Defenders of Fort Plank & Tryon County, NY

01/28/2026

This is posted with the permission of its author, Henry Z ("Hank") Jones:

GENEALOGICAL CLUES PROVIDED BY COLONIAL MERCHANTS: The Financial Records of the Sanders Family Of Early Albany County, New York by Ken D. Johnson and Marilyn Joy Cramer has at last arrived. This long-awaited book is an essential read for those genealogists and historians seeking to learn more about their Palatine and Dutch New York ancestors. It’s well-documented, superbly organized, and a true Godsend for anyone needing actual contemporary 18th century proof of heretofore only theorized ancestral family connections. I cannot recommend it more highly.

Henry Z (“Hank”) Jones, Jr.

https://www.amazon.com/GENEALOGICAL-CLUES-PROVIDED-COLONIAL-MERCHANTS-ebook/dp/B0GH33SN81

It is also available directly by electronic download for a reduced price.

An examination of 18th Century business practices, finances, and culture as recorded in the accounting books of 18th Century Merchants. In this volume the business activities of Barent Sanders' sons Robert and John are examined, and their hundreds of clients clearly identified. The vast majority ...

02/09/2025

As many of you know, I AM NOT a fan of Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett. A series of letters written by Major General Phillip John Schuyler to various Tryon County Entities strongly supports the theory that Lieutenant Colonel Willett did not escape Fort Schuyler [now known as Fort Stanwix] on the night of August 8,1777 to seek the garrison’s relief of St. Ledger’s Siege of Fort Schuyler. It is even quite questionable that he ever spoke with Schuyler prior to his return with General Benedict Arnold. This just adds more evidence to THE FACT that the only real HEROES of the Siege of Fort Schuyler where Colonel Peter Gansevoort, Lieutenant Henry Diefendorf, and the remainder of the men in the garrison who braved it out. Do the amount of data, I have uploaded the information as a PDF File which can download athttps://fort-plank.com/Maj_Genl_Philip_John_Schuylers_Ltr_Book_Huntington_Lib_Siege_Of_Fort_Stanwix.pdf and study for yourself. This will allow you to form your own theories from previously written data and this new documentation.

01/10/2024

Ladies and Gentleman,

I have finally found it. The diamond is Fort Canajohary. This is approximately one-half mile northwest of the Fort Plain Museum. If you look closely, you will not a small circle at the top of the grid lined diamond, and if you look at the Indian Castle Fort built in 1758 just to the south of the Middle Schoharie Church and directly above "Vroomans" you will see the Indian Castle Fort of which the plan is noted in another clipping of the same Crown Collection Map. The site of the diamond on the Lot A Expense is mentioned as being the site where Fort Plank would later be built at the site of an old blockhouse. And, it only took FORTY Years to figure out what this symbol on Expense Lot A was demonstrating.

12/28/2023

Ladies and Gentleman this why I have for so long stressed the CRITICALITY of reading ALL of the Revolutionary War Pension Applications submitted by the men of his said Unit as your person of interest. There is information here that would be lost on the Life and Times of William Fink if Adolph Wallerath's COMPLETE Pension Application had not been read. And thankfully, it gives details on the fate of his a few of fellow comrades in the Memorable Battle of Oriskany, as sad as they may be.

Jacob Snell in the Revolutionary War Pension Application of Adolph Walrath, RWPA , on October 19, 1833 wrote:

"You will please to pardon a few remarks In consequence of the Application of William Fink [RWPA ], since a year past this fall , having hitherto delayed, for reason, a Mr [the “r” is superscripted] Benjn [the “n” is superscripted] Johnson Esqr [the “r” is superscripted], Attorney at Law at Rome County of Onedia for some years past, did Apply after he became the Agent for the said Wm [the “m” is superscripted] Under the then existing laws for A Pension, previous to the passing of the law of the 7th [the “th” is superscripted] June 1832, and in Consequence Your Honr [the “r” is superscripted] was pleased informing Mr [the “r” is superscripted] Johnson, that said Fink hath been returned as a deserter from the Army, and for which reason, the said Wm [the “m” is superscripted] could not be Allowed a Pension, the Alike Others who were refused previous to his Application then made ——
Beg leave to Observe that William Fink was born in the Town of Palatine County of Montgomery, the Tryon, That I have been personally Acquainted with him from the time, both us were Youths, that himself went to School together, that he is personally known to each individual person who Always residing in the town ["then residing" crossed out] of Palatine, and there yet living And that no one ever heard nor knew that been returned for desertion to the War department Until of late was heard he left his Regt [the “t” is superscripted] While Enlisted, however Creditable as it may appear by the Return at the War department, no One Whoever knew the Whig family in the War, cannot nor will not believe, that William Fink would have forsaken his Collars [sic] in the Revolutionary War, he is Originally of A Reputable family, they were true and sincere friends to the Cause of Liberty and freedom, the Poor Worn Out Soldier While defending and fighting for 19 days at Fort Stanwix at the time of the Beseiging of the Fort By Genl [the “l” is superscripted] St [the “t” is superscripted] Ledger with his Army from Canada, His two older Brothers [Fink’s] on the Sixth day of August 1777 at the same time Engaged in that Memorable battle four Miles below Fort Stanwix At Oriskany, and there fighting with far inferior force Until the Enemy were withdrawn, At which Battle the One brother Mortally Wounded by Name Christian [Fink] With difficulty carried four miles to Oriskany settlement, there left With an Only brother of Myne [Snell’s], besides two others all Mortally Wounded in an Indian Hutt or house, which had been Occupied by some of Our Indians who were friendly To the American cause, but moved Away, my brother died in the house, one by the name of George Hawk, crawling Out of the house, never found, Fink and Petrie Crawling to the Bank of the River, taken and brought down the Mohawk river, but all died — By the Father of Petrie & John Fink, the Other brother of William, who brought them with a boat . . ."

08/21/2023

For the past forty-plus-years since I began my self-study of the Colonial Mohawk Valley I have struggled with the location of the Kleysbergh which was the primary focus of the August 2, 1780 Raid on the settlements near Fort Plank and the fortress itself. Well it seems that a solution has finally been found, but due to its length and the fact that I wish for you, the reader, to understand how this came about, I have made it and a Map of the Patents Surrounding Fort Plank downloadable for you by copying the following two urls into the address bar of your browser:https://www.fort-plank.com/Fort_Planks_Patents.pdf

&

https://www.fort-plank.com/Klaisburg.pdf

Enjoy.

06/29/2023

This gem was found and shared by Shirley Swaim, a descendant of Leonard Horning a Fort Plank Defender. Captain Elihu Marshall was found to be supernumary when the Second New York Regiment of the Continental Line was merged with the Fourth New York Regiment of the Continental Line on January 1, 1781. Marshall went to serve as the Captain of a company in Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett's Corps.

Note well: This was noted after the construction of Fort Rensselaer began.

03/05/2023

A portion of the "Otsquago Trail" has been promoted locally as an historical attraction and it is stated to begin approximately 9/10ths of a mile north of the mouth of the Otsqaugo Creek. This survey map of the Weiser-Wagener-Lawyer, or "Giseberk" Patent questions this ascertion showing that "The Path which leads to Oneida" immediately turned west after crossing the Otsquago Creek. If one were to retrace this path they would follow the high ground up Fort Plain's Main Street to where it becomes Pickle Hill Road and then follow Pickle Hill Road until it adjoins NYS Route 80, just east of Hallsville, New York. It seems that portion of the Trail is still being used to this day.

02/01/2022

Why, after thoroughly criticizing all of the historians who claimed Fort Plank was renamed Fort Plain after the Revolution, would Nelson Greene publish the statement that many of the inhabitants in what would become Fort Plain wanted to name it Fort Plank? What was Greene up to? Why would he invent such a controversy unless he had seen some reference to it occurrence?

I have attached a photo of a page from his history of Fort Plain to show that this is not something I imagined and that was included in Wayne Lenig’s history of Fort Plain.

11/28/2021

It is the assigned responsibility of all ‘true’ historians representing families and locations to gather and PRESERVE the memories of their assigned or chosen subjects. But as is always the case of oral histories, within a short period of time the facts become muddled as soon as the ORIGINAL participants in a given event have passed on. Exacerbating this fact is the natural tendency for successive generations to rename places over time, especially when the original place name is foreign, esoteric, non-descriptive, or simply of no discernable meaning . The history of Fort Plank is a prime example.

William W. Campbell and William Stone, SENIOR, recognized this evolution and attempted to PRESERVE the MEMORY. Both wrote their histories within a decade of the renaming of the settlement at Fort Plank by 1831. We as ‘MODERN and more knowledgeable’ individuals can say with ease that they were “confused,” but in reality, they were not. They were both offering succeeding generations a great service by preserving the original name of a place which would soon be forgotten. Instead of acknowledging their efforts, we attack them, criticize them, and defame them by stating they had lost their memories, when in reality WE never had their memories for ourselves.

Wayne Lenig on page 43 of his tome “FORT PLAIN, FORT PLANK, FORT RENSSELAER: THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR FORTS OF CANAJOHARY,” privately published in 2020, remarked:
Nelson “Greene also contributed a bit of new information that reflects how quickly confusion can set into the collective memory. Again, he cites no source [and Lenig makes no effort to prove that such an event ever occurred], but contends that at a general meeting of the residents to vote on village incorporation in 1831, there was no opposition, except in the name. Some wanted the village named Fort Plank and others Fort Plain. Finally, Fort Plain was agreed upon and on the 25th of April, 1832, the village was incorporated." (Greene’s History of Old Fort Plain).

But could there have been a change in “the collective memory” by the men and women involved in defending Fort Plank and Fort Rensselaer brought about by unseen forces? We have now have strong evidence that in 1831 the name of the area known as “Fort Plank” was changed to “Fort Plain” and that change was not unanimously supported by the local residents, yet it occurred. Then on June 7, 1832, the United States Government enacted the 1832 Revolutionary War Pension Act. As a result, scores upon scores of the defenders of Fort Plank and Fort Rensselaer traveled to local courts to give their accounts of their service in the War. But, were the clerks in the War Department aware of this change. Most likely not! What resulted was a mass confusion amongst those seeking to obtain assistance from their government. ‘Do I testify to services at the place once known as,’ or ‘do I swear to services at the place as it is NOW known?’ No better explanation for the testimonies of the seven veterans who claimed that Fort Plank had been renamed Fort Plain, and the several others who testified that Fort Plain had a previous unmentioned name can be had. The place they knew as Fort Plank had been OFFICIALLY renamed in a vote to name a new village formed a mile to the south of the fort’s site: Fort Plain. A new Village with a new Post Office recognized by the Federal Government in Washington, D.C. We know for a fact that both Fort Rensselaer and Fort Plain existed simultaneously, as SEPARATE FACILITIES in 1783, from the records kept by Lieutenant Lawrence Tremper, the Quarter Master of Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett’s Corps. Tremper states he was stationed within Fort Rensselaer, but traveled to Fort Plain during the course of his official duties. Oh yes, Tremper speaks of Fort Plank as well, but not until after ‘The Peace’ in 1784 when he traveled to Fort Plank the home of the Sheriff of Tryon County, Abraham Van Horne, who lived there; not the home of Captain Jost House or the home of Frederick Plank, but the home of Abraham Van Horne. And then is the Orderly Book of Captain Moses Dusten of the New Hampshire Second Regiment which speaks of both Fort Rensselaer and Fort Plain as SEPARATE FACILITIES in 1782. Are we to thus believe that “the collective memory” of both Lieutenant Tremper and Captain Dusten expired before the end of the Revolution itself? According to Mr. Lenig YES! And the Revolutionary War Pension Application of Eliphalet Kellogg , S2692, born in Norwalk Township, Fairfield County, Connecticut in 1763 who testified in 1832, under oath, that he had served at both Forts Plain and Rensselaer, but not Fort Plank as a corporal in Captain Job Wright’s Company of Lieutenant Colonel Willett’s Regiment.

NO! “The collective memory” of their War Services did not change. Nor did the site of Fort Plank which had been renamed Fort Plain change. The Italian Physicist Paolo Andreani wrote in 1790 “. . . at the village called Fort Plain, which is composed of but a few homes and a Church, and inhabited by Germans . . . The Fort which gave name to the site is entirely destroyed, and there is also difficulty today to discover its plan. It was built with earth, and its situation was advantageous to command the navigation of the river.” (Along the Hudson and Mohawk . . . 2006, 51). And the site of Fort Rensselaer some three miles to the southeast, down-river from Fort Plank/Plain was not altered either.
Jeptha R. Simms, Benjamin Lossing, William Lettee Stone JUNIOR, Samuel Ludlow Frey, Nelson Greene, Wayne Lenig, Norm Bollen, and other historians of their day NEVER HAD a memory of the forts or of the naming convention for the new village at the mouth of the Otsquago Creek, only the “Cosmic Vibrations,” which Wayne Lenig likes to carry on about. It is a simple axiom of life that one cannot lose a memory which one never possessed. Let us all dismantle our walls and let the memories of the men and women of Tryon County speak for themselves. And allow us to collectively work toward restoring “the collective memory” proceed without slandering and libeling anyone who cares enough about their ancestry or their history to question those who were never blessed with “the collective memory.”

Let the open and public discussion begin “In Defense of the Facts, In an Ongoing Search for Fort Plank.”

www.fort-plank.com/In_Defense_Of_The_Facts_Endnoted_With_Graphics.pdf

11/24/2021

Robert McFarlan pops up again at Fort Plank. This time in 1792 accepting a payment from Cornelius Blank, son-in-law of Johannes Lype. Blank signed the order at “Conajoharry” and [Major] Joseph House witnessed his signature. It appears that though the fort on Sand Hill was gone and no remains of it where present: . . . “at the village called Fort plain, which is composed of but a few homes and a Church, and inhabited by Germans … The Fort which gave name to the site is entirely destroyed, and there is also difficulty to-day to discover its plan. It was built with earth, and its situation was advantageous to command the navigation of the river.” (Andreani, Paolo, Along the Hudson and Mohawk …, 2006, 51). The place was still known as “Fort Plank.” per McFarlan’s receipt. This may well explain why in Revolutionary War Pensions a number of references to Fort Plank being renamed Fort Plain, and my explain why Nelson Greene wrote in History of Fort Plain that in 1832 there was a discussion as to whether to name the newly forming village at the mouth of the Otsquago Creek “Fort Plank or Fort Plain.” There was nothing wrong at all with the “Collective Memory” as charged by Wayne Lenig, it was simply that the surrounding community had been known as “Fort Plank” despite the fact that the remains of the fortress no longer existed.

11/19/2021

An interesting document indeed.

It extends the life-span of “Fort Plank,” assuming that the whole neighborhood surrounding the “German Reformed Church at Canajoharie” was not collectively known as “Fort Plank,” by at least four years. And it also may well explain why in 1832 there was serious discussion on whether the new village being incorporated at the mouth of the Otsquago Creek should be named Fort Plank or Fort Plain as reported by Nelson Greene in his “History of Fort Plain.”

It places Robert McFarlan, age 23, at Oothouts Mills on the bank of the Mohawk River adjacent to Abeel’s Island several years earlier than previously thought, and it suggests that the Oothouts may have been what brought McFarlan from his birthplace in Schenectady to then “Canajoharie.”
It places Robert McFarlan at “Fort Plank” a full years before his marriage to Elisabeth House, a daughter of Major Johan Jost and Elizabeth (Young) House. And it may explain how Mr. McFarlan first met his wife. He is thirty-six households away from Major House on the Tax List and in a cluster of men near the river north of the mouth of the Otsquago Creek: . . . Isaac Paris 2-7-0; Godfrey Fidler 0-2-0; Jacob Henry 0-2-0; Ludowick Trynear 0-2-0; James Anderson 0-2-0; Mathew Conney 0-2-0; Christian Nellis 0-15-6; Jacob Klock 0-15-6; Andrew Hichell 0-2-0; Robert McFarlan 0-8-6; Abraham Van Horne [Sheriff of Tryon County in 1784] 3-1-0; Jacob Mathies 3-8-0; George Near 0-2-0; Abraham Arndt 1-13-0 . . .

William Kisner is recorded in the 1786 Tax List of Canajoharie District is listed as such: . . . George Och 0-5-0; Conrad Wals 0-5-0; Peter Wals 0-2-0; Joseph House 0-2-0; Jacob Wright 2-0-0; Henry House 0-1-6; William Kessner 0-2-6; Engelhardt Waggoner . . .

11/04/2021

"By Examination of Capt French's Letter of Warrensborough to this Committee dated Augt 23d a. c. it was found out by the Confession of Capt French himself, that Messrs Wm Schuyler and Abraham Van Horne, Members of our Committee informed him of the particular Reflections made in a certain Meeting of our Committee, that a man, who has no Sufficient Estate, even if he would give Bail, be not worthy of a Commission in the Military Service, which was intended to be applied upon him, as such a one understood. — Therefore it is Resolved, that the said Wm Schuyler and Abraham V. Horne shall render Reason Wherefore to the Committee at our next Meeting —" (S. L. Frey's Transcription of the Minutes of the Tryon County Committee of Safety)

It is my OPINION that they were saying that a man must be a Freeholder to hold a Militia Commission in the Tryon County Brigade. French, Schuyler, and Van Horne were all of the Mohawk District. If! Commissioned Officers were to be Freeholders, men such as Johan Jost Haus, Nicholas Herkimer, Henry Diefendorf, etc. were Freeholders [men with a title to land by clear deed or a LIFELONG Lease to property valued at least forty Pounds Sterling or more. And. If! This were this was the case, Johan Jost House WAS NOT the possessor of either Lot 2 of the Windecker Patent, or Lot 2 Waggoner Patent [which he and his half-brother Jacob Wright purchased from his mother in 1803], at the time he was first commissioned First Lieutenant in 1775 by the Tryon County Committee of Safety. (S. L. Frey's Transcription of the Minutes of the Tryon County Committee of Safety).