Peter and Rachael (Gay) Turck’s New York, 1829/32

I’m working with one of our young Clark House Museum volunteers to examine the life of early Mequon settler Peter Turck and his large family. Peter Turck was a man of many talents and trades, which we will look into in more depth in future posts. He was also Mary (Turck) Clark’s father and Jonathan M. Clark’s father-in-law.¹

The Turk/Turck family is an old Dutch-American family that first came to the New World in the 1660s, settling on the island of Manhattan, then known as New Amsterdam, part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The Turk/Turck family maintained a presence in Manhattan well into the twentieth-century.² Some Turk/Turck descendants migrated to the Hudson River valley in the 1700s and stayed for many generations.

For our purposes, I thought it would be useful to have a map that gave an overview of the places that Peter Turck and Rachael Gay lived before coming to Wisconsin Territory in 1837:

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832. […] Entered according to Act of Congress Jany. 5th., 1829 by David H. Burr of the State of New York. Engd. by Rawdon, Clark & Co., Albany & Rawdon, Wright & Co., New York. Credit, David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries, non-commercial use permitted under Creative Commons license. Click image to open larger map in new window.

Once again, another fabulous map from the David Rumsey Map Collection. Please click the image above or, for maximum detail, click this link to the source at the Rumsey Collection. This map of the state is dated 1832, but it was published in an atlas copyrighted 1829. Either way, it makes a fine snapshot of New York State just before Peter and Rachael Turck moved their growing family to Mequon, Washington County, Wisconsin Territory.

The Hudson River Valley

The Hudson River plays an important part in the story of the Turck family. After initially settling in New Amsterdam/New York City, Peter Turck’s ancestors—along with many other Dutch-Americans—migrated north along the Hudson, especially to Ulster and Dutchess counties.

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832, (detail). Credit: Rumsey Collection. Click image to open larger map in new window.

Peter Turck’s grandfather Abraham Turck ( 1725-1786) was born and died in the Ulster county seat, Kingston. At least four of Abraham’s six children—including Peter Turck’s father Jacob A. Turck (1770-1841), were born or baptized in Kingston.

By the time Peter Turck was born, his father Jacob A. Turck had established his home and farm in Columbia county, just north of Dutchess county on the east side of the Hudson. Peter Turck was born in Kinderhook (whether the town or village is not clear), Columbia county, in 1798.

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832, (detail). Credit: Rumsey Collection. Click image to open larger map in new window.

Peter’s future wife, Rachael Gay (1798-1842), was born into a large and old American family of Dutch and English ancestry. The Gay family had deep roots in Greene county, across the river, west of Columbia county. After their marriage in about 1819, Peter and Rachael (Gay) Turck appear to have lived in various parts of Greene county and it appears that most or all of their first five children were born there. We know that Mary Turck and her brother Joseph R. Turck were born in the town of Athens, and sister Elizabeth was born in the town of Catskill.³

The Erie Canal and Palmyra

Just north of Greene county is Albany county, and at the very north end of Albany county, where it meets the Hudson River, is the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal. The canal, completed in 1825, was one of the wonders of the era and provided a tremendous economic stimulus to New York state and to the nation. It also encouraged westward migration and settlement, and it’s very likely that Peter, Rachael, and their children Mary, Joseph, Adamy, Elizabeth, and Rachel Gay, used the Erie Canal to relocate to the area near Palmyra and Macedon, Wayne county, New York before son James B. Turck was born in Palmyra in September, 1833.

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832, (detail). Credit: Rumsey Collection. Click image to open larger map in new window.

By 1833, the year after this map was published, the Turcks had been married for about 14 years. Peter, Rachael, and—I believe—all of their first five children were baptized into the family’s traditional Dutch Reformed Church faith. But this was the era of the Second Great Awakening, and the area around upstate New York long-thought to be at its center. Sometime during the late 1820s or early 1830s, Peter Turck was swept up in the religious fervor of the era and converted to the Baptist faith. During the family’s Palmyra-area years (around 1833-1836), Peter was called on to preach and lead Baptist congregations in nearby Macedon, New York.

To Wisconsin Territory…

In late-summer of 1837, the Turcks decided to move further west, to the newly-opened Wisconsin Territory. Like so many other migrating families, they probably traveled westward on the Erie Canal, up the great series of locks at Lockport, and then via Tonawanda Creek to its western terminus at Buffalo, Erie county, New York. From there, we know the family boarded a steamboat and traveled from Lake Erie through Lakes Huron and Michigan to Milwaukee, arriving on August 27, 1837.⁴

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832, (detail). Credit: Rumsey Collection. Click image to open larger map in new window.

And that’s not all…

There are many other features on this map of New York state that are helpful in understanding some of the geographic relationships in the New York–New England area at the time Peter Turck and Jonathan M. Clark decided to “go west” and find their futures in Wisconsin.

Before you finish reading, zoom in and scroll around the map a bit. Follow the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo. Take a minute to look at our timeline of Jonathan M. Clark’s pre-Wisconsin years, including his 1831 immigration at Whitehall, New York and his enlistment in the U.S. Army in 1833 in Utica, New York. Jonathan’s other “official” birthplace, Derby, Vermont, is on the map, as is the adjacent—and mis-spelled—Kilborn’s Mills, Lower Canada. And Sandisfield, Massachusetts—the home of early Mequon settler Cyrus Clark—is there too.

I’d like to come back to this state map soon, and also look at some of the detailed county maps from the same atlas. It will be useful for understanding the roots of the Turck and Gay families, including a Turck and Gay cousin or two that also came to Washington and Ozaukee counties in the early days.

____________________________

1. Full disclosure: Peter Turck was also my great-great-great-grandfather. I’ve been researching him and his family for over 15 years and know more about him than almost anyone else connected to the Clark House. But there still are gaps in the record that I hope to fill one day. I’d especially love to find photos or drawings of Peter, Rachael or any of their children. If you have any hot tips, please let me know.
   
   Also, TURK or TURCK? Early spelling was, to put it mildly, highly variable and often crudely phonetic. Both TURK and TURCK spellings are found from the 1660s onward. Peter was even baptized as DURK in 1798. In practice, all three spellings sound pretty much the same when spoken.
   
   When written, TURK seems most common in the earlier records. In Peter Turck’s family, TURCK seems to be consistently used by the mid-1800s. Every now and then someone in the later 1800s would use an umlaut in the name (i.e., Türck); I’m pretty sure this was a misguided tip of the hat by some later Turcks to their love of German language and culture.
   
   
2. I’m pretty sure there are still Turck descendants in New York city or state, even now. I need to look into that.
   
   
3. The Dutch work kill occurs often in Hudson River Valley place and feature names, sometimes as a separate word and sometimes as a suffix. Dutch-Americans were not especially homicidal. Kill just means a body of water (often a creek or river) in Dutch.
   
   
4. History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin, Western Historical Co., Chicago, 1881, page 375, and other sources.
   
   
5. Actually, finding Utica on this map is a trick question. Utica was and is the county seat of Oneida county, but the map maker forgot to label the city before the atlas went to press. It looks like there is a symbol for Utica, but it is mostly covered by the symbol and name of the nearby city of Rome, New York. (Proofreading. It’s never perfect…)
   

Burr, David H., Map of the State of New-York and the surrounding country by David H. Burr. Compiled from his large map of the State, 1832, (detail). Credit: Rumsey Collection. Click image to open larger map in new window.