New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Harold Miller

In the last 20 years, Harold Miller has extensively studied the genealogy and history of Berne in Albany County, NY, and the surrounding towns. He is the author of two books on the subject, Berne and Knox, Our German Heritage (2013) and Berne and Knox, Some Early Families to 1787 (2015).

Berne and Knox: German Heritage & Genealogy

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Berne and Knox Our German HeritageIn 1977 Our Heritage, a detailed history of the Town of Berne, was published by Hope Farm Press, Cornwalleville, New York. Mistakenly the book says it was produced by the Berne Historical Society.

An insert that accompanied the publication says “We regret to inform you there is a publication error. This book was produced by the Berne Bicentennial Commission, not the Berne Historical Society. The copyright should read the Town of Berne, not the Berne Historical Society. Virginia E. Mann, Town of Berne Bicentennial Commission Chairman.” [Read more…] about Berne and Knox: German Heritage & Genealogy

Berne’s West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church: Some History

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West Mountain ME Church in BerneThe 1609 voyage by Henry Hudson up the river that bears his name caused the Dutch to claim the adjacent land. In 1621 these lands, the home of the Mohawk and Mohican people, were granted to the Dutch West India Company. The company established the Patroon System to attract settlers. A Patroon was given a large tract of land to sponsor settlers to colonize their land.

In 1629 the new Patroon, Killaen Van Rensselaer, was granted land to create the Manor of Rensselaerswyck in exchange for helping settle the land with Europeans. It incorporated most of the area in Albany, Rensselaer, Greene, and Columbia counties. Fort Orange (later the city of Albany), became the center of the Dutch fur trade. [Read more…] about Berne’s West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church: Some History

‘Shockingly Decomposed’: Morgan Filkins Returns Albany Co Civil War Dead

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A soldier looking upon a Union soldier’s grave with the body of a Confederate soldier seemingly tossed aside in Antietam, Maryland (September 1862) (Photo courtesy of Library of Congress)Morgan Filkins was born August 20, 1826, son of Richard Filkins and his second wife, Catherine Angle. Of English and Dutch descent, he was the twentieth of twenty-five children born in the town of Berne, Albany County.

His paternal ancestors were originally from Dutchess County. His father was a volunteer in the War of 1812 and after living awhile in Rensselaer, he moved across the Hudson River to Albany County, where he died in 1841. His maternal grandfather came to America as a soldier under Burgoyne, and after the latter’s surrender, remained in the service until honorably discharged in 1783 at West Point. [Read more…] about ‘Shockingly Decomposed’: Morgan Filkins Returns Albany Co Civil War Dead

Palatines In The Helderbergs: The Zeh and Warner Sawmill

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part of Cockburn’s 1787 survey map The people we call Palatines were displaced during the turmoil of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). More than 13,000 mostly, though exclusively, Protestant Germans from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire first fled to England.

Known then as “Poor Palatines,” opposition to their immigration resulted in nearly 3,000 of them (about a third the size of the population of the city of New York) being sent to the colonial Province of New York in 1710. Many were forced to work off their passages at at work camps on Livingston Manor.  In 1712, more than a hundred other families, sought new lives in the Schoharie Valley, then a frontier between the English, French, and Native People. From there, some moved to the Helderberg Escarpment, in what is now Western Albany County. [Read more…] about Palatines In The Helderbergs: The Zeh and Warner Sawmill

Albany County’s West Mountain: Some History

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Lewis Sherman HouseWest Mountain refers to the highlands in the southwest quadrant of the Town of Berne, NY, and is the highest point in Albany County at 2,160 ft.

A map of Van Rensselaer Patroonship leases made in 1787 does not shows anyone living on West Mountian, but white settlers probably started clearing land there within a few years of that date.  A few years later there were enough folks to organize the Baptist Church of Christ, just north of the Rensselaerville-Berne town line. A schoolhouse was built next door, jointly operated by both towns. [Read more…] about Albany County’s West Mountain: Some History

Slavery in the Town of Berne, Albany County, NY

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Early picture of the Johanne Fischer-Thomas Wood House Slave quarter is the building to the right During the first Federal Census in 1790, New York State ranked fifth in population among the United States with 340,120 inhabitants, including 21,324 slaves and 4,654 free people of color.

Above the Helderberg Escarpment in Albany County, John Fisher (Johannes Fischer) of Berne was recorded in the 1790 Census with one enslaved person, one of the few recorded there. The 1800 Federal Census listed 30 enslaved people in the Town of Berne, among 15 families. There were eight enslaved people listed with Johannes Fischer’s family. [Read more…] about Slavery in the Town of Berne, Albany County, NY

Early Helderberg Settlers: The Fischer – Wood House

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Thomas Wood HouseOne of the earliest settlers above the Helderberg Escarpment was Piter Fischer who homesteaded on the flats below the current hamlet of Berne, Albany County, in about 1740. He married Dorothea Ball, whose father, Peter Ball probably, owned the next farm to the west.

They were among the earliest settlers in Beaver Dam (now Berne, Albany County) and settled on choice valley land. [Read more…] about Early Helderberg Settlers: The Fischer – Wood House

When History Is Wrong: The Albany County ‘Dietz Massacre’

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painting of Dietz Massacre by James DietzDuring the Revolutionary War the little community of Beaver Dam (sometimes spelled Beaverdam) in what is now Berne, Albany County, NY saw little action.

The British and their Indigenous allies repeatedly attacked the communities in the Schoharie Valley to the west however, despite the presence of a large militia and three forts to protect the people of Schoharie. [Read more…] about When History Is Wrong: The Albany County ‘Dietz Massacre’

Early Settlement Above The Helderberg Escarpment

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Detail of John Bleeker made a map of the van Rensselaer's patroonship, Rensselaerswijck, 1767, showing unidentified farms above the Helderberg escarpmentFrom 1630 until the Anti-Rent Movement of the 1840s, most of what is now Albany and Rensselaer Counties, along with parts of Columbia and Greene Counties, was part of the estate of the van Rensselaer family. They leased the land, but did not generally sell it.

Running north-south through Albany County is the Helderberg Escarpment, a vertical limestone cliff hundreds of feet high (Thatcher Park forms a part of this geologic feature) that separates the Hudson Valley lands in the eastern part of the county from the lands to the west, above the cliffs. Because the land above was difficult to reach, and the soils poorer, that area was settled somewhat later by Europeans. [Read more…] about Early Settlement Above The Helderberg Escarpment