First, here is a site that discusses the Palatine settlers.

Very brief summary: The Palatine Germans were actually religious and economic refugees who fled Germany starting in 1709. The British set up seven refugee camps for them at Livingston Manor on the Hudson.

This article says the Germans knew about Schoharie Valley before they came!

"Before the Palatines left England they had heard of the wonderful valley of the "Schorie" (an Indian term for drift wood), Schoharie, and longed for this "promised land." But the statesmen of Queen Anne's time thought that the Palatines ought to repay some of their "keep" in England as well their transportation, so they conceived a plan whereby these Germans were to get out timbers for the royal navy and pitch and turpentine and resin, needed naval stores. Great Britian had furnished $40,000 and out of his own fortune Gov. William Burnet furnished $140,000. They were settled at Livingston Manor on the Hudson, and set to work. It proved to be a modern effort of making "bricks without straw," and after years of vain pleadings to be allowed to go to the promised land in the Schoharie valley, they finally rose up, rebelling. against "Pharaoh" Hunter and left the tarless pine trees for the rich, alluvial soil of the Schoharie, tho not a few went into Pennsylvania."

So we need to rethink how our ancestors got to Berne and Schoharie!! They were German refugees and did not come through the DUTCH cities of Albany and Schenectady. They followed an old Indian trail going north west from Livingston Manor. The route became so heavily traveled that in 1802 the NYS legislature chartered the 60 mile Schoharie (Loonenburgh) Turnpike along this trail. It began just west of the ferry at Loonenburgh (now Athens) at the Hudson River in the Township of Coxsackie. It ran through Gayhead, Freehold, Wright St., Oak Hill (Greene Co.) to Schoharie County: Livingston, Franklinton and into Middleburgh.

The family of Peter Ball b. 1699 was probably with the original Palatine refugees when they arrived in NYC in 1709 of 1710. His father apparently died on the way over leaving his widowed mother alone with eleven year old Peter and an older sister who promptly got married and went off with her new husband. In 1710 Peter's mother was on Gov. Hunter's list of Palatine refugees who had to be fed by the government. The list was kept so the Gov.. could eventually be paid back what was owed. When the Palatine Germans refugees finally were able to continue on to the promised land of Schoharie, Peter and his mother stayed behind because he was to young to start hacking his farm out of the wilderness with his widowed mother.

He evidently ended up in Princeton, Schenectady; since that is where his wife was from whom he probably married about 1720. In 1722 Johannes was born in Princeton. The next thing we know he was in the greater Schoharie area (actually Berne) in 1733. The first Berne settler!! (as far as I have been able to discover so far.)

More Palatine refugees continued to arrive in Berne via the camps on the Hudson and the Loonenburg trail. Among them were the following early family names: Dietz, Shultes, Enders, Castleman, Fisher, Betholtz, Zimmer, Zeh, Warner. Their stories can be found in "More Palatine Families" by Henry Z Jones. There is evidence that the Enders were in the area about 1738 and the Dietz's in 1740; although it is difficult to say when an individual family arrived since we just have marriage and baptism records to go by. They could have been there a few years earlier with no recordable event. (The Enders may have lived near West Berne, or perhaps in Gallupville. I'm still working on them.)

While the Weidmans and Basslers were not strictly Palatine Germans, it was similar tragic events in their countries that forced them to become refugees and flee to the Americas in hope of a better life.

So the early Berne settlers were poor German refugees who came to western Albany County via the "back door" of Schoharie (so to speak). They then squatted on the Van Rensselaer land without the Patroon's knowledge or permission! And they didn't have to buy their land; as they would have if they settled in Schoharie. They even got off rent free until about 1774 when the first leases were forced upon them. Not bad!

I was so excited when I realized how the original Berne settlers actually arrived that I wanted to share it with all of you.