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Notes on the Rector Family Genealogy
This story begins
in the Electoral Palatinate in Germany in the years before
1709. The Palatinate was and is the area in Germany next to
France and Belgium along the Rhine river and is presently
called the Rhine-Palatinate or Pfalz. The War of the
Palatinate in the late 1600's and the War of the Spanish
Succession in the very early 1700's left this area ravaged
and desolate. This caused many peasants and common people to
be left homeless and destitute. Beginning in 1708, numbers of
Palatines went to England in hopes to go on to the colonies.
In 1709, thirteen thousand (13,000) families entered England.
According to a list taken in Walworth, England on May 27,
1709, one of these families was the John Andreas Richter
family. Listed with John Andreas is his wife, a 14 year old
son, and daughters of ages 17, 7, and 3. The list shows John
Andreas to be 46 years old, his religion Lutheran, and his
vocation husbandman or vinedresser. I have no information on
from where in Germany the family came.
In England, the Board of Trade proposed that the Palatines go
to the colonies to make naval stores. In 1710, three thousand
(3,000) became British citizens and the British officials
sent them to New York. The naval stores operation never
prospered so most, of those who stayed in the new world,
became farmers.
Andreas Richter name appears in Governor Hunter's New York
subsistence list from the time of his landing in 1710 to
September 1712. The list includes an Andreas Richter and with
a family of 3 adults (over 10 years old) and 2 children in
1710. In 1712, a similar list shows 3 adults and no children.
The Colonial Census of 1710 includes Andreas (age 47), his
wife Anna Maria (45), son Andreas (16), and daughter Anna
Barbara (9). So apparently the eldest daughter listed in
England married and at least one younger daughter died in New
York.
Probably the Richters moved up the Hudson in 1712 to the
"West Camp" on the western bank of the river to
Beckmansland. Beckmansland consisted of the towns of
Elizabeth Town, George Town, and New Town. New Town is
probably the present city of Newburgh, N.Y. In the Kocherthau
Records, records of Pastor Kocherthau who was with the
Palatine settlement, Anna Maria and Andreas were sponsors at
the christening of Andreas Sutz on February 21, 1713. Then
less than two months later, on April 7, 1713, the Kocherthau
Records list the marriage of Johann Fuehrer to Anna Marie
Richter widow of the late Andreas Richter of New Town. So
Andreas Sr. died sometime in that two month period in 1713.
The Kocherthau Records list the birth of Johannes Richter to
Andreas and Elisabeth on September 21, 1714. This birth was
probably in New Town since the Simmendinger Register lists
Andreas, wife Elisabeth and one child as living there. Ulrich
Simmendinger, one of the immigrants, published the
Simmendinger Register when he returned to Germany.
Young Andreas moved across the Hudson to Livingston Manor
since he, as Andries Rightster, is shown as a Palatine debtor
of the four villages of Germantown, Livingston, Clermont, and
Claverack on the dates of March 1, 1718; December 26, 1718
and February 1722. His debts may have stemmed from the time
he was on the New York subsistence rolls ten years earlier.
The following are miscellaneous items that mention Richters
in the Livingston Manor area:
Anna Maria
is born in 1732 to Andreas (probably Andreas Jr.) and
Elisabeth Richter.
Anna is
born to Hannes (probably Johannes the son of Andreas
Jr. mentioned above) and Lisabeth Richter in 1747.
Reformed
Church membership list of 1750 mentions Andreas
(probably Andreas Jr.) Regter, his wife Anna
Elisabeth Stael, and children Maria Elisabeth and
Catharina.
The
Livingston Account Book lists Andris Richter as a
tenant for various years between 1768 and 1782.
Probably this Andreas is a son of Andreas Jr. or
Johannes.
Tax lists
of 1779 list Andreas Righter (this and the next two
items may be the Andreis Rechter mentioned in the
next paragraph).
John
Curry's mill list of customers has several entries
for Ander Righter under wheat, corn, barley, etc. in
years 1783 and 1784.
Andreas
Richter is a Livingston tenant in 1799.
Robert
Livingston Estate lists Ander Righter as owing 50
cents in 1804.
How we make the
genealogical connection from the Andreas Richter Jr., who
came to America from Germany via England with his father John
Andreas Richter, to the Andreis Rechter, shown living in
Columbia County in the 1790 Federal Census, is not totally
clear from the records I have seen. The simple fact that
there were many Richters along the Hudson River between 1710
and 1800 causes some confusion. Based on the records
available and some speculation, the following seems a
reasonable genealogical connection:
John
Andreas Richter, his wife Anna Maria and children
came from the Palatinate to England in 1709 and then
to New York in 1710. One of their children was
Andreas who was born in 1694.
Andreas
Richter and his wife Anna Elisabeth Stahl had several
children and one was Johan Wilhelm Richter born in
1740 in Rhinebeck, New York.
The
following is pure speculation: Johan
Wilhelm Richter and his first wife, name unknown, had
a son Andreas (Ander, Andris) Richter (Righter,
Rechter) born in 1762 in Columbia County, New York.
Johan's second wife was named Margaretha Kohl.
This last
Andreas Richter was born in 1762, married Gertje
Rockenfelder in 1781, had several children, and moved
from Columbia County to Yates County with most of his
children in 1817. When he arrived in Benton, Yates
County, his name was Andrew Rector and his wife's
name was Charity.
Paul D. Bullock
September 18, 1982
February 1996 (revision)
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