Adam Helmer - Background

Background

Adam Helmer was born in German Flatts, New York to Maria Barbara Kast, and George Friederich Helmer, who was born on June 9, 1706 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse a city in the Rhineland-Palatinate region in southwestern Germany. G.F. Helmer emigrated to America sometime before 1710 and eventually settled in one of the numerous Palatine farming communities on the south side of the Mohawk River in central New York.

As late as 1774, this Palatine district and others in the area widely supported British control, but with the death of the powerful loyalist Mohawk Valley landowner Sir William Johnson and news of the Declaration of Rights by the Continental Congress, anti-British sentiments began to surface and a Tryon County Committee of Safety was organized. This and the news of Continental Army resistance at the Battle of Lexington and Concord encouraged the remaining Johnson family and other loyalists to fortify their properties and to recruit Iroquois to side with the British. This in turn prompted the colonists in 1775 to organize a militia under the command of Colonel Nicholas Herkimer. Early the next year, Herkimer aided General Philip Schuyler who was sent by Congress to disarm the Loyalists. Many of the loyalists and sympathizing Iroquois led by William Johnson's son Sir John Johnson escaped to Canada where they began to organize to take back their Mohawk Valley holdings.

During the summer of 1776 Colonel Herkimer allowed his regular militia to return to their farms; however, about one out of every fifteen soldiers, including Lieutenant Adam Helmer, was assigned to ranger duty. Helmer was assigned as a scout in Captain John Breadbake's company.