A while back I wrote about the Long Trek to Adams taken by Peter Doxtater and his family, https://myfamgen.com/2017/08/18/the-long-trek-to-adams/. Peter was my husband’s 5 times great-grandfather. From the booklet Revolutionary War Veterans who settled in the Sixtown Area of Southern Jefferson County – “He came to Adams in 1802 with his wife and six children. They came up the Mohawk River in a flat boat, thence to Oneida lake, through Wood’s Creek to the Oswego River, to Lake Ontario to Big Sandy Creek and inland 2 miles.”
I had also written about Peter’s earlier life in this blog post https://myfamgen.com/2017/05/05/peter-doxtater-and-the-french-and-indian-warrevolutionary-war/.
So on our recent vacation my husband and I visited the places involved in Peter’s life.
Our first stop was where Peter’s grandparents George Adam Dockstader and Anna Stahring lived on Hickory Hill just outside the current town of Fonda, NY. Briggs Run courses through the property. (The residence and barns receive their water supply from never failing springs while the fields are abundantly supplied by a stream (Briggs Run) fed by springs which course through the farm from the northeast to the southwest corners. The farm name is derived from the mammoth hickories which grow near the residence.) I couldn’t manage to get a picture of Briggs Run up by the hill, but I did get a picture of the farm land, and a picture of Briggs Run closer to where it flows near the Mohawk River.
Eventually Peter’s parents Johan George Dockstader and Maria Magdalena Weber ended up moving to German Flatts in Herkimer County, NY. This is where the family was living during the French and Indian War when Peter was taken to Canada by the Native Americans(according to the guide at Fort Stanwix it was most likely the Algonquins). We visited the Fort Herkimer Church which is where I believe some of Peter’s family including his mother had fled to during the attack.
After his return from Canada, Peter settled back in German Flatts and was still living there with his wife Elizabeth Cunningham and some of their children during the Revolutionary War. Their son George, my husband’s 4 times great-grandfather, was baptized at the Fort Herkimer Church (also known as the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of German Flatts).
Peter fought with the Tryon County New York Militia at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777. He was with the 4th (Kingsland-German Flatts) Regiment under Col. Peter Bellinger. The whole militia was under the command of General Nicholas Herkimer. We visited the Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site and General Herkimer’s Home. We also found Peter Bellinger buried in the Fort Herkimer Church cemetery. We also visited the Herkimer Historical Society. There we found out that Peter’s sister Catharina is buried across the street at the Herkimer Reformed Church graveyard, but we couldn’t find her grave. The tombstones there are in very bad shape and mostly unreadable.
We took a cruise on the Erie Canal which in part goes on the Mohawk River. There are parts of it that go around the river through a man-made portion. So that begs the question as to how when Peter and his family were traveling to Adams did they navigate the portion of the river where there were rapids, since the current man-made portion of the canal didn’t exist back then.
We learned when visiting Fort Stanwix that there was at one time a piece of land called the Oneida Carry where people traveling west by boat would have to go over land between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. The stretch of land could range from one to six miles depending upon the time of year and how the water was flowing. However in the 1790s there was a man-made canal built between the two bodies of water so by the time Peter and his family were traveling west the waterway was connected. Wood Creek eventually emptied out into Oneida Lake. We went to visit the lake at Verona Beach State Park.
On the other side of Oneida Lake they would have gotten onto the Oswego River and then to Lake Ontario. We visited the city of Oswego.
Next we stopped at the point where they would have gone from Lake Ontario into Sandy Creek.
And finally we got to Adams. Not sure how they navigated Sandy Creek to get there since there are definitely parts of Sandy Creek in town that don’t look navigable. We visited the Adams Rural Cemetery and found Peter’s grave. His first two wives Elizabeth Cunningham and Susannah (don’t know her maiden name) and his father are also buried there. I am not sure when his father made the trip to Adams or if his mother ever came to Adams or if she died in German Flatts. We spent about two hours at the cemetery. We also found the graves of Peter and Elizabeth’s 3 sons, George, William, and Peter Jr and their daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s tombstone is really cool. It’s a big boulder taken from Peter’s farmland. We also found Doxtater St which I assume was named after the family. I believe Peter’s land was up the hill from where the street is today.
I don’t know why I am so fascinated with Peter. Maybe because I know so much about his life, but of all the tombstones we found in all the many cemeteries we visited on this genealogy vacation, I felt the most connected to his.