USA > New York > Orange County > Montgomery > The history of Montgomery classis, R.C.A. To which is added sketches of Mohawk valley men and events of early days, the Iroquois, Palatines, Indian missions, etc > Part 20
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Rev. Mr. Barclay was at Fort Hunter 1708-171%, and organized work at Schenectady in 1735 the the St. George's church was not built and completed until 1769 ("Smith's Journal," 1769). Rev. John Miller visted the Mohawks, while in 1733 it was reported that there were but few unbaptised among them. Rev. John Ogilvie (rector at St. Peter's church, Albany in 1748) came in 1750, his work
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being especially among the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras. He served up to the time of the Revolution. Rev. John Stuart came to the Fort Hunter Indian mission in 1770, following Rev. Henry Munro. He also served Johnstown occasionally. Fort Hunter was an im- portant military post in early times, having been erected by Capt. John Scott in 1710. The post was surrounded by walls twelve feet high and enclosed about a hundred and fifty square feet. Rev. Thoroughgood Moor was the missionary during 1704-1707. Rev. Thomas Barclay was stationed here during 1708-1712, and, later, his son, Rev. Henry Barclay, was stationed here 1737-1746. He then went to Trinity church in New York where he died in 1764. A chapel built within the walls, endowed by Queen Anne, was called "Queen Anne's Chapel." During the Revolution, the fort having become di- lapidated, the chapel was fortified with heavy palisades and block houses. The chapel was taken down in 1820 to make room for the Erie canal. The stone rectory, a erected with the walls is still standing. In 1860 it was sold by the Trinity Episcopal church of New York city for $1,500. The Indians had given Rev. Barclay three hundred acres of land for the support of the missionary, who, in re- turn, sold it to the English society that was supporting the work here. When Rev. Mr. Stuart of the mission, in keeping with the spirit of all the clergy of the Province, refused to give up his allegiance to the King, Gen. Herkimer promised Brant at the Unadilla interview that he would be given safe conduct into Canada. After the Revolution Stuart preached for some years at Grand River, Can. On the going of Stuart in 1775 the Indian work was given up. Aided
by Brant, Rev. Stuart wrote the Gospel of Mark and a part of Acts, as well as a short history of the Bible, in the Mohawk tongue. While the title of the rectory and glebe was with Trinity Episcopal church in New York city, yet, when these properties were sold ($3,000) both the Johnstown Episcopal church, which Sir William Johnson caused to be built in 1764, and the St. Ann's Episcopal church of Amsterdam incorporated as the Episcopal Church of Florida in 1830 and re- incorporated as St. Ann's Episcopal Church of Port Jackson in 1835, were made beneficiaries. The bell of the old mission went to the Johnstown academy. The Moravians began mission work among the Onondagas in 1740, Rev. David Zeisberger being at the head of the movement. He was the author of many works or translations in the Indian tongue. The mission, however, was of short duration. Other names in the work were Rev. Ashley, Crosby, Peter Avery, Henry Avery-all before Kirkland began his work.
Rev. Samuel Kirkland
The first permanent Protestant mission among the Oneidas was at Oneida Castle, begun by Rev. Samuel Kirkland in 1766, whose final efforts (he became both blind and crippled in his latter years) ensued in what afterward; became hamilton College which was projected and founded by Kirkland for the special benefit of the Oneida Indians. In 1764 Kirkland, guided by a young Mohawk, came to William Johnson, who sent him for- ward on January 17, 1765, escorted
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by two friendly Senecas, on a journey of two hundred miles, thro a wilderness to a people whose language he did not know. He spent eighteen months with the Senecas, and then, in 1766, he entered upon his life work among the Oneidas. In 1780 he married Jerusha Bing- ham, niece of Rev. Dr. Wheelock, who founded Dartmouth. Both gave literally their lives to these Oneidas. On July 1, 1794, Baron Steuben, with Stephen Van Rensselear, Col. North, Maj. Williams, and Chief Skenandoah-all aided Kirkland, the patriot missionary, to lay the corner stone of Hamilton Academy (named for Alexander Hamilton) which, later, grew into Hamilton College. Both the Kirk- lands, and Skenandoah, are buried in Hamilton College cemetery. On Skenandoah's monument (1706-1816) is his own written epitaph,-"I am an aged hemlock; the winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches; I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have run away, and left me." Other names deserving mention are Rev. Elihu Spencer (1748) who later became President of Dickinson College; Rev. Mr. Hawley (1753) and Rev. Mrs. Ash- ley. Modern work was done among the Oneidas by Rev. Daniel Barnes (1829), and Rev. Daniel Fancher (1841).
Palatines of the Rhine
ONESVRIRK The Palatines have played OPPENHEIN so important a part in the HANNOIÇIN CONRATA BRECK S PALATINE STONC ARABIA settlement and development CLAMIN FIATS . MINDEN of the Mohawk Valley, to CANAJONANIE which they came about 1720, SCHENECTADY Cre from the Hudson River set- CARLOCKS ALBANY CALLUP SCHOMARIE tlements and the Schoharie Valley, and because they al- WHATMAN DORP .MIDDLEBURGH most wholly made up the OBLA WEISER DOBA Committee of Safety of Try- ......... THE NO BLENHEIM OGERMANTOWN MANOR on County and the forces PALATINE SETTLEMENTS A44750AAN LIVINGSTON that won the Battle of OF THE SAUGERTIES Oriskany, we have deemed HUDSON, MOHAWK MASSACHUSETTS it of importance to speak of AND SCHOHARIE STON 0 MINEDECK them in this work. The term "Palatine" (in use in America over three centuries) in English and early colonial history meant a "lord" or "proprietor." In the times of the Merovingian Kings, the first Frankish dynasty in Gaul (fifth to eighth centuries) was an officer called "comespaltii," who was the master of the royal household. The king also gave his like authority to provincial rulers, to act for him in their province, and who were called Count Palatine, and the province Palatinate. Among the provinces into which Germany was divided in the 16th century, one of the most extensive, fertile and prosperous was known as the lower Palatine, or the Palatine of the Rhine. Its chief city, and the seaport of its government, was Heidelberg, where the Catechism, one of the three doctrinal standards of the Dutch church, was published 350 years ago. Manheim was the next city of importance. Into this Palatine country Protestantism did not enter to any large extent until late in the period of the Reformation, and when the controversy was fully developed. Being on the border, the country formed an easy
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asylum for a great number of Calvanistic refugees from Holland and France, with the natural result that the Rhine country became a com- mon battlefield on which the hostile armies of Rome and Protes- tantismn were wont to meet for the settlement of religious and terri- torial disputes. And it came to pass that many of the Palatines of the Rhine, tenacious of personal liberty, as their Teutonic forefathers were, and emulating their Puritan predecessors, who a century before fled the violence of persecution in the old land, began to dream of liberty and freedom to worship God in another land. Toward the close of the 15th century the Germans of the Rhine country, in large numbers, began to settle in London, and soon became an actual burden to the English government. In less than three months 10,000 of them had comc. During 1708 and 1709 they had cost England nearly £136,000.
To relieve herself of the cost of supporting these refugees, Eng- land planned to send at first 3,000 of them to her American colonies, but with this double ulterior motive, namely-that she might curb the threatened French-Canadian invasion of the province of New York with a human barrier at the outposts of civilization, and secondly that she might develop a great tar industry for British naval and com- mercial purposes. And so it came to pass that the Palatines who left their vineyards in the dear old Rhineland, so often laid waste by cruel war, were destined for a still more savage one in the American wilder- ness. But "man proposes and God disposes." The German Palatines became an unconquerable human barrier to the progress of British colonization in America, while the "tar bondage," conducted by that modern Pharaoh, Governor Hunter, scatterd these German white slaves throughout the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys, and wrought out of them the advance guard of the white man's supremacy in this northern wilderness. We have been profoundly surprised in our researches for this address, to discover that many of the best works on American history hardly mention this early German immigration. More surprised yet have we been in discussing this story of the Palatines with their descendants here in this valley, to find how little they know of the early struggles and privations and hardships their fathers and mothers had to suffer, or of the patriotic services they rendered during the first birth of the republic. And among the historians who do speak of them there is a difference of opinion as to their character-Mrs. Lamb placing them on a par with the Coolies of the Pacific coast, while Macauley (1829) says that their genius and industry was such as to enrich any land fortunate enough to afford them an asylum. In Mrs. Grant's "An American Lady" (pub- lished in London in 1808), which is the autobiography of an English woman living for some years during the middle of the seventeenth century at Albany, and frequently meeting the Palatines in their homes, we find this comment-"The subdued and contented spirit, the simple and primitive manners, the frugal and industrial habits of these genuine sufferers for conscience sake, made them an acquisition to any society which received them, and a most suitable leaven among the inhabitants of this province."
The Palatines were of the same importance to New York as the Puritans and Pilgrims were to New England. They chose to become the farthest outpost of white men in the country of the fiercest aborigines, the Iroquois confederation. They braved all the dangers
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of the Wilderness and settled in the midst of the Mohawks, the most war-like of all the Indian tribes. The Palatines, moreover, were the founders in this country of a free press. John Peter Zenger of Phrita- delphia, a Palatine, was jailed because he dared to criticise Governor Crosby the King's representative, in his paper, "The Weekly Journal." He was defended by James Alexander Hamilton. His acquittal was one of the greatest victories for law and freedom ever won on this continent. Prof. Fiske, the eminent historian, says "that the most obstinately fought and bloodiest battle of the Revolution was that of Oriskany," the most sanguinary battle of the Revolution, wherein 200 Palatines lost their lives. The presence of so many former neighbors on both sides made it a fratricidal contest. You will recall that "Honikal" Herkimer. who was the general in command, was of German . descent, and his army was made up almost wholly of Palatines (cf Note on "Tryon Co. Com. Safety"). Despite the stupid idiocy of his officers (cf Note on "Battle of Oriskany"), the wounded Herki- mer fought this battle to a finish and won the victory over St. Leger and the savages, which meant so much to the cause of liberty in this western land. Bennington prevented the arrival of Burgoyne's sup- plies and Oriskany his expected reinforcements. This decisive battle of the Revolution resulted in the turning back of St. Leger to Canada and in the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, in the union of the northern colonies and in the final evacuation of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys by the British. The battles of Oriskany and Stone Arabia were as great contests as Concord and Bunker Hill. At the close of the struggle there were upwards of four hundred widows in five districts of Tryon county.
The very first known Palatines that came to America (they numbered fifty-five) were conducted hither by Rev. Joshua Kocher- thal, a Lutheran minister, born in 1669, who came to America in 1708 and for two or three years was a pastor at West Camp. The Quassaic (Newburgh) Colony came over with Kocherthal. After be- ing denizened in England by royal order, August 25, 1708, they were later sent to America with Lord Lovelace. The work of Brown puts the date of their coming a few months before coming to New York. Kocherthal visited England in 1709 in the interest of the colony. Kocherthal died in 1719 and is buried at West Camp. Kocher- thal's first wife died in 1713, December 6. His second wife who sur- vived him married Rev. W. C. Berkenmeyer, a Lutheran missionary, who was the first pastor of the Palatine Lutheran Stone church (1733-1743). The first Germans from the Rhine Palatine who came in any considerable numbers to New York, arrived June 14, 1710, and numbered three thousand, the largest of any single immigration to America up to that date. This date, June 14, was religiously ob- served for many years by the early settlers, and might well be annually kept now in unison with Flag Day which falls on the same day. Before the Palatines left England they had heard of the wonder- ful valley of the "Schorie" (an Indian term for drift wood), Schoharie, and longed for this "promised land." But the statesmen of Queen Anne's time thought that the Palatines ought to repay some of their "keep" in England as well their transportation, so they conceived a plan whereby these Germans were to get out timbers for the royal navy and pitch and turpentine and resin, needed naval stores. Great Britian had furnished $40,000 and out of his own fortune Gov. William
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Burnet furnished $140,000. They were settled at Livingston Manor on the Hudson, and set to work. It proved to be a modern effort of making "bricks without straw," and after years of vain pleadings to be allowed to go to the promised land in the Schoharie valley, they finally rose up, rebelling against "Pharaoh" Hunter and left the tar- less pine trees for the rich, alluvial soil of the Schoharie, tho not a few went into Pennsylvania.
About the time of the German exodus from the Hudson settle- ment not a few of the Palatine families found their way into the valley of the Mohawk, at least one-third of all the Germans in the Schoharie valley coming into this community between 1722 and 1725. To these were added quite a goodly number who had just entered the country, among then No Nicholas Herkimer of Oriskany fame, who came to America in 1722. England now began to grant great tracts of land, among them being the Governor William Burnet's Patent, land bought of the Mohawks in 1722-consisting of all the country on both sides of the river from Little Falls to Frankfort, 100 acres being given to each of the 70 persons named in the patent settling there, subject only to quit rent to be paid forever to the Crown. German Flatts (Fort Herkimer) was once called "Burnetsfield." On October 19, 1723, another patent, similar to this one of Burnet's, officially re- corded in the office of the Secretary of State, was given at Stone Arabia, consisting of 12,000 acres, and costing $750 in Indian goods (all but a small portion being in the town of Palatine), was disposed among twenty-seven Palatine families who entered upon the land in the spring of 1723). Simms' "Frontiersmen" gives the names of the men). The Mohawks just previous to this had given deeds of lands to certain settlers who began to locate near the Palatine Stone church. For twenty-five miles the Mohawk is a Palatine or German river, as witness the towns-Palatine, Oppenheim, Frankfort, Man- heim. Newkirk, etc. This district had the fewest Tories because the German settlers, while they were of inestimable value to England in the war with France, were the most ardent patriots, and toryism did not flourish in such an environment. At Stone Arabia, in the tavern of Adam Loucks, who lies buried in the cemetery adjoining, was held the first meeting of the "Tryon County Committee of Safety," August 27th, 1774, whose deliberations and activities counted so much for the independence of the colonies. New York led all the colonies in their bold stroke for freedom, while Tryon county (Montgomery) led all New York in the spirit of independence displayed by its citizens. Like the Star of the East, which led the wise men to the Khan of Bethlehem, where the World's Redeemer was born, the vision of liberty was filling all the sky of the seventeenth century, and by its light the mightiest men that ever peopled the earth were led to the cradle of freedom in this western land. There were the Holland Dutch. the English Puritans (who also came from Holland), the Scottish Covenanters, the Pilgrim Fathers, and last, but not least, the Germans of the Palatine. These were the five tribes of God's Israel, who laid the foundation of Christian civilization in America, who were the founders of our institutions, the builders of the republic, and all alike caught their inspiration and won their victories through their genius for religion and their unwavering faith in the Almighty God.
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Committee of Safety of Tryon County
The occasion for the appointment of the Committee of Safety of Tryon County was dictated by the stirring events transpiring in those days just prior to the Revolutionary War. Among the colonies in the north there was no section where the Royal cause was so deeply intrenched or in which the loyalists were so numerous or of greater influence than in the Valley of the Mohawk. The only exception to this was in the Palatine section where Toryism was not healthy. Not only over the Iroquois but over the western Red men beyond, Sir William Johnson had absolute power, and was regarded by the Indians as the supreme arbiter in all their councils, and with whom also the white settlers knew they must reckon. Sir William Johnson died, suddenly and suspiciously, on June 24, 1774, at his baronial mansion in Johnstown, and the estate fell to his son, already a baronet, Sir John (child of his German housekeeper), of morose temperament and exceedingly irascible. Associated with him as the new Superintendent of the Indians was Col. Guy Johnson, an Irish nephew of Sir William, who had married his cousin Mary, one of John Johnson's sisters. He was an irresponsible character of uncontrollable temper, but with a great mental void. His secretary was Walter Butler, the fiend incarnate of all the Tories. At this time most of the settlers in the valley as far as Caughnawaga were the Dutchmen who had come from Manhattan and Fort Orange, while west almost as far as Utica, were the Palatines, who had begun to settle in the valley about 1720. Neither of these elements welcomed the change from the sagacious and politic Sir William, with his generous treatment of all, to the overbearing, aristocratic, and domineering attitude of Sir John and Col. Guy Johnson. Matters would have come to a crisis sooner than they did, had it not been for the influence of Mistress Molly and her big brother, Joseph Brant, who cautioned the Johnsons and indirectly ruled the Iroquois. Tryon county was ready to resent the tyrannical spirit of these men, and when word at last had come from Lexington and Concord, the first Independents in the North began to formulate their plans. After Sir John had removed Kirkland from his mission- ary work among the Indians, he went with the Butlers and Brants to a great Indian conference at Montreal, and came back to organize his Romanist Scotch Highlanders and fortify Johnson Hall. In his absence in Canada the patriots, or Whigs, as they were called, or- ganized the Committee of Safety, deposed Sheriff White, the Tory, and put John Frey in his place. When, later, White arrested Jacob Fonda the committee went to the Johnstown jail and liberated the prisoner amid an exchange of shots, the first of the Revolutionary War fired west of the Hudson. Later, White was sent a prisoner to Albany.
The late J. Howard Hanson of Amsterdam and S. L. Frey of Pala- tine Bridge, thro the generosity of the late Stephen Sanford of Am- sterdam, in 1905, reissued in printed form the correspondence and acts of the Tryon County Committee of Safety, originally written by Christopher P. Yates (b. 1750-d. 1815), the best educated member of said committee, Montgomery's first county clerk, assemblyman, mem- ber of Provincial Congress, Major in N. Y. State Militia, and Regent of N. Y. State. William W. Campbell, who wrote "The Annals of Tryon County," at a celebration at Cherry Valley, July 4, 1840, said
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that he had found the original correspondence many years before that date in the garret of Maj. John Frey, and had them removed and deposited with the New York State Historical Society. These original Minutes have for many years been in the possession of S. L. Frey of Palatine Bridge. Among the members of the committe from the Palatine District were, George Eker, Jr., Anthony V. Frechten, Har- mon V. Slyke, John Frey, Christopher P. Yates, Peter Waggoner, Isaac Paris, Andrew Finck, Jr., Daniel McDougall, Andrew Reber, and John Klock. From the Canajoharie district there were, David Cox, John Rickert, Michel Heckimer, William Seeber, John Moore, and Ebenezer Cox. From the German Flatts district there were Wil- liam Petry, Edward Wall, Jacob Weaver, Marcus Petry, Duncan McDougall, and John Petry. From Kingsland there were George Wents, John Frank, Augustinus Hess, Michel Ittig, George Her- chheimer, Frederick Ahrendorf, and Frederick Fox. Adam Loucks was a Palatine at whose Stone Arabia Inn the committee was formed. Isaac Paris had a palisaded house (Fort Paris) on what is now the Cramps farm. His son Peter was killed at Oriskany and himself a prisoner, tortured to death. His youngest son married a sister of Washington Irving. John Frey was a grandson of the first settler in the Palatine section who bought land on the Mohawk in 1689. John Frey's second wife, Mrs. Gertrude Wormuth, was a niece of Gen. Herkimer. Frey served as Major under Herkimer at Oriskany, was an assemblyman and N. Y. State senator. Andrew Fink, whose grandfather was one of the Stone Arabia patentees, was an assembly- man and, later, state senator. He was a captain in the N. Y. militia, and was in the Battle of Saratoga. Peter Waggoner was a Lieutenant- Colonel in the Tryon county militia at Oriskany, with three sons. Webster Wagner, whose old home and workshop was at Ephratah, where the parlor and sleeping cars were planned, was a descendant of Peter Waggoner. Nicholas Herkimer, the general, son of John Jost, had twelve brothers and sisters (all married but one). Five Herkimers were in Col. Bellinger's regiment. Next to the Johnsons, the Herkimers were the most influential family in the Mohawk valley. Gen. Herkimer was a man of many parts, fairly well educated, a Bible student, a man of sterling character, and a high born patriot, who gave his all including his life to the cause of liberty. Ebenezer Cox and William Seeber were killed at Oriskany. Dr. William Petry was a surgeon in Col. Harper's regiment at Oriskany, and attended Gen. Herkimer after the battle. There were fifty Fondas, twelve Shoe- makers, and seventy-five men by the name of Vedder or Veeder, who saw service in the Revolution. These Veeders and Vedders were de- scendants of both Lucas Vetter of Germany and of the Holland Vedder family. Rudolph Shoemaker was a Captain at Oriskany tho only fifteen years old. Adam Bellinger, a lieutenant in Col. Klock's regiment, a grandson of Peter Bellinger, married Delia Herkimer. Major John Frey's brother, Bernard, was in the English army. Col. Hendrick Frey, the Tory, married a sister of Gen. Herkimer, while his patriot brother, Major John Frey, married the general's niece. Christopher P. Yates' wife was the youngest sister of Major John Frey. Among other patriots, German and Dutch, among whose fami- lies occurred many marriages, may be mentioned these-Feeter, Helmer, Nellis, Fox, Gros, Eisenlord, Nestell, Roof, Dievendorf,
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Visscher (Fisher), Quackenboss, Van Epps, Wemple, Hanson, Groat, et. al.
Great credit is due the men of this Committee for the way in which they conducted the patriotic cause in the valley, and their work and the influence of their lives counted immensely in the final in- dependence. Early in 1776 Sir John Johnson surrendered himself, his Hall and all his belongings to Gen. Schuyler, who gave him his parole under the care of Col. Herkimer. When this parole was brok- en by the Tory baronet, Col. Dayton was dispatched to arrest Sir. John, but loyalist friends apprised him of the danger, enabling him to escape to Montreal. His estate, the largest ever held by one man, with one exception, was sold at auction, while Lady Polly Watts Johnson was removed to Albany as a hostage for the peaceful con- duct of her recreant husband. Sir John became the Colonel of the Royal Greens, and Brant and Butler were made Captains in the English army. A captain's commission was on Butler's person at his death. Swearing bloody vengeance against their former neighbors in the valley of the Mohawk, this triad of fiends incarnate, under the approval of the English and with the aid of the savage, wreaked their venomous hatred on the people of the valley, sparing neither age nor sex. The ancient British theory still held that all land acquired by settlement or conquest remained the property of the King, and the occupant must share its profits with the crown. More- over the commerce and industry of the colonists must not compete with that of England. Trade restriction and taxation without re- presentation were the rocks of offense on which the home govern- ment foundered in its dealings with the colonists. In a country but sparsely settled, separated from the Hudson river by a powerful Indian tribe, and surrounded by a large and influential body of well organized loyalists-the Tryon County Committee of Safety mani- fested a courage and determination unparalleled even in that day of self-sacrifice and heroic devotion to the cause of freedom. Almost two years before the Declaration of Independence was signed (July 4, 1776), the Independents of Tryon County (August 27, 1774) calmly but bravely asserted their rights and bound themselves to abide by the regulations of the First Continental Congress. Unless we accept the Declaration of Independence formulated at Mendon, Mass., March 1, 1773, the Tryon County Committee of Safety were the first or- ganized body of Independents in the colonies.
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