Schoharie Valley

Volume 3 in Schoharie Valley History Trilogy Published

October 21, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

When the Palatines arrived at the Schoharie Valley in 1712, the world they stepped into was a century in the making. This formative period of the valley’s history has never been fully told, nor has the true impact these rebellious German refugees had on pushing New York’s western frontier as far as they did, as fast as they did. Until now.

The three-volume series Skohere and the Birth of New York’s Western Frontier 1609 – 1731 is a trilogy about the Palatines and a biography of the Schoharie Valley and the people and events that helped shape its earliest colonial history. [Read more…] about Volume 3 in Schoharie Valley History Trilogy Published

Henry Baker: A Loyalist Who Resettled in New York

April 11, 2024 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Our home sits on a small knoll within sight of Round Lake on English Road in the town of Clifton Park, in Saratoga County, NY. The original 100-acre farm lot was purchased in 1797 by Henry Baker (1747-1834), a farmer from Halfmoon and his wife Hannah. Baker was a Loyalist that had settled in Halfmoon after the Revolutionary War.

The 1797 deed lists the grantor of Lot three as Janet Smith and Harriet, widow and daughter of the Honorable William Smith (1728 – 1793), a Loyalist, chief Justice of the Province of Lower Canada and previously the Chief Justice of New York from 1780-1782. [Read more…] about Henry Baker: A Loyalist Who Resettled in New York

The Land System of Colonial New York

January 25, 2024 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

What follows is a 1917 essay, “The Land System in Colonial New York” by Charles Worthen Spencer published in the Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, (Vol. 16). At the time Spencer was Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada. It has been annotated by John Warren.

Adequate description, even in outline, of the land system of any community would comprise so much detail, both of governmental policy and practice and of the community’s reaction there-to, that in a paper of this compass only selected features may be referred to. It will be necessary, also, to confine the treatment mainly to the period between 1691 and the opening of the intercolonial war [the French and Indian War] in 1755. [Read more…] about The Land System of Colonial New York

Schoharie Valley & New York’s Western Frontier, 1687-1702

July 24, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Schoharie Valley is one of New York’s three great colonial valleys, its history closely connected to, but overshadowed by, the more famed Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. When the Palatines arrived there in 1712, the world they stepped into was a century in the making. Until now, this formative period of the valley’s history has never been fully told, nor has the true impact these rebellious German refugees had on New York’s western frontier. [Read more…] about Schoharie Valley & New York’s Western Frontier, 1687-1702

The Mystery of Joseph Brant’s Watch

February 28, 2023 by Dave Waite 1 Comment

There was a story that had been passed down in the Minthorn family for generations. It told of how an ancestor had hidden her two infants under the roots of a tree to save them during the Revolutionary War attack on Cherry Valley, NY, in 1778. It was said that in her zeal to quiet her children, the youngsters were rendered unconscious, being revived only after the attackers had departed.

While this story is most likely fiction, there is some truth mixed in. [Read more…] about The Mystery of Joseph Brant’s Watch

Historic Fort Hunter: From Queen Anne’s War to the Erie Canal

July 19, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The hamlet of Fort Hunter in Montgomery County, NY, while small, has been historically significant even since before the American Revolution. It was home to people of the Mohawk Nation and was known as the Lower Castle being downstream or below Canajoharie on the Mohawk River. Being at the confluence of the Schoharie Creek and river it was always an important trade post for goods, food, and cultures. [Read more…] about Historic Fort Hunter: From Queen Anne’s War to the Erie Canal

New Book on the Schoharie Valley & New York’s Western Frontier, 1609-1731

July 7, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The new book Skohere and the Birth of New York’s Western Frontier 1609-1731, Vol. I 1609-1686 (self-published, 2022) by Jeff O’Connor is a history of the Schoharie Valley and the people who helped shape its earliest colonial history.

The Schoharie Valley is one of New York’s three great colonial valleys, its history closely connected to, but overshadowed by, the more famed Hudson and Mohawk Valleys. This first volume begins a sweeping narrative that connects a far-reaching network of people, places, and events to an expansive view of New York State history. [Read more…] about New Book on the Schoharie Valley & New York’s Western Frontier, 1609-1731

Museum Acquires Revolutionary Era Powder Horn Reproduction

June 23, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Old Stone Fort Museum and Schoharie County Historical Society have received a donation of a Revolutionary War era powder horn.

Skillfully created by horn craftsman Hank Yost, the piece presented reflects the architecture and engraving styles of the Revolutionary period and was specifically designed to represent the life and times of the Hartmansdorf House’s original occupant Philip Bartholomew. [Read more…] about Museum Acquires Revolutionary Era Powder Horn Reproduction

The Killing of Schoharie Deputy Sheriff Huddleston in 1818

May 10, 2022 by Milton Sernett 1 Comment

On the ninth of October 1818, William Huddleston, a resident of Lawyersville and a deputy sheriff of Schoharie County, rode out to the farm of John van Alstine. Van Alstine had run over and injured a child the previous summer.

Huddleston intended to collect several judgments from Van Alstine arising from the injury to the child and secure some of Van Alstine’s property as collateral against various outstanding judgments. Van Alstine picked up a wooden bar and clubbed the deputy sheriff to death. The killing was, as the ghost says in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “a murder most foul.” [Read more…] about The Killing of Schoharie Deputy Sheriff Huddleston in 1818

Farm Paper of the Air: WGY & The Sage of Lawyersville, Jared van Wagenen

March 27, 2022 by Milton Sernett 7 Comments

The boom in home radio usage began in the early 1920s. The Department of Commerce issued regulations to control the chaotic spread of radio stations in December of 1921.

A listing from March 10th, 1922, included 67 stations that were officially licensed to use the public airwaves. One of those would become extremely significant in the life of Jared van Wagenen, Jr., a graduate of Cornell University and a farmer who lived at Hillside Farm at Lawyersville (north of Cobleskill) in Schoharie County. [Read more…] about Farm Paper of the Air: WGY & The Sage of Lawyersville, Jared van Wagenen

Revolutionary Albany: The Battles of Saratoga & Loyalist Opposition

March 21, 2022 by Peter Hess 4 Comments

In the first days of August, 1777, Albany seemed doomed to be overrun by the British. General John Burgoyne had taken Crown Point, Fort Ticonderoga, Fort George, Fort Anne, Fort Edward and Fort Miller, the last substantial fortified place protecting the city from the north. To the west at Fort Stanwix, a siege was underway requiring many of General Philip Schyuler’s troops being sent to that fort’s defense from their camp on Van Schaick Island, now in the city of Cohoes.

Burgoyne however, had severely stretched his supply line. He was now having problems bringing up food and supplies over primitive roads that had been severely rutted and nearly destroyed by the Revolutionaries. He had to slow down to wait for food and had to keep his supply line protected all the way back to Canada, spreading his troops more thinly. [Read more…] about Revolutionary Albany: The Battles of Saratoga & Loyalist Opposition

The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum: A History

March 19, 2022 by Milton Sernett 1 Comment

The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum at what is now known as the Great New York State Fair opened officially on April 30th, 1928. Daniel Parrish Witter, a long-time New York State Assemblyman representing Tioga County was born in 1852 at Richford. Witter assumed the greater responsibility for working the family farm after his father became disabled, one of his older brothers was killed in the Civil War, and two others were seriously wounded in the same conflict. [Read more…] about The Daniel Parrish Witter Agricultural Museum: A History

Hartman’s Dorf House Restoration at Old Stone Fort Museum

February 11, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Old Stone Fort Museum‘s Hartman’s Dorf House is undergoing a restoration project with the goal of opening the building to the public. The Hartman’s Dorf House is situated between the Oliver Schoolhouse and the Dutch Barn in the center of the museum complex in Schoharie County, NY.

Some of the rehabilitation work includes floors, walls, windows, and siding. One of the key projects to bring the structure into use was a new, historically accurate fireplace and hearth, which would enable living historians to demonstrate what home life was like for 18th-century German settlers. [Read more…] about Hartman’s Dorf House Restoration at Old Stone Fort Museum

The Captive Boys of Rensselaerville: John and Robert Brice

February 8, 2022 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

The following captivity narrative was related by Robert Brice and includes an account of the September 1781 “Dietz Massacre” that took place a few miles south of the Village of Berne, Albany County, NY. This story was taken down from Robert Brice when he was still living by Josiah Priest and published in his Stories of the Revolution in 1836 as “The Captive Boys of Rensselaerville – John and Robert Brice.” This version has been lightly edited for easier reading, but has retained much of the tone and style, including the use of disparaging terms to refer to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people who took part in these events. Additional details and background about this event can be found here. New York Almanack is presenting this story to illustrate historical attitudes about these events from a victim’s perspective.

The Brices had migrated from their native country of Scotland in the year 1774 and settled in a new place, southwest of the city of Albany. At this place, a few families had chosen a residence, which was then called Van Rensselaer’s Patent, but now Rensselaerville. Here the newcomers erected a few log houses. [Read more…] about The Captive Boys of Rensselaerville: John and Robert Brice

Three Little-Remembered New York Colonial Wars

January 24, 2022 by Peter Hess 2 Comments

From the time Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River in 1609, the area that is now Albany, NY was considered the focal point of trade with Indigenous People.

For over a hundred years, Albany (formerly Fort Orange) was the trading post furthest west and most remote in the colonies. Originally a Dutch colony, most of their neighboring colonies were English. To the North were the French.

Outside these colonies Native People ruled the land. From the early 1600s into the 1760s, French, Dutch, and English empires fought several major wars to gain control of this land. [Read more…] about Three Little-Remembered New York Colonial Wars

Palatines in the Mohawk Valley: 300 Years of History

January 18, 2022 by Ginny Rogers 13 Comments

The earliest European settlers in the Mohawk Valley came from what is now southwestern Germany. Under near constant threat of destruction, whether from multiple wars, invasions, or the plague, in the near hundred years leading up to the 18th century, the southwest German population experienced extreme hardship.

In some cases, entire towns and villages were wiped out. Commercial crops in the vineyards either failed or were destroyed. Invading French armies added to the hardship by burdening residents with housing and supporting soldiers, albeit with scant family resources, forcing many German homeowners to flee. [Read more…] about Palatines in the Mohawk Valley: 300 Years of History

Berne’s West Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church: Some History

January 18, 2022 by Harold Miller Leave a Comment

The 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

Palatines In The Helderbergs: The Zeh and Warner Sawmill

December 26, 2021 by Harold Miller 4 Comments

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

Marinus Willet, Tammany Hall & The Treaty of New York

November 28, 2021 by James S. Kaplan 5 Comments

Every year in October the Lower Manhattan Historical Society holds its Saratoga/Yorktown celebration in Trinity Churchyard to celebrate the American victories at the Battles of Saratoga and Yorktown.

At that ceremony wreaths are lain on the graves of Revolutionary War figures associated with those battles — Horatio Gates, Alexander Hamilton and Marinus Willett. [Read more…] about Marinus Willet, Tammany Hall & The Treaty of New York

Early Helderberg Settlers: The Fischer – Wood House

November 9, 2021 by Harold Miller 1 Comment

One 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

Schoharie Valley

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