62 RURAL NEW YORK 



into Ulster County, having already a foothold in 

 Westchester County into which Puritans from New 

 England and Quakers from Long Island and Rhode 

 Island had filtered. About the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century the West German Protestants, or 

 Palatines, were very much unsettled in their home 

 country and through the influence of Governor 

 Hunter of New York, 3,000 came to the colony, 3,277 

 of them were distributed through the settlements up 

 the Hudson Valley. Many were located on Living- 

 ston Manor and got out tar and resin. Within a 

 year there was a strike and some of these settlers 

 were induced by the Indians to go into the Mohawk 

 Valley where they located at Stone Arabia and Pala- 

 tine Bridge in ^lontgomery County. 



To a considerable extent the pioneer settlements 

 throughout the early American colonies were a Prot- 

 estant search for religious liberty. Puritan, Palatine, 

 Huguenot, Quaker and Adventist, Methodist, Baptist 

 and Episcopal with many other sects have formed 

 strong chains of settlements that spread throughout the 

 State from their earlier foothold in this east country. 



The introduction of Dutch immigrants was not 

 active after the acquisition of New York by the Eng- 

 lish. Then the latter, largely from New England, 

 spread westward in nearly straight lines modified, 

 of course, by the easier lines of travel. They dom- 

 inated the settlement of all western New York, prob- 

 ably in large part because much of that region was 

 claimed by Massachusetts, which retained preemption 

 rights even after the relinquishment of its political 



