Fort Hunter is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in the

Town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

in Montgomery County,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States, west of the capital at Albany, on the south bank of the

Mohawk River The Mohawk River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 3, 2011 river in the U.S. state of New York. It is the largest tributary of the Hudson River. The Mohawk f ...

and on the northeast bank of

Schoharie Creek Schoharie Creek is a river in New York that flows north from the foot of Indian Head Mountain in the Catskills through the Schoharie Valley to the Mohawk River. It is twice impounded north of Prattsville to create New York City's Schoharie ...

. The hamlet developed around a fort of the same name, built by English colonists in 1712 near the Mohawk village of

Tionondoroge Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, also known as Erie Canal National Historic Landmark, is a historic district that includes the ruins of the Erie Canal aqueduct over Schoharie Creek, and a long part of the Erie Canal, in the towns of Glen ...

for their defense. Queen Anne ordered the fort built at the request of the Mohawk, in exchange for their allowing her to settle

German Palatines Palatines (german: Pfälzer), also known as the Palatine Dutch, are the people and princes of Palatinates ( Holy Roman principalities) of the Holy Roman Empire. The Palatine diaspora includes the Pennsylvania Dutch and New York Dutch. In 170 ...

in their territory. The English called the Mohawk settlement the Lower Mohawk Castle. Within a few years, the fort included an Anglican chapel, first built in logs and replaced by a stone church in 1741. It was a mission church for the Mohawk in addition to English settlers. The fort survived the wars in the region; it was taken down in 1820 to make way for construction of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

History

Land deed

The Fort Hunter land, approximately 80 acres on both sides of the mouth of the Schoharie, was deeded in 1697 to Jan Peterse Mabee. He had an advantage because his wife Anna Borsboom, apparently of mixed race, was "something related to the Indian castle". The deed was signed by Sachem Rode of the Wolf Clan. In order to build the fort, there was a land swap, with the Mabee family receiving land further south on Schoharie Creek. Copies of the deed are held both in the Albany State Archives and at the shrine of Saint

Kateri Tekakwitha Kateri Tekakwitha ( in Mohawk), given the name Tekakwitha, baptized as Catherine and informally known as Lily of the Mohawks (1656 – April 17, 1680), is a Catholic saint and virgin who was an Algonquin–Mohawk. Born in the Mohawk village of O ...

in nearby

Auriesville, New York Auriesville is a hamlet in the northeastern part of the Town of Glen in Montgomery County, New York, United States, along the south bank of the Mohawk River and west of Fort Hunter. It lies about forty miles west of Albany, the state capital. ...

Palatine settlement

The future site of Fort Hunter was on

, near the easternmost of the two primary

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans *Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people *Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been t ...

settlements of the time. It was in part for defense of the nearby Mohawk village against the French and their Indian allies. The Mohawk name for their village was rendered variously in English as ''Tionondoroge"', ''Teantontalago'', ''Thienderego'', ''Tionondorage'', and ''Tiononderoga''. The European colonists also called it the Lower Mohawk Castle, referring to its relative position near the Mohawk River, which flows east. ''

Canajoharie Canajoharie (), also known as the "Upper Castle", was the name of one of two major towns of the Mohawk nation in 1738. The community stretched for a mile and a half along the southern bank of the Mohawk River, from a village known as ''Dekanohage' ...

'', the other primary Mohawk village, was known as the ''Upper Mohawk Castle'' and was located further west upriver, also on the south side of the river. By the

Dongan Charter The ''Dongan Charter'' is the 1686 document incorporating Albany, New York, as a city. Albany's charter was issued by Governor Thomas Dongan of the Province of New York, a few months after Governor Dongan issued a similarly worded, but less det ...

, the city of Albany acquired the right to own at the Lower Mohawk Castle.

Hendrick Tejonihokarawa Hendrick Tejonihokarawa (Tay yon’ a ho ga rau’ a), also known as ''Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row'' and Hendrick Peters (1660 – ) was a pro-English leader of the Mohawk in the Province of New York in the early eighteenth century. He was one of ...

of the Wolf

Clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clans may claim descent from founding member or apical ancestor. Clans, in indigenous societies, tend to be endogamous, meaning ...

, a Mohawk ''

sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Al ...

'' also known by the English as Hendrick Peters, was one of the "

Four Mohawk Kings The Four Indian Kings or Four Kings of the New World were three Mohawk chiefs from one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy and a Mahican of the Algonquian peoples, whose portraits were painted by Jan Verelst in London to commemorat ...

" who went to London in 1710 to meet with Queen Anne. The chiefs asked her for Anglican

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

to help offset French Catholic influence in the

Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

, as well as for defenses against French soldiers. In 1711, the Crown authorized the construction of Fort Hunter near Tionondorage for such defense. The fort contained a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

and mission house. Queen Anne donated a set of communion silver and sent two missionaries to the colony. In return, she asked Tejonihokarawa for help in settling Palatine Germans, Protestant refugees then working at English camps in the

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

in present-day Dutchess County. They had left the Palatine because of French invasions related to religious wars. Through Governor Hunter, the sachem made some Mohawk land available to settlers near Schoharie Creek, where some of the Palatines eventually settled.Snow, Dean R
"Searching for Hendrick: Correction of a Historic Conflation"
. ''New York History'', Summer 2007

Fort Hunter

Fort Hunter was constructed by English colonists in 1712. In 1723, some 100 heads of German households were granted land in what was known as the Burnetsfield Patent, west of the rapids at Little Falls. They were a buffer between the French and Iroquois, and the English settlements. A log cabin was erected for use as a chapel, and at one time there were 30 houses for Mohawk within the fort. The log structure was replaced with a stone church in 1741 and a parsonage was later built outside the fort; it still stands. The fort was used by area residents for defense in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

, and during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

Erie Canal

In 1820, the fort and church were taken down to make way for construction of the

, which dramatically increased trade and traffic through the valley.

Today

Today, the hamlet of Fort Hunter is the location of the

Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, also known as Erie Canal National Historic Landmark, is a historic district that includes the ruins of the Erie Canal aqueduct over Schoharie Creek, and a long part of the Erie Canal, in the towns of Glen an ...

. It includes the remains of the Schoharie Crossing, a

navigable aqueduct Navigable aqueducts (sometimes called water bridges) are bridge structures that carry navigable waterway canals over other rivers, valleys, railways or roads. They are primarily distinguished by their size, carrying a larger cross-section of wa ...

over the creek, and part of a lock from the early nineteenth-century development of the

along the Mohawk River.

References

External links

"Fort Hunter"
Tryon County, NY at Rootsweb {{authority control Erie Canal

Hunter Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

Hamlets in New York (state) Former Native American populated places in the United States Iroquois populated places

Former populated places in New York (state) Hamlets in Montgomery County, New York 1712 establishments in the Province of New York Populated places on the Mohawk River