c. 1685 : Johann Bernhardt Lückhard born in the Upper Rhineland.[1] His place of origin is unknown, but it was probably somewhere near Darmstadt.[2]
13 January 1707 : The marriage is recorded in Gräfenhausen, Starkenberg (Hessen), of a Johann Bernhard Lückhard and an Anna Justina. No other information is given except that they were “duly joined together” on this day.[3] I suspect this is our Bernhard and Justina, though I have no solid evidence. The time is what we would expect, and the location is almost exactly where my survey (see note 2) had led me to believe the family originated.
3 July 1709 : Bernhard Lingoret, his wife, and one child (theirs, or perhaps an orphaned relative or friend) sailed from Rotterdam with the fifth group of Palatine emigrants (Capt. Leonard Allen’s ship).[4] Later records identify his wife as Anna Justina.[5]
“A contemporary pamphlet lists the home principalities [of the 1709 emigrants] as follows: the Palatinate, the districts of Darmstadt and Hanau, Franconia (including the area around the cities of Nuremburg, Baireuth and Würzburg), the Archbishopric of Mayence, and the Archbishopric of Treves. The districts of Spires, Worms, Hesse-Darmstadt, Zweibrücken, Nassau, Alsace and Baden are also mentioned. To this list Wurtemberg must be added, since a number of Palatines are known to have emigrated thence. . . . The area, from which the emigration poured, extended along both sides of the Rhine River and its tributaries, the Main and Neckar Rivers.” [Walter Allen Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1937), pp. 1-2.]
Walter Knittle, who wrote one of the earliest histories of the Palatine emigration, lists the primary reasons for the exodus as
- the devastation of war
- heavy taxes
- an “extraordinary severe” winter
- “religious quarrels, but not persecutions”
- desire for land and (for the young) for adventure
- advertising by colonial landholders
- “the benevolent and active co-operation of the British government”[6]
14 July 1709 : According to Knittle, the fifth group of Palatines arrived in England on this date.[7] By this time there were thousands of these emigrants in London, which was a much smaller city then than it is now. They were crowded into any place of shelter that could be found for them, not all of it sufficient, and many of them died from disease and exposure.
“Initially most Londoners expressed sympathy for the Germans’ plight. They gave generously to the charity drive. Many took an interest in the Germans’ customs, and trips to the German camps on the city’s outskirts became a popular pastime. . . . But . . . by mid-July the Germans clearly no longer enjoyed the sympathy of many Britons.” [Philip Otterness, Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), pp. 61, 64.]
January 1710 : Ten ships of Palatine emigrants finally departed England for New York.[8] Conditions on the ships were crowded and unhealthy, and for various reasons the voyage took longer than it should have done. Again many died, especially young children.[9]
Emigration and settlement
Late June 1710 : Arrival of Palatine immigrants in New York City; they were housed on Nutten (now Governors) Island because many of them had typhus and perhaps other diseases.[10] The death rate continued to be high.[11]
“In 1710 the Colonial authorities designated Governors Island a quarantine station for large groups of Palatines who were arriving in America. From 7,000 to 10,000 camped on the Island at one time.” [A Guide to Governors Island (United States Coast Guard, 1973), p. 16.]
1 July 1710 : Subsistence lists kept by Governor Hunter show 4 shillings distributed on this day to Bernhard Lickhard at New York for two adults, no children.[12] Presumably the child who left Rotterdam with them was one of the many who died en route.
4 August 1710 : Bernhard Lickhardt appears on the subsistence lists for this date, in New York; he received £1 2s for two adults, no children.[13]
4 October 1710 : Bernhard Lickhard in New York; received £1, 10s, 6p for two adults, no children.[14]
October 1710 : The Palatines began to move to the land set aside for them, on either side of the Hudson River.[15]
1710/1711 : Bernhard Lickhard and Justina Lickhard are listed among the several hundred Palatines still in NYC.[16] This suggests that one or both of them were too ill yet to resettle.[17]
Spring 1711 : Those remaining in NYC at the end of 1710 were now moved.[18] I’m not sure where the Lückharts settled initially. All of the children were baptised at the West Camp church, but the family was receiving its subsistence payments at Livingston Manor. They were definitely living at West Camp in 1715 (qv.); might Livingston simply have been a distribution centre?
3 June 1711 : Johann Wilhelm, son of Joh. Bernhard and Justina Lückhard, baptised in the West Camp settlement[19]; his birth date is unknown but must have been after the 1710 list of those ‘remaining at New York City’.
24 June 1711 : Bernhard Lickard received £3 16s 6p in subsistence for three adults at Livingston Manor.[20] I think this is an error for two adults and one child, as the logical explanation would be the addition to the family of Johann Wilhelm.
29 September 1711 : Bernhard Lickardt received £4, 3s subsistence for two adults at Livingston Manor.[21] Assuming this was not an oversight, it suggests Johann Wilhelm had died by this time. I find no record of his death, but no further records of him alive, either.
24 December 1711 : Bernhardt Lickardt received £4, 6s subsistence for two adults at Livingston Manor. However, he also appears to have received £10, 11s for two adults in New York on the same date.[22] (I’m not sure what’s going on there. It is the same family because both are numbered 104, the number assigned to this family in these lists. According to Jones and Rohrbach [Even More Palatine Families, p. 1881], those who received larger sums were in New York until April & May of this year, which this family was; but why would they receive two separate payments?)
25 March 1712 : Bernhard Lickardt received £4, 12s subsistence for two adults at Livingston Manor.[23]
8 June 1712 : “Justina, wife of Bernhard Lückhard” named as sponsor in the baptism of Anna Christina Trombour.[24]
24 June 1712 : Bernhard Lickard received £4, 11s subsistence at Livingston Manor for two adults.[25]
6 September 1712 : Gov. Hunter informed the Palatines that he had no more money to assist them and they would now have to support themselves.[26]
13 September 1712 : Bernhard Lickard received £4, 1s for two adults at Livingston Manor.[27] This is the date of the final subsistence payment for all but a few families.[28]
10 November 1712 : Baptism of “Johannes, born Nov. 7th, child of Bernhard and Justina Lückhard” in the West Camp settlement.[29]
“During that winter without government aid their suffering was particularly pitiful. Within the next five years many Palatines moved elsewhere.” [Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 188.]
23 August 1713 : “Justina Lückhardin” named as sponsor at the baptism of Maria Christina Castleman.[30] (Lückhardin = wife of Lückhard)
22 February 1715 : Baptism of “Johann Daniel, born the 13, child of Bernhard and Justina Lückhard”.[31]
“The naturalization act, passed July 5, 1715, was part of a working agreement arranged between the governor and the assembly. . . . Protestants were naturalized, provided they took the oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and subscribed to the Test and the Abjuration Oath. . . . A large number of Palatines availed themselves of their opportunity for naturalization under the act.” [Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, pp. 214-15.]
7-8 September 1715 : Johan Barent Lighthert was naturalised as a British subject at the Ulster County Court in Kingston.[32] Either the family were still living in the West Camp, or this was simply the nearest court.
Dutchess County
“The earliest settlers in the county were the Dutch, but the Palatines were the first group to settle in Beekman.” [Frank J. Doherty, Settlers of the Beekman Patent, Dutchess County, New York (Pleasant Valley, NY 12569, 1990), vol. I, p. vi.]
25 November 1716 : Baptism of “Johann Peter, born the 10th, child of Bernhard and Justina Luckhard”.[33]
1717 : Publication in Germany of Ulrich Simmendinger’s True and Authentic Register of Persons Still Living . . . who in the Year 1709 . . . Journeyed from Germany to America or New World. Simmendinger had travelled to New York with the other Palatines but after several years returned to Germany. The Register lists Bernhart Lieckhart living at Beekmansland with Justina his wife and one child.[34] As Johann Daniel had already been born, and we know he survived to adulthood, Johannes must have died before this; presumably Simmendinger was unaware of the new arrival.
“Just as the spirit of the patriarch Jacob was revived by the glad and vivid tidings concerning his beloved Joseph, . . . so I believe that it will arouse no less a heartfelt joy in him who with tearful eyes saw his good friend set sail for the New World in 1709 and now sees his name in my catalogue, . . . when friends can be assured that their near relatives are still in good health in America. . . . These are they who, either by letter or verbally, requested me to greet their dear relatives. These are they who in this printed register bid farewell, because they have absolutely no hope of ever seeing their loved ones again, whether in this European or that American world. . . .” [Ulrich Simmendinger, A True and Authentic Register of Persons Still Living . . . who in the Year 1709 . . . Journeyed from Germany to America or New World, translated from the German by Herman F. Vesper (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1962), pp. ix-x.]
6 January 1717 : “Bernhard Lückhard and his wife Justina” were sponsors for the baptism of Johann Bernhard Fröhlich.[35] The Fröhlich family travelled with Bernhard and Justina from Rotterdam to London,[36] and they appear in several of each other’s records; this might indicate that they originated from the same part of Germany. (As was often the case, the child was named for the same-sex sponsor, in this case Bernhard Lückhard.)
1 September 1717 : Death registered in the West Camp church of a “child of Bernhard Luckhard“[37]; this can only be Peter as Daniel survived to adulthood.
February 1738/39 : Barent Legthart appears on tax rolls of Beekman’s Precinct, Dutchess County.[38]
February 1739/40 : “Barent Lighthart” and “the son of Legthart” appear on tax rolls in Beekman’s Precinct in this year.[39]
February 1740/41 : Barent Lichthart and “his son” both appear on this year’s tax roll for Beekman Precinct.[40]
1741 : Several legal documents surviving in Dutchess county concern litigation against Barent ‘Leeght Hart’ or Lighthart by Juryan Tappen for unpaid debt. (One document is written in Dutch.) He was even arrested for a time.[41]
February 1741/42 : Barent Lighthart and Daniel Lighthart appear on this year’s tax roll for Beekman Precinct.[42] Both Lightharts are listed by name on every roll hereafter until 1748.
6 September 1742 : Local records for Dutchess county describing the proposed location of roads to be laid out show Barent Lighthart holding lot no. 8 of the Beekman Precinct.[43] This same property was later held by his son (see 1753).
1744 : Daniel Lickhard witnessed the baptism of Nette Dijmand; the other witness, a Christina, is believed by Jones to be Daniel’s sister, though I don’t know on what evidence.[44]
1746 : Anna Justina is on record (as is Bernhard) as sponsor to the baptism of their granddaughter, Annaatje, who was born in April,[45] so we know that Justina was alive at least until this date.
June 1748 : The tax roll for Beekman Precinct in this month is the last record we have of Barent Lighthart of Dutchess County.[46] The rolls for 1749-52 are missing,[47] so it’s possibly that he was listed in those years as well, but he appears to have died before June 1753.
copyright (c) by Lynn McAlister, 2022
Next: Generation 2: The Albanians
[1] “Palatins remaining in New York”, in E.B. O’Callaghan, M.D., Documentary History of the State of New York arranged under the direction of the Hon. Christopher Morgan, Secretary of State, vol. III (Albany: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1859), p. 563.
[2] In September 2020 I found 116 people with variations of the name Lückhard listed in Das Telefonbuch. More than half of these (64) are in the modern state of Hessen, with 10 in neighbouring N. Rhineland Westphalia, 6 in Baden-Württemberg, and smaller numbers scattered across the southwest and in larger northern cities. The 17th C picture is less clear, but many of the people with whom Bernhard left Rotterdam were from the Nassau-Darmstadt area (there were Lückhards in Dornheim, Gross-Gerau, at this time but I have been unable to find a connection), and many of those with whom he and Justina appear in colonial records were from the southeastern part of what is now Rhineland-Palatinate. These map points all meet up in a 50-mile radius more or less centred on Darmstadt in Hesse.
[3] Hessen-Nassau: Zentralarchiv der Evang. Kirche > Dekanat Darmstadt-Land > Gräfenhausen >Trauregister 1614-1779, image 309: Johann Bernhard Lückhard & Anna Justina; digital image, Archion.de (https://www.archion.de : accessed 28 May 2022).
[4] HM Treasury, Treasury Board Papers and In-Letters, T/119, pp. 60r-v: passengers to London under Capt. Leonard Allen, 3 July 1709; National Archives, Kew, England (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/); digital copies purchased 21 July 2022.
[5] “Palatins Remaining in New York”, in O’Callaghan, Documentary History, vol. III, p. 563. Justina is the name given for Bernhard’s wife repeatedly in the so-called Kocherthal Records (see for example 8 June 1712); the baptismal record for her namesake granddaughter Anna Justina shows that like many German women of this time her first name was Anna.
[6] Walter Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration: A British Government Redemptioner Project to Manufacture Naval Stores (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1937), p. 31.
[7] Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 65.
[8] Ulrich Simmendinger, A True and Authentic Register of Persons Still Living, by God’s Grace, who in the Year 1709, under the Wonderful Providences of the Lord Journeyed from Germany to America or New World and there seek their Piece of Bread at various places, reported with Joy to all Admirers, especially to their Families and Close Friends, translated from the German by Herman F. Vesper (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1962), p. iv.
[9] Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, pp. 146-47.
[10] James Good, “The Palatines of New York“, Leben: A Journal of Reformation Life online (1 April 2008): 5. Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, pp. 148-9. The Lückhard family first appears on record in NY on 1 July 1710, qv.
[11] Philip Otterness, Becoming German: The 1709 Palatine Migration to New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 79.
[12] “The Hunter Lists of New York 1710-1713”, in Jones & Rohrbach, Even More Palatine Families, vol. 3, p. 1790.
[13] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, Jones & Rohrbach, p. 1808.
[14] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, Jones & Rohrbach, p. 1822.
[15] Otterness, Becoming German, p. 97. Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 158.
[16] “Palatins remaining in New York”, in O’Callahan, Documentary History, vol. III, p. 563.
[17] O’Callahan, Documentary History, ibid. Otterness, Becoming German, p. 97.
[18] Otterness, p. 97.
[19] Joshua Kocherthal, “Records of Baptisms in Church at West Camp” (translation), in St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Records of West Camp Lutheran Church, Ulster County, N. Y., 1708-1845, baptism of Johann Wilhelm Lückhard, 3 June 1711; digital images, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org): film #008122293, image 8.
[20] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1857. Henry Z. Jones, The Palatine Families of New York: A Study of the German Immigrants Who Arrived in Colonial New York in 1710 (Universal City, Ca., 1985), p. 564.
[21] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1869.
[22] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, pp. 1881, 1893.
[23] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1904. Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 287.
[24] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol III, no. 4 (April 1907), pp. 119, 122.
[25] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1915.
[26] Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration, p. 188.
[27] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1926.
[28] “The Hunter Lists of New York”, p. 1780.
[29] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol. III, no. 5 (May 1907), pp. 156-57.
[30] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol. III, no. 6 (June 1907), pp. 183, 185.
[31] Joshua Kocherthal, “Records of Baptisms in Church at West Camp” (translation), in St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Records of West Camp Lutheran Church, Ulster County, N. Y., 1708-1845, baptism of Johann Daniel Lückhard, 22 February 1715; digital images, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org): film #008122293, image 22.
[32] Ulster County deed book BB (naturalizations), pp. 386-7; copy obtained from the Ulster County Archives, Kingston, NY.
[33] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol. III, no. 9 (Sept. 1907), pp. 281-82.
[34] Simmendinger, True and Authentic Register, p. 15. Some authors have attempted to place Beekman’s Land in the West Camp, but the most obvious identification is the Beekman Patent (later Beekman’s Precinct) in Dutchess Co., which was being settled by Palatines from both Livingston Manor and West Camp at this time. This was the conclusion reached in 1934 by Herman P. Vesper, who translated the Register (p. v), and is supported by the fact that all non-church records of the Luckhard family for the rest of Bernhard’s life show him in Beekman’s Precinct, Dutchess Co.
[35] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol. III, no. 9 (Sept. 1907), pp. 281, 283.
[36] “The 5th Party Rotterdam Departure List”, Jones & Rohrbach, Even More Palatine Families, vol. 3, p. 1608.
[37] Krahmer, trans., “A Translation of the Early Records”, Olde Ulster, vol. IV, no. 3 (March 1908), p. 87.
[38] Dutchess County Clerk, Book of Taxes, 1729-1748, vol. C-D, microfilmed by the Genealogical Society of Salt Lake City, 5 January 1973; Family History Library microfilm 925054, image 124.
[39] Dutchess County Clerk, Book of Taxes, 1729-1748, vol. C-D, image 139.
[40] Dutchess County Clerk, Book of Taxes, 1729-1748, vol. C-D, image 140.
[41] Dutchess County, New York, Court of Common Pleas, “Jurgen Tappen v. Barrent Lighthart”, Ancient Document nos. 216, 216A & 216B, Ancient Documents (www.dutchessny.gov/Departments/County-Clerk/Ancient-Document-Search.htm), search term: Lighthart.
[42] Dutchess County Clerk, Book of Taxes, 1729-1748, vol. C-D, image 162.
[43] Old Miscellaneous Records of Dutchess County, The Second Book of Supervisors and Assessors (Poughkeepsie, NY: Vassar Brothers’ Institute, 1909), p. 176.
[44] Jones, Palatine Families of New York, p. 564.
[45] Holland Society of New York, Dutch Reformed Church Records: New York City Lutheran, Vol. 1, Book 85; digital image, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), 2014: Annaatje Lickhard.
[46] Dutchess County Clerk, Book of Taxes, 1729-1748, vol. C-D, image 321.
[47] Frank J. Doherty, Settlers of the Beekman Patent, Dutchess County, New York, vol. 8 (Pleasant Valley, NY: New England Genealogical Society, 1990), pp. 163-7. Clifford M. Buck, Dutchess County, NY, Tax Lists, 1718-1787 (Rhinebeck, NY: Kinship, 1990), p. 225.
Lightheart-Lückhard family 