August 14, 2015 - Herkimer NY

As you will see in some of the photos, there is more than one way to spell "Herkimer", but we will stick with the currently popular version.

Herkimer Home: Our day started about 2 hours of driving time east of Brewerton. The 18th Century home of General Herkimer, the hero of the "Battle of Oriskany" in 1777, has been carefully restored and preserved. One nice thing is that they have not loaded the home with furniture and items not original to the home, as most of what they have is original or at least original to the period. There was a large separate "root cellar"  (sorry, no picture) that served as storage for the 33 people who lived on the estate. Made entirely of stone with a barreled ceiling, it would make a great wine cellar. The kitchen  was in the basement with some of the slave quarters, and had a fireplace at least 8 feet wide. The estate is on both banks of the path of the Erie Canal/Mohawk River and made much of it's income from tolls to transport freight around the "Little Falls" just up river. Mr. Vanderbilt put his railroad thru the property near the house and they removed the wood roofing and replaced it with stone to avoid a fire from the trains smoke stack! The stone roof was later replace with wood after the train was re-routed. Gen. Herkimer and much of his extended family are buried in the cemetery on the property.

Kind if says it all....

The back door facing the river

The other side...

An obelisk in his honor (quite of few of these things in the northeast area and for different reasons).

He died from leg wounds 10 days after the battle.

Herkimer Diamond Mines: Just north of the city of Herkimer are open pit mines for Herkimer Diamonds - actually quartz. There is a nice museum, gift shop, and tool rental area to try your luck. We were going to try our luck, but it looked like rain and sure enough, 10 minutes later it started to pour. Judie had to settle for a Diamond dug by someone else and polished and set in sterling silver.

People digging for diamonds.

Fort Herkimer Church: In the days of the revolution and the French and Indian wars, gathering places such as churches also served as a Fort during fighting. This particular church is the last surviving example. Judie's sister-in-law, Martha Emmons, has relatives that died here during these battles including her 5th great grandfather (I hope I got that right)  who was killed getting his family into the church at the start of a battle. The church was closed and we could not see inside to see her family's name as a founder of the church.

Unrelated, but nice old monument. We could not find Martha's family.

Oriskany Battlefield; No other way to complete the day than to see where the battle took place and Gen. Herkimer was wounded. He is most known for continuing to direct his troops after being wounded and stopping the British from continuing on down the Mohawk River to join the forces advancing from NY City to split the colonies.

Another obelisk!

Gen Herkimer directing his troops with his wounded leg.