Family Histories Collection – Andrus Eiklor Family

This week we highlight another article from our Family Histories Collection from deceased RICIGS member, Eugene Eiklor.  Read about the life of Andrus Eiklor and his descendants. Andrus’ grandfather, Christian) was part of the immigration in 1709 of the “Naval Stores” Project. This project led to mass migrations from the war-torn Rhine Valley (Germany) in the early 1700s.  They came from the Rhine Valley River region known as the “Palatinate.” The name arose from the Roman word “Palatine,” the title given to the ruling family of the area when it was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Palatines were driven from their homes, into the British Empire, by circumstance and desire for a war-free life. Promises were made and hope for something better drove thousands to flee only to be hampered at every turn by politicians, monarchs, and business ventures of these emigrants. Despite it all, many of these German emigrants and their descendants have played major roles in the American colonies and the overall welfare of what became the United States.

LOYALTIES IN THE ANDRUS EIKLOR ¹ FAMILY DURING THE REVOLUTION

^{By RICIGS member, Eugene W. Eiklor (June 30, 2019)}
Andrus was born March 7, 1732 in the Province of New York. His Grandfather, Christian Aigler immigrated with the 1709/10 Palatines to participate in the “Naval Stores” Project.² Christian was indentured to Queen Anne as were others sent to New York under the leadership of Governor Robert Hunter. Christian, his wife, Eva Catherine and their four children, Eva Catherina, Maria, a third daughter, and Johann Viet, left Dallau with the Andreas and Anna Rosina Ehlig family. The two families travelled on the Els, Neckar and Rhine Rivers for transport to London in 1709. There they and more than a three thousand more waited for emigration to New York. In April 1710, Christian and Andreas were selected to be in the Naval Stores project. During the venture, Christian lost his wife and their children at London. Christian remarried. His second wife, Maria Eva Neff was also a Palatine.

Christian and Maria had a son, Andreas.³ He was born in New York most likely in March 1711. His father, Christian, died in 1712-13. The widowed Maria married Wilhelm Lehman, Clement Schmidt’s step son in September 1713. Christian and Maria’s son, Andreas Aigler married Anna Maria Borters/Bortern. They had one child, Andrus,⁴ who was born March 7, 1732. Andrus/Andrew is my 5th Great Grandfather.

Hunter settled some of his Palatine charges on the eastern shore along the Hudson River. That place is now named Germantown. The others were settled on the western side. It is now named West Camp. Both locations are south of Catskill. The Naval Stores project was not a success. By 1712, Governor Hunter acknowledged same and stopped subsidizing the Palatines in New York. One of the reasons he stopped the subsidy is he had not been reimbursed by the government in London. This was due to a change in political parties in Queen Anne’s government. Hunter suffered great financial losses during the years he paid subsidies to the Palatines. Later he would try to seek reimbursement from the Palatines.

The culture of the Hudson River Valley continued to experience the influence of the Dutch who had originally established trading sites with the local Indians as early as 1614. The “Dutch” traders and settlers were of many cultures and languages. The Dutch during their golden years in the 17th century had attracted individuals and families from the Rhine River and its tributaries and Scandinavia. The Dutch East Indies Company recruited the emigres and Netherlanders to man trading posts scattered across the world. In the early 1600’s the Dutch did not attempt to conquer and establish colonies as the objective was to trade.

Andreas, his wife, Anna Maria and their son, Andrus lived on their farm bordering on the Cauterskill south of the town of Catskill. The Cauterskill emptied into the Catskill which flowed to the Hudson River. The farm was established by Andreas’ step father, William Lehman. This farm was named as “Vlychey”⁵ in Andrus’ Will. The land allowed for successful farming by the family for generations. By the 1920’s the farm was no longer owned by the Eckler family. In the 1930’s a family researcher found that the gravestones from what had been the family cemetery were piled along the banks of the Cauterskill.

Andrus, the second generation Palatine born in New York, was a member of the New York militia before the Revolutionary War. When the Province of New York was organizing for the Revolutionary War, Albany’s Committee of Correspondence secured information about the number of men in its respective Districts who were supportive of the rebellion leading to the War. In the Coxsackie District, Phillip Connine, Rev. John Schuneman and James Barker devised a Coxsackie Declaration of Independence. The signers of that declaration were seeking freedom from the laws imposed by the English Parliament. Years later a copy of this faded document was found in an attic at Albany. One of the signers of that Declaration was Andrus/Andrew Eckler who placed his “X” on it.

Andrus/Andrew was married three times. The children from those three marriages ended up having differing allegiances towards the conflict. Below is a summary of the genealogy of Christian Aigler’s family. Christian and Maria Eva [Neff] Aigler/Eiklor are my 7th Paternal Great Grandparents:

My 7th Paternal Great Grandparents
Christian Aigler/Eiklor (1671-1712/13) was 38 years old in 1709. By trade he was a stonemason.
m. 1st Eva Catharine Schifferdecker⁶
Child 1 – Daughter Aigler, b. 1701
Child 2 – Eva Catherina Aigler, b. 10 Jan 1703
Child 3 –Maria Aigler, b. 1705
Child 4 – Johann Viet Aigler, b. 1707

m. 2nd Maria Eva Neff⁷ in 1710
Child 5 – Andreas Aigler, b. 2 Jul 1711
Maria Eva Neff Aigler was widowed in 1712/13. She married secondly Wilhelm Lehman, Clement Schmidt’s step son. Maria and Wilhelm had no children.

My 6th Paternal Great Grandparents
Andreas Aigler (2 Jul 1711 –aft 1761), m. Anna Maria Borters abt 1730
Only Child – Andrus/Andrew J. Eckler – (5th Great Grandfather)⁸

My 5th Paternal Great Grandparents
Andrus/Andrew J. Eckler (7 Mar 1732 – May 1805)
m. 1st Maria Schramm (7 Mar 1732 – May 1805), 14 Mar 1749
Child 1: William Eckler (9 Sep 1750 – 1807), m. 1773 Marietje Lampman (31 Aug 1754 – ?)
Child 2: Maria Eiklor (9 Aug 1752 – 1807), m. 1782 Georg Burk (1730 – bef Jul 1830)
Child 3: Frederick Eckler/Eiklor (Oct 1755 – aft 21 Apr 1834), m. 1781 Sarah Barker (17 Aug 1759 – Oct 1804)⁹
Child 4: Elizabeth Eckler (Sep 1757 – 6 Sep 1845), m. 1778 Jesse Allen (1754 – 24 Jun 1824)
Child 5: John Eckler (15 Nov 1759 – 15 Jan 1833) m. 1786 Gertrude Witzen Brandow (1766 – aft 1850)

m. 2nd Elizabeth [May] Werner, (May 1730 – May 1763), 25 May 1760
Child 6: Jeremiah Eckler (May 1763 – d.y.)
Child 7: Catherine Eckler (May 1763 – d.y.)

m. 3rd Marytje Brandow (Feb 1742- Feb 1826), 1764
Child 8: Peter Eckler (22 Oct 1766 – 9 Mar 1847) sired Maria Eckler (21 Oct 1782) with Elizabeth Barker.
Peter married Annetje Hannah Morris (16 Sep 1771-18 Jan 1844) sometime around 1786.¹⁰

The marriages and in-laws for these first three Eckler generations were with their fellow Palatines. The exceptions were Elizabeth and Sarah Barker, George Burk and Annetje Hannah Morris. George Burk, who was born in a Germany, was not a part of the Palatine migration in 1709-10. Annetje Hannah Morris’s father was not a Palatine. He was born in Wales. As to the two Barker sisters, they were both born in England at Blythe, Northampton shire. Their parents, James and Elizabeth Barker, the two sisters and the other family members came to the Province of New York in about 1767. Over the years Barker family members were in contact with members of the Andrus Eckler family. Andrus’ farm being on the Cauterskill emptied into the Catskill near Barker’s 6,000 acres. The Barker family lived at “Woodstock”. In the 6,000 acres owned by their father, the Catskill coursed through the acreage and included a waterfall near their settlement at “Woodstock”. After the Revolutionary War the “Susquehanna Turnpike” traversed their father’s acreage in an east-west orientation. Both the Barker and Eckler families were parishioners at Reverend Schuneman’s Dutch Reformed Church.

From information I have gathered over the years from various sources and documents, Andrus’ family witnessed competing loyalties in his immediate and satellite families as well as with his in-laws. Some have suggested New York leading up to the War and conducting the rebellion, in reality it was a civil war. Certainly Andrus Eckler experienced it. His eighth child, Peter was too young, He was with his parents at “Vlychey”. The two children born to Elizabeth [May] Werner-Eckler died shortly after Elizabeth gave birth. Apparently she died as a result of that pregnancy and birth. In her May family, there is a history of some members being Tories/Loyalists.

Andrus Eckler’s in-laws from his marriage to Maria Schramm, were loyal to the Crown. And amongst the five children born to Andrus and Maria, William along with his wife, Maria Lampman and her parents loyal to the Crown. They removed to Canada.

No evidence has been uncovered that would indicate Maria or her husband, George Burk, were in any manner supportive of the Crown.

Frederick Eiklor was a veteran in the fight against the Crown. His father-in-law, James Barker supported the Rebel cause. He was a member of the Committee of Correspondence for the Coxsackie District of Albany. James’ son, John Barker, like Frederick fought for the Rebels. Frederick and his wife Sarah’s three children – Jane, Elizabeth and David married into families who supported the Rebels. Jane’s father-in-law, Joseph Agard, was a veteran of that War for the Rebels. Also in support of the Rebel cause was Elizabeth’s husband, Benjamin Woodruff. He was a Drummer Boy for his Rebel unit. David’s father- in-law, William Huyck, was a veteran of General Sullivan’s campaign in Pennsylvania and Western New York for the Rebel cause.

Frederick filed for a pension for his service to the Rebel cause.¹¹ The pension did not meet the terms of the pension laws of 1834. Frederick did not name the specific dates of service he served under each individual officer. The pension file was returned to the Greene County Court for this information. The file was not updated. Likely, the frail seventy nine year old Frederick may have died.

Frederick and Sarah Barker had married during the War. After the War, they accompanied his sister, Elizabeth and his brother-in-law, Jesse Allen¹² to make a life at Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth’s husband, Jesse Allen was a soldier in a number of campaigns for the Rebels. He was in the Sullivan campaigns in Pennsylvania. Apparently he learned that there was considerable controversy in Pennsylvania concerning ownership of land. There were competing claims by the Indians, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as by various ethnic groups and Benjamin Franklin. The pension file for Jesse Allen was generated by his children for the benefit of their mother. The various campaigns in which their father participated are cited in the file.¹³

John, similar to his brother, Frederick served for the Rebels. He received a pension. No evidence has been found that John’s in-laws were anything but supportive of the rebellion. After John’s death, his wife sought and obtained a widow’s pension.¹⁴

The in-laws of Andrus’ second wife, Elizabeth [May]-Werner included Loyalists. Some members of the May family supported the Loyalist cause. As to Elizabeth’s first husband, I have not searched or found any information or evidence concerning their allegiances.

If the farmer Andrus had to contend with family members supporting differing allegiances, then it had to have endured in other families. I do not have the time or funds to research this issue in Greene and Albany counties. It would be a nice long research project to take the core families of this article and the Barker family members and neighbors to search out the complex relationships in the matter of loyalty to the Crown or loyalty to the Rebels. It is a complex of competing positions. Some historians have labelled the Revolutionary War as a cousin’s war. The Andrus Eckler family is an example of that suggestion.

¹ The surname is variously spelled as Aigler, Eckler, Eiklor, Eichler. Akler, as well as other spellings.
² The personal histories of the New York 1709-10 Palatines are covered in the two volume edition of Jones, Henry Z., Jr., The Palatine Families of New York, 1710: A Study of the German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York. All named herein are the 1710 Palatines or their descendants except for a son-in-law and three daughter-in- laws for Andrus/Andrew Eiklor.
³ Andreas was named after his godfather, Andreas Ehlig. Andreas and Andrus are the English equivalent of “Andrew”.
⁴ Andrus is the Dutch rendering of the name.
⁵ The name is the Dutch word for “the flats.”
⁶ No death records have been located in Rotterdam, Netherlands or London, England for the 1710 Palatines. Christian lost his wife and four children who were born in the Palatinate. They perished before passage on the Lyon in 1710.
⁷ As with death records, no marriage record has been unearthed at London for this presumed marriage. Maria’s son was born about March 1711.
⁸ Note that the usage of the Dutch names by the family: Marytje, Annatje, and Andrus.
⁹ This family adopted the Eiklor surname spelling.
¹⁰ One major source for the names and dates in this genealogy can be found in The Eckler-Eiklor-Eaklor-Akler Family of Hudson Valley, New York and Bradford County, Pennsylvania, Paul E. Eckler, Wildwood, MO, 2012.
¹¹ Three Unsuccessful Eiklor Revolutionary War Pension Applications, The New York Genealogical and Biographical RECORD, Vol. 140, April 2009, p.101.
¹² Some Allen researchers believe Jesse and his father were part of the Green Mountain Boys. No precise information has been established for this assertion.
¹³ IBID.
¹⁴ IBID.