Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley
by Nelson Greene
O'Connor Brothers Publishers, Fort Plain, NY 1915

CHAPTER VII.
1772-Tryon County People-Farming, Religious and Social Life-Sports and Pastimes of the Days Before the Revolution.

There is a large element of population in the valley today which is descended from what we call the "Mohawk Dutch," for want of a better name. It has strong virtues and like all other strains of humanity certain deficiencies. Both were noted by early writers. However it is difficult to imagine a population better suited to stand the brunt of those early hardships and struggles. They made ideal frontiersmen, as a rule good soldiers and founders of American institutions and liberty in government, strong in their political and religious Ideals. If they are, at that early date, criticised in their farming methods or for the number of the "tippling houses" they supported, the hardships of turning a great forest country into a civilized farming section must be borne in mind. They produced public leaders of integrity with high, unselfish ideals and the quality of their minds, as shown in their acts and writings, proved them men in every sense of the word. Necessarily of bodily strength and vigor, the average of their masculinity and equipment tor true men's work was of a standard to be envied by the male population of today. They showed some inclination toward learning which writers say, at the Revolution, had resulted in the establishment of schools in many of their valley settlements.

Both Palatines and Dutch had suffered untold hardships for their religion. In defense of their Reformed faith in their European homes they had been murdered, robbed and persecuted to the utmost limit. The presence of the Palatines in their Mohawk valley homes was largely due to these tacts. Under such circumstances they took their religion seriously. Mostly of the Calvinistic belief they established Reformed churches and some of the Lutheran faith in the valley shortly after their settlement. At the birth of Fort Plain, in the Canajoharie and Palatine districts, there were Reformed churches at Fort Plain (1750), at St. Johnsvllle (1756) and at Stone Arabia (1711). Lutheran churches were at Stone Arabia (established between 1711 and 1732) and at Caroga Creek, now Palatine Church (in 1770). Near the Canajoharie castle (now Indian Castle) a church, largely for the use of the Indians, had been erected under the auspices of Sir William Johnson. The dominies of that day were frequently men of strong character and fit leaders of the spiritual and intellectual life of their parishioners. The labors of those of the Reformed faith have resulted in making the Mohawk valley one of the strongest districts of that church. The life of the Reformed church of Sand Hill (now of Fort Plain) is closely bound up with that of the fort built close to it and it was just out of gunshot of the post that it was burned during- the Tory and Indian raid in 1780. Preaching in these churches was in either the German or Dutch language or in both at intervals. After the Revolution English was introduced and, in some churches, preaching was in all three languages until English supplanted the others in the early nineteenth century.

That early farming methods in the Mohawk valley were open to criticism is shown by the following letter to the English Society for the Promotion of the Arts by Sir William Johnson, dated Johnson Hall, Feb. 27, 1765. The letter In part follows:

"The state of Agriculture in this country is very low, and in short likely to remain so to the great Detriment of the Province, which might otherwise draw many resources from so extensive and valuable a Country, but the turn of the old settlers here is not much calculated for improvement, content with the meer necessaries of Life, they dont chuse to purchase its superfluities at the expence of Labour, neither will they hazard the smallest matter for the most reasonable prospect of gain, and this principle will probably subsist as long as that of their equality, which is at present at such a pitch that the conduct of one neighbor can but little influence that of another.

"Wheat which in my opinion must shortly prove a drug, is in fact what they principally concern themselves about and they are not easily to be convinced that the Culture of other articles will tend more to their advantage. If a few of the Machines made use of for the breaking of hemp was distributed a mongst those who have Land proper for the purpose it might give rise to the culture of it- or if one only properly constructed was sent as a model, it might Stir up a spirit of Industry amongst them, but Seed is greatly wanted, & Cannot be procured in these parts, and the Germans (who are most Industrious people here) are in general in too low circumstances to concern themselves in anything attended with the smallest Expence, their Plantations being as yet in their infancy, & with regard to the old Settlers amongst the Germans who live farther to the Westward, they have generally adopted the Sentiments of the rest of the inhabitants. The country Likewise labours under the disadvantage of narrow, and (in many places) bad roads, which would be still worse did I not take care that the inhabitants laboured to repair them according to law. The ill Condition of Public roads is a Great obstruction to husbandry; the high wages of labouring men, and the great number of tepling houses are likewise articles which very much want Regulation. These disagreeable circumstances must for some time retard the Progress of husbandry. I could heartily wish I had more leisure to attend to these necessary articles of improvements to promote which my Influence and Example should not be wanting. I have formerly had pease very well split at my mills, and I shall set the same forward amongst the people as far as I can. I have Likewise sent for Collections of many Seeds, and useful grasses which I shall Encourage them to raise, and from the great wants of stock, even for home use, & Consumption, I am doing all I can to turn the inhabitants to raising these necessary articles, for the purchase of which, a good deal of Cash has hither to been annually carried into the N. England Collonies.

"Before I set the Examples, no farmer on the Mohock River ever raised so much as a single Load of Hay, at present some raise above one Hundred, the like was the case in regard to sheep, to which they were intire strangers until I introduced them, & I have the Satisfaction to see them at present possess many other articles, the result of my former Labors for promoting their welfare and interests. My own tenants amounting to about 100 Families are not as yet in circumstances to do much, they were settled at great Expence and hazard during the heat of [French] War, and it was
principally (I may venture to affirm, solely) owing- to their residence & mine, that the rest of the inhabitants did not all abandon their settlements at that Distressful Period; But tho' my Tennants are considerably in my Debt, I shall yet give them all the assistance I can for encouraging any useful Branches of Husbandry, which I shall contribute to promote thro'out the rest of the Country to the utmost of my power, and Communicate to you any material article which may occur upon that 'Subject.' "

At the period of this letter and in the following decade a few grist and saw mills and similar industries were springing up in the valley where there was convenient water power. This letter gives us a vivid portrayal of one of New York's most interesting and sterling provincial characters, as well as the farming conditions in the Tryon county of that time and in its Canajoharie and Palatine districts.

Pioneer life was as hard as human life could well be. It required the strongest types of manhood, womanhood and even childhood to clear and cultivate this great wooded wilderness. First went up the log house cabins and barns to be followed later by those of stone and sawn lumber. After the sturdy woodman felled the trees they were burned of their limbs and leaves and the ground was left strewn with their blackened trunks. To pile these together, when dry enough, so that another firing would consume them was the dirty job of "logging up." It was largely done by "bees," to which the frontiersmen rallied in numbers adequate to the heavy work to be done. Severe as that was, an afternoon at it left the young men with vim enough for a wrestling match, after they had rested long enough to devour the generous supper with which the housewife feasted them.

The grain grown on the fields thus laboriously cleared was threshed with the flail or by driving horses over it and winnowed by dropping it through a natural draft of air Instead of the artificial draft of the fanning mill. When ready for market it was mostly drawn to Albany, some three days being required for the journey. Rude lumber wagons or ox carts, or wood shod sleighs were the common vehicles for all occasions. Much of the grain also went down the river by batteaux to Schenectady.

A variety of work then went on Indoors as well as out, which long ago ceased generally to be done in private houses. Every good mother taught her daughters a broad range of domestic duties, from washing dishes and log cabin floors to weaving and making up fine linen. The home was the factory as well and in it took place the making from flax and wool of the fabrics which the household needed. The houses resounded with the hum of the spinning wheel and loom and other machinery which the housewives used to make the family garments. The entire family were proud to appear in this goodly homespun even at church. Itinerant shoemakers made tours of the farmhouses, working at each place as long as the family footgear demanded, this being known as "whipping the cat." Common brogans were worn for the most part by the settlers. Many of the vegetables cultivated by their Mohawk Indian predecessors were adopted by their German and Dutch successors. Without tea or coffee, they made a drink of dried peas and sweetened it with maple sugar, the procuring of which they learned from the red man.

In regard to Christmas time in the valley the missionary Kirkland wrote as follows In his diary in 1789:

"The manner in wch. ye ppl. in yse parts keep Xmas day in commemor'g of the Birth of ye Saviour, as ya'pre- tend is very affect'g and strik'g. They generally assemble for read'g prayers, or Divine service-but after, they eat drink and make merry. They allow of no work or servile labour on ye day and ye following-their servants are free-but drinking, swearing, fighting and frolic'g are not only allowed, but seem to be essential to ye joy of ye day,"

The most common beverages drunk by the men of Revolutionary times were "flip" and "kill devil." "Flip" was made of beer brewed from malt and hops, to which was added sugar and liquor-the whole heated with a hot iron. "Kill devil" was made like flip, except that cider was substituted for beer. The price of each was one York shilling for a quart mug. Half a mug usually served two persons.

Freemasonry had a foothold in the valley prior to the Revolution and Sir William Johnson and Col. Nicholas Herkimer were both members of the Johnstown lodge. Also as showing the wilderness state of the country, it is said that wolves were so common in Dutchtown in the town of Minden that sheep had to be folded nights as late as 1773. All the wild animals of the present Adirondack wilderness were numerous about the Mohawk settlements in their earliest days.

Schools were located in many of the Tryon county settlements at the beginning of the Revolution. The first pedagogue in Dutchtown was John Pickard. As showing the early settlers' superstitions regarding sanitation and medical practise it may here be related that after Fort Wlllett was built he kept school in a hut within the palisade. Toward the close of the war he sickened and died of some disease prevalent in the fort at that time. A lad named Owen, living in the Henry Sanders family, caught a live skunk, which was set at liberty in the tort and "the disease was stayed." After the war, a Hessian named Glazier, who came into the state under Burgoyne, kept the Dutchtown school instructing in both German and English. Such instruction was probably mostly confined to the three Rs. School punishments were extremely severe and whipping a scholars' hands with a ruler until they bled was no unusual means of correction. One Palatine boy is said to have been so whipped in school on eighteen different occasions.

That a Tryon county woman could handle a gun is shown by an anecdote of the wife of the brave Captain Gardiner, of Oriskany fame, who lived near Fultonville: "His wife, like many of her sex on the frontier, on an emergency, could use firearms. On some occasion, when her husband was away from home in the service of his country, she saw from her house a flock of pigeons alighting upon the fence and ground not far off. She resolved to give them a salute and, hastily loaded an old musket, forgetting to draw out the ramrod. She left the house cautiously, gained a position within close gunshot, aimed at the pigeons on the fence, and blazed away. To her own surprise, and that of several of her family, who, from the window saw her fire, seven of the birds sitting upon a rail were spitted on the ramrod in which condition they were taken to the house."

As befitted frontiersmen, their sports were rough and violent. They included rifle contests, wrestling, foot racing and horse racing. Horse races, on tracks and on the river ice, were greatly in vogue in the latter half of the eighteenth century, excepting the war period. The Low Dutch of the eastern end of the valley were famed for horse racing and even tor running their horses from the foot of every hill two-thirds of the way up. Often between Schenectady and Albany were several farm wagons or sleighs trying titles for leadership at the hazard of a serious collision. Of this class of citizens at Schenectady was the well-to-do burgher Charick Van de Bogert, an old gentleman of worthy but eccentric character. He had a fine sleigh on the back of which was painted in Dutch the words, "Not to lend today but tomorrow." He had a span of horses named Cowper and Crown, which he raced successfully and which responded intelligently to his whip signals for the start and finish of a brush on the road. In his last illness, his affection for his team, induced the family to have the horses brought to his window where he patted them and bade them good-bye. He then turned to a close friend who was with him and asked him to drive the bier to the burial plot behind his beloved team, Instead of having male bearers for Van de Bogert requested his friend to touch the horses with his gad after a certain manner at a set point in the road and to again touch them in a different fashion at a farther point. Shortly after this the old gentleman expired and his funeral arrangements were ordered according to his wish. The friend who drove the hearse obeyed the deceased's wishes as to the whip signals. The well-trained team responded and the worthy Dutchman made his final earthly ride behind his well-loved span at the racing clip in which he delighted.

There were favorite race-courses in the valley, near Rotterdam, at Fort Hunter, at Conyne's tavern on the north river side a few miles further up. At Sand Flats, at Caughnawaga or Fonda was one of the most frequented. In the Canajoharie-Palatine districts there ware race courses at Seebers Lane, on the flats at Canajoharie and at George Wagner's flats in Palatine. Every fall at Herkimer, horse racing was held on the flats at that place and it is not improbable that annual meetings such as these were the nuclei of the later county fairs. Such events were also common in the Schoharie valley. There was much drinking and gambling at all these races and the crowds assembled like those seen at county fairs.

There is every evidence that the men of those days had mighty athletes among them who were developed by the hard life of the day. Instead of by modern training methods. Besides the foregoing sports and the usual crude field sports such as jumping, hurling the stone, etc., fighting bouts for purses were not uncommon.

A few years before the death of Sir William Johnson, he had in his employ a fellow countryman named Mc- Carthy, who was reputed the best pugilist in the Mohawk valley. The baronet offered to pit him against anyone. Malor Jelles Fonda, tired of hearing this challenge, unearthed a mighty Dutchman named John Van Loan, in the Schoharle valley and made a journey of some fifty miles to secure him. Van Loan agreed, to enter the ring for a ten-pound note. A big crowd assembled at Caughnawaga to see the contest. There was much betting, particularly on McCarthy. Van Loan appeared in a shirt and tight-fitting breeches of dressed deerskin. McCarthy tried hard but the Schoharie fighter was too strong and agile and eventually soundly whipped Sir William's pet, who had to be carried from the ring. This was probably one of many pugilistic and wrestling contests witnessed by crowds of settlers. Brutal they were but they were the physical expression of sport among men of iron and should not be judged by the tender standards of a delicate and soft age.

It will, of course, be understood that fishing, trapping and hunting, formed a large part of the vocations of the earliest settlers, who also availed themselves largely of the skins of game for clothing and other purposes, deerskin or buckskin forming a large part of this attire, particularly for sport or work in the woods.

Autumn husking bees and country dances were recreations of the river side folks and it is easy to see that here was no Puritan community but one which enjoyed the good things of life, after periods of strenuous toil. Barns and dwelling's were raised by "bees" In which the neighborhood participated. Sports, dancing and solid and liquid refreshments followed in profusion. The final feast seemed an indispensable part of all social and most religious observances.

As the Dutch were such a considerable portion of the valley population, particularly In the eastern end and were scattered largely through the remainder some idea of their characteristics may be gained from Mrs. Grant's word pictures of life, In Albany in the middle of the eighteenth century, included in her "Memoirs of an American Lady." These things would apply to the Low Dutch of the town of Schenectady or, with a rural setting, to those in other parts of the valley and we must remember that the Dutch influence and customs owere very strong in every part of the state in those days, including Tryon county.

Mrs. Grant says that the houses were very neat within and without and were of stone or brick. The streets were broad and lined with shade trees. Each house had its garden and before each door a tree was planted and shaded the stoops or porches, which were furnished with spacious seats on which domestic groups were seated on summer evenings. Each family had a cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town. At evening the herd returned altogether of their own accord, with their tinkling bells hung at their necks, along the wide and grassy street, to their wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their master's doors. On pleasant evenings the stoops were filled with groups of old and young of both sexes discussing grave questions or gayly chatting and singing together. The mischievous gossip was unknown for Intercourse was so free and friendship so real that there was no place for such a creature, and politicians seldom disturbed these social gatherings. A peculiar social custom arranged the young people in congenial companies, composed of equal numbers, of both sexes, quite small children being admitted, and the association continued until maturity. The result was a perfect knowledge of each other and happy and suitable marriages resulted. The summer amusements of the young were simple, the principal one being picnics, often held upon the pretty islands near Albany or in "the bush." These were days of pure enjoyment for everybody was unrestrained by conventionalities. In winter the frozen Hudson would be alive with merry skaters of both sexes. Small evening parties were frequent and were generally the sequel of quilting parties. The young men sometimes enjoyed convivial parties at taverns but habitual drunkenness was extremely rare.

Slavery was common in the valley and some plantations had a score or more slaves. The price of labor was so enormously high, because of the sparse population, that the Importation of negroes had become a prime industrial necessity and they were then very numerous in the province of New York. Mrs. Grant speaks of slavery in Albany and her remarks are pertinent to the valley as well. She says: "African slavery was seen at Albany and vicinity in its mildest form. It was softened by gentleness and mutual attachments. It appeared patriarchial and a real blessing to the negroes. Master and slave stood in the relation of friends. Immoralities were rare. There was no hatred engendered by neglect, cruelty and injustice; and such excitements as the 'Negro Plots' of 1712 and 1741 in New York city were impossible. Industry and frugality ranked among the cardinal virtues of the people."

These seem to have been negro slave conditions in thia- section up to 1827, when slavery was finally abolished in New York. The slaves were allowed much liberty and had their full share of celebrations and jollifications such as Christmas and New Year. Many were freed by their owners, for good service or other reasons and in all the local records we find few incidents of cruelty or abuse on the part of the white man to the black. There is an instance of a slave woman born in the Herkimer family at Danube who lived for years in Little Falls and was looked after and finally buried by the Herkimer grandchildren of her early master.

A number of conditions tended to mold public thought into a Revolutionary form. There were discouragements to settlement and some of the English governors had been avaricious, bigoted and tyrannical. The lavish grants of much of the best land to their favorites and tools were special hindrances to the rapid increase of population. The holders of large estates rated their lands so high that poorer persons could neither buy or lease farms.

It is not the province of this account to treat in detail of the grants of land In Tryon county. Suffice to Bay that these transactions frequently seemed to be honey-combed, with every form of corruption known to Colonial adventurers and crooks. Such methods were well exemplified in the Corry patent which, tradition has it, was secured in part by Gov. Clarke tor himself, although it wag against the Colonial law for a governor to acquire land by free grant. This is the well known property which was the scene of so much miserable trouble, arson and crime during the years of its last proprietorship under a George Clarke. These grants angered both Indians and settlers and tended, among many other things, to make the true American of the day distrust and hate his state government and mother country. For the most part the Dutch and Palatine grantees seem to have settled upon and improved for their own use the lands given them. Benson J. Losslng's "Empire State," says:

"In the state of New York the Dutch language was so generally used in some of the counties that sheriffs found it difficult to procure persons sufficiently acquainted with the English tongue to serve as jurors in the courts. Among the wealthiest people considerable luxury in table, dress and furniture was exhibited, yet there was an aspect of homely comfort through society. Both sexes, of all except the highest classes, were neglectful of intellectual cultivation. The schools were of a low order. 'The instructors want instruction,' wrote a contemporary. The English language where it was spoken was much corrupted. The placid good humor of the Dutch seemed to largely pervade the province, including men and women, and there seemed to have prevailed an uncommon degree of virtue and domestic felicity. The population is reported as industrious, hospitable, as a rule sober, and intent upon money-making.

"The people generally were religious. The principal church organizations were the Dutch Reformed, the Lutheran, English Episcopal and the Presbyterian. This was due to the racial elements of the state's settlers which were Dutch, German, English, Scotch, Irish and Huguenot French, and these elements penetrated to some extent into practically all the counties of the province, including Tryon. There was much freedom of thought and action among the people that fostered a spirit of Independence. They were not bound hand and foot by rigid religious and political creeds, as were the people of New England, but were thoroughly imbued with the toleration inherited from the first Dutch settlers, and theological disputes were seldom indulged in."

Here and there were men of acute intelligence and fine minds who possessed initiative and the power of expressing themselves simply, clearly and forcibly. These were the leaders who were to be in the van in the impending struggle.

All the foregoing pictures to us the Mohawk valley people, their lands, customs, manners and play at the period just antedating the war for independence and the building of Fort Plain. This account is considered worthy of its length in portraying the men and women who were to be actors in and around this frontier outpost, for after all the human element is more important than the dead walls of the old fort and both played their part on this stage of war and peace.