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
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site will host Schoharie County Historian Ted Shuart during the last of this year’s Tuesday Talk series. Shuart will present on the historic role that the Schoharie Creek has played in NYS History with a presentation called: “How a river shaped History; the unique role of the Schoharie Creek in the settlement of upstate New York” on November 29th. 
