Daniel Koch

About Daniel Koch

Daniel Koch writes about American History. He completed a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford and is the author of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Europe: Class, Race and Revolution in the Making of an American Thinker (Bloomsbury, London, 2012). He is working on a new book about the history of New York State. Visit his website at https://www.danielkoch-history.com/.

A Welsh Immigrant Writes Home from Upstate New York, 1856

December 15, 2021 by Daniel Koch 1 Comment

There is a fascinating letter from Evan Evans of Turin, Lewis County, NY to his relatives back in Wales. It is written in Welsh and dated August 1856.

The letter tells the story of a young man who had recently arrived in the United States who was struggling with homesickness and wrestling with doubts about whether he had made the right decision to move to America. He describes the sea-crossing, his arrival, and his new life in north-central New York State.

The letter now resides in the Meirionnydd Archives in northwest Wales. [Read more…] about A Welsh Immigrant Writes Home from Upstate New York, 1856

New York, New France: French Ambitions at Oneida Lake in 1634

November 30, 2021 by Daniel Koch 1 Comment

When a Dutchman, Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, traveled from Albany (then Fort Orange) to the main village of the Oneidas in the dead of winter 1634, he was on a mission to thwart the French, who had found their way to Oneida Lake.

In the struggle for influence in Iroquoia, there was no time to lose. The Dutch had a firm hold on the Hudson Valley at this point and a profitable relationship with the Mohawk, but New Netherland’s trade was threatened by New France, which controlled the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. [Read more…] about New York, New France: French Ambitions at Oneida Lake in 1634

Friedensfest: Syracuse’s 1871 German-American Peace Festival

October 27, 2021 by Daniel Koch Leave a Comment

One of nineteenth century Syracuse’s largest celebrations took place on the 1st of May, 1871. It was called the Friedensfest, the Peace Festival.

The reason for celebration was the unification of Germany following Prussia’s crushing defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. The emphasis on Peace was less about the end of hostilities between Prussia and France than it was about a new and lasting peace among the previously independent states of Germany, some of whom were caught in a rivalry between Austria and Prussia that had already erupted in war, in 1866. [Read more…] about Friedensfest: Syracuse’s 1871 German-American Peace Festival