Schoharie, first settled by the Germans
and Dutch,
as told by Jeptha R. Simms
Schoharie, with the exception of its Indian inhabitants, was first settled by the Germans
and Dutch,
and to religion and the love of liberty is that settlement mostly to be attributed. In saying
Schoharie, I
allude to all the settlements first made in Schoharie county, without distinction of towns;
as a territory
of many miles in extent, now making a part of several towns, was, at first, known by no
other name
than that of Schoharie. I find it somewhat difficult to harmonize the contradictory
statements, tending
to fix the precise year in which the Germans first arrived in that valley. Brown says "they
sailed on
new year's day in the year 1710, from some port on the Rhine, down that river to Holland,
from
whence they sailed to England; that being there further provided, they sailed for America;
and after a
tedious voyage in which a great many died, they landed at New York on the 14th day of
June, 1712;
having been one year five months and several days (over two years,) on their journey;
that they were
then sent up the Hudson river to East and West Camp, (so called from the circumstance
of their
having encamped there,) where they wintered in ground and log huts. -- That from there
the spring
following, they went to Albany, from whence some found their way to Schoharie, after a
journey of
four days by an Indian foot path, bearing upon their backs tools and provisions with
which they had
been provided by agent of the queen." Brown is doubtless in error about the time the
emigrants were
coming from Germany to New York; it could not have been upwards of two years, as it
would seem
by his data.
Jeptha R. Simms