The Seed is Planted in American Soil, Robe/Et PieAce

THE SEED IS PLANTED IN AMERICAN SOIL

By Robert Pierce It is regrettable that maritime records fail to list the names of the ten merchant ships which with their destitute Palatines in the early months of 1710 sailed from the southern coast of England for the New World. Seven only are mentioned: The Berkley Castle, the Globe, the Leon, the Midfort, the Lyon, the Palatine, and the Herbert --- the last called a frigate. The Berkley Castle abandoned the venture and returned forthwith to Plymouth, possibly alarmed by the severity of a malefic contagion on shipboard, or apprehensive of perils attendant with a midwinter crossing of the awesome Atlantic, whose ship lanes were at best poorly charted and whose vagaries of wave and weather were the dread of the most able and experienced mariners. On June 13, 1710 under a veil of disease, death, and despair the first ship of the battered flotilla, the Lyon, with Governor Robert Hunter aboard, arrived at Nutten Island (now Governor's Island). He was at once taken to New York harbor, leaving his fellow-passengers on the island for purposes of quarantine. On June 16 Hunter wrote Secretary Popple of the London Lords of Trade: "I arrived here (New York) two days ago. We still want three of the Palatinb ships and those arrived are in a deplorable sickly condition." Later he wrote: "All of the Palatine ships separated by the weather are arrived safe except the Herbert frigate, where our tents and arms are. She was cast away on the east end of Long Island on the 7th of July. We still want the Berkley Castle which we left at Plymouth, the poor people have been mighty sick....We have lost 470 of our number."

Meanwhile on Nutten Island a tent city had been raised to house the German community, still suffering acutely from the ravages of the voyage. People died in large numbers. A local coffin maker reported that "business was never better", and for the pursuit of his occupation he petitioned the city for 59 pounds, 6 shillings sterling in payment for the burial of 250 Palatines, deceased since the recent landing. As for the missing "Herbert", it is not improbable that there can be found today native families of eastern Long Island whose pedigrees are traceable to Palatines who escaped alive from the wrecked frigate. Says the Reverend Sanford Cobbin his Story of the Palatines: "To this day are shown on the west shore of Block Island some almost obliterated graves, said to be the lost seamen of the Ship." And in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History is to be found the following: "A light is at times seen from the island upon the surface of the ocean, which in its form has suggested to the imagination a resemblance to a burning ship under full sail, and it is called the Palatine Light and Palatine Ship." London records, it will be remembered, showed the Zacharias Flegler family as five in number at the time of its departure for New York. The Subsistence List, however, at the American port after the disembarkation of the Palatines in July of 1710 shows only Flegler himself and one child ten years of age. This child was undoubtedly the son, Philip Solomon Flegler, born in Germany in 1701. ,It is to be reckoned, therefore, that when at sea or shortly after landing

at Nutten Island, Flegler lost his wife, his younger son, and infant daughter. He thus became one of the unfortunate many whose families were depleted by the rigors of storms at sea or the endemics on shipboard. Robert Hunter, although reputedly sympathetic with the plight of his Palatine charges, found himself faced by an unruly City Council, who, emboldened and encouraged by resentful and fearful citizens, protested vigorously at the presence closeby of over two thousand disease infected immigrants. The threat of universal contagion was, understandably, of no little concern to a city containing less than six thousand inhabitants, of whom one thousand were slaves. Still another problem, equally perplexing, arose to engage the Governor's attention. During the storm-tossed passage across the Atlantic, thirty babies had been born to Palatine women. How many infants and mothers survived the ordeal is not known, but a count of individuals at Nutten Island indicated that many children had been left orphans. As the Palatines themselves were too poor and too sickly to care for children who had lost one or both parents, this orphan problem was of tragic gravity. As Governor Hunter found himself thwarted in his efforts to enlist sympathy and support from the urban community for the Palatine refugees, he was forced to resort to an expedient, cruel but realistically necessary. His decision was to offer for adoption and apprenticeship children who, hopefully, by care and training, might find employment in tasks indigenous to the farmlands or in trades useful to the colonial community. "Unfortunately," says Walter Knittle in his Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, "Hunter did not stop with orphans; he also apprenticed children whose parents were still living, and in this way separated families." One Palatine parent is quoted as saying, "He took away our children from us without and against our consent." Of the seventy-four children apprenticed by the Governor to tradesmen, craftsmen, and farmers, one was destined to rise to fame and prominence. On October 26, 1710, a Palatine youth of thirteen, John Peter Zenger by name, was taken from his widowed mother, Hanah Zenger, apparently with her consent, and bound to William Bradford, an enterprising New York printer and founder of the New York Gazette. For nine years Zenger learned the trade with Bradford, and in 1723 was rewarded for his efforts by being made a partner. A violent difference, however, in political philosophy arose between Bradford and Zenger, and in 1726 the latter withdrew from the partnership and established a printing business of his own. He began to publish a newspaper devoted to democratic ideals, which he called the New York Weekly Journal. Within its pages he espoused many popular causes which he deemed contributory to the furtherance of tolerance, freedom, and personal liberty. Having an inherited hatred of the evils of persecution, Zenger was especially abhorrent of official despotism and governmental corruption. In 1732 the graft and greed of William Cosby, Hunter's successor as Royal Governor, had become so flagrant and abusive that the commonalty rose up in rebellion. A confrontation between factions took place on a village green in lower Westchester County, New York, where for the first time in American history two political bodies openly opposed and faced each other publicly. The event became known as the

"Great Election of 1733". Here, on the site near the churchyard of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Eastchester (now Mt. Vernon), it may be said that "Freedom of the Press" was born. John Peter Zenger was present at the encounter, and became so aroused by what he saw and heard that a week after the "election" his New York Journal carried an account of the affair, castigating the royal governor for dishonesty, embezzlement, and malfeasance. Fearlessly the paper continued its scathing attacks to the point that in November of 1734 the enraged royal official issued a proclamation citing "diverse scandals, virulent, false and seditious reflections", and offered a reward for the arrest of the person who wrote and printed the articles. Zenger was forthwith seized and thrown into prison, where he languished for nine months; but continued to publish his journal. Pen, ink, and paper being denied him, it is said that he whispered editorial instructions to his employees through chinks and cracks in the cell door. At the trial, beginning August 4, 1735, the defense lawyers, James Alexander and William Smith, attacked the competence of the court by challenging the right of the Cosby-appointed Chief Justice, James Delancy, to preside. Cosby retorted by disbarring both defense lawyers from the proceedings. As no barrister in the City of New York dared appear for Zenger, his friends at length secured the services of the celebrated Andrew Hamilton, a Philadelphia Quaker lawyer, by many considered as having no peer in all the colonies as a defense counsel. The incident, it is said, gave rise to the saying, "Get a Philadelphia lawyer", when the need arose for expertise in the field of trial law. Zenger, after a trial that lasted throughout the summer of 1735, was acquitted by the jury of all charges of libel and contempt. So great was the public approbation of the verdict that Hamilton was entertained at a huge dinner at which he was presented with the freedom of the city in a gold box, and upon his departure honored by a cannon salute. The spot where the epic legal victory was won is now called the Zenger Room in the Federal Hall National Memorial Building, located at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, New York City. Thus by conviction, determination, and courage, John Peter Zenger rose from the oppressions and woes of a Palatine exile to national acclaim as a patriarch of the American "Fourth Estate" --- an instance bearing out the aphorism that "from the misery of the oyster the pearl is born." Still facing Governor Robert Hunter was the perplexing problem as to what disposition should be made of the Palatines on Nutten Island. The City of New York could not and would not undertake to satisfy the wants and needs of the exiles. To return them to England would be contrary to Her Majesty's wishes and plans. The Carolinas and Virginia, where many of their kind had already settled, were far distant and already had their shares of German immigrants. Four areas in the Colony of New York seemed to offer possibilities for settlement locations. One was along the Mohawk River (on its northern bank today there is a town called Palatine Bridge); another was in Cherry Valley in Otsego County, a third on the east side of the Hudson River in Columbia County; and a fourth on the west side of the river north of Kingston. Of the four Hunter favored the last as being near at hand, situated on a broad, navigable

river, and clothed in forests which, it appeared, would produce the naval stores and supplies needed by the Crown. Another reason now to be explained also influenced Hunter's choice. During the closing years of the seventeenth century Benjamin Fletcher, then Governor of the New York Colony, granted to certain political favorites immense territories in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys. Among the largest of these land grants, ranging in size from 60,000 to 700,000 acres, were the patents to Robert Livingston, Frederic Philipse, Stephanus Van Corlandt, and Killian Van Rensselaer. In some instances these and other land-rich patroons, because of absence, parsimony or indifference, failed to honor conditions set forth in the grants. Agriculture was not promoted, Indian claims were ignored, no inducements were offered to attract new settlers, and most important of all, no efforts were made to extract from the forests the naval supplies so urgently needed by the mother country. Thus in spite of lavish prodigality and worthy intentions little or no benefit accrued to the Crown. Evils often carry their own cure. On March 2, 1698 an act was passed by the New York Assembly for the "vacating, breaking, and annulling" of the so-called "Extravagant Grants"-- and extravagant they were indeed. The act was confirmed by Her Majesty's Council on June 20, 1708, and large tracts of land were returned to the Queen for whatever .disposition she wished to make of them. In the narration of events relating to a solution of the plight of the Palatines sequestered on Nutten Island, attention must be directed to Robert Livingston, beforementioned as one of the recipients of the land largess so lavishly and capriciously extended by colonial officials. Livingston was a Scot, by birth related to the Earls of Linlithgow. He came to America in 1672, married Alida Schuyler, of a family prominent in early New York history, and settled in Albany. He bought from the Indians large parcels of land and to these from time to time he added vast unoccupied domains under the terms and conditions set forth in the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions of the Dutch West India Company in the year 1629. Charter provisions allowed colonists to take up as much land as they were able to improve (a condition seldom observed), for ten years being free from the payment to the government of customs, taxes, excises, or other contributions of any kind. This terrain windfall enabled Livingston by 1710 to amass through the media of patents, grants, and purchases holdings of real estate grossing over 160,000 acres. The edict directed against extravagant grants affected Livingston's property, and by order of the Queen he was required to sell 6000 acres to Governor Hunter for the sum of 266 English pounds for the purpose of settling a portion of the Palatine population encamped on Nutten Island. The area, thus acquired, now called Germantown, was then known as the East Camp. A domain of equal size on the west side of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City, was at the same time acquired by the Governor for Palatine use. The tract in Ulster County near a stream called Sawyer's Kill was on land belonging to Queen Anne, having recently reverted to the Crown as one of the extravagant grants. Its forests were heavily clothed with spruce, fir, hemlock, cedar,

and pine, which Hunter, full of enthusiasm and confidence, called an unfailing source of naval stores. "I, myself," he wrote "have seen Pitch Pine enough upon the river to serve all Europe with Tarr." This declaration was echoed in a report by the London Board of Trade to the "Queen's Most Excellent Majesty", when in 1710 the Board, complete strangers to lands 2,000 miles away, stated with confidence..."the most proper Places for seating them (the Palatines) in that Prof ince, so as they may be of benefit to this Kingdom by the Production of Naval Stores, are on Hudson's River, where are very great number of Pines for Production of Turpentine and Tarr, out of which Rosin and Pitch are made." The Board further requested that the Queen direct Hunter to settle the Palatines promptly on the Ulster County land and to offer a small subsistence each day to everyone found to be in necessitous circumstances. This request being granted, twelve hundred Palatines were removed from Nutten Island in boats up the river to the Ulster tract in early October of 1710. Here they were allotted plots of ground about forty by fifty feet in size upon which to build huts and plant gardens. Hunter reported later that "Each family hath sufficient lot of good arrable land ... have built themselves comfortable huts and are now employed in clearing the ground. In the Spring I shall set them to work in preparing the trees." As the immigrant Zacharias Flegler was among those Palatines moved into the Ulster County area, our interest lies chiefly with this settlement, then as now referred to as the "West Camp" --- as distinctive from the "East Camp" where a month earlier Hunter had moved three hundred and fifty families. Inasmuch as tenure of all large colonial domains was dependent upon their ability to return revenues in some form to the government, the higher the productivity of the land the more secure was the tenure. On the whole, therefore, the arrival and settlement of hundreds of Palatines --- illclothed, hungry, and sickly as they were --- must have been looked upon as a welcome adjunct in the feral wilderness of the two "Camps", and must have brought a degree of satisfaction to both Robert Livingston and Governor Hunter. The type of hut, described by the Governor as comfortable, was a structure approximately eleven by eleven feet square, built of logs between which was stuffed a mixture of straw and clay to keep out wind and rain. A flooring of planks was usually laid directly on the ground, although many huts had no flooring of any kind. Frequently without windows, the cabin obtained its light by day through an aperture covered with oiled paper which served as a door and at night either by oil-dipped wicks or by a so-called Betty lamp. A brick or clay chimney and fireplace at one end of the room served for purposes of cooking and heating. Adults slept in a bed with saplings for springs and on a mattress of straw and leaves; the sleeping quarters for children being in a loft or shelf, extending half the width of the hut and reached by means of a ladder or a slanted log notched out for steps. Crudely made furniture served the family: a table, one or two backless benches, a churn for grinding grain, and a box or chest for the storage of clothing and personal belongings. Animal skins were made to do for bedcovers, rugs, and winter clothing. In addition to Governor Robert Hunter at least one other

passenger of note accompanied the Palatine contingent on its frightful passage from Plymouth to New York in the spring of 1710. His name was Joshua Kocherthal. His profession was that of a Lutheran minister; and so dedicated was he to his calling and so devoted was he to his people that history credits him in a large measure for the survival of the Palatine colonies on the Hudson. He became the first pastor of a Lutheran Church at the West Camp and the founder of the first church on the other side of the river in what is now Germantown. The exact location of the original West Camp church and its burial ground is not known, but the site was probably on or near the grounds of the present Lutheran Church of St. Paul's. In its vestibule wall is set a marble slab, dated 1742, over the spot where Kocherthal is buried, early Dutch law requiring that the minister be interred within the church directly beneath the pulpit. The inscription on the slab is in Dutch, the purported translation being as follows: "Know, Traveler, under this stone rests beside his Sibylla Charlotta, a real traveler, of the High Dutch in North America, their Joshua, and a pure Lutheran preacher of the same on the east and west side of the Hudson River. His first arrival was with Lord Lovelace, in 1709, the first of January. His second with Colonel Hunter, 1710, the fourteenth of June. The journey of his soul to Heaven on St. John's Day, 1719, interrupted his return to England. Do you wish to know more? Seek in Melanchchon's Fatherland, who was Kocherthal, who Harwhias, who Wincheabach." In the minister's study in the church at the West Camp may be seen transcripts (the originals are said to be in Albany) in Dutch calligraphy of early baptisms, marriages, and deaths, compiled by Kocherthal during the years he served as pastor of the Palatine congregation. It is recorded that on August 15, 1710 one Zacharias Flegler, a widower, was married to Anna Gertrauda Huen, the daughter of Dietrick Huen of Wallbruehl in the Commune of Berg. As he is termed the "late Dietrick Huen", it is possible that he died in Germany, in England, or, like so many others, perished while en route to America. Anna Huen Flegler, shortly after her marriage to Zacharias, became a victim herself of a contagion acquired on the trans-Atlantic voyage. She died during the early months of 1711, although no record of her demise or burial place appears in the St. Paul's register. In any event, at the West Camp Lutheran Church on March 12, 1711 Zacharias Flegler married as his third wife Anna Elizabetha Schultz, described as the widow of George Schultz of Darmstadt, Germany. Her maiden name appears as Anna Hoofd and it may be assumed that she, as well as her late husband, were among the 185 families sent by Governor Hunter to the hamlet at Sawyer's Mill in the autumn of 1710. Or it is possible that he died in Germany or during the voyage to America. The Kocherthal records show that on September 19, 1712 a daughter Anna Magdelena Elizabetha was born to Zacharias and Anna Flegler, and that a son, Simon, was born to them on February 16, 1714. These siblings, therefore, became the half-sister and half-brother of Philip Solomon Flegler, born 1701 in Germany, who, with his father were the only survivors of the Flegler family at the ending of their Atlantic crossing.

The failure of the widely acclaimed "Great Tar Enterprise" in New York cannot be imputed to any one person or source. The blame lay in part with the lack of candor by one John Bridger who had been engaged to instruct the Palatines in the task of tar making, in part with the premature optismism of Governor Hunter, in part with the late arrival at the Camps of the Palatines with the rigors of a frontier winter at hand, in part with faulty information from American scouts, and in part with British officials who yl'ttempted from a distance of 2000 miles to direct in a foreign land an operation which they neither understood nor appreciated. The English Lords of Trade had asserted with supreme conviction that the limitless forests of coniferous trees in the Hudson River Valley would supply naval products sufficient for the "mother country's needs forever." Reports from scouts on the camp sites confirmed the opinions of this London group whose traditional capacity for self-delusion rarely permitted the consideration of opposing points of view which it had no desire or patience to hear. Du Pre, the Commissary of Stores wrote from America: "I am confident that it (the enterprise) cannot fail of good success and nothing else than the want of support at home can prevent it." And from John Bridger came equal assurance that the supply from New York would make Great Britain the mart of all Europe for marine products. Bridger had been commissioned "to examine into the capacity of the American Colonies for the production of naval stores, to survey the woods, and to discover the forests most productive of materials for masts, spars, tar, and pitch." Bridger was no tyro in his profession. For fifteen years he had worked in the Barbadoes, in the South, and in New England; and when he visited the Palatine Camps he was expected to give instructions in the field which was his specialty. This he appears to have done in a perfunctory and negligent manner. It is idle to assume that he did not know that the preparation of trees before tar and pitch could be extracted required two years of preparation. After cutting and barking, the trees had to be felled and the wood burned in a kiln, causing -qhe resinous gum to flow, all of which required training, skill, and time. At any rate, he retreated to his home in New England, from whence Hunter vainly entreated him to return to New York. For failing to do so, he gave all sorts of excuses save the real one, that the common New York pine could not be made to produce the needed stores in paying quantities. In support of this fact George Clark, the Colonial Secretary, informed the British Board that after preparing 15,000 trees at hard labor, with Palatine children industriously gathering pine knots, only three score barrels of tar had been extracted mostly from the knots -- a paltry return for the expenditure of so much time and toil. Disillusioned and disheartened by Clark's report the London Lords of Trade and Plantations permitted their interest to wane in the venture from which so much had been expected. Their apathy took the form of a reduction in the subsistence allowance for the hard-pressed Palatines. Hunter went to England at once in an effort to restore the allowance; but to no avail. And to make matters worse, no sooner had he returned to New York than the home government experienced one of those chronic upheavals peculiar to English

politics. A Tory government supplanted that of the Whigs. Sympathy for the Palatine venture and for its financial support vanished overnight. "Everything," wrote the Reverend Sanford Cobb, "that the outgoing Whigs had done came up for review, criticism, and, if possible, reversal." Admittedly, it was a time of hardship throughout the kingdom. Food was scarce, work hard to find, and industry at a standstill. The poor of London, with bread double the usual price, were resentful of any form of philanthropy, detrimental to their own misery and suffering, extended to an alien people in a distant land across a vast ocean. The original sum of 8000 pounds set aside for Palatine subsistence had been exhausted even before their removal from Nutten Island. Unfortunately, it proved to be the last and final amount allocated for the support of the German refugees by the British treasury, which now saw fit to renege, in deference to public demands and in fear of its own abrogation, on commitments made in good faith by the previous administration. Whatever may have been the faults and virtues of Governor Robert Hunter, among the latter must be counted a strong sense of perserverance and compassion. He alone among officials charged with resolving the afflicted Palatine exiles undertook his responsibilities seriously and approached his obligations with assiduity and benevolence. The plight in which he soon found himself was pitiful. In a letter to the Board of Trade he wrote: "What I have done in the matter (relief) was by Her Majesty's special order and instructions, which shall ever be sacred to me My credit is exhausted, none of my bills of any kind being paid at home, and I myself reduced to very hard shifts for bare subsistence." He further stated that the amounts due him were in excess of 21000 pounds, of which 5000 pounds were for arrears in salary by the Province of New York. Nevertheless, still relying on the good faith of his home government he made arrangements for additional loans, for the repayment of which he pledged himself responsible. But his bills of exchange came back dishonored; and so far as is known the British treasury never repaid a penny of the huge sums advanced by him in support of the Palatine enterprise. In desperation he wrote again: "My Lords, I have done my best in my station and apprehend no scrutiny on earth. God, who knows my heart, will acquit me elsewhere. I have served faithfully, suffered patiently, and shall resign cheerfully whenever it shall be Her Majesty's pleasure... .1 have begged for one half of what is due on the Palatine accounts. I am sure that no man has suffered more than I have done." To this confession the London answer was a continuance of a policy of benign neglect. The final and total demise of the "Tar Enterprise" in New York was brought about therefore by over-confidence, parsimony, irresolution, and incompetence. Its impending doom was apprehended first by the Palatines themselves. A diminishing supply of food, the inadequacy and scarcity of tools for farm and forest labor, and the dwindling subsistence pay all served as a warning that the end was near. Yet despair was not the prevailing temper of i the people. The yoke of bondage and subjugation, many felt, was now to be replaced by freedom of movement and action and the luxury of personal independence. After the turbulence of the Old World the Palatines longed for the peace, hopefully, to be found in the New. There were, however, serious matters to

face and solve. The "Tribe from the Rhine Valley" was about equally divided in opinion as to whether it was wise to remain on the land which the "Queen had given them" or migrate to other regions where might be found trades and occupations more congenial to their skills than forestry and the acquisition of naval stores. The dilemma was resolved in an unexpected manner. In the neighborhood of the colony was a scattering of frontier families, largely of English descent, rude, determined, and highly resentful of the presence of aliens on adjacent lands. These people now seized the opportunity of inciting a confrontation which eventually drove the Palatine community underground. The inhabitants of the West Camp dispersed in all directions. Many departed for regions in lower Pennsylvania. Some migrated to the "Mohawk's" Valley. Others fled westward into the Catskills where today may be found traces of ancient Palatine burial grounds. About thirty families crossed the Hudson River to rejoin their fellowcountrymen in the East Camp. With these was the family of Zacharias Flegler.

Authorities and Sources Consulted:

The Reverend Sanford Cobb: "The Story of the Palatines" Encyclopedia Britannica The Reverend Mr. Karl Eberhardt, Pastor St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, West Camp, New York Mr. William Johnson, West Camp, New York Walter Knittle: "Early 18th Century Palatine Emigration" G. B. Macaulay: "History of England from the Accession of James II" The Reverend Mr. Alvin Messersmith, Pastor Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Kingston, New York and former Pastor of St. Paul's Evangelical Church, West Camp, New York E. B. O'Callaghan: "Documentary History of New York" Mrs. John B. Patterson, West Camp, New York Photostat records of Palatine births, marriages, and deaths at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, West Camp, New York Agnes Strickland: "Lives of the Queens of England" Benson J. Lossing: "The Pictorial Field Book of the American Revolution" Benson J. Lossing: "The Hudson from the Wilderness to the Sea" Alice Morse Earle: "Colonial Dames and Good Wives"