Lt. Adam Frederick Helmer

A Patriot of the American Revolution for NEW YORK with the rank of LIEUTENANT. DAR Ancestor # A054422

September 16, 1778, the “Paul Revere of the Mohawk Valley” makes his famous run. Unlike Revere, Adam Helmer didn’t have a horse to help him cover ground more quickly. Instead, he ran at least 30 miles on foot.

Information about the run is scarce. Were there moments of exhilaration as he ran so far so fast? Or did he spend more time worrying that he might not make it? At the time, the feat was regarded as nearly superhuman. Legend has it that the exhausted Helmer slept for 36 hours straight when he finally reached his destination.

At this point in the Revolution, things were tense in New York’s Mohawk Valley. Patriots were at odds with those who remained loyal to the British crown. Moreover, relations with local Indian tribes were difficult, as some tribes sided with the British and some sided with the Patriots.

There were many bloody events in the valley during those years, but one such event was prevented by Helmer’s extraordinary run.

In September 1778, Helmer was working with eight other scouts to track down Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader who had been raiding settlements in the area. Was it safe for local residents to harvest their fields? Or was Brant planning a raid?

The scouts got their answer when they were attacked by a band of forty Indians near the Unadilla River. Helmer managed to escape by hiding behind some bushes. As soon as the Indians were out of view, he began his famous run.

Legend has it that he ran first to his sister’s home at Andrustown. He conveyed his warning, received fresh shoes, and then continued on. He ran for miles, warning settlers who were then able to find refuge in Forts Dayton and Herkimer.

One young girl saw Helmer as he was finishing his run. Many years later, she described what she remembered: “Helmer’s clothing was torn to tatters, his eyes were bloodshot, his hands and face and limbs were bleeding and lacerated from the effects of brambles and bushes through which he had forced his headlong flight. He halted only enough to shout ‘Flee for your lives.’ The enemy is not far behind, and hurried on to the next house.”

In the end, Helmer saved nearly all the settlers in the area. When a band of Iroquois and Loyalists attacked the next day, they destroyed 63 houses and nearly 60 barns full of grain. They took more than 800 horses, cattle, sheep, and oxen. Despite these losses, only two or three people were killed. One of these was a man who had failed to seek refuge, even after being warned.

Yet another unsung hero who has been largely forgotten by our history books. - author Tara Ross

GEDCOM Note

Adam F. Helmer (c.1754 - April 9, 1830) was revered as an American Revolutionary War hero among those of the Mohawk Valley and surrounding regions of New York State - their own Paul Revere. He was made nationally famous by Walter D. Edmonds' popular 1936 novel "Drums Along the Mohawk" with its depiction of Adam Helmer's Run of September 16, 1778 to warn the people of German Flatts of the approach of Joseph Brant and his company of Indians and Tories.

Background Adam Helmer was born in German Flatts, New York. Adam's mother was Maria Barbara Kast, and is father was George Friederich Helmer, who was born on June 9, 1706 in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse a city in the Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) region in southwestern Germany but emigrated to America sometime before 1710 and eventually settled in one of the numerous Palatine farming communities on the south side of the Mohawk River in central New York.

As late as 1774, this Palatine district and others in the area widely supported British control, but with the death of the powerful loyalist Mohawk Valley landowner Sir William Johnson and news of the Declaration of Rights by the Continental Congress, anti-British sentiments began to surface and a Committee of Safety was organized in the district. This and the news of Continental Army resistance at the Battle of Lexington and Concord encouraged the remaining Johnson family and other loyalists to fortify their properties and to recruit Iroquois to side with the British. This in turn prompted the colonists in 1775 to organize a militia under the command of Colonel Nicholas Herkimer. Early the next year, Herkimer aided General Philip Schuyler who was sent by Congress to disarm the Loyalists. Many of the loyalists and sympathizing Iroquois lead by William Johnson's son Sir John Johnson escaped to Canada where they began to organize to take back their Mohawk Valley holdings.

During the summer of 1776 Colonel Herkimer allowed his regular militia to return to their farms, however about one out of every fifteen soldiers, including Lieutenant Adam Helmer, was assigned to ranger duty. Helmer was assigned as a scout in Captain John Breadbake's company.

The Battle of Oriskany In the summer of 1777, Herkimer, by then a Brigadier General in the State militia, was warned by friendly Oneidas of the impending siege of Fort Stanwix (known to the Americans as Fort Schuyler) by British Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger. General Herkimer ordered the county militia to assemble at Fort Dayton to go to the aid of Colonel Peter Gansevoort at Fort Stanwix. Herkimer sent three scouts, Captain Hans Mark Demuth, Hans Yost Folts, and Lieutenant Adam Helmer to Fort Stanwix to relay the news to Colonel Gansevoort. Pressured by his men, General Herkimer reluctantly and prematurely set out to attack St. Leger’s army, but on August 6, while passing through a ravine, they were ambushed by British regulars, Tories, and Indians under the command of Joseph Brandt and John Butler, thus starting what would become known as the Battle of Oriskany.

Helmer, the fittest of the three scouts, reached Fort Stanwix with the message ahead of the other two, having traversed swampy terrain and floated down river when a severe storm flooded his route. News of the Oriskany battle arrived shortly after Helmer’s did, and Ganesvoort ordered an attack on the British encampments. Some combination of the weather and Gansevoort’s attack contributed to the retreat of the British from the Oriskany battlefield back to their camps surrounding the fort. In any case the Herkimer’s troops were able to escape to await reinforcements. Herkimer himself was wounded in the fight, returned to his home and died soon after. Gansevoort refused to submit to the siege, and the British withdrew from the area with the news that Benedict Arnold had arrived at Fort Dayton with reinforcements.

The Run In September of 1778, Lt. Helmer and eight scouts under his command were sent to the Unadilla River Valley to spy on Joseph Brant’s company of Indians and Tories who were encamped at Unadilla near the confluence of the Unadilla and Susquehanna Rivers. It was feared that Brant would send a raiding party north to the Mohawk Valley during the harvest season to forcefully obtain stores for the winter ahead. When Helmer’s scouts reached Edmeston Manor, the farm of Percifer Carr, just north of what is now South Edmeston, they were attacked by a large group of Brant’s men, apparently part of the feared raiding party on its way north. Several of the scouts were killed, but Helmer managed to escape.

Helmer took off running to the north-east, through the hills, toward Schuyler Lake and then north to Andrustown (near present-day Jordanville, New York) where he warned his sister’s family of the impending raid and obtained fresh footwear. He also warned settlers at Columbia and Petrie’s Corners, most of whom then fled to safety at Fort Dayton. When Helmer arrived at the fort, severely torn up from his run, he told Colonel Peter Bellinger, the commander of the fort, that he had counted at least 200 of the attackers en route to the valley. The straight-line distance from Carr’s farm to Fort Dayton is about thirty miles, and Helmer’s winding and hilly route was far from straight. It was said that Helmer then slept for 36 hours straight. During his sleep, on September 17, 1778, the farms of the area were destroyed by Brant’s raid. The total loss of property in the raid was reported as:

63 houses, 59 barns, full of grain, 3 grist mills, 235 horses, 229 horned cattle, 279 sheep, and 93 oxen.

But only two men were reported killed in the attack, one by refusing to leave his home when warned.

Plaque at the Carr farm where Adam Helmer escaped and started his run to warn the residents of the Mohawk Valley. It reads "IN MEMORY OF THE THREE SCOUTS KILLED ON THE ESTATE OF PERCIFER CARR BY BRANT'S INDIANS SEPTEMBER 1778"

After the Raid Three days later Helmer led another group of militia back to the Carr farm on the Unadilla, discovered the bodies of three of his scouts, and buried them at that site. The fate of the other five scouts is not known.

Helmer also served in the New York State Levies under Colonel Lewis DuBois.

Historical Sign at the burial site of Lt. Adam Helmer (1754-1830) and his wife Anna Bellinger (1757-1841), on the north side of Cottle Road in the Town of Brutus, New York. Note that their grave stones have been moved to the nearby Weedsport Rural Cemetery.

Helmer married Anna Bellinger (1757-1841) and together they had ten children: Frederick in 1777, Margaret in 1778, Anna in 1781, Adam in 1783, Peter in 1786, Elizabeth in 1788, Catharine in 1790, David in 179?, Maria Barbara in 1795 and Eve in 1800. He died in April 1830 in the town of Brutus in Cayuga County, New York

The Book and Movie Adam Helmer was an important but highly a fictionalized character in Edmonds' novel. Although Helmer's military actions were generally portrayed with reasonable accuracy, including his famous run, great liberties seem to have been taken describing his person. The book pictures him as a large, somewhat uncivilized, unmarried man with long blonde hair, while historic descriptions show that he was a lean 150 lb (68 kg), married farmer, seeming to have more in common with the book's main character, Gil Martin.

The 1939 John Ford film adaptation of "Drums Along the Mohawk" took even more liberties, omitting Helmer's run (and much else from the book) and replacing it with a run by Gil to get reinforcements from the nearest fort.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Battle of Oriskany: The defense of farms and villages in the Mohawk Valley brought nearly 800 Tryon County Militia and 62 Oneida Indians in answer to General Herkimer’s call from Fort Dayton (Village of Herkimer). British forces under General Barry St. Leger had laid siege to Fort Stanwix (Rome, NY). St. Leger’s forces included 400 British Regular troops; 1,000 Mohawk and Seneca Indians, John Butler’s Indian Department force; Sir John Johnson’s Royal Regiment of New York, 400 men, plus a detachment of 100 Hessian mercenaries. Molly Brant, the sister of Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, sent scouts to warn St. Leger of the Tryon county Militia’s march as they left Fort Dayton, August 4, 1777. An ambush site was picked by the British and Indians, four miles east of Fort Stanwix. Here an earlier severe windstorm had leveled a wide swath of virgin trees on either side of the military road leading to the Fort. The site gave excellent cover among the downed trees, and the road had to traverse a small creek that led northward to the Mohawk River. Fully a mile beyond the creek the Hessian detachment was positioned across the road on high ground to prevent passage beyond that point. All the Indians, Butler’s and Johnson’s forces took cover on both sides of the road for a distance of two to three miles. The battle occurred shortly after the foreguard group of the Canajoharie District Militia, under Colonel Cox, came under heavy attack, at the head of the militia column, from Indian forces. Hessian troops appeared and fired their short Yager rifles, point blank, at the surprised militia. General Herkimer, on horseback, went east on the Military Road to form other units of the militia into defensive positions. Colonel Cox and most of the forward militia are killed or wounded in this early action. The supply wagons in the middle of the column are now under full attack, on both sides, by Indians and Tories dressed as Indians. Colonel Klock’s German Flatts and Colonel Bellinger’s Kingsland Militias now came under attack from the north and the south. Colonel Fischer’s Mohawk Militia and the Cherry Valley Militia retreated to the north along the small creek. Shortly, General Herkimer is shot through the leg, killing his horse. Due to the length of the militia column, the fighting develops three battle areas where the militia attempt to form-up defenses, and fight in pairs. The battle lasted over five hours, in total, interrupted by a heavy downpour of rain. When fighting resumed no quarter was asked or given in dozens of individual combats. Men strived to kill each other with knives, spears, clubs, rifles and tomahawks. The end came as both sides, too weary to continue, disengaged. Over 450 of the ‘Tryon County Militia were killed, wounded or captured. Five Seneca Indian Chiefs were killed, and many of the hostile Indians left the area, fleeing north. The Hessian and Tory forces retreated to encampments around Fort Stanwix only to find that, while they were away, soldiers from the Fort had taken their supplies, ammunition, maps and records. A few days later, on news of General Benedict Arnold’s approach with a column of Colonial Regulars, General St. Leger gave up the siege and retreated in haste to Canada, leaving the western Mohawk valley secure.

Thanks to: Oneida County Historical Society, Utica, New York

Lieut Adam Frederick Helmer BIRTH 1754 German Flatts, Herkimer County, New York, USA DEATH Apr 1830 (aged 75-76) Weedsport, Cayuga County, New York, USA

BURIAL Helmer Family Cemetery Weedsport, Cayuga County, New York, USA MEMORIAL ID 25772458

RE-BURIAL DUPLICATE (NEWER) Weedsport Rural Cemetery Weedsport, Cayuga County, New York, USA MEMORIAL ID 201624096 Created by: SFC Shirley Ann Smith Added: 29 Jul 2019

DUPLICATE (OLDER) Adam was a famous Mohawk Valley Scout Levies under Gen. Herkimer 6th Dutchess Co. Militia. The story of Adam Helmer's run to warn settlers near Herkimer of an Indian attack is told in Walter Edmund's "Drums Along the Mohawk". A Story for Young Readers about ADAM HELMER'S INCREDIBLE RUN, By: Dorothy Loyte Blackman From: Mohawk Valley USA, Volume 2, #6, Fall 1981, is among the wonderful series of sites found on the "Where the Boys Were" military section of the Herkimer/Montgomery Counties NYGenWeb Project. Also check out the website: Drums Along The Mohawk: the American Revolution on the NY Frontier. NY Historical Marker: Petrie's Corners on route of scout Adam F. Helmer's famous run to warn settlers of German Flatts of approace of Brant's Indians, September 17, 1778 (Another marker is in German Flatts) Family Cemetery located on old "Shel" Bibbens farm, north-west side of Cottle Road, Brutus Township - The 2 headstones that formerly resided at this burial place of Adam and Anna (Bellinger) Helmer have now been removed to the ROBILLARD plot in the Weedsport Rural Cemetery (Town of Brutus). Adam F Helmer BIRTH 1750 DEATH 1834 (aged 83-84) BURIAL Helmer-Harter Family Cemetery Warren, Herkimer County, New York, USA MEMORIAL ID 44037472 Maintained by: Find a Grave Originally Created by: Michael A Bernstein Added: 7 Nov 2009

Mohawk Valley Scout. He served as Lieutenant for various troops of Rangers, Levies and Militia during the war. He served nine months as 1st Lieutenant in Captain John Bradbrick, Colonel Platt's Company of Rangers in 1777. There are various spellings for Bradbrick such as Breadbrake, Breadbake, Breadbilk or Breadbrick. The soldiers referred to him as Bigbread. During this enlistment Helmer was in the battle of Fort Stanwix (Aug. 3-22, 1777). The night before the battle of Oriskany Helmer was dispatched by General Nicholas Herkimer to Fort Stanwix to deliver a letter, crossing enemy lines, the letter was to allert Colonel's Willet and Gansevoort of General Herkimer's approach to relieve Fort Stanwix.

In 1778 he served as Lieut. in Graham's Regiment NY Militia under Capt. John Bread Bilk's Company (stationed on the Western Frontier) which was commanded by Col. Morris Graham. While Capt. Bradbrick's Company was at Fort Dayton, intelligence was received that Indians had taken a prisoner and was departing for the Mohawk River. Lieutenant Helmer and eight scouts under his command went in pursuit to spy on the Indians. They were ambushed by the enemy and during this skirmish, three of the scouts were killed. Helmer managed to escape but not before sparing his own life by defending himself using the Indian's own tomahawk. The story of his run was made nationally known in the 1936 novel "Drums Along the Mohawk" by Walter D. Edmonds, which tells the story of Adam Helmer's famous run of September 16, 1778 to warn the residents of German Flatts of the approach of Joseph Branch and his company of Indians and Tories. He succeeded to arrive early enough so that residents could take cover at Forts Herkimer and Dayton before the town was set on fire. The people of the Mohawk Valley considered him their own Paul Revere.

Edmond's novel was adapted into the 1939 film "Drums Along the Mohawk" by John Ford, staring Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda and Edna May Oliver. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and was Ford's first film shot in color. However, the film's story line never tells the story of Helmer's famous run.

In 1780 he served once again as Lieut. in Du Boy's Regiment of Levies under Capt. John Bradbick's Company 2nd Regiment NY Levies commanded by Col. Lewis Dubois for 3 months and 24 days. In 1784 he served in the 2nd Regiment, Palestine District, Klock's Tryon (Montgomery Co.) Militia under Jacob Klock.

His headstone is engraved that he served under General Herkimer in the 6th Dutchess County Militia. However, General Nicholas Herkimer is associated with the Tryon County Militia. It is also documented that Herkimer died after the battle of Oriskany from amputation of the leg resulting from a fall when his horse was shot in battle.

It is possible that Morris Graham's Regiment was of Duthcess County and stationed at Fort Stanwix, receiving orders from General Herkimer. It is also possible that there are additional muster rolls for Adam Helmer. However, muster rolls do reflect that Helmer served with Graham's regiment at the time of his famous run. His military service listed above all appear under the name of Adam Helmer and it is possible he served in additional regiments under the name of John Adam Helmer. His pension file does reference the above battles but also reports he was in additional skirmishes for which no regiment or battle information was provided.

Helmer was born at German Flatts, New York, and a son of German immigrants. During the period of the American Revolution, he lived near Fort Dayton, Tryon County, now Herkimer County, New York. He married his wife Anna Bellinger on February 27, 1776. He was married under the name of John Adam F Helmer but always went by Adam. Born to them were ten children.

In 1803 he purchased a farm in the township of Brutus, Cayuga County, New York. His wife was pensioned from Cayuga County in December 1837 at the age of eighty. Upon her death there were six children surviving her. His descendants have established his service with the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Adam is buried on Cottle Road in Weedsport which is marked with a Historic Landmark Sign at his gravesite. However, his headstone was moved to the nearby Weedsport Rural Cemetery and placed on the Robillard Plot (vandalism prevention). ∼
Famous Mohawk Valley Scout, Levies under General Herkimer; 6th Dutchess Co., NY Militia. Lt. Adam Helmer under Colonel Bellinger Wounded at Fort Herkimer in attack by Indians Lieutenant under Colonel Lewis DuBois (Levies) (Pg. 79 in New York in the Revolution) Lieutenant under Colonel Morris Graham

Father: Georg Friederich Helmer 1706-1777 Mother: Regina Maria Barbara Kast 1707-1755

Wife: Anna Bellinger 1757-1841 Married: 27 Feb 1776 Herkimer, Herkimer, NY This marriage produced 10 children