History of Montgomery & Fulton Counties by F. W. Beers & Co. Montgomery County, Ch3

THE HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY

CHAPTER III.

CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE PALATINE IMMIGRATION--THE GERMAN SETTLEMENTS ON THE HUDSON AND THE MOHAWK.

The wars in Europe in the latter part of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, were waged principally on religious grounds. Most of the European powers still adhered to the Catholic faith, and supported the vigorous efforts of the Roman see for the extinction of Protestantism. The lower Palatinate in Germany was for many years the scene of the rapine and ravages so eminently incidental to religious wars, until the remnant of the population holding the tenets of the Protestant faith could no longer find a hiding place from their implacable enemies, the French, and, fleeing from their native land, took refuge in England,under the protection of a power which had then assumed its historic position as the chief bulwark of Protestantism.

Queen Anne, upon the recommendation of her board of trade, granted the petition of Joshua Kockerthal, a Lutheran minister, in behalf of himself and fifty-one of his suffering co-religionists, that they might be transported to her Majesty's American colonies. The immigrants are supposed to have arrived at New York in the latter part of 1708, as in August of that year Lord Lovelace, governor of the colony of New York, was directed to provide for their subsistence. They were naturalized before leaving England, and sent over at the expense of the government. In June, 1710, three thousand more of the Palatines, as they were called, from the name of their native land, arrived in charge of Gov. Hunter. Over four hundred had perished by sickness during the voyage. The British Government not only transported the immigrants free of charge, but was to support them for a year, when, it was expected, they would have become self-sustaining. In a report of the board of trade to Queen Anne, dated December 9, 1709, it was suggested that they might be located along the Mohawk river, where they could be employed in making tar and turpentine from the abundant pine trees ; and would serve as a protection to the colony from the French in Canada, and the Indians in their interest.

In pointing out a place as most suitable for the settlement of the Palatines, the board of trade designated a tract on the Mohawk, about fifty miles in length and four in breadth ; and another about thirty miles in length, upon a creek flowing into the Mohawk, referring to the Schoharie, the land around which, though claimed by the Mohawk Indians, could easily be purchased of them. It was also proposed that the settlers be employed for a limited time in making naval stores, and be naturalized in the province, free of charge. The English Attorney-General reported a contract, which was executed by them, granting them forty acres of land for each person, and exemption from taxes and quit rents for seven years. Governor Hunter came over at the same time with this last body of the Palatines, having particular directions where to settle them, according to the suggestions of the lords of trade. Upon a survey being made, however, of the lands indicated, they were found destitute of pine timber, and hence, though highly fertile, unfitted for the design entertained. Governor Hunter, therefore, bought of Robert Livingston a tract of six thousand acres on the east side of the Hudson, which he describes as good soil; and in December, 1710, he settled a large portion of the Germans upon it. Some, however, preferred to remain in New York city, and others found their way into Pennsylvania, and settled there.

Having removed to the lands purchased by Hunter, the immigrants erected temporary huts, settling in seven squads, each with a commissary, through whom they received their supplies from an agent of the Queen. The man Livingston, from whom the land was bought, obtained a contract for furnishing these supplies, and is said to have cheated the settlers in the quantity of flour delivered by making the tare of the barrels less than their actual weight. Governor Hunter, who exercised a supervision over the settlement, recommended that five families work in partnership, holding their property in common, thinking such an arrangement would greatly facilitate the manufacture of tar and turpentine, for which purpose he bought a neighboring tract of pine timber. The newcomers were compelled to work under the direction of government agents, and found the business very distasteful. They justly complained to the government officials. Some of their children had been bound out to the earlier inhabitants of the colony, and the conditions on which they came to New York had been disregarded. Governor Hunter's course in settling them on lands where they were employed in improving the estates of others, instead of in the fertile precincts of the Mohawk, sorely aggrieved them, and led to'what was called "unruly conduct." A member of the British Government, in a letter to one of his colleagues, doubtless with too good reason, says:

" I think it unhappy that Col, Hunter at his first arrival in his government, fell into ill hands, for this Livingston has been known many years in that province for a very ill man; he formerly victualled the forces at Albany, in which he was guilty of the most notorious frauds, by which he greatly improved his estate; he has a mill and a brew-house upon his land, and if he can get the victualling of those Palatines, who are conveniently posted for his purpose, he will make a very good addition to his estate, and I am persuaded the hopes he has of such a subsistence to be allowed were the chief if not the only inducements that prevailed with him to propose to Col. Hunter to settle them upon his land."

In May, 1711, the number of Palatines on the Hudson was reported to be 1,761. They had no idea, however, of remaining in their condition of mitigated slavery, and relinquishing the region designated for them. They sent some of their number to view the " promised land," and select a good location for a settlement.

Early in the summer of 1711, the lords of trade were informed by the Colonial Secretary that the Palatines would not work at making tar, nor remain on the lands where they were settled, but were intent on going to Schoharie and settling upon the tract which had been promised them by Queen Anne. They were disposed to force their way, if necessary, and Governor Hunter was obliged to bring a body of troops to the settlement to disarm them and compel them to resume their labors. In the expedition of Col. Nicholson for the reduction of Canada, in the fall of 1711, about three hundred of the Palatines cheerfully enlisted, glad to escape from their hated toil, and to pay some part of their debt of vengeance to the detested French. But they had never given up their longing for the rich soil to the westward, and Governor Hunter found it no easy task to restrain them. In September, 1712, he wrote Mr. Cast, the superintendent, that he had exhausted all' the money and credit he was master of, and thereby embarrassed himself with difficulties which he knew not how to surmount; and directed him to communicate to the Germans the state of affairs, and instruct them to seek employment for themselves. The tar manufacture, however, was not to be abandoned, but they must return to it when required.

Some of the leading Palatines embraced this opportunity for an emigration to the banks of the Schoharie, where they had obtained permission of the Indians to settle. They threaded on foot an intricate Indian trail, bearing upon their backs their worldly possessions, consisting of " a few rude tools, a scanty supply of provisions, a meagre wardrobe, a small number of rusty fire-arms ; they had to manufacture their own furniture, if the apology for it merited such a name." They had not been very long in possession of the Schoharie valley before Nicholas Bayard, who had been commissioned as an agent of the Crown, appeared at their settlement and offered deeds from the Sovereign to those who had taken up land, if they would define its boundaries. The poor settlers, however, had been so long unused to fair treatment that they regarded this excellent offer as a snare, and drove the agent from the community. From Schenectady he sent a message, repeating his proposition, but it was disregarded, and he sold the lands on which these Palatines had settled to a party of five men in Albany. A patent was taken by the purchasers, who called upon the occupants in the spring of 1715, and requested them to take a lease, buy or remove. To none of these terms would the latter consent, declaring that the Queen had given them the lands, and they wanted no better title. Legal proceedings were resorted to by the patentees, and a sheriff sent to arrest some of the leading Palatines. No sooner was the officer in their midst and his business known than a mob gathered and fell upon him, beating him unmercifully and inflicting other indignities, equally annoying. Some of the offenders were afterward arrested and confined in jail. Considering themselves sorely oppressed, the Palatines had a petition drawn up, setting forth their grievances, and commissioned three of their number to present the memorial to the proper authorities in England.

In 1720, Hunter was succeeded by Wm. Burnet in the governorship of the province, and in consequence of the troubles with the Palatines both at Schoharie and at the original settlement on the Hudson, was specially instructed to remove such of the latter as might desire to other localities. In October, 1722, another company of Palatines arrived at New York from Holland, having lost many of their number on the vogage. The progress made by Burnet in settling the Palatines in the Mohawk valley, will appear in his letter to the board of trade, dated Nov. 21, 1722, in which he says :

" When I was at Albany I expected to have fixed the Palatines in their new Settlement which I had obtained from the Indians for them at a very easy purchase, but I found them very much divided into Parties and the cunningest of them fomenting their Divisions on purpose that the greatest number might leave the Province and then the great Tract of Land lately purchased would make so many considerable estates to the few Familys that should remain, and with this view they told me that they found the land was far short of what the Indians had represented it to them and that not above twenty F'amilys could subsist there which I shewed them was a mere pretence by naming a Tract where 130 Familys live and flourish, which by their own confession was less and no better soil than theirs however since I found it was their humor to undervalue what had been done for them I thought it best to wait till they should of themselves be forward to settle this new Tract rather than to show too much earnestness in pressing them to it. But as about sixty familys desired to be in a distinct Tract from the rest & were those who had all along been most hearty for the Government I have given them leave to purchase land from the Indians, be ween the present English settlements near Fort Hunter & part of Canada on a Creek called Canada Creek where they will be still more immediately a Barrier against the sudden incursions of the French, who made this their Road when they last attacked & burned the Frontier Town called Schenectady.-The other Palatines have since my return to New York, sent some of their body to desire a warrant of survey for ye New Tract already purchased, which convinces me that I had done right, in not being too ernest in that affair when I was at Albany. And indeed in my dealings with those people I find very little gratitude for favors done them, & particularly that those who were best taken care of & settled on good Lands by my Predecessor are the most apt to misrepresent him and this managed by a few cunning persons among them that lead the rest as they please, who are for the generality a laborious and honest but a headstrong ignorant people."

As the Palatines began to discover that all their troubles proceeded from their own ignorance and stubborness some of them purchased the lands on which they had settled, but a large portion of them in the spring of 1723 removed to Pennsylvania. Others moved up the Mohawk valley and settled in and about the present towns of Canajoharie and Palatine and to the westward along the river. These dissatisfied Palatines from Schoharie were, with but few exceptions, the earliest known white settlers in this part of the Mohawk valley. The agents of the Germans had doubtless traversed this region a number of years earlier to spy out the most desirable places for settlement; and that some of them were in occupancy prior to 1723 clearly appears from the fact that Governor Burnet in November, 1722, informed the Board of Trade that he had permitted some to purchase lands from the Indians between the English settlements near Fort Hunter and " part of Canada " on Canada Creek, in which location they would be a barrier against the sudden incursions of the French.

On the 19th of October, 1723, the Stone Arabia Patent was granted to twenty-seven Palatines, who with their families numbered one hundred and twenty-seven persons. The tract conveyed by this patent contained 12,700 acres and was divided into twenty-eight equal parts. Fifty-one lots of fifty acres each were laid out on the tract, and each twenty-eighth part consisted of one or more, of these lots together with a portion of the undivided land, except that two of the patentees, Lodowick Casselman and Gerhart Shaeffer took their entire twenty-eighths from the undivided portion. Bartholomew Picard took with his four lots enough of the undivided land to make two twenty-eighths of the grant. With these exceptions each patentee's portion included enough of the undivided land to make one twenty-eighth of the grant when added to his lot or lots ; " these lots being," in the language of the patent, set out and granted in severally as follows, viz :

" Lots Nos. i and 47 to Wamer Digert; lots Nos. 2, 44, 8 and 48 to Bartholomew Picard ; lots Nos. 3 and 36 to Johannes Schell; lots Nos. 4 and 17 to Jacob Schell ; lots Nos. 5 and 25 to Johannes Cremse ; lots Nos. 6 and 46 to Johannes Emiger ; lot No. 7 to Wm. Vocks ; lots Nos. 9 and 24 to John Christian Garlack; lots Nos. 10 and 19 to Mardan Dillinbeck ; lots Nos. n and 14 to Adam Emiger ; lots Nos. 12 and 41 to John Lawyer ; lots Nos. 13 and 38 to Andries Feink ; lots Nos. 15 and 45 to Hendrick Frey ; lots Nos. 16 and 40 to Theobald Garlack ; lots Nos. 18 and 28 to Sufferimas Diegert ; lots Nos. 20 and 34 to Wm. Coppernoll; lots Nos. 21 and 37 to Andries Peiper ; lots Nos. 22 and 50 to Mardan Seibert ; lots Nos. 23 and 39 to Hans Deterick Casselman ; lots Nos. 26 and 33 to Christian Fink ; lots Nos. 27 and 49 to Johannes Ingolt; lots Nos. 29 and 51 to Elias Garlack ; lots Nos. 30 and 43 to Simon Erchart; lots Nos. 31 and 35 to John Joost Schell ; lots Nos. 32 and 42 to William Nelse."