German-Americans
The first German immigrants came to Rockland and Clarkstown in the colonial period, including the ancestors of prominent local families like the Gesners and Wanamakers. While many arrived as indentured servants early on, by the mid-1700s German miners were coming to settle with their families, and during the Revolution Hessian deserters found a home in the Ramapo Mountains. The 19th century saw a much larger migration of Germans to Clarkstown and Rockland, with these newcomers not only earning a living as farmers and factory workers, but also as merchants and service workers. Haverstraw and Bardonia each had editions of a German weekly newspaper, The Rockland Adler, which ran around the turn of the 20th century, and Germans established various churches and German-American societies in the area, such as the German-American Club of Rockland County.
Significant People
Clarence Lexow was a New York State Senator whose father Rudolph Lexow had fled Germany after participating in the 1848 Revolution. Senator Lexow, whose district included Rockland County, led an investigation into corruption involving the New York City police and Tammany Hall, helped establish the City of Greater New York, fought to preserve the Palisades, and made Stony Point Battlefield open to the public.
Louis (Ludwig) Blenker was a military officer who had fled Germany after taking part in the German Revolution of 1848. He came to the U.S. and settled on a farm in Rockland, eventually becoming a colonel and later a commander who led several German regiments which fought well for the Union Army in the Civil War.
John Bardon arrived in Clarkstown in 1849 and founded the village of Bardonia (then Bardon’s Station) around a distillery that he ran. The hamlet was mostly settled by German immigrants who worked in agriculture as well as in industry, such as with the Rockland Brewery.
Bibliography
Jones, James Matthew. German Immigration to Rockland County, New York. Dissertation, St. John’s University, 1982.
Savell, Isabelle K. Politics in the Gilded Age in New York State and Rockland County : a Biography of Senator Clarence Lexow. New City, New York: Historical Society of Rockland County, 1984.
Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana University Press, 2006.
Wittke, Carl. Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1970.