Ulrich Oliver Winegar

Notes:

Ulrich or Uldrick Winegar (Wiennegar) (1668 - 1754)
Birth: 1652 Zurich Bezirk, Zürich, Switzerland
Death: Mar. 3, 1754 Dutchess County, New York, USA

Uldrick came to the United States as part of the Palatine Migration from Germany in 1710. They actually went to England first, then to America. The Palatine region in Germany was attacked by the French (The Thirty Years War) over religous and political issues. As a final blow, the winter of 1708 destroyed much of the farming/vineyard livelihood of many of the inhabitants. This instability was probably a major factor in Uldrick choosing to leave the Palatine with his family and join a group of emigrants to England. The group fled to England but the British government soon sent them onward to the United States in 1710. The Winegar's were one of the families in this group.

His name has many different spelling variations, including Ulrick, Ulrich, Uldrich and even Olric.

The Poor Palatines.

The Winegar family migrated from Switzerland when Uldrick Winegar was still a boy. They came probably because Switzerland was a poor country and they needed work. Not wanting to sell their sons for soldiers, one of the few steady jobs for young Swiss men, the family moved to the Palatinate, the German speaking provinces east of the Rhine River. Uldrick later described himself as a husbandman and vine keeper. He labored in the vineyards, maybe never owning the land that he worked. About 1700, when he about thirty-two years old, he married a woman named Anna Arnoldt. What moved them to marry at that time and in that place may never be recalled, but when they married they were living in a war zone, in the midst of one of the most barbarous wars of that barbarous age.

The armies of Louis XIV had invaded the Palatinate in 1688, in a preemptive effort to protect the French frontier on the Rhine. This started what is know as The Nine Years War (1689-1697). When events went against Louis on this and other fronts, he had ordered a scorched-earth campaign to deny the Palatinate as a base his enemies could use to invade France across the Rhine River. In 1689, Heidelberg, Mannheim and twenty-five major towns and villages were razed, and the countryside ravished. The war developed into a global conflict, and went on until 1697. Other wars followed close behind. The Palatine was a combat zone for more than two decades. The Palatine region was turned into a virtual desert, as were other parts of Germany and central Europe. This coupled with a series of brutally hard winters, caused widespread famine, starvation and epidemic disease.

Germany had long been a fertile recruiting ground for agents of Great Britain's American colonies. William Penn had been very successful there in the 1680s, attracting hundreds of German pietists to his holy experiment in the Delaware Valley. In 1708, in the midst of the Palatine's agony, agents for the colony of South Carolina recruited a small number of families from the area of Frankfurt. The recruits agreed to go to America in return for free passage and free land upon arrival. Even before this party embarked for the "New America," news of their deal had turned to rumor and then to magical fantasy that grew with each telling. The story soon spread throughout the Palatine and greater Germany that Queen Ann of England had promised that anyone who could find their way to London would be welcomed with open arms, and would be sent on to America and given free land of their very own.

The first few hundred Palatine refugees arrived in London in May 1709. They arrived unexpectedly and uninvited. The first few hundred were cared for by the hasty efforts of a few English philanthropists, but the stream of people did not stop. Through the summer and into fall, as many as 15,000 desperate and destitute people fled the Palatine and other parts of Germany. They came down the Rhine to Rotterdam, then across the North Sea to London in any boat that would float. This hoard of people overwhelmed English charity and caused a social and political crisis across all of England. The British army was called in to deal with what was fast becoming a logistical and humanitarian nightmare. The army set up vast camps on Blackheath and at Camberwell where thousands of people were housed in tents and fed army rations.

Britons were passionately divided on what to do with the "poor Palatines." Whigs, of the party that controlled Parliament, insisted they be made naturalized citizens. Even before the arrival of the first refugees, Parliament had passed the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants Act aimed at encouraging immigration as a means of strengthening the British economy and increasing tax revenue. Whigs believed that Great Britain needed many more productive workers, and the Palatine refugees were a priceless gift just waiting to be employed. Besides, the Palatines were "refugees of conscience" - fellow Protestants fleeing the tyranny and state-sponsored terrorism of Catholic France. The Whigs proposed solution was to create a private charitable society that would raise money to support the refugees until they could find work and integrate into society.

Tories countered that far from being Protestant "refugees of conscience," many of the refugees were actually Catholic. Furthermore, the hoard had been sent to England as part of a clever French plot to "eat the Bread out of the mouths of our People." Tories wanted no part of these people, and wanted the borders of Great Britain closed to any and all immigrants.

Records seem to show that about twenty percent of the refugees were in fact Catholic. Close inspection of the people in the camps showed that few of them were likely candidates for the the kind of jobs British employers needed to fill. Many were too old or too young to be useful, too many were women. Most of the adult men were unskilled and uneducated farm laborers. All of these people were survivors of more than two decades of the most barbarous warfare; many were malnourished and suffered from chronic illnesses.

Tory arguments prevailed. By the autumn of 1709, Queen Ann's government adopted a policy of dispersal. The Palatines were to be moved out of the stinking camps in the London suburbs as soon as possible. Plans were made to scatter them across vacant parts of Ireland and northern England where they might open new farmland. Nothing came of these plans, and the few Palatines who were sent to Derry soon came staggering back to London.

Someone at the Board of Trade proposed sending the Palatines to America where they would be subsidized by the British government to produce naval stores - hemp, pitch, tar, turpentine - for the Royal Navy. They could be sent to the frontier where all the raw materials would be at hand, and where the refugees could also act as a first line of defense against the French in Canada.

In the summer of 1710, ten ships sailed for America carrying more than 2800 Palatine refugees, among them Uldrick Winegar, his wife and children. One source says that 2127 of them arrived alive in New York. Most were immediately sent up the Hudson to work camps.

On the east side of the river, at what is now Germantown, Clinton County, NY, the East Camp was established on land provided by the great patroon, Robert Livingston. Livingston had made a deal with Governor Hunter of New York: The Palatines would have a place to settle and go to work producing naval stores for the Royal Navy; Livingston would gain about a thousand tenants who would improve his land and make it that much more valuable. Across the river, at modern Saugertis, Ulster County, a six hundred other refugees set up what was known as West Camp on land confiscated from a landowner who refused to negotiate.

The Winegars were assigned to East Camp. They and their fellow inmates were given tools and tents, and ordered to carve a new home out of the forest. They were also provided with food, clothing, blankets and other necessities, and put to work without pay producing naval stores. The refugees were expected to work off the cost of bringing them to America and keeping them fed, clothed and sheltered. It was a kind of open-ended indenture. They were to establish a whole new industry, and when it showed a profit beyond the cost of setting it up and running it, the refugees would be free. Until then, they were in effect slaves.

This enterprise soon failed. No one at the Board of Trade had known that industrial grade hemp could not be grown in the Hudson Valley. Nor did the types of pine trees that produced pitch, tar and turpentine grow in the region. After little more than two years the British government withdrew all subsidies and turned its' back on the refugees. The camps officially ceased to exist on 12 September 1712, when the last subsidy was paid.

Left on their own, the Palatine refugee communities slowly dispersed. Many stayed put where they had been left by the British government. Others moved north into the Mohawk Valley, pushing into Iroquois country. Some found their way into the Jerseys, a large group settled at Hackensack. Still others migrated into Pennsylvania, settling in the new counties of Berks and Lancaster. Within a generation Palatine refugees, their children and grandchildren could be found in every English colony from New England to Georgia. So ubiquitous were these people that every German speaking immigrant was called a Palatine.

The Winegars moved away from East Camp. By 1724, the family moved into a tract in Duthchess County, New York known as The Oblong, right up against the border with Connecticut. Anna died in 1735. Uldrick lived until 1754, a well-respected elder. Long before his death, family leadership had passed to his eldest son Garret who had been born in the Palatinate in 1702, and experienced many of the family's travails. Garret would build a big grist mill in what is now Sharon, Litchfield County, Connecticut, and serve as captain of the local militia. He died in 1755. The Winegars had come a long way from the valleys of Switzerland, to the war-ravaged Palatinate and the refugee camps. They found prosperity on the New York frontier, and some peace as well perhaps.

Family/Spouse: Susanna Arnoldt. Susanna was born in 1668 in , , , Germany; died on 7 Oct 1765 in , , Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Johann married Anna Katherine Schneider on 9 Sep 1721 in Rhinebeck, Dutchess, New York, USA. Anna was born on 14 Jan 1706 in Hochheim, Erfurt, Thueringen, Germany; died on 8 Sep 1776 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1787, Kent, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA
• Probate: 10 Jul 1787, , Litchfield, Connecticut, USA
• Will Date: 14 Sep 1787, , Litchfield, Connecticut, USA

Hendrick married Eve Miller in 1741 in Germantown, Columbia, New York, USA. Eve was born in 1699 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA; died on 7 Apr 1749 in Sharon, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hendrick married Magdalena Halena Roe in 1758 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. Magdalena was born in 1733 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA; died on 22 Feb 1762 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hendrick married Anne (Emma) Beecker on 14 Aug 1764 in Presbyterian Church of Amenia, Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. Anne was born in 1736 in , , Connecticut, USA; died on 5 Mar 1770 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hendrick married Mercy Howe Johnson on 26 Sep 1770 in Presbyterian Church of Amenia, Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. Mercy was born in 1739 in Wallingford, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; died on 11 Dec 1816 in Kent, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Hannah married William Rowe on 2 Jul 1751 in Sharon, Fairfield, Connecticut, USA. William was born on 11 Apr 1732 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA; died in New York, Kings, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Nicholas Rauh. Nicholas was born on 9 Aug 1719 in Kingston, Ulster, New York, USA; died on 9 May 1786 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA; was buried in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Conrad married Anna Maria Mary Rauh Rowe in 1755 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. Anna (daughter of Johannes Jurgen Rauh and Anna Catherina Magdalena Salbach) was born on 10 Aug 1726 in Rhinebeck, Dutchess, New York, USA; died on 29 Jul 1806 in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA; was buried in Amenia, Dutchess, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Henry Winegar

Hendrick married Dimmis Cahoon on 26 Feb 1785 in Kent, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA. Dimmis was born in 1763 in Fort Ann, Washington, New York, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]