About 1900 Mrs. Dutton Henry McNallie (Lottie May Near) wrote down the family tradition of her ancestry which says, in part, that Conrad Sr. arrived in New York with his brother Jasper from Germany. They settled in Palestine(sic) near Albany.(no doubt Palatine, ajb). Conrad married and was killed in a Revolutionary War Battle on the Klock farm in 1778. Their one child, Conrad, was placed in another home and was later captured by Indians while catching horses in a pasture. He was sent to Montreal, Canada, where an English officer ordered him removed from prison and placed with a widow until the close of the war. In 1794 he married Nancy Fox, who was a babe in arms when the Battle occurred on Clock's field. They were at the church and a servant girl, who was holding Nancy, ran when the English charged the American, after placing Nancy on a pile of stones nearby. Mrs. Fox rescued her babe and ran back into the church.

Clock's Battle actually occurred 21 Oct. 1780* on a Saturday; however, the Fox family may have been at the church for some purpose other than Sunday service. Due to a misprint of John Near's birth date (Jn 1, pg. 59) in the "Biographical Review" as 1746 instead of 1764 as indicated on his gravestone, it was originally believed John was a brother of Casper and Conrad (Sr.). Now. however, it is believed John and Conrad Jr., who exchanged sponsorships at the bp. of their children, were cousins.

While it is almost certain there were two or three men named Near in the Revolutionary War from Montgomery Co., (then Tryon Co. until 1778), the only one found in the lists of soldiers is Casper Neer, Tryon Co. Militia, Col. Jacob Klock's regiment. (BkN., p. 150)

So far as known records today, there is no mention made of Conrad (Sr.) other than the family tradition of Mrs. McNallie and the Ms. of Col. O. W. Bell, a noted researcher of Mohawk Valley families. One of his articles published in the St. Johnsville Enterprise and News on ....

here the story ends.

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*The Battle of Klock's Field took place on the 19th.