My Mother loves Genealogy. She is a convert to the Church and has the Spirit of Elijah. Seeking out our relatives has been Marianne's work for over 30 years. My Mother's Grandfather's father has been a dead end. It has just stopped. To make a miraculous story short, one week before our trip to NY my Mom input the name and dates of her Great Grandfather into Ancestry.com. By the next day there were 80 suggestions and after an email, a phone call and a Hallelujah shout, Marianne had been connected with the entire Genealogy tree back to the 1600s.
Thursday Mom, Dad and I made the hour drive to:
Established 1780
It is deep in Amish Country near St Johnsville on the Mohawk River on Route 5.
We met Mom's distant Cousin Dave Klock who runs the Fort during open season. He gave us the history of the family's immigration and all the brothers who took their families across the country to settle. A fortified homestead was a thick walled home that could be sealed up in conflict. There are little slits in the walls big enough for muskets to fire upon the enemy. The surrounding neighbors would all gather and be safe in it.
The Klock family is from Germany. The British needed people to settle in the Americas to harvest pine tar. The Klocks volunteered and were moved from Germany, to the shores of England and then shipped to NY. Once the government began the harvest of pine tar they realized NY did not have the right trees to make a good product. The immigrants were starving so the British gave them land and sent them on their way. What a great endeavour by the British only to fail.
Fort Klock has been restored with items from the time period. Great care and detail was taken. It was very special for us to see where and how our very own ancestors were raised and lived.
This is the pattern of the Klock family. I love the dark blue and red.
The property was 1/2 mile wide along the Mohawk river with the main highway along the river, and 6 miles long. Here is the side which overlooks the river.
On the property was everything to sustain life in the country. The main house, a very large barn, blacksmith's shop, school, cheese house, stables, outhouse, well, cold storage underneath the big house and much more.
I love that MY Mom loves genealogy because I get to reap the blessings of knowing about my heritage. I feel blessed to have been able to connect with my family in this very personal way. How special that this Fort has been preserved for us to reap the blessing of being able to visit and learn about where we came from.
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