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

The Mohawk Dutch and the Palatines

by Milo Nellis
Their background and their influence in the
development of
The United States of America

This book is presented as so many others are on the Fort Klock site, without making any judgment call on the correctness of the information. There is careful research contained within the book and perhaps the reader might derive some insight into their family research from the information contained herein.

Chapter IX:

CONCLUSION
Touching upon the submersion and distortion of our early history in which the Dutch played a much more important role than is generally understood, the New York Times, in 1925, in a brief editorial had this to say: "Far be it from us to light old fires but the Pilgrims and the Puritans didnt love nor were they loved by the Dutch. Formerly, at least, most of the histories were written by the Yankees and none by the 'Dutch.' Can we believe the Dutch had half a chance."

When William L. Stone, in 1838 wrote the Life of Joseph Brant he introduced his subject with the following famous fable: "It is related by Aesop that a forester once meeting with a lion, they traveled together for a time, and conversed amicably without much difference of opinion. At length a dispute happening to arise upon the question of superiority between their respective races, the former, in the absence of a better argument, pointed to a monument on which was sculptured in marble, the statue of a man striding over the body of a vanquished lion. 'If this', said the lion,' is all you have to say, let us be the sculptors and you will see the lion striding over the vanquished man."" The moral pointed out by Mr. Stone, that the Indians are no sculptors, is quite as applicable to the life of Col. Jacob Klock and his brother, George Klock, Sr., and their associates as it was to the life of Joseph Brant.

Mr. Stone's works are counted among the best histories of the period and have been much used by subsequent historians, but they evidence prejudice in favor of Brant and the Johnsons and against the Klock brothers and their neighbours and associates who withstood the brunt of the savage and inhuman attacks visited upon this frontier during the war of the Revolution by Brant and the Johnsons. Much has accordingly been suppressed that it is very important to know in forming a true estimate of the respective characters of the contending parties.

Mr. Stone and those quoting him have stressed the complaints of Sir
William Johnson against "Old" George Klock and the complaints and jealousies directed by others against Col. Jacob Klock to a point of defaming their characters. They have built up a high character for Sir William Johnson and for Joseph Brant at the expense of the Klocks and their associates. They have represented Sir William Johnson as of a high moral character, interested in church building and opposed to the use of rum, deeply interested in the welfare of the Indians and the white settlers as well, but very much hampered in his good work by the villainy of "Old' George Klock. They have even said that, had Sir William Johnson lived, he would have been on the patriot side in the war of the Revolution.

Research has brought forth many documents to disprove these and other generally accepted statements.

When It Is realized that Sir William Johnson's influence with the Indians rested on his willingness and ability to buy scalps at $50.00 (10 Pounds) apiece; on his polygamous relations with the various tribes, on his generous gifts of rum, merchandise and money supplied by the English government, for which he personally received in return large tracts of land and sums of money; and on his intriguing with the Indians against George Klock over comparatively small tracts of land for which Klock had paid liberally in money, and that no other charge was ever brought against Klock than supplying rum, as did all other traders of the time, including Sir William Johnson himself (who really sought a monopoly on both rum and land grants to his personal advantage, as opposed to all other traders and settlers) George Klock's villainy begins to pale.

Also, it must be further realized that the liberal prices Johnson had always paid for scalps and the wealth of England, flaunted before Joseph Brant by Guy Johnson, against the poverty of the patriots *, was the decisive factor in bringing the Indians into the Revolutionary strife. While the patriots were exerting every effort to keep the Indians neutral and, of course, never took scalps nor offered any reward for them, it begins to appear in which direction the real villainy lay.

When one learns all the indignities George KLock and his brothers and neighbours suffered for thirty years at the hands of Johnson while he was building up his much flaunted baronial estate, one ceases to wonder why the Klocks were active leaders in forming the vigilance committee, in framing the resolution "to be free or die," and in furnishing the manpower to stay the invader, to hold their land to the bitter end.

When one remembers also that the vigilance committee, among whom Col. Jacob Klock was a leader, was making it so hot for Johnson that his sudden removal, by death, at the close of a days parley with the Indians concerning George Klock's land, was under well-grounded suspicion of suicide as the best means to end his troubles, and that shortly thereafter his son, Sir John Johnson, and son-in-law, Guy Johnson, stealthily escaped the same vigilance committee and fled hastily to Canada; that it was they who took Joseph Brant to England where they secured, through him, the pledge of the Indians to their cause and, returning to Canada, organized the bands of murdering, scalping, torturing savages who, inflamed by intrigue and rum, precipitated the horrors upon Wyoming, Cherry Valley, and our own beloved valley, it begins to appear what the Klocks and their neighbours did and what they suffered, and why they were villains in the Johnsons' eyes.

The battle of Oriskany was the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle in these parts. It is now recognized as one of the few decisive battles of the world's history. **

*Note Brant's taunt to General Herkimer at Umadilla.
**Creasey's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.

But the battle of Oriskany was no occasion for self emulation or boasting by those who fought there and survived the ordeal. Their lot was of sorrow and humility. They numbered about 800 or 900 strong when they marched out, but when they re turned the flower of their manhood lay rotting on the battle field, their flesh eaten by wolves and eagles, and their bones bleached by the sun and rain. They had held the field but at bitter cost. Night was coming on. They were too exhausted to even make any burials, for there were many wounded and dying without suitable means for care or transportation. They were many miles from their homes or any settlement, in a heavily wooded wilderness infested with wild beasts and torturing insects, and the savages might at any moment be reinforced and return, or improve the opportunity to fall upon their defenseless women, children, and aged they had left behind when they marched. There was no road worthy the name, no bridges, no settlements of note, no stores of food and ammunition, no physicians, hospitals or remedies, not even boats to carry them down the river, no help from the fort they had attempted to relieve. General Herkimer with a shattered leg died a few days after the battle for the want of proper surgical attention, and no doubt others of lesser note suffered a similar fate. Each family had its vacant chairs, and many a widow with a flock of little ones, or crippled survivors to care for, unable to escape, faced the winter, not only in sorrow and dread of Indian torture and scalping, but, faced starvation as well, for their crops were largely unharvested and no help at hand or likely to come. Henceforth their harvesting and planting through a series of years had to be done under guard against Indian attack. They had constantly to respond to calls for militia service against the invader and to transport supplies in midwinter to the forts. They were required also to supply drafts for the regular continental army from their midst. General Herkimer was dead as a result of his first battle, a hero, but on his surviving comrade, Col. Jacob Klock, fell the responsbility to carry on. For Herkimer's place was never filled (See Simms Vol. II, p. 80) and Col. Klock as the oldest surviving Colonel was looked to as the logical successor and so regarded by all, including Governor Clinton. On his shoulders was placed the impossible task of guarding, protecting, and defending the entire frontier wilderness from Montreal to Oswego and down to the Pennsylvania line.

The poverty and the absence of any competent authority, which hampered Governor George Clinton and Gen. Philip Schuyler and all leaders of the time, fell even heavier on Col. Jacob Klock. His own company, together with those of his nephew, Col. Ebenezer Cox, of the Canajoharie District and his brother-in-law, Colonel Peter Bellinger, of the German Flatts district, had borne the brunt of Oriskany and had been literally cut to pieces. Colonel Visscher's company, being in the rear of the line of march, had escaped to safety, and the Schoharie and Cherry Valley districts were scarcely represented and so suffered little. Cherry Valley was a decidedly English settlement, and there were ambitions and jealousies both here and at Schoharie that kept them apathetic in responding to Colonel Klock's calls for aid, yet they were loud and bitter in their complaints over his failure to accomplish their impossible demands upon him.

There was lack of cooperation, too, by the regular army officers who scorned the militia, yet disdained to encounter Indian methods of fighting in the wilderness. They always managed to be near enough to claim any victory or advantage that might reflect credit to themselves, but sufficiently distant to have Colonel Klock's men in the lead to encounter the Indians and to receive the blame for the inevitable failure of his repeated but unsupported efforts to catch up with them. Particularly did the New England regulars scorn the Dutch, so well exemplified in the case of Gen. Philip Schuyler.

Repeatedly and pathetically did the widely scattered and exposed settlements, mere clearings in the endless forests, plead for assistance; again and again did Col. KLock collect his handful of weakened and starving neighbours, scantily clothed, armed, and unprovisioned, to march through the wilderness, leaving their own families unprotected, in an-effort to overtake and punish the demons, only to find himself criticised and berated for failure to accomplish the impossible. Again and again did he warn his superiors of impending attack and plead for assistance that never came.

Invariably have the historians reiterated their unjust charges of inefficiency and neglect of duty or failed to mention his name except in scornful terms. Invariably have they lauded Sir William Johnson and represented Brant as an educated and merciful Indian. Without the stubbornness and resistance of Colonel Klock and his brother, "Old" George Klock, the Johnsons and Brant would have triumphed and there might never been a United States of America. Why then suppress the truth and neglect our real heroes because they were only poor Dutchmen?

Douglas Campbell in his Introduction to the reprint edition of W. W. Campbell's Annals of Tryon County says: "Tryon County, at the close of the long conflict, was left but a charred and barren waste. Yet it was never completely overcome. Against the devastating incursions of savage hordes it was held, though tragically, for the patriot cause, remaining to the end a barrier to the ravaging of New York State westward of the Hudson River as well as the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania.''

Let us not forget that Brant and the Johnsons led that work of destruction while Col. Jacob Klock, George Klock and Johannes Klock, brothers, who had so long defied and persistently opposed them were all among those who were left in possession of that "charred and barren waste" and with the broken fragments of their families began the reconstruction work. It is to them we owe a debt of gratitude if we believe in and appreciate this wonderful country.

Governor George Clinton recognized the great service the Klocks had rendered and did all he could to honor them. As early as 1777 he sought to appoint Col. Jacob Klock as Judge, but the old war-scarred veteran neither sought nor desired it. When the Rev. John Daniel Gross, who favored a jealous antagonist of the Colonel in the person of William Harper of Schoharie, sought to intervene by representing the Colonel as unqualified, the Governor ignored him and on February 2, 1778, appointed the Colonel's nephew, Jacob G. Klock, son of the much maligned "Old' George. (See Clinton Papers, Vol. II, p. 621) ----

In closing I quote CANASATEGO, an ONONDAGO Chief of the Six Nations, in his speech to the English Colonists in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Monday, June 22, 1744, prior to signing the Lancaster Treaty. There can be no greater tribute to the early Dutch settlers of America.

"When you mentioned the affair of the Land Yesterday, you went back to old Times, and told us you had been in Posession of the Province of Maryland above One Hundred Years, but what is One Hundred Years in comparison to the length of Time since our Claim began? Since we came out of this Ground? For we must tell you, that long before One hundred years Our Ancestors came out of this very Ground, and their Children have remained here ever since; you came out of the Ground in a Country that lyes beyond Seas, there you may have a just Claim, but here you must allow Us to be your elder Brethren and the Lands belong to Us long before you knew any thing of them. It is true that above One hundred Years ago the Dutch came here in a Ship and brought with them several Goods such as Awls, Knives, Hatchets, Guns and many other particulars which they gave Us, and when they had taught Us how to Use their things, and we saw what sort of People they were, we were so well pleased with them that we tyed their Ship to the Bushes on the Shoar, and afterwards likeing them still better the longer they stayd with Us, and thinking the Bushes to Slender, we removed the Rope and tyed it to the Trees, and as the Trees were lyable to be blown down by high Winds, or to decay of themselves, We, from the affection We bore them, again removed the Rope, and tyed it to a Strong and big Rock (Here the Interpreter said they mean the Oneido Country) and not content with this, for its further Security We removed the Rope to the Big Mountain (Here the Interpreter says they mean the Onondago Country) and there we tyed it very fast and rowled Wampum about it, and to make it still more Secure We stood upon the Wampum and sat down upon it, to defend it, to prevent any hurt coming to it, and did our Best endeavours that it might remain uninjured forever.--During all this Time the Newcomers the Dutch acknowledged Our Rights to the Lands, and Sollieited us from time to time to grant them Parts of Our Country, and to enter into League and Covenant with Us, and to become one People with Us."

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