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of Schuyler, leaving male and female descendants. He married a daughter of Johan Jurgh Kast, and obtained by purchase and inheritance the title to about six hundred acres of the Kast patent which he left to his children.

I should have noticed in the proper place that one of Judge Staring's children, a little girl about ten years old, was carried off by the Indians during the war. She had gone to one of the judge's relatives near Fort Herkimer, where she could be taken for security, in case of an attack upon the settlements. The woman in whose charge the child was left permitted her to go into the field near the house, where she was seized in a stealthy manner and borne into captivity. The judge was not very forbearing towards his relation for this careless act, as he no doubt fully anticipated the little girl's fate in case her name and parentage should be found out; she was however recovered after the war closed.

THE TEMOUTH FAMILY.

The name is written Demot and Dimouth in the Palatine records. Those who were not used to the German method of spelling and pronunciation often wrote the name Damewood. I have found the name printed Damoth and Demuth. John Jost parted with the lot granted him at Little Falls before the revolution, and probably before 1757, as no traces of the family can now be found near that place. The Demuths were in the vicinity of Herkimer during the revolutionary war. One of them moved to Deerfield, Oneida county, before the commencement of hostilities, but that settlement being broken up by the enemy he escaped with his family and returned to the German Flats for greater security. Captain Demuth was with John Adam Helmer in the difficult and dangerous service of carrying a message from General Herkimer to Colonel Ganesvoort during the siege at Fort Schuyler. He also was sent by the committee of safety to Albany with an account of the transaction at

Oriskany and Fort Schuyler in company with Helmer. As Demuth was an officer at this time and Helmer was not, it appears to me undue prominence has been given to the latter by Colonel Stone in the matter of carrying the message to Fort Schuyler, in which Capt. Demuth's name is not mentioned at all, but Helmer is shown to be the principal

man.

General Herkimer would not have been guilty of so indelicate an act towards an officer as to make a private his prominent agent in carrying an important dispatch to the commanding officer of the beleagured fort, nor could an officer consent to execute a military service under such circumstances. I make this correction not to disparage Helmer in any way, but in justice to the memory of a man equally devoted with him to the cause of humanity and the just rights of his country. The records of our government sufficiently testify that Capt. Demuth's services were duly appreciated by a grateful people.

Some of the Demuth family emigrated to Onondaga after the close of war with the Realls, where their descendants now reside. There are but very few people of this name, if any, now living in the county. There was a George Damewood who lived at one period during the revolution on the north side of the Mohawk river between Little Falls and West Canada creek.

Since writing out the above I have been informed that two small boys of this family were carried into captivity by the Indians during the war. They were taken at the river bank near Fort Herkimer. At the restoration of peace one of them returned to his family and remained with them, but the other having been adopted into the family of an Onondaga chief, had become so much attached to Indian customs and habits that he could not be induced to quit his savage roaming life. When grown up to manhood he would often visit his relatives who lived not far from the Onondaga reservation and remain with them over night, but he would not on any occasion sleep upon a bed. A blanket and the

floor yielded all the sleeping luxuries he required or would indulge in, and it was not often he could be induced to prolong his visit longer than one night. He spoke the English, German and Indian very well, and was often very useful in promoting a friendly intercourse between the whites and Indians.

THE WELLEVEN FAMILY, OR WOLLEAVERS.

This name is found written Wolleben and Wohleben in the statement of the heads of Palatine families on the west side of the Hudson river in 1710.

Nicholas W., the patentee in Burnetsfield, who was also one of the patentees in Staley's 1st and 2d tracts, died in 1773, leaving six sons, Henry, Peter, Richard, John, Abraham and Jacob; and six daughters, Catharine the wife of Frederick Shoemaker, Mary Sophia the wife of Peter Flagg, Elizabeth who married with Frederick Schute, Lany who married with Frederick Bellinger, and Hannah the wife of John Emgie or Empie. Empie was a tory and went to Canada with his family. Richard, John, Peter and Abraham were in the Oriskany battle; the two former were killed and the two latter returned, Peter slightly wounded. Nicholas Wollever, from whom I had this account of the family, stated he was the son of Peter, and was born August 1st, 1769, and is now nearly 85 years old; says his father was born March 9th, 1732, and died November 17th, 1829, having attained the age of 97 years and 8 months; that his father Peter was taken prisoner during the French war in 1757, and was sent to England for exchange. He was also in the mill at Little Falls when it was attacked and burned by a party of the enemy, which my informant assured me was in June, 1782, and made his escape.

Peter Wollever lived on the farm in Manheim, since known as the Christy place, which he hired of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief; and Brant sent word to him, in 1777, that he would come and tomahawk him, if he did not leave the

farm immediately. Peter then moved to Fort Herkimer with his family, in the fall of 1777, after the Oriskany battle; where he remained until the close of the war. My informant stated, his father once borrowed money of Gen. Herkimer, to pay the rent to Brant. He had three sons, who attained the age of manhood, Nicholas, John and Henry. His daughters were, Elizabeth, wife of Frederick Shoemaker; Catharine, the wife of Garret Van Slyke, whose father John Van Slyke, was killed on Fink's Flats, during the war; Susan, the wife of Jacob Edick; Hannah, who married a Mr. Furman; Mary, now living, who married a Mr. White and Eva, the wife of Stanton Fox.

Abraham Wollever, one of the patentee's sons, was taken prisoner, in October, 1781, with Henry Staring near Fort Herkimer; soon after he was taken, he was knocked down, tomahawked, scalped by his captors and left; the enemy with their other prisoner, Staring, pursuing their course towards Oneida. Abraham survived this horrid treatment, was out two nights, his feet having been very much frozen, and near sunset of the third day after his capture, he was brought to the fort. He lived a number of years after this event, to recount the story of his sufferings. He was discovered by a party from the fort, who had gone out after horses, which had strayed away. When first seen, he was trying to mount one of the horses, and being covered with blood was taken for an Indian, and would have been killed by his friends, if he had not clung so close to the horse, that they could not shoot him without killing the animal. Jacob Wollever, the youngest son of the patentee, shot the tory or Indian who killed old Mr. Hess. This family have a tradition that their ancestor came into this county directly from Schoharie. This tradition is supported by the fact, that the name is found among those Palatines who were seated on the west side of the Hudson, from whence the first German settlers of Schoharie came. This name is now nearly extinct in the county.

THE WEVER (OR WEAVER) FAMILY.

This name is written on the Livingston manor lists, Weber and Webber. Jacob and Nicholas were volunteers in the Montreal expedition, repeatedly mentioned in other parts of this chapter. Peter Ja. Weaver, was an ensign in 1775, in the 4th battalion of the Tryon county militia. Some of the family settled in Deerfield, Oneida county, in 1773, and after the war, other members of the family, from Herkimer, fixed themselves at that place. George I. Weaver was taken pri soner during the war, and was detained in captivity about two years, and some part of the time he suffered very much by the inhuman treatment of his captors. Four hundred acres of land were assigned to this family, two hundred on the north, and two hundred on the south side of the river. A portion of these lands is still possessed by the descendants of the patentees.

Jacob G. Weaver, whether of the same family or not, I am unable to state, was cotemporary with John Jacob Astor, and at an early period of our history, was engaged in the fur trade, by which he accumulated a large estate, which he left to be inherited by three daughters. He was shrewd and active in the prime of life. He died at Herkimer, Nov. 28th, 1820, aged 79 years.

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