Palatine Valley
The Herkimers were part of the great Palatine German migration that settled the middle Mohawk Valley in the early 1700s — refugee families recruited to the British colonies who became the Valley's farmers, millers and traders. Nicholas, born around 1728 near present-day Herkimer,1 grew wealthy in farming and river trade, and around 1764 built the handsome Georgian brick house that still stands above the Mohawk at Danube.2
German was his first language, as it was for much of the Valley; the militia he commanded as brigadier general of Tryon County was substantially a German-speaking force of his neighbors and relations.
Ten days in August
Herkimer's story compresses into ten days of 1777: the march from Fort Dayton on August 4, the ambush at Oriskany on August 6 — where, wounded below the knee, he continued directing the fight — and his death at home on August 16, of complications after his leg was amputated.12 He was buried on his own land.
The state named a new county for him in 1791, and the village of Herkimer followed. His home became one of New York's first state historic sites; his grave and a monument stand on its grounds.