1668-1707

Johannes Christmann
The Patriarch of the Mohawk Valley Christmans

00 Johannes Christmann
(b.1668 in the Rheinland/Palatinate d.abt 1757)
Anna Gertraud Sixt (b.1678 d.abt 1757) Christmann-Sixt Genealogy

NOTE TO THE READER: You will find the entire story of this family in the history section as you read it. As the story unfolds the children who were born during the year are listed. By the end of the story you will have a list of the first five generations of descendants from this family.

Briefly it goes like this:

Johannes Christmann and his family lived in Dalsheim, Germany, before immigrating to New York in 1710. The family endured the horrific voyage from London to New York City, they suffered as indentured servants in Annsbury (East Camp) at Livingston Manor, they lived among the Indians at Hartman's dorf in the Schoharie Valley, and then they spent a year in Olney, Pennsylvania, before returning to the Mohawk Valley where they bought 300 acres of land from the Oneida Indians on Nov. 7, 1728, on Mounts Creek above modern day Herkimer, New York, where Johannes and Anna Gertraud likely died in the massacre of Palatine Village on Nov. 12, 1757. If they had not died before the massacre, they almost certainly did not live beyond it.

The Children
01 Hans Nicholas Christman (b.1702 in Germany)(d.abt.1790)
02Jacob Christman (b.1706 in Germany)(d.1790 in Ephratah, NY)
03 Frederick Christman (b.1711 in Annsbury, East Camp) (d.bef.1785)
Frederick is the first known Christman to be born on American soil, and he possibly died as a prisoner of war in Canada.
04 Daughter (or Johannes' Sister) Elizabeth Christmannin (b.abt.1759)
05 Daughter (b.1707 in Germany) Her destiny is known only to God

NOTE TO THE READER: This is coming off the top of my head, but, keep in mind that Hendrick Sixt is also in this family. He was the son or brother of Anna Gertraud. Hendrick Sixt bought lots in the Stone Arabia Patent in the town of Ephratah. He sold those lots to the Getmans, circa 1750s. Then he moved to Pennsylvania.

NOTE TO THE READER: I am not a genealogist and therefore I created my own code as a way to keep track of all the different Jacobs and Catherines etc. The code begins with 00 Johannes. His sons are 01, 02, 03. Their sons are 0101, 0201, 0301 etc. It's a very easy way to identify which clan a person comes from.

Johannes Christmann was born in 1668, and during his life, the window of history itself was changing in a unique way. Johannes and his children were destined to have a role in it and their characters were shaped by it.

There are six segments to the window of Johannes Christmann’s life.


1. His life growing up and living in the Palatinate.
2. His family’s immigration to London and New York in 1710.
3. His life as an indentured servant in Tar Camps on the Hudson River from 1710-1712.
4. Raising a family in the Schoharie Valley until 1725.
5. Moving to Olney, Pennsylvania in 1725.
6. Moving back to the Mohawk River settlements of New York in 1728, specifically, about fifteen miles above Burnetsfield also called German Flatts, now Herkimer, and living there until his death.


French Persecution

Johannes Christmann took his first breath in a world of crop failures, starvation, and a raging outbreak of plague between 1666 to 1671.

When Johannes was growing up, Louis XIV- the Sun King- ruled France. Louis XIV had the longest reign of any monarch in European history. He wanted to glorify France and prevent the resurgence of the Habsburg dynasty’s rule of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany. The Habsburg’s threatened France from two sides: Spain and Germany.

In 1667, Louis XIV claimed the right to his wife’s inheritance and invaded the Spanish Netherlands. The alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden forced him to the peace-table a year later. However, he managed to buy the neutrality of England and Sweden and isolated Protestant Holland. He hated Protestants of every color.

In 1672, Louis XIV launched his French armies against Holland. However, the Dutch got help from Spain and Austria and managed to force another treaty six years later.

It can’t be emphasized enough- Louis XIV hated Protestants; and while his French armies were fighting the Dutch Protestants in Holland, Louis XIV was also busy persecuting the Protestants in his own country at the same time. They were the Huguenots, and they were driven into exile. Many of them immigrated across the Rhein River into the Palatinate.

In 1685 Louis XIV tried to force the conversion of the Protestants to Roman Catholicism, and when his French armies reached the Rhein River, the Huguenots who had fled into the Palatinate began to flee again in fear. They went to Brandenburg, Eastern Prussia, and North America - courtesy of Protestant Holland, and Protestant England - to settle in their new colonys.

One of the Palatine Huguenot groups followed the inspiration of Matthys Blanshan who fled to Mannheim, Germany, from France, became disillusioned, and then went to the colony of New Netherlands in 1660. A few years later, England won control of the Dutch colony, and New Netherlands became New York. Back in the Palatinate, some of Blanshan’s friends and relatives soon followed his lead. When they got to New York they secured a “Patent” for land from the English government and founded New Paltz on the Hudson in 1678, named in remembrance of their friends back in the Rheinland/ Pfalz, or Palatinate. These Huguenots were the first immigrants leaving Germany as Palatines.

Another group led by Daniel Pastorius left from Krefeld in 1683. They founded Germantown in Pennsylvania. Pastorius was inspired to immigrate to America after reading a pamphlet about a Holy Experiment by William Penn that described his desire to build a settlement in America. As a result, many Palatines became very interested in America; it represented the hope of a new life. Daniel Pastorius is known as the father of German immigration to America

In 1688, when Johannes Christmann was 20 years old, Louis XIV launched his French armies into the Palatinate. He said that he was claiming it for his sister-in-law. His purpose was to extirpate the heretics, and his rapacity recoiled from no extreme of cruelty. Rape was only a sport as his army of ruthless marauders ravaged the Palatinate. The rapine and slaughter was ghastly. The Palatines were beheaded, tortured, burned alive, forced to tear down their homes, flee to the fields, and freeze to death. In the spring, they were forced to plow under their crops. The ferocity of the Palatine’s slaughter and suffering was only equaled by the dirge of their mourning.

The predatory wars of Louis XIV continued in 1689. In the area surrounding Mannheim, 21 cities were on fire in the same day. The French troops burned Speyer and Worms before they finally left, and the Palatines had but a little time to sort out their lives.

It is unknown what happened to Christian Christmann and his wife Anna, but during this period, 21-year-old Johannes Christmann became a vinedresser and husbandman.

In 1693, the French armies were back. This time Heidelberg Castle was turned into the picturesque ruin that is today. For 80 years in the Palatinate there had only been 20 or so years without war. Other than war, the Palatines only knew the plague, rebuilding, and servitude to a lord.

In summery, Johannes Christmann grew up in a world of social assimilation that had familiar problems including, language conflicts, religious denominational problems, settlement arrangements, and legal positions that included being bound to the soil by guild restrictions. There was also continuing armed conflict. The Wildfang Dispute, the Loraine War, the War of Devolution, the War of Palatine Succession, and the War of Spanish Succession. All of these factors encumbered the integration and acculturation of people in the Palatinate. However, at the same time, the adversity molded the Palatine’s character.

“Many thousand young Germans, mostly of the nobility, who are accustomed to follow the vanities of dress, speech, foreign manners and ceremonies, and incur incredible expense in learning to mount, to ride, to dance, to fence, …while not a single thought is given to the love of God and learning to follow Christ.”
-Daniel Pastorius.

1699
Johannes Christmann married Anna Gertraud. They lived in Dahlsheim, just north of Bad Duerkheim and south of Worms. It is likely that Anna had some sort of relationship with the family of Henrich Sixt; possibly as his former sister-in-law. Johann Philip Sixt was living with a Anna Gertraud in Ehr and Huntzel in the parish. Johann was possibly the son of Hans Bernhardt Sixt, a church elder at Ehr.

1700
Johannes Christmann and Anna Gertraud had a baby daughter, name unknown.

1701
The French troops were back in the Palatinate under Marshall Villars in the War of the Spanish Succession.

1702
Hans Nicholas Christmann was born.

1706
Jacob Christmann was born, and life was about to change. Another phase of the divine selection process was beginning, and Johannes Christmann’s family had been selected.

Golden Promises



In 1706, a pamphlet known as the Kocherthal Bericht was circulating around the Palatinate on behalf of some large landowners in Carolina who wanted to people their colony. They made an arrangement in London in 1704 with Josha Harsch, a Lutheran minister living near Landau, who was unhappy with life in the Palatinate. He had been thinking about leaving his homeland for a long time after hearing one of the messages preached by William Penn at Kriegsheim in 1677.

William Penn, a Quaker, was a close friend of the Palatinate’s Princess Elizabeth and he made several visits in 1677 discussing religious matters with both the Lutherans and the Calvinists. In 1681, he received land in America as payment for a debt that the English government owed to his father. So he set out to find people to settle on his new territory with him and wrote a pamphlet describing his “Holy Experiment”. The pamphlet was then translated into German by one of his Dutch friends. It advertised Cheap Land and Real Religious Toleration in a New World.

In 1682, William Penn sailed off to America, and Josha Harsch dreamed of going too. He struggled with his little congregations for the next 27 years - and then he had finally had enough. After meeting with an English agent in Frankfurt, Josha went to London in 1704 to make arrangements. In 1706, Josha’s pamphlet was published in Frankfurt under the pseudonym Kocherthal (from the valley of Kocher) and he became known as Joshua Kocherthal.

1707

Johannes Christmann and Anna Gertraud had another baby daughter, name unknown.

Johannes was a vinedresser, and he was also a Mennonite. Anna Gertraud must have also been a Mennonite, and they probably met at a Bible study of some kind. It was the only kind of fellowship they had in life that had any meaning. Life did not make any sense otherwise. They toiled for the benefit of others. They could not own land.

They just lived a life of bringing farms from destruction to production, after which, they either had to pay an outrageous rent, or were forced to leave and go to another farm. In addition, besides the Mennonite recognition tax, there were other special fees; furthermore, their freedom of movement was restricted, and they could not enter a trade.

Nevertheless, they were tolerated, which meant that the Mennonites and Huguenots were allowed to gather together in small social circles. The Mennonite reputation in the Palatinate became one of suffering hardship with dignity. They were known for charity and morality. However, they were labeled as subversive by even their own German civil authorities as well as state-church officials. Protestants and Catholics alike hated the Mennonites and Huguenots…

It was an insane world.

In 1707, Louis XIV dispatched his army into the Palatinate yet again. French soldiers cut the tongues out of Protestants and tortured them to death while taking turns gang raping women before killing them too. If the family of Johannes Christmann and their friends prayed to God, lamenting about when it would all end, their prayers were about to be answered. Throughout history, God has sometimes chosen ways to answer prayer that doesn’t seem like it at the time. This was one of those times.

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