for fifty pounds, and the next day, August 16, bought of Jacob Hoff and Isaac Germond their undivided one quarter for fifty pounds. The other quarter interest in the heirs of Jan DeGraff was not purchased. The lot was bounded south by "Lot No. 18" in the Great Nine Partners, east by the heirs of Col. Henry Filkins, "being easterly part of the Gore," north by the "Upper Nine Partners."- Little Nines-and West by Augustine Graham's assigns, containing seven hundred and fifteen acres, of which he owned the undivided three quar- ters. At the time of this purchase in August, 1741, he was living on the south part of the Silas Smith-Steger farm in the long house now gone-it was there in 1832 and later- which it is supposed he built. Here with him Christian Henry Rauch, the first Moravian missionary to this section- after trials and exposures in many ways and no abiding place for the first year of his labors, commencing in August, 1740, found a home in 1741, and taught school and practiced medicine, the first "schoolmaster" in the present town boundaries, His practice of medicine was limited and his knowledge of it not enough to have the dignity of "Doctor." Here, too, at "Hannas Rowe's," Charles Clinton, with his corps of surveyors, put up, Thursday night, May 5, 1743, when running his "outline" boundary line of the Little Nine Partner tract, and wrote two letters the next morning, one to James Alexander, one of the then proprietors of the Little Nines, of New York, and the other to Robert Livingston, of Ancram.
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