lapeimmigration2

Robert Livingston

In Albany, Robert was secretary of the commissaries who superintended the affairs of Albany, Schenectady, and the parts adjacent, in 1675-86. He was married in 1683 to Alida, daughter of Philip Pietersen Schuyler, and widow of Nicholas Van Rensselaer. In 1686 he received from Governor Thomas Dougan a grant of land comprising large parts of what was subsequently set off as Dutchess County, and the grant was confirmed by royal charter from George I., who erected the manor and lordship of Livingston. Robert Livingston was appointed to proceed to New York with his brother-in-law, Peter Schuyler, to obtain a charter for the manor from Governor Dougan, under which charter he was town clerk, 1686-1721. In 1689 he attached himself to the anti-Leisler faction. He was secretary of the convention held at Albany, Oct. 25, 1689, which, while it acknowledged the sovereignty of William and Mary, opposed Leisler's proceedings. When Richard Petty, sheriff of Albany, reported to Leisler that Livingston favored the Prince of Orange, Leisler ordered Livingston's arrest, and the latter retired to one of the neighboring provinces until the arrival of Sloughter, in March, 1691.

In 1694 Robert made a voyage to England, was shipwrecked on the coast of Portugal, and obliged to travel through Spain and France by land. He returned to New York in 1696, accompanied by his nephew, Robert Livingston. While in England he was appointed by royal commission, dated January 27, 1696, commissioner of excise, receiver of quit rents, town clerk, clerk of the peace, clerk of the common pleas for the city and county of Albany, and secretary for the government of the Indians in New York.

He obtained for Robert Kidd a commission to rid the American seas of buccaneers; but Kidd himself turned pirate and the expedition failed. In September, 1696, the charge of alienation was preferred against him by the council, but through the influence of Lord Bellomont, who arrived in April, 1698, to take charge of the government, he was appointed one of the council, and in the autumn of 1700, was reinstated in all his offices. He was charged by the Leislerian commission of misappropriating the public money and of employing improper influences to induce the Indians to favor his going to England on behalf of their interests at the court. He refused to exonerate himself of the charge by oath and on April 27, 1701, his estates were confiscated and he was suspended from the council board. Through the intercession of Lord Cornbury he was vindicated.

On February 2, 1703, he regained his estates, and in September 1705, he was reinstated in his former offices. He was elected a member of the assembly from Albany in 1711, and from his manor, 1716-25, serving as speaker 1718-25, when he retired due to ill health. He died in Albany, N.Y., April 20, 1725.

Actually, Robert Livingston was "lord" of 160,000 acres of wilderness across the river and a ways south of Albany, and that was a problem for him. Nobody was living on this land, and if nobody was living on it then it was not making any money for Lord Livingston. So when he heard of 3,000 Palatine Germans headed for New York, he cut a deal with Her Majesty’s Governor, Robert Hunter. In exchange for 6,000 acres of pine tree-laden Livingston Manor, Livingston would undertake the care and feeding of the Germans who settled there, and reap the profits from their government contracts.

Governor Hunter was so glad to hand the Germans off to Livingston that he did not listen to various warnings from those who knew Robert Livingston as "a very ill man . . . guilty of most notorious frauds." There was no doubt in the colony or England that Livingston was an unscrupulous character who would feed the hapless Palatines as little as possible and charge the Crown as much as he could. The Palatines, of course, had no say in the matter. They got off the boat and settled on their allotted portion of the manor. Each family was to be given forty acres to clear and cultivate, and they built crude huts to shelter their families.

The entire deal quickly went sour. Her Majesty’s ministers lost interest when it was discovered that the pine trees on Livingston Manor were not suitable for making tar. It proved to be impractical to attempt making tar and turpentine, etc., and gradually the families left the Hudson and spread northward and westward, eventually obtaining land of their own whereon they could support their families. The government became perfunctory in reimbursing Livingston, so the burden of feeding and housing the Germans fell squarely on his unwilling shoulders. For provisions, each of the able-bodied workers was allotted a third of a loaf of bread and a quart of beer per day, which were supplied by the New York government. After a few years, the Palatines were suffering from biting poverty, finding it impossible to overcome their debts, and the government decided to end its support of them. New York Governor Robert Hunter, who had first arranged their passage to America, started to break up their poor encampment.

The Palatines, for their part, were trying to make up their obligation to Her Majesty by manufacturing stores other than tar, but this left them precious little time for raising crops, which meant they relied more than ever on a resentful Lord Livingston for food. When the promised forty acres of land an adequate provisions was not received, a "tar burners rebellion" occurred.6 A group of intrepid, hungry Palatines raided the manor storehouse. Livingston stepped up his appeals to Governor Hunter, but the Governor turned his back. In 1712 Her Majesty’s government proclaimed that although the Palatines were still contracted to provide naval stores, their subsidies were at an end, an unbelievably cruel and misguided move coming just a few days before the first killing frost. For better or worse, Livingston and the Palatines were on their own. While the Palatines settled in Livingston Manor based on promises from the British Government, they did not have any written title to the lands. After the British Government failed in attempts to arrange an agreement with the Palatines to purchase the land they were living on the government sold the land to others in 1714. Eventually the Palatines were forced to purchase land or move and many chose the latter.

About sixty families received leave to settle along the Mohawk, west of Fort Hunter, which stood at the mouth of the Schoharie, where was located the Mohawk castle which saw the martyrdom of Father Jogues. These Mohawk pioneers thus continued settlement to the westward. They were supposed to take up land for twenty-four miles west of Little Falls (the big falls were those called Cohoes), but today the region east and west of Little Falls, for about thirty miles, is rich with German names. There are Palatine church and Palatine Bridge, Newkirk, Mannheim, and Oppenheim. The town of Herkimer is named after a Palatine family which came to America a dozen years after the original band, while at Herkimer the fertile meadows came to be called "the German Flatts."

Some traveled to the Schoharie valley. Seven of their leading men traveled to get permission from the Indians. From Albany, guided by an Indian, they crossed the Helderberg heights until Fox Creek led them down into the deep, broad, and beautiful valley which they had longed to see. The Indians received them and gave consent. In the autumn of the year of 1712 fifty families set out, and though a road had to be cut into the valley, they built cabins before winter began. The redmen gave them corn from their own scanty stock, but inside the cabins there was much hunger. The following March a hundred more families arrived, driving their sleighs on a two week's journey through snow, which lay on the highlands a yard deep. The Schoharie emigrants settled in seven villages along the Schoharie, each one kindly named after one of the leaders who had explored the road. The lands were purchased for a nominal sum in 1719 and 1720, and a "spreading out" was made, and by the year 1730 they were settled in seven different hamlets, called "dorfs;" an appellation given in Germany to farm villages: Weiser's, Smith's, Fox's, Gerlach or Garlock, Kneiskern, Hartman's and Brunnen's.

Though the Germans had settled and cultivated the Schoharie valley, they had no title to the land, and Governor Hunter, indignant that the Government would not pay him back for his heavy expenses, would not grant the runaways any title. Troubles with those who did receive grants bothered the Palatines for nearly ten years. At last, out of the eight hundred Schoharie settlers, about three hundred decided to pay rent to the legal owners, unjust as they thought it was. Many others turned their steps to Pennsylvania, where one of them, Conrad Weiser, became a prominent man.

Many of the Palatines remained in the Hudson Valley, and signed on as Livingston’s first tenant farmers. Other Palatines left the manor of Patroon Livingston, where the settlement of "Germantown" is their memorial; others took up land a little south where one can find their traces in the names of Rhinecliff and Rhinebeck and who years later would settle in the Sand Lake region. After many years of tenant farming, a miserable, hand-to-mouth existence that would best be compared with serfdom, the Löwe family somehow managed to break free of their bonds and move to "freeholder" territory in Germantown, on the eastern side of the Hudson River.

Germantown was known as the Camps and later as East Camp. It was divided into four areas: Annesbury which was located near Anchorage Road in North Germantown; Queensbury which was in the area of Sharp's Landing Road and Route 9-G and included the old Parsonage on Maple Avenue; Haysbury near Main Street and Route 9-G; and Hunterstown which is now Cheviot. By an act, the New York State Legislature, on March 7th 1788 said, "All that is part of the said county known by the name of German or East Camp will be known as Germantown.

Naturalization is a grant of the full legal rights and privileges of a native-born individual to a non-native foreigner. In England, in the American colonies, and in the United States, naturalization has been granted by special legislative act, or by court proceedings authorized by legislation. The Assembly of New York Colony occasionally passed acts naturalizing aliens. In addition, under a British statute of 1740, an alien who had resided in a colony for at least seven years could be naturalized by swearing an oath of allegiance before a local magistrate. During the early colonial period denization was employed to grant to an alien some, but not all, of the rights of a native-born individual. Typically the denized individual could buy and own land, but could not inherit or devise (transmit by will) title to real property. Denization was granted by letters patent of denization (issued either in London or New York); there were no such letters issued in New York after 1708. The New York State Constitution of 1777 (Art. 42) authorized the Legislature to naturalize aliens. A few legislative acts of naturalization were passed between 1782 and 1789. Since 1790 all naturalizations have been performed pursuant to federal law, under a provision of the U.S. Constitution (Art. I, Sect. 8).

Andries Löwe Lape was born between 1723-1730 in Livingston (East Kamp), Columbia County, New York, the son of a German immigrant. It is not yet known who the parents of Andries Lape were, or whether or not he was reared by relatives due to his parents' early deaths. What is frustrating is that their exists no known records, other that Andries', of any other Löwe family members in early Albany County or Columbia County records. If Andries had living parents or siblings in the 1730's it would appear that at least one name would be documented, especially considering the large family numbers of the period.

Using conjecture and loosely following German customs of naming children, Andries' father may have been named Johann Thomas Löwe, since Andries' first born son was named Thomas. We know that Thomas' twin, Samuel, was named after his maternal grandfather Samuel Müller, so it follows that Thomas was probably named after his paternal grandfather Löwe. The mother of Andries was probably named Elizabeth, since his first born daughter was named Elizabeth. Samuel Lape's oldest daughter was also named Elizabeth. Thomas Lape's oldest daughter was named Margaretha, probably named after his mother, Margaretha Müller. Johann Thomas Löwe and Elizabeth probably lived on Livingston Manor and later in Germantown, Columbia, NY. Since most Lape male members lived seventy years on the average, then Johann Thomas Löwe probably died about 1760. If so, he would have been living and then died with his relatives while residing in Germantown, Columbia, NY, or after moving to Claverack, Columbia, NY.

Andries Löwe lived in Germantown, Columbia County, NY, from about 1730-1755, marrying Anna Margaretha Müller in (Germantown) Columbia County, NY, in 1749 (Jones, Hank. The Palatine Families of New York. Universal City, CA: H. Z. Jones, 1985). Anna Margaretha, baptized January 14, 1732, at Loonenburg (West Kamp), Green County, NY, was the daughter of Samuel Müller, who immigrated to America from Helminghausen, Waldeck (Hesse), Germany, in the 4th Palatine party, on Captain Howlentzen's ship, embarked on June 10-19, 1709, and sailed June 21, 1709 7 (Jones, Hank. The Palatine Families of New York. Universal City, CA: H. Z. Jones, 1985).

During his immigration from Germany, Samuel Müller married Anna Catherine Singer on July 24, 1709, at Savoy Lutheran Church, London, England. Samuel Müller appeared on the New York Subsistence List, 2-0, 3-1. His name appeared in 1714 for a baptism at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, West Kamp, and he was naturalized 17 January 1715 (Albany Naturalizations). Samuel Müller's name was crossed out of a Livingston Debt List of 1721. His name appeared in the census of Queensbury, February, 1734, with wife, Anna Catherine, and children, Barbara, Jonas, Susanna, Andreas, Eva, Anna, Johannes, and Margaretha. Anna Margaretha Müller was confirmed at Loonenburg (West Kamp) in 1748. It appears from the documentation that the Müller family lived at East Kamp and had been making the trip across the Hudson River as needed as parishioners of West Kamp.

In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was chartered by the States-General of Holland, and invested with almost absolute authority over the New Netherlands. At first, as their only object was trade, they made no effort to acquire possession of land, but afterward they concluded to attempt a more permanent occupation. For the purpose of encouraging colonization, the company gave to any of its members who would buy land from the Indians and form a colony of fifty persons nearly absolute control of such land and the colonists. These owners were called patroons, and they acquired very extensive landed property. One of them, Killian Van Rensselaer, owned a tract of land containing over 700,000 acres, including all of the present county of Albany and the greater part of the counties of Rensselaer and Columbia. This large estate was named Rensselaerwyck, and the name of Beaverwyck was applied to the district, or hamlet, which included Fort Orange. Killean Van Rensselaer's major aim was to develop an agriculturally based colony with additional income from the fur trade.

Killean Van Rensselaer was one of the Patroons that established Rensselaerwyck on the Hudson River below present-day Albany in 1629. Of the five patroonships eventually established by the West India Company, this was the only one to survive until 1700. Van Rensselaer was also a Company director or partner since his inventory on Manhattan would have been on West India Company lands. Henry I. (Hendrick) Van Rensselaer (1742-1813) was the son of Johannes (1708-1783) and Engeltie (Livingston) Van Rensselaer who had inherited Claverack from his father Hendrick, a descendant of Killean. Johannes Van Rensselaer died in 1783 and in 1784 Claverack was divided between his children.

In 1703 Killean Van Rensselaer conveyed Claverack or the "Lower Manor", with the Cralo Estate at Greenbush to his younger brother Hendrick Van Rensselaer. Gore was located between Claverack and Livingston Manors, originally part of Claverack Manor, and was patented in 1767. Claverack Manor originally encompassed lands south of Kinderhook, north of Livingston Manor, and west to the Hudson River and was the "Lower Manor" to the "Upper Manor" of Rensselaerwick. Henry I. Van Rensselaer married Rachel Douw in 1765. In 1777 he was commissioned a Colonel of the Continental Forces, under who Thomas & George Lape were soldiers. Henry I. Van Rensselaer was "patroon" and neighbor of Andries and Anna Margaretha Lape in Claverack, Columbia County, NY, in the late 18th Century.

Many of the Palatine families who originally settled on Livingston Manor to make tar for the British navy, a totally unsuccessful venture, moved into the "Lower Manor" of Rensselaerwyck. They preferred the Van Rensselaer perpetual leases, which could be passed on to their heirs or sold, to the lifetime leases of the Livingstons.

Andries and Anna Margaretha Lape moved from Germantown, Columbia, NY to Rensselaerwyck, Columbia, NY, between 1756-1760, their first four children being baptized in Germantown, either at the Christ's Evangelical Lutheran Church or the Reformed Church of Germantown, between 1750-1755, and their remaining children being baptized in Churchtown at St. Thomas Lutheran Church, after 1760. Little is known about their years in Claverack. It is safe to say Andries and Anna Margaretha were true to their farming roots, having leased or purchased property in Churchtown (Claverack), Columbia County, NY, in the "ten mile tract" of the "Lower Manor" of Rensselaerwyck.

By an act passed in 1772, Albany County was divided and formed into districts. Claverack district, being all that part of Albany County, bounty on the south by the District of the Manor of Livingston, on the east by the bounds of the Colony, on the west by the Hudson River, on the north by a line beginning at the mouth of Major Abraham's Creek, and running thence up to the first falls, and from thence east as far as the colony extends. Andries Lape leased 302 acres of land in Claverack Manor, the original date of the lease reported as October 28, 1774. He paid 40 bushels of wheat, as well as 4 fowls and 2 days "riding" service to the landlord, per year in rent.

Andries Lape (as Andries Leap) shows up on the 1 February 1766 Tax List of Claverack District, as Andries Loep, and the 1779 Tax List of Claverack District "West", valued at £900, the amount of tax being £161-5-0. Petter Lowe was noted on 27 Nov 1729 and Andrew Lowe, Jr. was noted with no date given in the Book of Accounts kept by Henry Beekman, 1719 - 1730, pp. 84 & 87. (Even More Palatine Families, Volume 1, p 412, Henry Z. Jones, Jr.) In Claverack, Andries and Anna Margaretha counted as friends and neighbors the Müller's, the Neher's, the Kell’s, the Reis’s, the Hydorn‘s, the Van Rensselaer’s, the Decker’s, the Church's, the Rainer's, the Hagedorn's, and the Clapper’s, among others. He later shows up in the First U.S. census of 1790.

The Andries Lape Property, Claverack, New York

The American Revolution, though not actively fought on Claverack soil, brought great hardships and divisions to the residents. A year after the battles at Lexington and Concord, Claverack district was represented as part of a committee, meeting in Albany, to determine the attitude of Albany County toward the Revolution. This was regarded as a temporary form of government, until a solution was found to heal the wounds between England and America. How ever, “The Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York” declared the State free from British rule, retroactive from the day following the battle of Lexington. Andries Lape did have a military history, although it is not known to what extent he served. He does show up on the list of members of the Eighth Regiment, Albany County Militia, along with his sons, George and Thomas Lape (as Andries Laap). Andries Lew was noted in Capt. Jeremiah Hogeboom's Company in 1767, Report of the State Historian, Vol. II, p. 863. (Even More Palatine Families, Volume 1, p 412, Henry Z. Jones, Jr.)

"Two factors influenced the loyalties of the inhabitants of the Hudson Valley. One was the conservative traditions among the Dutch, the other, the dissatisfaction of the ten ants on the manors along the full length of the river. This led the British to believe, once warfare was inevitable, that the valley would remain loyal to the Mother Country, and it was their plan to occupy the entire river valley, and confine the fighting to the New England area. They had not counted on the “manor lords” taking the lead on the side of the American cause, raising regiments from their home areas, and taking charge of the necessary foods and sup plies. Thinking, perhaps, that their domains would be protected under the “American” system, where voting rights were confined to those with specific incomes, while the British were making noises against the manor system, Van Rensselaer and Livingston were among those who actively advocated the overthrow of English rule. The Dutch citizenry, however, was torn between two loyalties—one, an inbred respect for authority, in this case the King, and their obedience to the manor lord. The Dutch also hated the New Englanders, who they felt were land hungry and scheming to dominate the rest of the colonies, and they, at first, viewed the war as a New England problem. The Dutch were more inclined to neutrality than espousal to either side.

Histories indicating that everyone in Claverack was wildly patriotic to the American cause are erroneous. It is stated that when the Minister of the Claverack Church gave a sermon in favor of the American stand, “one half of the men in the congregation arose and left the Church.” When the decision was made, it was more apt to be influenced by other causes, such as differences in church matters, or neighborhood land transgressions, than patriotic causes. The manor lords and their sons were able to raise militias, and set up committees of safety. Despite that, the Hudson Valley was predominantly of Loyalist or “Tory” leanings, and the main artery of travel for the “undercover” (spy) system set up by the British between New York and Canada. One of the leaders of this system, Dr. George Smith, lived for a time in Claverack, and Martin Fralick, (Frelich, Frolig), an active Tory spy, lived at Claverack Landing. Beside those who supported the British cause, there were citizens who, with the breakdown of authority, robbed, beat and murdered, not from political persuasion, but because it was a splendid opportunity to reap vengeance and acquire valuables. Around New York City, these lawless bands were called “cowboys.” In rural areas, they were simply called Tories, and so all that fitted that name were accused of the acts that these roving bands committed. Among those so molested was Casper Conyn, who built the mills for Henry Van Rensselaer called the “Stone Mills.” His home was surrounded and robbed, and he was hanged. Fortunately, the rope broke and he survived."17

Andries Lape had schooling, but probably never learned to read or write English fluently. For that matter, he and his family, like most first-generation immigrants, spoke German fluently. Andries was a God-fearing man who worshiped as a Lutheran. The Lutheran church records in Germantown, Churchtown and Livingston Manor relate only a sketchy story, but it appears that the first generation American parents of the Löwe family were Andries and Anna Margaretha Löwe. The Lape, or Löwe and other variations, name appears in records at Christ’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germantown, NY, Reformed Church of Germantown, St. Thomas Church, Churchtown, NY, and Claverack Reformed Church, Claverack, NY.

Rev. Joshua Kocherthal established churches in east Kamp and in West Kamp in 1711. After his death in 1719, Rev. Falckner took over as minister. Rev Falckner was also pastor of the Lutheran Church of Albany from 1703 - 1723 and he established a church in Loonenburg (Athens) in 1703. The St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church, originally known as the Lutheran Church of Claverack, was a "union" between the Palatinate influence which was spread from East Kamp and the Dutch Lutheran influence originating in Loonenburg and later taking a foothold in Claverack. St. Thomas was established about 1745 probably by Rev. Berkenmyer. The church was not built in a village but rather between the settlements of Claverack and Livingston Manor. The church was erected in 1750 with the present edifice erected in 1836. It was enlarged & modernized in 1860, improved & beautified in 1881, remodeled & beautified in 1907, and a new bell added to the tower in 1910. Thomas Loewe was a church officer of the congregation of Claverack on October 8, 1791. The following received communion at the church in 1792: Andries Loewe, Thomas Loewe & frau Maria, and Jacob Loewe & frau Catherine.

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