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Happy 300th, Palatine descendants

Tuesday, July 06, 2010 at 6:43 PM.

My folks from Germany arrived at Governors Island 300 years ago in June. The Brits put them on the island because the 2,500 Palatines would have burdened the city. New York City had only 5,000 residents at the time.

By October 1710 they were encamped at Germantown to manufacture ship stores for the British crown. The tar making didn't work out at all and the clan broke their indenture agreements and moved twice, ultimately settling in what is now Herkimer County, NY. (The approximate period and location depicted in "Drums Along the Mohawk.")

I like the tradition, but don't feel anything like pride of aristocracy--I'm just proud to have blood that's been American for a long long time--since Isaac Newton's time, think of that. It's not hoity-toity in the least; they were farmers and carpenters, and militia members as early as the French and Indian war. They were scrappy and sort of assholes. One story about the Mohawk years from Philip Otterness' Becoming German tells of a gang of Palatine women riding a tax collector out of town on a rail and peeing on him. Very early tea partiers. A namesake of my line's patriarch had no use for Tories.

My Bellinger line, as far as my dad has been able to figure out: me > Richard > Vernon > Ellis > Adam > Phillip > Adam > Philip > Philip (Known as Lips!) > Johannes. My oldest son is called Adam and my last name is his middle name.

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