♂Gerhardt Walrath

Gerhardt Walrath (died between 1718 and 1721) was a Palatine emigrant from Ennerich, a village near Runkel on the Lahn in present-day Hesse, who came to New York with the Palatine settlers of 1710. He was probably the sixth great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014), through his son Johann Adolf Walrath (1700–1759).

Ennerich

Gerhardt Walrath’s German years survive only in extracts from the church book of Runkel. His first wife, Eva Elisabetha, bore him a son, baptized at Ennerich on 22 July 1691, and died there on 16 May 1693. On 12 August 1695 Gerhardt, a widower, married Maria Reffi, whose name was sometimes written Refer.

Between 1696 and 1706 Maria bore him seven children while the family lived at Ennerich, and three of them died young: Johann Friederich in 1696 at three months, a daughter in 1697 two days after her birth, and Johann Georg, born in 1697, most likely the Walrath child buried at Runkel in September 1701. The others were Johann Adolf, born on 15 March 1700, Anna Elisabetha, Maria Philippina and a son born at the end of 1706.

New York

The family most likely left Germany in the great emigration of the Palatines^W in 1709. On 4 July 1710 Gerhardt first appeared on the subsistence lists kept for the Palatine settlers in New York under Governor Robert Hunter^W, with a household of two people over ten and two under, and the lists follow the family until September 1712. Another daughter, Christina Elisabetha, was born on 8 November 1711 and entered in the Lutheran church book at West Camp. About 1716–17 Gerhardt and Maria were listed with three children in a register of the Palatine families then living in New York.

The mission to London

By 1717 the Palatines who had settled at Schoharie were in dispute with Hunter and with the owners who claimed their land. In 1717 Hunter warned them they would be moved unless they came to terms with the owners, and meanwhile forbade them to plow; they asked leave to plow, were refused, and plowed anyway. A history of the emigration published in 1937 relates that in 1718 the Schoharie Palatines sent Gerhardt to London as one of three deputies to ask for justice, with John Conrad Weiser^W and William Scheff.

The three sailed from Philadelphia, were robbed of their money by pirates, put into Boston for new supplies, and on reaching London were imprisoned for debt. Hunter, by then back in London himself, persuaded the government that the Palatines should be moved to other land on the frontier, and the deputies, short of money and divided over what should be done, could do little against him. “Walrath, homesick, sailed for New York but died before reaching his destination.” His death fell between 1718 and 1721.

Notes

Sources

Every church-book date in this life comes from Henry Z Jones, The Palatine Families of New York 1710 (1985), volume 2, pages 1055 to 1057, which abstracts the Runkel church book for the German years and the West Camp Lutheran church book for the 1711 birth; the original entries are known only through his extracts. Jones also gives the subsistence lists (the Hunter Lists, number 779) and Ulrich Simmendinger’s register of about 1716–17, which names “Gerhard Wallerrath and his wife Maria with 3 ch.”.

The voyage to London

The account of the deputation is Walter Allen Knittle’s, in Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration (1937), pages 203 and 204, drawn from British records and the autobiography of John Conrad Weiser; Knittle’s index calls Gerhardt “sent as deputy to England by Schoharie Palatines”. Knittle adds that the letter of attorney the Palatines sent in the autumn of 1719 calls him Gerard. No date or place of death is recorded.

Johann Georg and Johannes

Jones marks as his own deduction that Johann Georg, born 16 November 1697, was the child of Gerhard Wallrath of Ennerich buried at Runkel on 9 September 1701. He also takes a Johannes Wallrath, who signed beside Johann Adolf on the 1753 subscription list for the German Flats church, to be a son of Gerhardt.

The line to Jacob Walrath

The descent runs through Johann Adolf, also called Johann Adam in New York, to Jacob Walrath (1723–1790) of Stone Arabia. Jones lists Jacob as a probable child of Johann Adolf, on the evidence of names and godparents, because the Mohawk Valley church books that would settle it are lost.