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THE
PALATINE

OR

GERMAN IMMIGRATION

TO

NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE
WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
BY
REV. SANFORD H. COBB,
OF ALBANY, N. X.
CORKBSPONDING MBHBBR OB THB WYOMING HISTORICAL AMD GBOLOCICAL SOCIBTV.

PRINTED mSR TfiB SOeMttY.
wrtasas-BARSii, p&.
1897.

THE
PALATINE

OR

GERMAN IMMIGRATION

TO

NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE
WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
BY
REV. SANFORD H. COBB,
OF ALBANY, N. V.
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THB WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

PRINTBD FOR THB SOMBTY.
Wlt,KBS-BARR]^, Fa.
1897.

R. BAUR & Son Print,
WILKES-BARKE.

¦J

This paper, prepared and read at the request of the
Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, is a brief
statement of the more important facts contained in a much
larger manuscript, entitled, "The Story of the Palatines.
An Episode in Colonial History," which the author hopes
soon to publish in book form, with maps and numerous
quotations from original documents and authorities.
sanford h. cobb.
Albany, N. Y., 1897.

THE PALATINE,
OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION
TO NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA.

That influx to the American colonies, in the
early part of the iSth century, which is spoken of
under the name of the Palatine Immigration, has so
many features of unique experience and so many worthy
of record and memory, that one acquainted with its story
can but wonder that so little of it is generally known.
Most of the historians of our colonial period make no
mention of it at all. Some refer to it in very brief terms,
as though unworthy of extended notice. Others make
bold to add to such brief mention remarks of a very dis
paraging nature, as though these Palatines were of miser
able and low character. Thus Mrs. Lamb, in her history
of the City of New York, gives to them but a short half
page, in which she yet finds room to say that they bore
the same relation to the other colonists of that day, as the
Chinese of our time bear to the Americans on the Pacific
slope. The co-temporary English historians, Burnet and
Mortimer, speak of them in far more respectful terms.
Indeed, Mortimer attributes to their sturdy and thrifty
virtues the superior condition of the province of Pennsyl
vania. Macaulay, in our own time, describes them as
worthy burghers of the Rhenish towns, whom undeserved
calamity had reduced to poverty and exile, and whose
stalwart virtues blessed every land which afforded them
an asylum. Miserable indeed they were, in the earlier
years of the exodus, but by no default of character of
their own, but by an excess of afflictions such as few
people have been called to endure.

6 THE PALATINE,
Their home across the sea was the Lower Palatinate,
or the Palatinate of the Rhine. Situated on both sides of
that noble river, between Bavaria and Elsass, and extend
ing from above the City of Spires northward to near
Cologne, the Palatinate was as fair a land as all Europe
can show. The burghers of its cities were wealthy mer
chants. Its fertile fields and vine-clad hills, brought com
petence and comfort to its people, and sent abundance of
corn and wine to other countries of Europe. Religion and
knowledge were so well diffused that there was no other
people of their day, to whom in these respects the
Palatines stood second. The situation of the Palatinate,
the highway from France into the heart of Germany,
together with its beauty and fertility, made it a Naboth's
vineyard to Louis XIV, whose ambition was colossal,
whose absolutism could ill brook denial, and whose
rapacity recoiled from no extreme of cruelty. His
schemes and plots made life a burden to the Electors
Palatine, Charles and his son Charles Louis. The death
of the latter in 1685 without issue, ended the Zimmern
line of the Electorate, and the succession passed to
Frederick, of the house of Newburgh. The moment of
transition seemed to Louis auspicious to his plans. He at
once laid claim to the Palatinate in the name of his
brother, who had married the sister of Charles Louis. The
claim was opposed by Holland, Austria, Bavaria, Prussia
and other smaller German states, which, under the leader
ship of the great William, organized the Grand Alliance
and prepared for war. Louis to be beforehand, with the
double purpose of wreaking vengeance on the Palatinate —
a vengeance made more bitter by the asylum there given
to the Huguenots, whom the Revocation of Nantes had
driven into exile, — and also of making the country

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 7
untenable by his foes, sent an army of 50,000 men, with
orders to its commander to ravage the province with fire
and sword and to make the land a desert. The invasion
took place in winter. The French went through the
length and breadth of the country, destroying cities,
burning villages, stripping the people of their possessions,
compelling them to pull down their walls, to stand by and
see their wealth perish in the flames, killing such as
endeavored to save anything from the ruins, and then
driving them into the fields to there perish with hunger
or cold. In the following Spring the peasants were forced to
plow under their crops. The whole land was filled with
mourning. Many thousands were killed. Many were
starved or frozen to death. In one day the Elector, stand
ing on the wall of Manheim, counted twenty-three villages
in flames. The ferocity of the war and the sufferings of
the people cannot be adequately described. To this day
remain their monuments in the ivy covered ruins, which
give so much of beauty and charm to the hills among
which flows the Rhine. It is needless to follow the course
of the war. For a few years the people had rest, and then
in 1693 another invasion brought on another wave of
widespread misery. Then it was that the great castle of
Heidelberg was reduced to that condition which makes it
the greatest and most picturesque ruin in Europe.
But a few years had elapsed, far too few for the
Palatines to retrieve their losses, when the outbreak of the
war of the Spanish Succession dragged them once more
between the upper and nether mill stones. This war,
brought on by Louis, in prosecution of a claim to the
Spanish crown for his grandson Philip, — a claim opposed

8 THE PALATINE,
by the same Alliance with the addition of England, — was
begun in 1 70 1 and drew out its miseries and cruelties for
thirteen long years. Most of its fighting was done in
Spain and Germany, but the Palatinate came in for a full
share of tribulation. It furnished both armies a pathway.
Many times they went back and forth, leaving wretched
ness in their trail. At length in 1 707 Louis despatched
an army to repeat, so far as possible, the rapine of twenty
years before. With this the cup of misery was full, and at
once began that remarkable exodus, which in the next
four decades brought so many thousands of the Palatines to
America. It needs to be noted also that to these afflictions by
war was added as an expelling power, a religious trouble,
which in some instances amounted to the dignity of
persecution. Early in the Reformation period the Elector
Palatine gave in his adhesion' to the doctrine of Geneva,
his country became a stronghold of the Reformed faith,
and under his patronage was published that best of all
symbols of the Reformation, the Heidelberg Catechism.
There was, however, a strange variation in the Electoral
faith. For one hundred and thirty years no two successive
Electors were of the same faith. Lutheran and Reformed
princes succeeded each other in regular alternation; and,
according to the spirit of the age, each prince desired to
bring his people into that communion which had secured
his own adhesion.
The court religion was constantly changing from
Geneva to Wirtemberg, and back again, while many annoy
ances and distresses to the people were the consequence.
Finally, John William, the second prince of the house of
Newburgh, the Elector at the time of the Spanish war,

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 9
deserted both Reformed and Lutheran, and adopted the
ancient faith of the Church of Rome. A man of devoted
piety, but narrowness of mind, with a stern and saturnine
disposition, he endeavored to constrain his people towards
the Roman communion. Thus were added to the miseries
of war the afflictions of religious tyranny. Because of
both many of the people looked about for a way of escape,
and for a land of peace and freedom.
There is not space to discuss the mooted question as
to what turned their eyes to America. It is sufficient to
note that in 1 708, the year after the last French invasion,
the movement began. Its first note of record is found, not
in the Palatinate, but in the minutes of the British Board
of Trade in London. This minute is a communication
from the Lords of Trade to the Queen, setting forth that
certain "distressed Palatines, who had been driven out of
the Palatinate by the cruelties of the French," forty in
number, with one Joshua Kockerthal, a Lutheran minister,
for their leader, had made application to the Board for
transportation to America. Shortly afterward fourteen
others were added to this number; and it would appear
that the entire fifty-four constituted a pioneer band, on
whose fortune and report depended the action of thou
sands of their countrymen.
The Queen and Council were pleased to receive the
petition graciously, and order was taken both to relieve the
necessities of the poor people, and to send them to New
York in the same ship that carried Lord Lovelace to the
government of that province ; the new governor being
charged by the Queen to do all in his power "for the
comfort of the poor Palatines." Arriving in New York in
the late summer of 1708, the Palatines, the composition of

lO THE PALATINE,
whose number had been very wisely chosen, as to ability
and trades, for the founding of a new settlement, were
planted sixty miles up the Hudson, at the place where the
Quassaic, now Chambers, Creek empties into that river.
This is the site of the present city of Newburgh, to which
it may be supposed, in the absence of contrary proof, that
the family name of the reigning house of the Palatinate
furnished its name. Here were given to the Palatines
2000 acres of land, and the community by patent from
Gov. Hunter was erected into the Palatine Parish of
Quassaic. There is here no space to recount their
fortunes, save that in the next thirty years, being crowded
by English and Scotch settlers, and thinking that more
fertile lands were to be found in Pennsylvania, a large
number sold their holdings on the Hudson, and joined their
countrymen in the province of Penn.
Kockerthal, having settled this pioneer band at
Newburgh, returned at once to the old country, that he
might report as to their favorable fortunes and the gracious
disposition of the English government, and might organize
a much larger emigration of the people on the Rhine.
The success of his efforts was very soon made evident to
the astonished eyes of the English government and the
people of London. The roads leading northward from the
Palatinate swarmed with the moving multitudes. Thou
sands of them arrested their journey in Holland, and there
settled to add their numbers and virtues to those of that
sturdy little republic. Other thousands crowded across
the channel and flocked in upon London like an invading
horde, in effect saying to the English people, "Here we
are. What are you going to do with us?" It was a most
embarrassing question, which, be it said, received an
answer not less noble than in our times we have seen

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. I I
given by Christian philanthropy to the cries of starving
Ireland and slaughtered Armenia.
This emigration began in the early spring of 1 709,
and before the end of April about five thousand reached
London. Each month of the following summer brought
additions to their number, until by October the aggregate
had amounted to no less than fifteen thousand. The
incoming of this large number of people was to the
London of that day a most serious matter. The mere
question of accommodation was a grave one. There were
not inns enough to lodge them, and had these been found,
the people had not money to pay the reckoning. The
government had to take very active measures. A thou
sand tents from the army stores were pitched on Black-
heath and the Surrey side of the Thames for the shelter of a
large number. Others were lodged in empty warehouses
and barns. In some of the suburbs houses were built for
them, and to this day, or until very recently, four such
houses have remained, known to the vicinage as the
Palatine houses. Besides this matter of lodgement, the
authorities had to take order for the subsistence of this
army. With few exceptions the people were abjectly
poor, having lost their all by the ravages of the French.
Unless fed by English charity they would starve to death
in London streets. The Queen in council allowed from
the public purse six pence per day to each Palatine, and
issued briefs to the Churches in many parts of the
kingdom, calling for offerings to the support of this
benevolence. It is estimated that this . Palatine business
for subsistence in London, for transportation to America,
and for the maintenance of many of them in this country
during the following two years, cost the English govern
ment and people the, for that day, enormous sum of

12 THE PALATINE,
;^ 135,000. Considering the state of Christian culture of
the time, and the prevalent ideas as to the claims of
humanity, the records of history may be challenged to
produce an instance of charity more munificent than that.
Meanwhile, a committee composed of the highest
personages of the realm, among them the Arch bishop of
Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor, was charged with
the question of the future disposition of these people and
the supervision of whatever measures should be devised.
Confessedly, the people could not be maintained in
London for any great length of time.
Beyond doubt the objective of all the emigrants was
America, but fully one-third of the number did not
get beyond England. The pressure of their poverty, and
opening opportunities for work and service caused at least
five thousand to give up their original purpose. Many
enlisted in the English army and others distributed them
selves throughout the kingdom.
In August of 1709 twenty-eight hundred, at the
suggestion of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, were
transported over St. George's Channel and settled in the
north of Munster, founding there a settlement, which is to
this day of marked virtue, thrift and prosperity.
In the following September the Lords of Trade
received a proposition from two Swiss adventurers. Baron
de Graffenreid and Louis Michell, to settle seven hundred
of the Palatines upon the lands between Cape Fear and
the Neuse, to which they had obtained a patent from the
proprietaries of Carolina. The authorities eagerly
embraced the offer and made a contract with the Swiss
leaders, for the transportation and care of the Palatines,
which was very advantageous on paper to that people, and

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 1 3
rather onerous to the adventurers. In October this
company, with a smaller number of Swiss emigrants,
embarked for Carolina, and after a prosperous voyage
reached the Neuse, and not many miles from its mouth
founded their first settlement, to which was given the name
of New Berne, from the native city of their leaders. The
fortunes of this settlement need not be detailed. For
some years they had afflictions. An Indian massacre
destroyed about one hundred of their number. The terms
of the contract giving them lands were not fulfilled by De
Graffenreid, who in some way had ousted Michell and
seems to have designed founding a barony or manor, with
the emigrants as serfs or tenants.
He called himself Landgrave and, to the Indians,
King of the Palatines. But his tenure was short-lived.
Not realizing his hopes, he mortgaged the great estate and
retired either to Virginia or Europe. Some years after
wards the Palatines received their titles from the Legisla
ture of Carolina.
Later in the Autumn of 1709, another detachment of
the Palatines, but how large in numbers is not known, was
sent over to Virginia with Spotswood, when he came to
assume the governorship of that province. He settled
them on the upper reaches of the Rappahannock, giving to
the settlement the name of Germanna. It was suggested
to Spotswood by the Lords of Trade that he might make
the Palatines useful in the manufacture of wine from the
wild grapes, with which Her Majesty's province of
Virginia was said to abound, and thus "a trade be estab
lished which might be very beneficial to this kingdom. "
We hear nothing of attempts to follow out this suggestion.
Spotswood seems to have regarded these Palatines as his

14 THE PALATINE,
special wards. He opened iron mines for their employ
ment and built among them a lordly mansion, to which he
retired at the end of his term of office, and there spent the
rest of his days. The history and topography of Virginia
have abundant testimony of the permanent and sturdy
qualities, which these people brought to the regions of the
Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah.
Meanwhile, the government and London were grow
ing weary of the burden imposed by the Palatines. The
times were hard, work was scarce and bread was high ;
circumstances which caused much discontent and murmur
among the poor of London, who accentuated their outcries
with the bitter complaint that charities, which ought to
alleviate the wretchedness of English poor, were diverted
to a horde of lazy and worthless foreigners.
In the following year these murmurs got into Parlia
ment with certain disastrous and disgraceful results, which
shall soon be noted. For the present, it is evident that
they added urgency to the desire and inventive genius of
the government to find some proper disposition for the
balance of the Palatines. Hence also probably came the
thought that whatever was done for this remainder should
be with a purpose to, not only relieve the Palatines, but
also ensure some return to the government for its outlay.
The apparently happy solution of the perplexing
problem was suggested by Col. Robert Hunter, who in
November, 1709, had been appointed governor of New
York, to succeed Lovelace, the latter' s tenure of office
having been, cut short by death after but few months.
In some respects Hunter was the best of all the royal
Governors in the colonies, and certainly superior to any
other sent by the crown to the government of New

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 1 5
York. Intelligent, loyal, of strict honesty, with much
executive ability, ready to sacrifice himself in the discharge
of his difficult duties, and for the most part actuated by
principles of exact justice, he so acquitted himself in his
office, that the only blemish upon his administration is
found in his conduct towards the Palatines, after the ex
periment he proposed and instituted with them proved to
be disastrous. The proposition made by Hunter to the Lords of
Trade was to the effect that he should take with him to
New York the balance of the Palatines, and employ them
in the manufacture of naval stores — tar, pitch, turpentine
and rosin, — in the vast pine forest of that province. It
had long been both a great expense and a humiliation to
the English government, that for such supplies its navy,
which affected to be mistress of the Seas, should be
dependent upon the forests of Russia and Scandinavia.
The papers of the Board of Trade abound in urgencies
upon the colonial governors to do their utmost towards
the production of such stores in America. It was taken
for granted that the pines of the colonies were full of
resinous gums, needing only a sufficient number of work
men, with ax, bucket and kiln, to not only make the royal
navy independent on foreign supplies, but even to make
London the chief market of such stores to all the rest of
the world. Care was ordered to be taken that these
interests should be conserved, and that the colonial forests
should not be despoiled of such trees as were fit for masts,
spars and knees for the use of the Queen's ships.
The proposition of Hunter was welcomed with
enthusiasm by the Lords of Trade, who at once represented
to the Queen the immense advantages it promised. Steps

1 6 THE PALATINE,
were at once taken to put the scheme into effect and, what
was a new thing in the experience of the Palatines, a formal
contract for the business was made between them and the
Board of Trade. In the shipment of the Carolina company
of Palatines the contract was between the government and
the two Swiss adventurers, who were explicitly bound to
consult the comfort and do all things for the interests of
the "poor Palatines, " while the Palatines themselves were
bound to no service and only required to repay, after seven
years, the money advanced for the stocking of their farms.
But in the contract under Hunter the Palatines them
selves were the party of the second part, and bound
themselves to service among the American pines in the
production of naval stores, under the direction of the
governor. They were to be fed and clothed by the government,
and should labor at the stipulated work until they had
repaid the expenses of transportation and maintenance.
Each man was to receive £$ and forty acres of land at the
time of settlement, and was not to leave the place on which
the Governor should settle them or fail to labor faithfully,
without his consent.
Meanwhile, another circumstance occurred, of which
the government made but little, but which the Palatines
considered of great importance, and which exercised upon
their after-fortunes a great and determining influence. While
these people were in London, waiting the disposition of
the government, there arrived a notable embassage from
America. The people of the province of New York,
esteeming that the mother country did not use all proper
energies to protect the province from the inroads of the
French from Canada and the hostile Indians, sent Co.,

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 1 7
Peter Schuyler, Mayor of Albany, and Col. Nicholson of
the provincial army, to represent their needs in person, as
it was thought, more effectively than could be done by
any written appeal. Col. Schuyler, in planning his
mission, conceived the happy thought that, if he could
induce some Indians to accompany the embassy, their
presence would arouse public interest and have an
influence towards the success of his errand. With some
difficulty he persuaded five Mohawk chiefs to go to
England with himself and Nicholson, and found that he
had not rashly discounted the influence of his dusky
companions. Both government and people were intensely
interested, and the former engaged to furnish all the
assistance asked, a promise not fulfilled.
The story runs that these Indians observed the poor
Palatines in London and, being moved with pity for their
destitute condition, gave to the Queen 20,000 acres in the
valley of Schoharie, on which to settle them. Of this offer
there is no record in the official documents, the report
coming to us only through the avenue of Palatine state
ment. It is certain, however, that either this gift, or one
similar was made ; that before the Palatines left London it
was understood among them that Schoharie was their
destination ; that the authorities entertained the intention
at first, of settling them in that valley; and that in the
midst of all the tribulations of the people, during their first
three years in America, Schoharie was the goal of their
hope, and the watchword of their rebellion.
About the first of January, 17 10, the expedition left
England. The number of the Palatines was about 3000,
the largest single emigration to this country in the
colonial period. They were embarked in ten ships, two or

1 8 THE PALATINE,
three of which were war vessels, and on one of which was
Gov. Hunter. The voyage was stormy and of long
duration. The ships were separated and driven about by
adverse winds, so that the first to reach New York, the
ship "Lyon," did not enter that port until the middle of
June. The whole list was not accounted for until a month
later. As a consequence of this tedious voyage, in
crowded quarters, with foul air and insufficient food, a
dreadful mortality seized upon the wretched emigrants.
Before they reached port one out of every six of their
company had been buried in the sea.
All the ships arrived safely in New York, with the
exception of the frigate Herbert, which was cast ashore on
either Long, or Block, Island. The wreck of this ship is
undoubtedly the origin of the Block Island legend, which
Whittier has embalmed in his charming little poem, "The
Palatine." By a curious heterophemy the legend, losing
all sight of the people, has given their name to the ship,
which is described as a merchantman laden with goodly
cargo, which the wreckers have decoyed ashore by false
beacons, have rifled and burned. But the spirit of the lost
ship remains and at times appears upon the sea, the
phantom of a full rigged ship on fire.
"Behold, again, with shimmer and shine.
Over the rocks and the seething brine
The flaming wreck of the Palatine.
******
Now low and dim, now clear and higher,
Leaps up the terrible ghost of fire,
Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire.
And the wise Sound Skippers, tho skies be fine.
Reef their sails when they see the sign
Of the blazing wreck of the Palatine."

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 1 9
By the middle of July, 1710, all the survivors of the
Palatines, about 2400 in number, were encamped on that
island in the harbor of New York, which is now called
Governor's Island, but was then named Nutten, Here
they remained about four months, and for their regulation
the governor appointed from their own number seven
magistrates, the chief of whom in influence, if not in rank,
was John Conrad Weiser, who for ten years thereafter
proved to be their ruling spirit. Having settled the Palat
ines on Nutten Island, Hunter at once despatched a com
mission to discover a proper place of settlement, in which
the people could be employed at the destined occupation,
and it is significant that this commission went at once,
under the Governor's orders, to inspect the valley of the
Schoharie. Pending the return of the prospectors, the Governor
was compelled to resort to a measure which, however
proper and just, entailed much bitterness of feeling among
the Palatines. This was the apprenticing of Palatine
children. Many children had been left orphans by the
mortality at sea, and the measure adopted was the only
thing possible. It is probable that some harshness was
used, and that some families whose parents survived were
invaded, as was the case with the family of Weiser, from
which was taken a son, of whom from the day of his
indenture the family had no knowledge whatsoever. One'
of these apprenticed children afterwards became famous
and conferred upon his adopted country a blessing, the
value of which cannot be over-estimated. This was John
Peter Zenger, who was apprenticed to William Bradford,
the New York printer. Twenty years after, Zenger had
set up in the printing business for himself, and in 1733,
during one of the periodical quarrels between the royal

20 THE PALATINE,
governor, at that time Governor Cosby, and the Assembly,
he started a newspaper in the interest of the Assembly and
the people. He used great freedom of discussion, with no
little caustic comment on the governor's party, with the
result that he was thrown into prison. When the grand jury
refused to indict him, a criminal information was filed
against him by the Attorney General. The two New York
lawyers, who undertook his defense, were thrown out of
court by an angry and biased bench, and the friends of
Zenger brought from Philadelphia the famous Andrew
Hamilton, then over eighty years old, but in the full
possession of all his noble powers. The result of Hamilton's
plea was, in the teeth of an adverse charge, the trium
phant acquittal of Zenger, since whose day the Freedom
of the Press in America has never been seriously
called in question. It is interesting to note that the
foundation for this great bulwark of liberty was thus laid
for our country by the hand of a Palatine.
When the prospectors returned from their trip to the
north, they reported to Hunter that, while there was plenty
of land and of pine at Schoharie, yet the difficulty of
carriage of the hoped for naval stores was such as to
forbid the settlement of the people in that valley. So the
Governor was perplexed, until he fell in with Robert
Livingston of the Manor, who proposed to him the
purchase of 6,000 acres of his own lands on the Hudson,
about one hundred miles up the river. The Earl of
Clarendon, formerly Lord Cornbury and Governor of
New York, comments on Hunter's bargain with Livingston,
that the Governor " fell into very ill hands." History
compels the verdict that, despite the Earl's personal rancor
against the Patroon, his judgment in this matter was just.
Livingston was one of the ablest, shrewdest, most

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 21
ambitious, covetous and unscrupulous men in the colony.
He rarely came out of a transaction with clean hands, but
he always brought them full. He was the only person
who took any advantage by this Palatine business, adding
much to an already large fortune ; while the poor Palatines
were reduced to indescribable misery, and the over
credulous Governor to bankruptcy and disgrace. Hunter
accepted Livingston's offer and before the winter closed in,
settled the Palatines, except about two hundred who
remained in New York, some 1200 on the Manor, and the
balance of them on the opposite side of the river in the
bounds of the present town of Saugerties. For a while the
two settlements were known as the East and West Camps,
names which still survive.
There is not time to dilate on the details of Palatine
experience on the Manor. Their woes began promptly.
An inclement winter fell upon them unhoused and
ill-clad. Livingston, who had taken the contract for their
sustenance, was more particular about his percentages
than about the quality of food and clothes supplied. For
two years the people suffered miserably, and were in a
perpetual state of revolt against those whom they regarded
as oppressors. The dream of Schoharie, which had
charmed them in London, reasserted its attractive invita
tions. They demanded to be sent to the lands given to
the Queen for them, and on which the Queen meant that
they should settle. They complained of their treatment as
slaves, and of the folly of making tar where no tar could
be made. On two occasions the Governor sent soldiers to
put down their turbulence, and adopted such measures as re
duced them to a state of serfdom. In two years came the col
lapse, the complete break-down of the enterprise. From the
beginning it was doomed to failure. Hunter brought with

22 THE PALATINE,
him ;^8ooo as the first installment of the government's
investment. When this sum was exhausted and remittance
from London was delayed, the Governor pledged his
personal fortune, drawing bills upon London in his own
name. His wife's fortune also was sunk in the same sea.
He had a child-like confidence that his English employers
would make good these advances. But, because of the
objections in Parliament, not another penny beyond that
first installment would the government bestow upon the
Palatines, and the Governor, whose advances had been to
the amount of ^25,000, was left in such penury and debt
that his office alone protected him from arrest and prison.
So the funds failed and the work had to cease. But had
money been plentiful, it was soon demonstrated that the
effort was useless. The northern pines of America are not
sufficiently resinous to make such a work remunerative.
The whole outlay of the government and Hunter in this
business resulted in less than sixty barrels of tar.
When the funds thus failed the Governor sent orders
to arrest the work and to tell the Palatines to seek work
for themselves from other sources, but, still hopeful that
the Board of Trade would yet take up his paper and
permit renewal, he charged them to remain within call, on
the possibility of such resumption. But this they were
unwilling to do. They were weary of both starving and
villeinage and had no faith in tar making. The moment
was opportune for seeking their promised land of
Schoharie. About one third of their number on the
Manor settled permanently in that neighborhood, progeni
tors of the citizens of Germantown and contiguous villages.
Some of this third went south of the Manor, because
Livingston refused titles to their lands, wishing to keep
them in tenancy, and founded the town of Rhinebeck.

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 23
The others on the Manor, about two thirds of all,
determined for Schoharie. They first sent a delegation of
their so-called "chiefs," of whom John Conrad Weiser was
the leader, to visit the valley of their choice and bring
back a report. This mission was accomplished in the fall
of 1 71 2, and the chiefs returned with enthusiastic de
scriptions of a spot, which for beauty and fertility is not
surpassed by any region in the state of New York. They
reported also that the Indians of the neighborhood had
received them kindly, and had given a deed for the land.
At once preparations for removal were begun, and the
journey through deep snows and over forest-covered
mountains undertaken. Early in March, 171 3, the two
companies into which the emigrants had been divided,
were united again in the valley of their hope. There is
much that is pathetic in the accounts preserved of their
experience on the Manor, and of the disappointment which
overwhelmed them, when in Schoharie they found that
their afflictions had not ceased.
For this disappointment they had to thank Gov.
Hunter, whose attitude towards them had already begun
to be that of an oppressor. The Governor was intensely
angry when he learned that the people had taken their
way to the Schoharie, to which for months they had been
clamoring he should send them.. He allowed his anger to
obscure his usual sense of justice. Seeing the departure
from the field of the workers by whom alone he could
hope, by a possible resumptioil of the work, to retrieve his
broken fortunes, and smarting under the wrongs received
from the English ministry, whom he could not touch, he
determined to revenge himself upon the poor Palatines,
who equally with himself were victims of the government's

24 THE PALATINE,
broken faith. Unable to bring them back by proclamation
or by force, he was resolved that, wherever else they went,
the beloved Schoharie should not be theirs.
The method pursued was as cruel as it was perfidious.
It must be noted that when the Palatines entered the
valley not a claim was made by any white man to a single
acre of its upland and meadow. Obtaining a deed from
the only owner, the Indian, they set themselves to building'
houses and breaking the soil. But by reason of their en
trance there had gone abroad a rumor of the great beauty of
these fertile flats, and there were men of sufficient cupidity
to seek from the governor patents to the valley. He was
all too ready to grant them. Six months after the Palatine
occupancy, one Adam Vrooman of Schenectady received
a large section by patent, and within the next four years
two patents were granted to five gentlemen of Albany and
two of New York, covering all the rest of the land which
the Palatines had occupied, or to which they laid claim
through their own purchase from the Indians. The
grantees of these two patents entered into agreement of
union and were spoken of as "the seven partners." This
action on the part of these gentlemen was simply a land
speculatioa to force rent or purchase money from the poor
people already in possession. On the part of the Governor
it was pure vindictiveness, to distress those who were in no
wise responsible for the ruin of his scheme. Afterwards
he showed no relenting, and had the duplicity in reports
to London to represent, that the Palatines had gone from
the Manor in a tumultuous fashion and taken possession of
lands "already granted to certain gentlemen of Albany."
The story of the struggle between the Palatines and
the Patentees, with many amusing and many pathetic

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 25
passages is too long for recital here. It continued for ten
years, a constantly losing battle for the people with all the
power of the Governor and all the authority of the courts
against them. No opening for escape appeared until,
after 1720, Hunter left the province and was succeeded by
Gov. Burnet.
The new Governor set himself to appease the
difficulties, but found that the legal rights of the patentees
and the stubborn sense of wrong in the Palatine breast
admitted, for the most of them, of removal to a new
location as the only remedy. For this purpose he issued
a grant, buttressed by an Indian deed, to lands upon the
Mohawk, stretching for twenty miles westward from
Canajoharie and reaching north and south of the river "as
far as the settlers wished." About the same time as the
issuance of this grant there occurred in Albany a great
council with the chiefs of the Six Nations and the
governors of New York and Pennsylvania. Gov. Keith of
Pennsylvania, while attending this council, learned of the
troubles of the Palatines and offered them an asylum in his
province, assuring them of secure houses and kindly
treatment, instancing also the happy fortunes of a small
band of Germans, who had recently come to Philadelphia
and had settled about 60 miles west of Philadelphia.
Thus two avenues were opened. But each involved a
third removal and the surrender of all the labor of ten
years. About one-third of the people, concluding that to
compound with their oppressors was better than such
removal, made terms either by lease or purchase of the
lands which already were their own. The remainder were
about equally divided, one part for the Mohawk and the

26 THE PALATINE,
rest for Pennsylvania. The former settled themselves
along that river and for years constituted a strong frontier
against Indian and French attack, and founded flourishing
communities, whose names, such as Herkimer, Palatine
and German Flats, still preserve the memory of those sturdy
pioneers, who loved liberty and refused to submit to
wrong. Out of their number Sir William Johnson organ
ized nine military companies, known as the Palatine
companies, which rendered invaluable service in the
defence of the province. Afterwards, when the struggles of
the Revolution began. Sir Guy Johnson endeavored to
swing these Palatines to the side of the crown. But they
were not to be seduced from their love of freedom. They
constituted a large portion of the force which General
Herkimer, himself the son of a Palatine emigrant, led to
the battle of Oriskany, a battle characterized by Fiske as
"the most obstinate and murderous of the Revolution." It
was a technical defeat indeed, but yet a defeat that was
equal to a victory, demolishing the plans of the British
campaign, sending St. Leger back to Oswego and deliver
ing Burgoyne into the hands of Gates.
Of those who made choice of Pennsylvania, Conrad
Weiser was easily the chief. During the Schoharie struggle
his father, John Conrad, had gone to England to make a
fruitless appeal to the crown. He returned after five years
of much suffering, broken in health and spirit, and the son
Conrad, succeeded to the leadership. Young Conrad was
twelve years old when the Palatines left their native land,
was educated by his father, who had been a magistrate in
the Palatinate, and early showed the possession of qualities
of a high order, quick intelligence, a deep religious sense,
a logical mind, a strong will, sound judgment and great
executive ability. In his youth at Schoharie he spent

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 27
much time with the Indians, learned their language and
secured their friendship. This familiarity proved after
wards of immense benefit in Pennsylvania, where he
became intimately associated with provincial affairs, and in
all dealings with the Indians was the counselor and agent
of the Governor. He was also associated with Franklin in
educational and other colonial interests, and took a leading
part in the founding and extension of the Lutheran Church
in Pennsylvania. There are indeed few names in the
colonial history of that province more worthy of honor
than that of Weiser.
The Pennsylvania contingent left Schoharie in two
parties, one in 1722 and the other in the following year.
Following up the stream southward for a few miles, they
struck an Indian trail over the mountains to the upper
waters of th6 Susquehanna. There they constructed
canoes and batteaux for the carriage of the most of the
company and their goods, while some of the men keeping
near the river drove before them their horses and cattle.
A Schoharie legend recites that, in the following year,
twelve of these horses found their own way back to the
Schoharie, their souls lusting after the rich clover of its
meadows. Having made their boats, the greater portion of
the company embarked upon the peaceful river and quietly
floated down its course through the wildness of lower
New York, unpeopled, save by wandering Mohawks
and Delawares, through the beautiful Wyoming Valley,
forty years before Connecticut made its first token
of occupation and settlement ; until just beyond the site of
the present city of Harrisburg, they entered the Swatara,
and so upward to the Tulpehocken and the lands secured
from the Indian Sassouan. Here they founded Womels-
dorf and Heidelberg, and in the next two decades, with

28 THE PALATINE,
their children and thousands of their kinsmen from the
Fatherland, spread themselves abroad through the counties
of Lebanon and Berks.
It must be noted that previous to this migration from
Schoharie, several companies of Germans had come to
Pennsylvania. Most of them — indeed so far as appears, all
save one — were small bands of religionists, whose peculiar
views made life a burden in the old country. As early as
1685 a company of Mennonites settled at Germantown, giv
ing the spot its name. About the same time Labadists from
Friesland settled in New Castle County, Delaware, then a
part of Pennsylvania. Ten years after, Kelpins brought a
band of Pietists and planted them on the banks of the
Wissahickon : while in 17x9 a company of Dunkers settled
in Germantown beside the Mennonites. About 171 2
another company of Germans came to Philadelphia and
passed over into New Jersey, having New York as their
objective, but were so charmed with the rolling lands of
Morris County that they quietly took possession. Other
religious sects were afterwards added — the New-born, the
disciples of Ephrata, and the Schwenkfelders — closing the
list with the large and beneficent incoming of the Moravians
which began in 1735.
It is impossible to connect any of these companies,
unless we may except that which settled in New Jersey,
with the Palatines. They came from other parts of Ger
many and from diverse motives. At the same time it is
reasonably clear that the immense tide of German immi
gration, which after 1 720 set into Pennsylvania, was largely
Palatine and was controlled as to its destination by the
reports of kindly treatment received by its forerunners at
the hands of the Quakers.

OR GERMAN, IMMIGRATION. 29
The movement was organized on a large scale. A '
committee on transportation was formed at Rotterdam,
between which port and Philadelphia the ships bringing
constantly increasing numbers plied with almost the
regularity of a ferry, through nearly every summer down
to 1750. It is amusing to observe that they avoided New
York as though it was the home, of pestilence. Over that
province, in Palatine imagination, hung the cloud of
cruelty and sorrow. In all the period noted but one of
their ships, compelled by storm, entered the mouth of the
Hudson ; on which vessel it needs to be mentioned, was the
emigrant Erghimer, who gave his son Nicholas Herkimer
to New York and to the nation.
So great and continuous was the stream of people
from the Palatinate that the Elector 'became alarmed lest
his dominions should be depopulated, and denounced
death on any who should attempt migration, a threat that
had small effect. The people stole away as in the night.
So great also was the influx to Philadelphia that the
authorities there became alarmed, lest so large numbers of
foreigners would corrupt the manners of the people of the
colony, and perhaps "steal the province from beneath the
sceptre of His Sacred Majesty King George." The
subject caused much and heated debate in the colonial
assembly, till finally a bill was passed forbidding the
immigration. This bill the Governor vetoed on the
ground of its cruelty. As a sort of safe-guard a measure
was adopted quite unique in colonial legislation. As
every Palatine ship arrived, the names and members of its
passengers were reported to the clerk of assembly, and
every one of them was required to subscribe the oath of
allegiance to King George. To no other immigrants to
Anterica was accorded such a precautionary welcome, and

30 THE PALATINE.
of no others exists in the public archives the record of
their coming. The original lists containing over 30,000
names are still preserved at Harrisburg, and have been
published in the Pennsylvania archives, 2d series, vol.
XVII, and also by Rupp.
There is here no time to dwell on the influence
exerted by these people on the State of their adoption. It
goes without the saying that with their industry, thrift,
tenacity of purpose and religious habitude, such influence
could not be otherwise than beneficent. Many names,
such as Weiser, Muhlenburg, Heister, Heintzleman, and
others, suggest something of what strain of quality existed
in the Palatine blood. Benjamin Franklin testified before
the House of Commons that no people in Pennsylvania
had wrought more than these Germans for the prosperity
of the province.

YALE UNIVERSITY