1710

January

The Palatines had already been aboard ship for a month when the embarkation sermon was finally preached on January 20. The message compared the Palatines to Joshua going to the Promised Land; and, it just so happened that, Joshua Kocherthal was going back to New York with them again. He was about to have his worst experience yet.

The fleet transporting the Palatines began sailing along the southern coast of England. The ship captains began a 4-month demurrage accrual that was added to the Palatines transportation debt. They just sailed back and forth, and back and forth. Not in any real hurry to get anywhere.

February

Mohawk Indians in London
Ironically, five Mohawk Indian sachems had set sail for London from Boston with Peter Schuyler, the mayor of Albany, New York. The Mohawk Indians and the Palatines were destined to become friends and neighbors at first, but in the long run make opposite choices concerning the focus of their faith, causing some members of the two tribes to fight against each other in a history changing battle 67 years down the road.

The English brought the Indians to London to impress them with England’s power, to secure their loyalty to the king, and to persuade them to use their influence in order to convince the entire Iroquois confederation to side with England against France in the struggle to dominate the fur trade.

The Mohawks were the First Elder Brother, and guarded the East Door of the Longhouse.

The Senecas were the Second Elder Brother; they guarded the Western Door.

The Oneidas and Cayugas were the Younger Brothers, living in between. When the Iroquois held council and voted on any issue, the majority won.

The Onondagas decided all ties, and all councils were held at the Sacred Fire of Onondaga. They lived in the center of the Longhouse near modern day Syracuse, New York.

The western tribes were always being seduced by the French to weaken the confederation.

One of the Mohawk Indians heading for London was King Hendrick. In 1754, Jacob Christmann signed an Indian deed with him. When their ships passed going in opposite directions off the coast of England, Jacob was 4 years old.

April - Setting Sail

7th The Palatine fleet of 10 ships was finally ready to leave Portsmouth. The last letters were written reporting 80 deaths on one ship and a hundred sick on another.

10th The Palatine Wonder Fleet left Plymouth for New York.

17th The Indian sachems led by King Hendrick met with Queen Anne. The Indians were impressed with England; the British lords were not impressed with the Indians.

May

“…The men treated us badly and our spirits were pulled down in misery and disappear.”- Smidt’s Log, William V.H. Barker.

“Praise that God has mercy for afterwards when we got to sea how the lice and fleas did bite us.”- William V.H. Barker.

“…The indescribable filth, the emaciated, half-nude, figures, many with the petecial eruption disfiguring their faces, crouching in the bunks, or strewed over the decks, and cumbering the gangways; broken utensils and debris of food spread recklessly about … Some were just rising from their berths for the first time since leaving Liverpool, having been suffered to lie there all the voyage, wallowing in their own firth,” - Immigration and Commissioners of Emigration of New York, Friedrich Kapp.

“And thus we traveled by day and night. Some starved. The largest and smallest of us rotted and some lost wife and child.” – William V.H. Barker.

“When they would take us up to the church place it was to toss us by arm and leg into the sea. There we would swim on the water and the fish would come to gobble us up.” – William V.H. Barker.

“…Horrible salted corned meat and pork, peas, barley, groats and codfish. The drink was a stinking water in which all food was cooked.” - Journey to Pennsylvania, Gottlieb Gottlieb Mittelberger.

“ The people are packed into the big boats as closely as herring…not counting the immense amount of equipment, tools, provisions, barrels of fresh water, and other things that occupy a great deal of space…

During the journey the ship is full of pitiful signs of distress- smells, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various kinds of sea sickness, fever, dysentery, headaches, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, mouth rot, and similar afflictions, all of them caused by the age and the highly-salted state of the food, especially of the meat, as well as by the very bad and filthy water, which brings about the miserable destruction and death of many. Add to all that, shortage of food, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, fear, misery, vexation, and lamentation as well as other troubles. Thus, for example, there are so many lice, especially on the sick people, that they have to be scraped off the bodies. All this misery reaches its climax when in addition to everything else one must suffer through two to three days and nights of a storm, with everyone convinced that the ship with all on board is bound to sink. In such misery all the people on board pray and cry pitifully together…

All the while the ship, tossed by storms and waves, moves constantly from one side to the other, so that nobody on board can either walk, sit, or lie down and the tightly packed people on their cots, the sick as well as the healthy are thrown every which way…

Among those who are in good health impatience sometimes grows so great and bitter that one person begins to curse the other, or himself and the day of his birth, and people sometimes come close to murdering one another. Misery and malice are readily associated; so that people begin to cheat and steal form one another. And then one always blames the other for having undertaken the voyage. Often the children cry out against their parents, husbands against wives and wives against husbands, brothers against their sisters, friends and aquanintances against one another.

Children between the ages of one and seven seldom survive the sea voyage; and parents must also watch their offspring suffer miserably, die, and be thrown into the ocean, from want, hunger, thirst, and the like… It is also worth noting that children had either measles or small pox usually get them on board the ship and for the most part perish as a result… the water distributed in these ships is often very black, thick with dirt, and full of worms. Even when very thirsty, one is almost able to drink it without loathing… towards the end we were compelled to eat the ship’s biscuit, which had been spoiled for a long time even though in no single piece was there more than the size of a thaler that was not full of red worms and spider’s nests.” – Gottlieb Mittelberger.

“When at last after the long and difficult voyage the ships finally approach land, when one gets to see the headlands for the sight of which the people on board had longed so passionately, then everyone crawls from below to the deck, in order to look at the land from afar. And the people cry for joy, pray, and sing praises and thanks to God. The glimpse of land revives the passengers, especially those who are half-dead from illness. Their spirits however weak they had become, leap up, triumph, and rejoice within them. Such people are now willing to bear all ills patiently, if they can only disembark soon and step on land.”
- GottliebMittelberger.

June - New York City

14th Ships began to arrive at New York City. First, the Lowestoffe arrived and docked with Governor Hunter and several others. He went to his residence at Fort Anne, probably celebrating the safe arrival with a toast.

16th We still want three of the Palatine ships, and those arrived are in a deplorable, sickly condition. – Governor Hunter

Governor Hunter formed a hasty plan to govern the Palatines. It was military in character. The chain of command was as follows:

Governor (Colonel) Hunter
John Bridger- Tar making operations chief.
George Clark- Commissary of stores
Robert Lurting- Deputy commissary.
James DuPre’- Commissary to the Palatines.
Jean Cast- Assistant in charge of supplies in East Camp.
Andrew Bagge- Assistant in charge of supplies at West Camp.
John Arnoldi- Physician General.
Two Surgeons & Two Nurses

There were also six overseers, two clerks or schoolmasters, six captains, six lieutenants, and two messengers.

Palatine listmasters were also eventually appointed for each village and dealt directly with Mr. Cast and Mr. Bagge for supplies. The Palatine listmasters were the liaisons who explained the rules and regulations to the people, and they determined the work schedule. They were as follows:

John Peter Kniskern- Hunterstown
John Conrad Weiser- Queensbury.
Peter Christian Wormbs- Annsbury.
John Christian Fuchs- Haysbury.
Johann Christian Gerlach-Elizabethtown.
Jacob Manck- Georgetown.
Phillip Peter Grauberger- Newtown.

July 1-10, The Palatine Ships Arrived

Prior To July 10, the Fame arrived.
Prior To July 10, the Tower frigate arrived.
Prior To July 10, the Mary arrived.
Prior To July 10, the Hartwell arrived.

The evidence suggests that many of the Palatines that sailed together stayed together in New York. If that is true then the Hartwell was the Christmann’s ship because of the listmaster Hartmann Windecker who replaced Peter Christian Wormbs after he died. Wormbs had been the listmaker for the Hartwell. Windecker was on the Hartwell. Furthermore, wherever Hartmann Windecker is found in this story, the Christmann’s are there too.

7th The Herbert sunk off Long Island and fortunately everybody survived. This was the Weiser’s ship. A boy named Conrad Weiser would play an important role in the life of little Jacob Christmann in later years.

12th The Midford arrived, apparently with the Herbert’s survivors.

24th Governor Hunter made an initial report that 2,227 Palatines arrived in New York, and about 470 died on the way. Another 250 died in quarantine.

“All the Palatine ships separated by the weather are arrived safe, except the Herbert frigate, where our tents and arms are. She was cast away on the East End of Long Island, on July 7; the men are safe but our goods much damaged. We still want the Barcley castle, which we left at Portsmouth. The poor people have been mighty sickly but recover apace. We have lost above 470 of our number.”
– Governor Hunter.

Shortly after he arrived, Governor Hunter sent “a surveyor with skillful men to survey the land on the Mohaks river, and particularly on the Skohare”; and here begins an interesting situation that will develop as the next year unfolds. The man Governor Hunter sent was Mr. Bridger, the foremost authority England had for making tar, with some men, to scout out different sites for locating the tar-making project.

One site was Livingston Manor just up the Hudson River.

Another was the Mohawk River Valley west of Schenectady past Little Falls.

The last place was the Schoharie Valley.

When Mr. Bridger got back, he recommended Livingston Manor.

The governor agreed. Then Mr. Bridger asked the governor for his permission to go to New England until spring while the Palatines were recovering, and preparations were being made to purchase the property, transport them, and build their housing. The governor granted permission to Mr. Bridger for the leave.

Now it just so happens that Mr. Bridger had wanted the glory of heading up a tar making operation a long time before Governor Hunter, and Mr. Bridger had wanted it located in New England.

On the 24th the governor wrote to the Lords of Trade about Schoharie lands:

“These lands, I believe, will be no ways fit for the design in hand, being very good land which bears no pines and lyes very remote.” – Governor Hunter.

31st Governor Hunter got a letter from the former governor thanking him for his help.


Palatine Fever

New York City officials were alarmed at the contagious distemper aboard the ships and quarantined all of the Palatines on Nutten Island. As they recovered, they were removed to a tent camp set up at the common area known as Bowling Green next to Fort Anne, the governor’s residence.

Meanwhile, church services were held for them at Broad and Wall Streets in the new City Hall. Reverend Haegar conducted the services. Rev. Haegar wrote that the summer was excessively hot, and that doctrinal bickering was already going on between Lutherans and Calvinists. They probably had been bickering since London.

On June 5 1712, the population of New York City was 4,846 free inhabitants, and 970 slaves. Assuming that the population in 1710 was roughly the same as it was in 1712, then the final count of 2,398 Palatines increased the total population of the city by 41%. Moreover, they were all sick.

August

2nd The Berkley Castle finally arrived. The ship had turned around and gone back to London.

At some point during the month, Thomas Benson submitted a petition for the reimbursement of medicine. Benson, a surgeon, claimed that 330 Palatines on his ship had been sick at the same time. The sickness became known as Palatine Fever. As the Palatines were carrying their sick comrades, friends, and relatives off the ships, a man named Peter Willemse Romer, of New York City, was about to become the recipient of an unexpected blessing - He was a coffin maker.

The Schoharie Legend
No one knows how it got started, but the Palatines came to believe that they had been promised the Schoharie Valley, with some of the most fertile soil in the world, to settle on. The popular legend says that when the Mohawk sachems were in London they saw the Palatines living in squalor and gave them Schoharie should they ever make it to America. However, most of the Palatines were already aboard ship by the time the Indians got to London. Nevertheless, it did become a legend at the time, and it grew as their hope for freedom.

22nd King Hendrick and the other Mohawk sachems returned from London. Governor Hunter went to an Indian conference at Fort Albany where Hendrick told him:

“We are told that the great queen of Great Britain had sent a considerable number of people with your Excy to setle upon the land called Skohere, which was a great surprise to us and we were much Disatisfyd at the news, in Regard the Land belongs to us. …Nevertheless since your Excellcy has been pleased to desire the said land for christian settlements, we are willing and do now Surrender… to the Queen… for Ever all that tract of Land Called Skohere…”-King Hendrick.

Governor Hunter promised him a reward. Evidently, the word of that meeting somehow got to the Palatines.

September

As the Palatines recovered they were removed from quarantine on Nutten Island to the tent camp on the commons at Bowling Green and they obviously talked by the campfires about their situation. This is probably where they heard about Schoharie. Bowling Green was right next to Fort Anne where Governor Hunter lived. Agents of the governor obviously kept track of what was going on with them while food and supplies were being provided to them.

They had plenty of time to wander around the city. New York was a large town of Dutch style buildings. Some of the Palatines probably saw black people for the first time, and of course, they were slaves. They also probably saw the remnants of the Indian tribes that inhabited the immediate area sprawled drunk on the streets. They saw businessmen, and farmers, and farms, and there were taverns and British soldiers and sailors, and trappers and prostitutes. When they wandered to the fringes of the city, they saw the ships at the docks, and fisherman, and the endless ocean that contained the bodies of about 500 of their children and comrades.

When they looked across the river they saw an endless and primeval wilderness undisturbed from creation. And in that forest there were tribes of Indians living as their own barbarian ancestors had 2,500 years before in the forests of Scandinavia and the Baltic. But they didn’t know that and they wouldn’t have cared if they did. They only knew suffering and they wanted a better life. So they talked around the campfires on Bowling Green about their Dead Comrades, Religion, the Habsburg’s, the Elector, the Plague, the French, Winter – and now, this.

It was unusually hot that summer. They went to Trinity Church. They went to a lot of funerals. It was beginning to get chilly at night, the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn color, and it was starting to get dark earlier. They talked about those things.

Governor Hunter’s Deal with Robert Livingston

29th Governor Hunter purchased 6,000 acres of land on the Hudson River from Robert Livingston who had the reputation of being a wheeling and dealing eel-nosed rascal. He had even been recently involved in a controversy with Captain Kidd, the pirate who was hanged.

As part of the deal with Governor Hunter, Robert Livingston became a representative in the New York Assembly, and he was given exclusive rights to supply the Palatines with their provisions, the cost of which, of course, the governor added to the Palatine’s account of indentured service.

The governor also added to their debt the cost of burying the dead. That added to their account twofold because now the dead people’s share of the debt was transferred to them too. Some of them were beginning to catch on. Their growing debt would be almost impossible to work off, and they didn’t like it, and they talked about it.

At the same time, Governor Hunter also purchased 800 acres on the West Bank of the river across from Livingston Manor from Thomas Fullerton. At both of the sites Robert Livingston’s son, Gilbert, began to survey lots for seven small villages in two camps.

They became known as East Camp, and West Camp. The lots for both house and gardens were 40ft wide and 50ft deep. Very different from the 40 acres that the Palatines thought they would be getting as they understood the contract that had been translated to them in London by Mr. Cast. While the lots were being surveyed, Robert Livingston’s son, Robert Jr., was busy traveling the countryside buying grain and cattle from Dutch farmers at two small towns called Saugerties and Catskill, for subsistence.

East Camp
Annsbury - Christmann’s Village
Queensbury
Haysbury
Hunterstown

West Camp
Georgetown
Newtown- surveyed in the spring of 1711
Elizabethtown

Back in New York City, Governor Hunter began selling the orphans from the voyage as apprentices; 71 in total. He even sold some of the children from their living parents including two of John Weiser’s children. The Palatines were becoming indignant.

October - The Tar Camps



Early in the month, the Palatines began to be transported up the Hudson River to East Camp and West Camp. They were assigned lots and the Livingstons provided them with food, some tools, tent poles, and storage for their supplies, and other necessities. The Livingstons billed the governor, and the governor added the amount to the Palatine’s debt.

Shocked at the Conditions

As soon as the Palatines saw the land they were shocked. They had previously been among the best farmers in Europ and now they were expected to live on little lots and have little gardens under pine trees growing in shale. They thought that somebody must be joking. The Queen, as they understood it, promised them 40 acres each. The listmasters got more than an earful as the Palatines spit on the ground and threw their hands in the air. The Palatine’s indignance was turning into resentment.

The supplies for the Palatine’s subsistence consisted mostly of bread, meat, and an inferior quality ships beer. The Livingstons, at New York City rates, supplied the bread and the beer, and the Palatines were not permitted to make their own bread so the Livingstons could make more profit. Meat was sent up the river from New York or secured by the younger Robert Livingston from the local Dutch farmers. The Livingston’s manor house and their demesne land was a little north of East Camp.

“A sawmill with twelve saws and possibly a gristmill were built along side the manor house at some time [1699]. Until 1719 no mills except Livingston’s existed within twelve miles of the manor seat on the east side of the Hudson River, so his construction of them can be considered at once monopolistic and a boon to his small but growing number of tenants and his neighbors.

One of the major advantages Robert Livingston held was that he could monopolize businesses such as milling and shopowning on his lands- and have a captive market for his products and services.” – Ruth Piwonka

As far as Governor Hunter was concerned, everything seemed to be getting of to a good start. Mr. Cast and Mr. Bagge ordered and kept track of the deliveries, certifying the amount and the quality of the food and supplies.

So the Palatines began to construct their housing. Winter was right at the doorstep. Huts were made according to each builder’s own skills and ideas from rough-hewn logs packed with mud. Skins or blankets were used for doors and the entire family helped.

The Christmann’s built their hut in Annsbury where Hartmann Windecker became the listmaster after Peter Christian Wormbs died. It was the closest town in East Camp to the Livingston’s manor house at the mouth of the Roeliff Jansens Kill (creek).

Robert Livingston’s Dutch wife, Alida, ran the manor operations when he was away. Alida Livingston came from the affluent Schuyler family, and by marrying her, Robert Livingston got his foot in the door for power and influence. Alida Livingston supervised the inventory of the store and the daily dealings with the Palatines. She wrote some very interesting letters, as we will see later.

24th Governor Hunter wrote his final assessment of the voyage and reported that 2,814 Palatines set sail, 446 died by the end of July, and there were 30 births.

November - Bickering Over Tools

As the Palatines continued to build, they complained that they did not have enough tools and argued over the ones that they had. The commissary in New York City, James DuPre, noted on November 7 that he lent the governors gardener five spades to work in his garden; but, the Palatines, on the other hand, got only 18 spades for their entire six villages. They also only got 151 hammers, 75 hammers, 36 crosscut saws, 271 grubbing axes, and 34 broad axes. However, they were issued 600 rifles and were drilled in the British manual of arms. One of the Palatines wrote:

“… They issued us 600 rifles. Now this is the way we learned our exercises- first one makes left and then one makes right- the officer does this too! Many became so sick that the officer did not dare to go to their door. Nobody knew what was going on… this was hardly an army standing on the field. We were assembled before the horse and had to stand up straight.” – William V.H.Barker

27th Robert Livingston paid “J. Hardenberg for riding bread and fish for the Palatines from the Esopus Kill, the sloop having been frozen in”.

30th Memorandum of Things Delivered to Mr. Livingston:

12 muskets
12 cartridge boxes and 12 girdles
12 bayonets and 12 belts
3 tents and 9 poles

And for his Palatine Guard:

6 yds of the best kersey
6 yds of cotton
7 ¼ Knap shag
4 Hats
5 pr stockings

Robert Livingston was appointed Inspector of the Palatines and selected several of them to guard his house. Governor Hunter selected others to work his gardens at Fort Anne, hence the five spades.

December

As the Palatines continued to argue and bicker over tools, supplies, food, religion, and other things- the tension built, and they began to polarize into two groups defined by how they focused their faith. Each village began to separate into conservatives and rebels.

To the conservatives Gov. Hunter and Robert Livingston represented security.

To the rebels they represented the tyranny through the ages that the Palatines hated.

The rebels wanted self-determination and freedom, and they talked about finding that place called Schoharie.

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