Clermont State Historic Site

If you have visited Clermont, you may have noticed if you plugged our address into your GPS that we are listed as being in the town of Germantown. We’re not, we’re in the town of Clermont but it’s a whole thing with the post office.

Anyway, Germantown is named after the German Palatines who were brought to the land in 1710. It was then known as East Camp and consisted of 6,000 acres that the crown had purchased from Robert Livingston First Lord of Livingston Manor. England had been flooded by refugees from the Palatine region of what is now Germany. They were brought to the land in exchange for making naval stores for the British navy in a time of indentured situation. The experiment failed within two years and the Palatines were left to shift for themselves. Many moved west, more on them in a second. But about 80 families or so stayed in the East Camp. Slowly over the coming century East Camp transitioned to the Germantown District in 1775. In 1788 when Columbia County was formed, Germantown was one of the original seven towns.

In the Mohawk River Valley, there is a town called Palatine, now in Montgomery County. It is named after the early settlers of the area who were Palatines who had fled East Camp searching for a better life for themselves. Back in England some Haudenosaunee leaders felt so much pity for the poor Palatines living in refugee camps in England that they offered them some of their land to live on. The Palatines who moved west were simply taking them up on their offer.

In the town of Palatine there is a village called Palatine Bridge. This village is also named after the Palatine settlers of the area and a bridge that crossed the Mohawk River at that point. Palatines + a bridge = Palatine Bridge.

Oddly enough there is a town in Illinois called Palatine. There seems to be no real connection to the Palatines for the town. The population wasn’t overwhelmingly of German descent. When it came time to name the town, they simply named it after the town in New York. Palatine was really a better choice than the runner up for the name of the town, Yankton.

As mentioned earlier there were thousands of Palatine refugees in England in the early 1700’s that the English need to do something with. In addition to sending the people to the Americas they sent some of the Palatines to Ireland. That’s why in County Carlow there is the town of Palatine. At last count it had 88 residents, so its not a large town.

The Palatines, the region in Germany, and by extension all these towns named Palatine, ultimately derive their names from Palatine Hill in Rome. Palatine Hill is the middle hill of Rome’s famous seven hills. Before the empire it was occupied by the wealthy. Emperor Augustus eventually evicted all of them and built the imperial palace on the hill. From here regional governors, known as Palatines, would be sent out to areas of the vast empire. In some places the name stuck. Today Palatine Hill is an open-air museum where extensive archeological work has been done.

The Palatines that descended on England in the early 1700’s were looking for better, safer lives for themselves. They would be amazed to find that 300 years later their legacy is written on the maps of the areas that they lived in.