Nicholas Herkimer

Nicholas Herkimer (Herchheimer; c. 1728 – August 16, 1777) was an American Patriot militia brigadier general during the American Revolutionary War, who died of wounds after the Battle of Oriskany.

Herkimer was the son of Palatine German immigrants Catherine Petrie and Johann Jost Herchheimer, from the parish of Leimen in the Palatinate. He was born in the vicinity of German Flats in the Mohawk Valley of the Colony of New York, and was the elder brother of Loyalist Captain Johan Jost Herkimer. Nicholas was of slender build, dark complexion, black hair, and not quite six feet tall. He could speak German, English and Iroquois.

During the Attack on German Flatts in the French and Indian War, he was involved in its defense. He was made a captain in the militia on January 5, 1758, and he repelled a second attack on German Flatts in April of that year.

Herkimer built his new house in 1764 near the present-day city of Little Falls, New York on the south shore of the Mohawk. He used a number of slaves on his estate.

In July and August 1775 Herkimer headed the Tryon County Committee of Safety, and became colonel of the district militia. After the split in which Loyalist militia members from the area withdrew to Canada, he became a brigadier general in the Tryon County militia by the Provincial Congress on September 5, 1776. In June 1776, he led 380 men of the Tryon County militia to confront Joseph Brant at Unadilla, New York. Herkimer requested that the Iroquois remain neutral while Brant said the Indians owed their loyalty to the King.

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