1713

Conrad Lives With the Indians

Learning the Mohawk language was considered to be next to impossible, nevertheless, Conrad Weiser learned it; and over the years he not only mastered their language but he came to know the Indian’s culture and feelings as well.

No white man has ever known the Iroquois Indians like Conrad Weiser. Other whites just reported what they observed about the Indians, like Mr. Andrews, or they learned what they needed to know in order to take advantage of them, like the Dutch traders. Conrad Weiser, on the other hand, came to know the Indian thinking and their heart, and the winter of 1712/13 began his unusual relationship with them that would change his life, and alter human history.

It all began, at least in part, because he did not get along very well with his stepmother and his father wanted to kill two birds with one stone. If Conrad could learn the Maqua tongue it would help the Palatines and the Indians to understand each other in Schoharie, which was crucial, and, at the same time, there would be peace in the Weiser family during a stressful time. Conrad wrote about that time of Weiser household disharmony in later years:

“I became ill and thought I would die, my stepmother was a stepmother indeed, through her influence I was harshly treated by my father, I had no other friend to turn to and had to endure hunger and cold, I often made up my mind to run away, but the sickness mentioned put a bridle and a bit in my mouth I was bound as if with rope to give obedience and stay with my father.” - Conrad Weiser.

During the pilgrimage with his family to London, New York, and Livingston Manor, it was very hard on young Conrad, and what he saw and experienced helped to form his unique character:

“I have already said that my Father was a Widower when he left germany, and landed with eight children in New-york 1710. There both my brothers George fridrick and Gristoph fridrick were bound out by the Governor to long Island with my then sick father’s consent the following winter that is to say in december my youngest brother Joh: friderich died in about the sixth year of his age and was buried in Livingston’s Bush…”
- Conrad Weiser

How did he feel about the suffering, sadness, and bickering about religion?

“I had at a previous period in my life, wished that I had never heard of a God, either from my parents or other people, for the idea I had of him lead me away from him. I thought the atheists more happy than those who cared much about God.” – Conrad Weiser.

When King Hendrick went to pick up Mr. Andrews, Conrad Weiser went to live with the Indians too. But after Mr. Andrews stopped at Fort Hunter at the mouth of the Schoharie Creek where it flows into the Mohawk River, Conrad went with Qua y nant about 25 miles south into the Schoharie valley to live alone as a teenager with barbarians in the wilderness. Conrad said that he suffered much that winter from cold and hunger.

Mr. Andrews described his own experience with the Mohawks that winter in a letter dated March 9 from the Queens ffort near the Mohawks Castle. Conrad’s experience must have been similar to Mr. Andrews in regard to his description of the Indians. But it was also different, because Conrad was deeper in the Maqua country totally alone with the Indians, except perhaps, for some occasional contact with the Palatine families that had hurried there the previous fall. Those Palatines suffered greatly from hunger and lived in the rudest shelters that one can imagine. They obviously had a more difficult time than Conrad, who was living with people who were used to living through the Schoharie Valley winters. Nevertheless, that winter was hard on everybody beyond anything that we can imagine today.

In his letter, Mr. Andrews talked about being far back in the country where the air is extreme cold and there were deep snows for four or five months. He talked about the Indian’s warm welcome of him, but he said that some of the Dutch had told one of the Indians that he was coming to take a tenth of everything that they had. He said that the Dutch traders feared that an outside minister that was settling among the Indians might threaten their gains. Mr. Andrews assured the Indians that he was only there to instruct them in Christian truths, and not to take anything from them. He talked of baptizing several Indian children but that most of the adults had already been baptized by Dutch ministers and priests from Canada by threatening them or by bribing them with presents. Mr.Andrews proposed to teach their children to read and write, and complained about the soldiers at the fort using profanity and drinking and being a bad example to them. Finally, Mr. Andrews gives an account of the Mohawk Indian nation, as he knew it, and of the lower Mohawk Castle next to Fort Hunter.

“Their Chief Town or Castle as it is called, stands by the ffort, consisting of 40 or 50 Wigwams or houses, pallizadoed Round. Another of their Chief Towns between 20&30 houses is three or four & twenty Miles distant from this. They have several other little Towns 7 or 8 houses in a Town, and single houses up and Down pretty near their Castle next to the ffort.”

“Their houses are made of Mats & bark of Trees together with poles about 3 or 4 yards high. Their clothing is a Match [?] Coat like a Mantle either a blankett or a bear’s skin. Their bed is a Mat or a skin.”

“They paint and grease themselves much with bear’s fat clarified, cut their hair off from one side of their heads and some of that on the other side they tie up in Knots upon the Crown with ffeathers, Tufts of ffur upon their Ears and some of them wear a Bead fastened to their Noses with a Thread hanging down to their Lips, Bead and Wampum about their Hocks and wrists.”

“The men are slothful & lazie enough. The Women laborious true Servants to their husbands, carry all the Burdens, fetch the Venison home out of the woods their husbands kill, the wood they burn, carry the Children about at their backs, hoe the Ground, plant ye Corne, waite upon their Husbands when they eat & take what they leave them. Yet for all this they say, the Women court the men when they design Marriage…”

“The vices they are most guilty of is drinking too much when they can come at any strong Liquor Especially Rum, and Changing their Wives when they are weary of them, but [I] don’t hear there are many Guilty of the latter, but that Generally they keep constantly to One Wife never Changing till Death makes the Separation. Excepting these, they are a civil peaceable quiet people.”

“They are poor; they have but little and little contents them, Extreme kind to each other if one has any thing better than Ordinary to be sure his Neighbors must share with him.” – Reverend Andrews.

The English often spoke of how much they hated the smell of Indians because of Bear grease.

The Schoharie tribe that Conrad lived with was a hybrid tribe of conquered warriors from other tribes that had been adopted into the Iroquois confederation at a castle called Eskaharie. The Palatines called it the Wilderhook, or Indian’s corner. Their chief sachem was named Ka righ on don tee. At one time it was a fairly large tribe with a total population of about 2,000 with 350 warriors. But wars and disease had since taken a toll. The Reverend Mr. Andrews gives an indication of how small the Mohawk nation had become by 1713.

“I can give you now a more exact number of the Mohawks than I did before, as having been since better informed by some of the Sachems themselves. In the Town or Castle called Teyawendarokough which is by the ffort are 360 Men Women & Children. In another Castle 20 Miles from this called Canojohare and another about 4 Miles further called Anadagie in both these are about 180. In another, about 24 Miles from the ffort called Eskahare about 40. So that in all about 580.” - Rev. William Andrews.

The sachems may have told him a low number on purpose.

Paul A.W. Wallace, Conrad’s biographer, puts the number of Indians in Schoharie alone at about 300, and says that they were Mahicans, Mohawks, Tuscororas, Oneidas, and Delawares. The Tuscororas were a recent addition having recently been driven from the Carolinas. They were adopted as the Sixth Nation but without any voice in the government.

Winter of Misery & Waiting

As for the Palatines that decided to stay at Livingston Manor under the security of Robert Livingston’s umbrella, this is how they fared that winter:

“…The misery of these poor Palatines I everyday behold has thrown me into such a fit of melancholy that I much fear a sickness. There has been a great famine among them this winter, and does hold on still, in so much that they boil grass and the children eat the leaves of the trees. Such amongst them have most suffered of hunger as are advanced in years and too weak to go out labouring. I have seen old men and women cry that it should almost have moved a stone.”

“I am almost resigned with these people. I have given the bread out of my own mouth to many a one of these, not being able to behold their extreme want. Where I live there were two old people that, before I could be informed of their necessitous condition, have for a whole week together had nothing but welch turnips which they did only scrape and eat without any salt or fat and bread; and in a word I can not describe the miserable state they are reduced to…”
- Reverend Haegar.

You can bet that the Livingstons had plenty of food that winter.

At some point Joshua Kocherthal moved to West Camp with his family from Newburgh to minister to their spiritual needs.

The Schoharie Exodus

The Palatines in Albany and Schenectady made their final preparations, gathered together, and left for Schoharie in March. However, even in that, they suffered, and had to trudge through a late storm that dumped three feet of snow.

“In the same year in March did the remainder of the people (though treated by the Governor as Pharaoh treated the Israelites) proceed on their journey, and by God’s assistance traveled in a fortnight with sledges through the snow which there covered the ground above three feet deep [suffering] cold and hunger, and joined their friends and countrymen in the promised land of Schorie.”
- Grievances of the Palatines in New York, received in London August 20, 1722.

The route they took was a new road between Albany and Schenectady that followed an Indian trail. A tavern stood at the fork where they began to go southwest. Today it is the site of the State University of New York at Albany.

From there, the trail went through Guilderland and Altamont and over the Helderbergs through Knox and Berne, and down the Foxenkill Creek to Schoharie- the Promised Land.

It must have been something special to experience as they all gathered together in a snowy meadow. I picture it as a sunny day with blue sky. The 50 families that had braved the winter greeted their comrades. There was lots of hugging and talking about things. I can picture the Indians coming with Conrad to greet them; some awkward translating; and gazing at each other.

The Indians showed the Palatines the extent of the land for their settlement. It was roughly 20,000 acres of incredibly fertile flats of natural meadows, some being natural clover, surrounded by a mountainous forest. It ran from the present day Middleburgh at a stump that was burned hollow, and ten miles north in the down stream direction of the creek. The stump had the symbols of a turtle and a snake carved in it and a pile of rocks next to it. It was the Indian seal of the contract. Moreover, the symbols were prophetic of things to come.

Somewhere between five and seven hundred Palatines finally made it to the Promised Land, four babies were born the first week of their arrival, and they wasted no time getting things in order. These amazing people, so used to toiling through hardship, had to rebuild once again. But this time it was sweet.



They laid out their villages - called dorfs - named after each village leader, in the traditional German way, with one main street and the huts facing each other. Their huts were hastily made but in a practical way so improvements could be easily made in time. They were made from logs packed with mud and bark for roofing with skins covering the doorways.

The whole community made a great effort to foster a relationship with the Indians who were very helpful, especially at their first arrival. The Indians showed the Palatines where they could dig for wild potatoes, find different types of berries, and gave them corn seed.

The Ho-de-no-sau-nee and the Alamanni lived together, and Conrad Weiser was their interpreter. He even stayed with the Indians for a while after his family had arrived.

“I had made a good beginning; that is to say I had learned the greater part of the Mohawk language. An English mile From my Father’s house there lived several Mohawk families with the Mohawks always around going out Hunting and coming back difficulties often cropped up, so that I had Much interpreting to do but with out pay there was No one else to be found among our people who understood the Language, so that I became Completely master of the Language, so Far as my Years and other circumstances permitted.” – Conrad Weiser

A Unique Tribal Meeting

When the Palatines finally arrived in Schoharie something unique happened concerning mankind’s tribal migration to populate and inhabit the earth.

The Palatines were not a nation, but a hybrid Germanic tribe. The Schoharie Indians were a hybrid Iroquois tribe. When the Indians showed the Palatines the extent of their Schoharie land, the last two migrating tribes to emerge from antiquity finally met, as tribes, on the opposite side of the earth. Think about it. But that’s not all. The Iroquois were the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, the People of the Longhouse. Most of the Palatines were descendants of the Alamanni, or All Men. One tribe was based on a patriarch, the other on a matriarch. For the descendants of the Alamanni, like the Christmann’s, it was the first time that they had known total freedom since being subjugated by Clovis and his Franks in 496 and 506, more than 1,200 years.

The main priority of the first year was shelter and food. The Indians helped to the extent that they could but they also received charity from the Dutch Reformed churches in Albany and Schenectady. A considerable amount of food was given to them in July. They also received loans from other individuals.

A group from Weisersdorf went to Schenectady and bought an old gray mare.
Someone borrowed a harness, a plow, and a cow. They hitched the horse and the cow together and broke enough ground to almost plant enough corn to supply all of their needs by harvest. Lambert Sternberg from Gerlachsdorf bought a skipple of wheat and planted it within the dilapidated walls of an abandoned Indian castle for protection from animals. They carefully cultivated it and from only one skipple, they produced a yield of eighty-three skipples. A skipple is about three pecks.

The first historian of Schoharie was a Palatine descendant born in 1745 named Judge Brown. He wrote about the first year:

“The new inhabitants soon began to think themselves well off. By their industry, and great fertility of soil, they soon got plenty to eat – wore more moccasins – buckskin breeches and jackets of leather, which they plentifully obtained of the Indians.” – Judge Brown.

July 18th: Governor Hunter wrote to the Lords of Trade:

“The Palatines (asking your Lordships pardon for mentioning them) who remain upon the lands on which I planted them, have been by the blessing of God & their own labours able to subsist themselves, those who run to Schohare have been obliged to the charity of the Province to save them from starving…”
- Governor Hunter.

September

Mr. Andrews wrote another letter about his experience:

“…There is no manner of pleasure to be proposed by being here, but only the hopes of doing some good among these poor dark ignorant Creatures.”
– Reverend Andrews.

Conrad Weiser saw them differently:

“The teachings of Christ and his apostles are more congenial to them than to many so called christians: for when it is said Owe no man anything save to love one another Rom 13:8 Be not anxious for the morrow Matth 23:11 …

That is what they actually practice without calling themselves Christian, while many who bear the name never give such things a thought …

If the word religion means a formal belief in certain written articles of faith, such as, prayer, singing, churchgoing, baptism, the Lords Supper, or other well known Christian ordinances, or even heathen worship, then we can truly say: the Indians, or so called Iroquois, and their neighbors have no religion, for of such a one we see and hear nothing among them.

But if by the word religion we understand the knitting of the soul to God, and the intimate relation to, and hunger after the highest Being arising therefrom, then we must certainly allow this apparently barbarous people a religion, for we find traces among them that they have a united trust in God, and sometime (although quite seldom) united appeals to Him.” – Conrad Weiser.

October 26 Governor Hunter reported on the whereabouts of the Palatines. He said that 1,008 remained on the Hudson River settlements with the Livingstons, 500 were in the Schoharie Valley, and another 500 were among various planters.

Hartman’s dorf was the only settlement to be called after the Christian name of its founder- Hartman Windecker. For some reason the Christman family stayed in the villages where he was the principle man, and probably all of their close friends did too. The Hartman’s dorfers also had a close contact with the Weiser’s dorfers during the Schoharie years and the evidence suggests that this close contact had an effect on the life of little Jacob Christman and his admiration for the older Conrad Weiser as we will see later. Hartman’s dorf was the largest settlement with about 65 dwellings and 13 outdoor bake ovens. Its location could be defined until about 1850.

A Footrace & Childhood Hero

It is my opinion that Jacob Christman may have first come to admire Conrad Weiser as his childhood hero during a footrace he saw at Weiser’s dorf in 1713 or 1714. Conrad was well known by then for having lived with the Indians. He hung around with them and he came from that rebellious Weiser family. Conrad’s father, John Weiser, was always at the forefront of rebellion against Governor Hunter at Livingston Manor.

One day, a stump was given to the Germans, by the Indians; to run a foot race where a lot of dressed deerskins was bet against something that the Germans had. Conrad was chosen to run against a little agile Indian who was the fastest in their tribe.

“The course was above the village, and on either side the Germans and the Indians to stations to encourage their favorites. The couple started half a mile from the goal, at a given signal, and onward they dashed with the fleetness of antelopes. The race was to terminate just beyond the most southern dwelling of Weiser’s dorf. They had to run very close to the house, and Weiser, being on the outside as they approached it side by side, sprang with all his might against his competitor. The sudden impetus forced the Indian against the building, and he rebounded and fell. Weiser then easily won the race.

The Indians, and their defeated champion were terribly enraged at first, and refused to give up the forfeit: but Weiser, who had already learned much of the Indian character, and knew the danger of trifling with their misfortunes, appeased their wrath, by satisfying them that the whole difficulty proceeded from accident – that he stumbled upon some obstacle which rendered it unavoidable, and was very sorry it had happened. With this explanation, their anger was appeased, and they delivered up the skins.”
– Jeptha Simms.

This episode shows that Conrad was a much different teenager than the man he became. But this type of incident as a teenager along with his reputation went a long way to make an impression on a boy like Jacob Christman who was seven or eight years old at the time. We will see more evidence of Conrad’s influence with Jacob, as well as evidence that Jacob had a close relationship with other children who were very close to, and influenced by Conrad Weiser, later in the story.

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