Behind the Scenes of the Revolution in the Mohawk Valley: Tryon County’s Committee of Safety Presented by Independent Historian, Terry McMaster

Behind the Scenes of the Revolution in the Mohawk Valley: Tryon County’s Committee of Safety is on March 28, beginning at 2:00 p.m. at the Oneida County History Center. Join independent historian, Terry McMaster, as he shares the story of how local leaders in the Mohawk Valley didn’t just protest—they organized–against the British crown.

In August of 1774 Mohawk Valley activists began organizing to resist British oppression and to communicate and coordinate with like minded folks in the committees of New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Committees were formed for Tryon and Albany counties. Schenectady had its own large committee as well.

Lucky for us, most of the minutes of these committees were preserved and have been published, and the thoughts and actions of these revolutionaries can be read and studied to understand how the whole revolutionary movement began and how it succeeded. Members from the districts of Kingsland, German Flatts, Palatine, Canajoharie, and Mohawk joined to form the Tryon Co. Cmte of Safety, which took over both civil and military responsibilities for the entire region.

Most fiction and non-fiction stories focus on the militias and the battles, the heroes and villains. This will be a look behind the scenes, to the men who were orchestrating the whole thing.

About Terry McMaster

Terry McMaster researches the Revolutionary War in the Greater Mohawk Valley and has presented talks at Ft. Plain Museum’s “American Revolutionary War” conference and at the “Ulster-American Heritage Symposium” at the University of Toronto. Terry’s ancestors helped settle the western frontier in the valleys of the Mohawk and the upper Susquehanna, and they were living at Cherry Valley when the settlement was destroyed in November 1778. His ancestor James McMaster served on both the Tryon County Committee of Safety and the Albany Commissioners for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies. His ancestor Capt. David McMaster led the 6th company, 3rd Regiment, Tryon Co. Militia, and fought at Oriskany, the second Battle of Saratoga and at the battles of Klock’s Field and Johnstown. Terry is an independent historian, an artist, and a psychotherapist in the Capital District. He is President of the Van Alstyne Homestead Society in Canajoharie and is a board member of the Cherry Valley Hist. Assoc. & Museum and editor of its newsletter.