The lead-in title might make you think of a Crusader-era battle cry or pot advocates targeting the Middle East. But it’s actually about a place—a location in central New York with fertile fields and lush forests, bordered by freshwater and settled by Germans. The name itself, spelled and pronounced in various ways, has long sparked curiosity, speculation, and myth—and may always do so. The terms Stone Arabia, Steen Rabi, or Steen Raby, in their Dutch spellings, are found in Dutch writings long before they appeared in America.
Regardless of its origins, Stone Arabia, in the eastern Mohawk Valley, became a land of promise for different groups of settlers, especially Germans from the Palatinate and Swiss who arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries. Interestingly, the name was sometimes used to describe areas on the west side of the Hudson near Kingston, the site of today's North Troy, and finally the central Mohawk Valley. According to land records, just before the Revolution, Stone Arabia referred to a region later called the Palatine District, stretching from the Nose to the Falls and northward to Canada. However, on March 8, 1773, it lost this broader meaning, and from then on, the name was limited to the land patent in the Mohawk region.
The Valley
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| Sir William Johnson, His Majesty's agent to the Indians of New York |
The Mohawk Valley was controlled by Sir William Johnson, a well-known British representative to the Indians in central New York. From the early 1700s until the start of the American Revolution, the area experienced white settlement and frequent conflicts with the native Iroquois. British policy aimed to limit settlement by whites and to pacify the Indians. Johnson generally succeeded in carrying out this policy. However, tensions between the natives and settlers always simmered just below the surface and sometimes erupted into violence. Sir William's influence over both whites and Indians helped keep the peace, though he had to work hard to maintain order, restrain unruly settlers, and calm the natives when their pride or sense of justice was offended.
To the Indians, as well as to Johnson and his British superiors, the white settlers appeared land hungry. Johnson sought to curb land settlement and maintain a balance with the natives. These tensions set the stage for violent conflicts when the American War for Independence broke out, making Stone Arabia the western edge of the fighting. By the time the Revolution started, Stone Arabia was well populated and its economy thriving. Churches, schools, stores, mills, blacksmith shops, lime kilns, taverns, and boatyards dotted the landscape along the Mohawk. Each farm boasted an orchard, often serving as the family’s burial ground. Crops such as wheat, flax, potatoes, corn, fruit, hemp, hay, peas, and oats were cultivated, with wheat being the primary crop. The wheat flour from the Valley was worth more in New York City than any other product. The first homes were built of logs; later ones were made of frame or stone. The area was a diverse melting pot of German, Dutch, English, and Indian influences—often called the Mohawk Dutch.
The Revolution Comes to the Valley
Many settlers of Stone Arabia became members of the Valley militia of New York. Before the war, they met regularly for training and were subject to call to arms during emergencies. The Stone Arabia company was part of the 2nd battalion of the Palatine militia. When the struggle for independence broke out, Stone Arabia's settlers were generally patriots. In fact, almost two years before the declaration of independence, the Stone Arabia farmers drafted their own declaration of American Principles on August 27, 1774, at the White Tavern, owned by Adam Loucks. These resolutions read in part as follows:
III [in part]. That We think it is our undeniable Privilege to be taxed only with our own Consent given by ourselves (or by our Representative). That Taxes otherwise laid and exacted are unjust and unconstitutional....
IV. That the Act for blocking up the Port of Boston is oppressive and arbitrary, injurious in its principles and particularly oppressive to the Inhabitants of Boston, who we consider as Brethren suffering in the Common Cause.
V (in part). ...that we will join and unite with our Brethren of the Rest of this Colony in anything tending to support and defend our Rights and Liberties.
A Major Zielly and Andrew Dillenback (who was later killed at Oriskany) were appointed to a committee to gather material for war. In keeping with the spirit of pre-war revolutionary fervor, the people of Stone Arabia stayed alert and informed. And for good reason: they would soon find themselves at a key location in the struggle's Northern Department. The fertile Mohawk Valley and the fields, especially in Stone Arabia, served as supply sources for the Continental Army throughout the long war. In 1780, Washington relied on the wheat and oats of Stone Arabia to feed his army and was determined to prevent them from falling into the hands of the British Loyalists in the area. This set the stage for a small but fierce conflict whose only goal was destruction.
The Fighting Frontier
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| Mohawk Valley settlers were defeated at the Battle of Oriskany in 1777 |
The region played a key role in the British campaign of 1777, with many Palatinate Dutch serving at Fort Stanwyck and fighting at Oriskany. Two forts, Keyser and Paris, were built on Stone Arabia soil. Fort Keyser, a stone house from the 1740s built by Johannes Keyser, was palisaded and garrisoned by militia troops under Lt. John Zeiley. Fort Paris, originally built in 1737 by Isaac Paris, was a fortified farmhouse and trading post. Inside the palisade, there was also a barracks for 100 men and a blockhouse. Despite—or because of—the forts, the Loyalists and Indian allies struck Stone Arabia twice. The first attack was the Ephratah-Dillenburgh raid in 1778.
On April 20, 1778, while a small company of twenty militia was drilling, a band of Indians and Loyalists appeared and began destroying homes and barns. Most of the militia went to defend their homes, but a few pursued the attackers. In a skirmish, several militiamen, including a boy of four, were killed. The Loyalists withdrew, but stragglers from the band took a boy captive at Kringsbush and killed a young woman in sight of Fort Klock. These raids, along with others north of the Mohawk River, so frightened the inhabitants that most of those missed by the Indians and Tories moved into the Mohawk Valley to seek protection in the forts. As for the northern slope of the valley, the British effort to scare people away from their farms was a great success.
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| Fort Klock, Home of Colonel Jakob Klock of the Palatine Regiment of the Tryon County Militia |
Battle of Stone Arabia
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| Map of the Johnson Raid on Stone Arabia, 1780 |
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| Sir John Johnson |
On October 19, 1780, Sir John Johnson, William's son and a controversial Loyalist leader, led an army of 900 Loyalists and British Regulars in an invasion of the Mohawk Valley. After following a winding route across southern New York State, they moved north through the Schoharie Valley, entering the Mohawk Valley at Fort Hunter, where the army turned west toward the Canajohary and Palatine Districts. The invaders camped on the evening of October 18 near the Noses, a geological feature that marks the great divide in the Appalachian Mountain chain.
The next day, they crossed the Mohawk River at Keator’s Rift. They burned Jellis Fonda’s mill before proceeding to attack the settlement of Stone Arabia, located a mile and a half north of the Mohawk River in the Palatine District. Colonel John Brown of the Massachusetts Militia marched his 380 militiamen out of Fort Paris to meet the enemy on a field about a mile from the fort. Outnumbered nearly 3 to 1, he was shot from his horse, and his men fled the field. Brown, who had served at Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and participated in the Quebec invasion, died on the battlefield. With its defenders defeated, Stone Arabia was completely destroyed by the enemy, including the twin Dutch Reformed and German Lutheran churches. Both churches were rebuilt after the war ended and still stand today.
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| Left in ashes by the raid, the Dutch Reformed Church was rebuilt in 1788 |
The Legacy
The raid of 1780, with its widespread destruction, delivered a significant blow to the cause. It is worth noting that there was greater unity among the Palatine farmers in opposition to the British policy than in some other districts in the Valley. However, hardly a family was not split between loyalty to the crown and loyalty to the cause.
Despite this, we find New York Governor George Clinton (later the 4th Vice President of the U.S.) giving a fitting testament to the spirit of the Stone Arabia settlers in 1781: "Most of Tryon and Schoharie have been destroyed. They are not however abandoned; the inhabitants having recovered themselves, continue to improve their farms and assist in the general defense."
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| NY Gov Clinton |
Stone Arabia exemplified many of the hundreds of localized conflicts that made up a significant but often overlooked part of the American War for Independence. The political struggles and fierce fighting among British, Loyalists, Indians, and Patriots in and around Stone Arabia played a crucial role in early New York history and in shaping an independent America.
