Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

From Forts & Firesides of the Mohawk Country
by John J. Vrooman, 1951
Published by Baronet Litho Co., Inc., Johnstown, NY

EHLE HOUSE AND MISSION

NELLISTON

On the edge of the wilderness over two hundred years ago Domine Ehle built his house for his parishioners and his Indian neighbors. And it would be particularly fitting to see it restored and dedicated to the public as a memorial to the man whose efforts made possible the founding of the several churches in this section of the Valley.

The old building cannot be seen from the highway, though a State marker indicates its location. It stands across the field toward the river but under the hill, perhaps a fourth of a mile from the road, just east of Nelliston. The building was located beside the old Indian trail through the Valley. And here, in front of the house, this trail crossed the river at what came to be known as Ehle's Ford. The ford is now submerged by a deepened waterway and the Indian Trail in its metamorphosis became first the "King's Highway" with its lumbering four-horse stages and its plodding ox carts, then a carefully graded right of way adorned with ribbons of steel over which flies the "Twentieth Century Limited."

Jacobus Ehle, who built the building, now almost totally in ruins, was a Palatine German, educated at Heidelberg and ordained in England in 1722. In this same year he migrated to America. There are records of his preachings in the small settlements of the Hudson Valley as he made his way toward Albany. The next year, while living at Albany, he married Johanna Van Slyke of Kinderhook.

Soon after the marriage the couple left for Schenectady and then on to the Schoharie Valley, where they seem to have stopped, at least temporarily. But it was not for long as the Domme was soon preaching at the outposts of the upper Mohawk Valley, and in order to be nearer them left the Schoharie Valley and took up his residence here, building first a log house in 1723, to be replaced in 1729 by the present one-story stone building. From here he made his way up and down the Valley and to the northward to the little settlement at Stone Arabia, where he founded the Stone Arabia Reformed Church in 1723. Six years later he founded the Palatine Church, the original building being of logs.

In 1752 Domine Ehle's son Peter, who was born in 1729, built the two-storv stone addition to his father's house. The brick needed for the flues as well as the interior wood-trim were brought up the river in batteaux from Schenectady. The house was used as a Mission, a dwelling and a tavern, or better say a shelter for traders and trappers off the river. and also as a place of defense, for the building is loopholed, as were practically all buildings of this age in the Valley.

The domine was well thought of by the Indians, to whom he devoted a great deal of his time, not only as a preacher and instructor but as a sincere and helpful friend. Because of this he was always warned of the approach of raiding parties of hostile French and Indians.

In one instance the warning came almost too late. It was already dark and they had only time to gather up a few of their most highly prized possessions. These they hastily buried in the forest near by and fled quickly toward Schenectady. When the danger had passed they returned, but because of the darkness and of the haste in which they had secreted their treasure, they were never able to locate the exact spot and it still remains where they hid it. Persistent searching has failed to bring it to light.

The following is a letter from Domine Ehle to the Reverend Lord Beercroft, reporting on his missionary work:

Canajoharie December 21st, 1749.

To the Most Reverend Lord Beercroft.

Greeting: I greatly desire, most Reverend Sir, that as an act of the greatest courtesy you have this letter laid before the Society:-

As to the situation of my household it consists of a wife and three daughters with an only son. I live apart from Society, leading a secluded life, and hitherto I have converted many among the people with whom I live, baptising their children and uniting them in marriage, since they are without a regular pastor, and for a long time have been prevented from sending for another for the administration of the sacrament.

What pertains to my service among the Indians is indeed very well known, that as long as I have lived here among these Mohawks they have almost always carried on business through me. As I visit their farms and baptize both their children and adults (for it behooves the adults to know on bended knee from memory and to recite the Lord's Prayer and the articles of faith with the Ten Commandments) and going among them with an interpreter I join them in marriage. But let me make mention from the time when Reverend Barclay bade us farewell. Thus it behooves me to mention this, because ordained by him: after his departure I had the privilege of attending to all religious matters among the Indians, and from that time also I officiated on this side of (faeram) Sunaxim in the Mohawk Camp.

And in the meantime they often visited me with their children and their relatives as much as they could when there was danger of war, and even we were compelled to flee hence and to seek refuge among our neighbors. But this I am glad to relate also, that from Camp Oneida quite generally in two villages I converted them. In one village I baptized twenty adults and children and earning that they were not far from our foundation as well as I could by signs and other means of communication, I was able to convert seventeen Tuscaroras, and during those three years in which the Reverend Barclay was away from our upper Camp, I was able also to influence a great number, and I think thirty-one signified their desire and that might have been worth while.

But this also must not be forgotten, that in our upper Camp I administered the Lord's supper with fourteen or fifteen communicants, either Quakers or Quiviguies, and eleven in the Mohawk Camp.

Concerning the other services, I shall write nothing. Granted that in the eyes of the World my services have been in proportion to my slender powers, if rightly and worthily they are reflected upon, I do not doubt that with Divine help your hearts will be moved to approbation.

As to the assistance of my little friend Salarius, helping in my household, if it please them for the fourth time to help him with some gift, they will be treating him as a friend.

In the meantime, my most honored friends, I have no greater desire than to leave you under divine protection, by praying to God continually in your behalf that in his abode, and by his power, He may furnish you more and more with the worthiest gifts, and that finally when these duties shall have been religiously discharged by each one of you, that it may seem good to Him to receive vou all in his own good time into His eternal tabernacle, and to bless you with Heavenly joy.

This from his soul, hopes and prays the most Devoted and Most humble servant of you all,

JOHN JACOB OEL.

In 1777, at the age of 92, the good Domine died and was buried in the Frey cemetery at what is now Palatine Bridge.

His son Peter was a member of the military force then busily engaged in moving army supplies over the "carry" around the Little Falls. He held a commission as Lieutenant which was signed by Governor Tryon. He also served under Sir William Johnson and later was enlisted in Captain Helmer's Company of the Tryon County Militia at the time of the Revolution. He died in 1807 and his wife in 1821. Both are buried in the old homestead cemetery on the hill just eastward of the Turnpike near the Dygert road. Peter had brothers and sisters but the record is not clear as to just who they were. There were four children in all, the recorded ones being, besides Peter who was born at Schoharie, two sisters named Elizabeth and Magdalen; these two being born prior to 1730 and almost certainly in this house.

Captain Peter had but one son, named Peter P., born in 1768 in the old house. He later married Delia Nellis. When the road was relocated in 1803 and became the Turnpike, Peter P. built a stone house on the new road at its junction with the road leading to Stone Arabia. He was a farmer as his father had been and under his care the amount of cultivated land was greatly increased. The original tract had been a gift of 2000 acres from the Indians to the "Revd's Petrus Van Driessen and Johannes Ehle," which was ratified by the Crown in 1725. Peter P. and Delia raised several children and their descendents are numerous, many of them still living in the homestead neighborhood.

Like so many of the old houses this one too has its ghosts. These are the ghosts of soldiers wounded at the Battle of Stone Arabia and brought here to die. Their shrieks and moans could be heard for many years after the war, so the neighbors testified.

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