The families have left the Egremont area, but their essence, structures and names remain.
As a boy named Tawanaut (“One Who Opens”), John Van Gilder came with his family to live in vicinity of the cove in the northern end of the Taconic Mountains that would later carry his European name, Guilder Hollow. It was shortly after the turn of the eighteenth century. Contrary to popular belief, John’s father was Awansous, a Wappinger chief, as reported by New York Attorney General John Tabor Kempe to New York Governor Monck on August 2, 1762. John’s mother came from the Catskill band of Mohicans. John had a brother named

Sancoolakheeking and a sister who married Nimham of the Wappingers and was the mother of Daniel Nimham, the last Wappinger chief. Researchers have so far been unable to determine whether his sister was the woman Noch Namos who signed a quit claim deed on June 5, 1756 for the “reserved land” earlier deeded to John.

The banns for John’s marriage to the young German Palatine refugee woman Anne Maria Köerner (later called Mary Karner) were published in June 1719 by the Reformed Church in

Kingston, New York. Almost five years later on April 15, 1724, John signed the Westenhook Treaty with twenty other Mohicans, giving up claim to all Mohican land except for one section of land called the “reserved land.” The Mohicans deeded the southern half of the land to John on June 19, 1744. The upper half was already leased to his brother‐in‐law Andrew (Andreas) Köerner/Karner.

There is a local tradition that the Mohicans gave Andrew Karner land in Berkshire County so that John could marry Mary, and that it was mentioned in the lease. The lease or a copy of it no longer exists to validate the legend. Neither is the motivation referred to in another contemporary document. The lease would be a good example of the Europeans’ tendency to use any device to obtain aboriginal land. The document also may have been the Mohicans’ way to enter into a social agreement with John’s brother‐in‐law to make him accountable for his future actions, not just seemingly making John subservient to Andrew. The Mohicans had a way of humbling themselves in documents and speeches.

John and his family, his two brothers‐in‐law Andrew and Lodowick and their families shared the northern half of the Indian land in Egremont. The land included the creek known as Karner Brook that still runs easterly from the mountains, past the cove and through the town. The fertile area it crossed was originally called “Guilder Meadow” in early deeds. Lodowick built his house in the northwest corner of the land. His brother’s was further east. John’s home was mostly likely near present‐day West Sheffield Road. Lodowick lived closest to the Mohican burial ground at the entrance to the cove.

Andrew and John dammed Karner Brook to create the Egremont mill pond and build the first sawmill, providing a vital service to the area. In Berkshire County land records, it is referred to Van Gelder’s sawmill, so John must have been an active proprietor.
The three families each had many children. They married the children of other local English, Dutch and German settlers, including the Winchells. Not all marriages and children are documented because the Town of Egremont records burned in the 1830s.

Samuel Winchell Sr., his wife Hannah Parsons and their family moved to the area by July 1727. His son Hezekiah married Catherine Van Gilder. The son of Samuel’s great‐nephew David Winchell of Alford, Peletiah, married Catherine’s sister Magdalena Van Gilder. It was David’s male descendants who remained in the Egremont area.

Some of the families were involved in the border war in the middle 1700s between Robert Livingston and New York Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Livingston claimed additional land on what is now the eastern side of the New York State state line, including some of the Van Gilder and Karner land and the New York Colony backed up his claim.

Massachusetts Bay Colony was trying to create towns out of Mohican land without the tribe’s consent. It was also a class war between Livingston and his tenants, with Livingston trying to bring former tenants back to his manor.

The Van Gilders’ alliance with the former Livingston tenants in Massachusetts became clear after the husband of a Karner woman, William Rees, was killed. The event triggered several violent retaliatory escapades in both colonies, including Taconic homesteads seized and destroyed by Livingston and men under his command.

The border wars were responsible for bringing John Van Gilder into infamy. Hamilton Child stated that John Van Gilder shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy November 25, 1756, with no explanation or references given and it has been accepted ever since. It may not have been challenged because it was a good story and John was an Indian. The event deserves reexamination. After so many years, all that is left is a few eye witness accounts that don’t corroborate each other, no forensic evidence, no useful newspaper accounts and no court records.

This leaves many questions. Was the shooting accidental, intentional, or self defense? Was John Van Gilder intentionally provoked? Did Robert Livingston want his brother‐in‐law Sheriff Abraham Yates to find a way to seize and jail him? Van Gilder was related to many people in the area, a large landholder and an important businessman. In addition, his father Awansous had publicly given him the land rights to most of Putnam County. Did Livingston want Van Gilder seized and held as a political hostage, an ancient military tactic? Did he view this as an opportunity to gain control over the situation and obtain even more land, or capital?

If so, Livingston chose the wrong time to do so. When the Mohicans at Stockbridge failed to respond strongly to Nicholas Van Gilder’s request for help, Nicholas sought out the Mohawks. At that time they were meeting with Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, along with Lenape, Shawnee, Tuscarora and Nanticoke people. Johnson was trying to persuade the Native Americans to stop attacking the colonial frontier and join the British during the Seven Years’ War. By this time the Mohicans were threatening to end their alliance with the British. The possibility that Nicholas could complicate the Seven Years’ War further by threatening the British colonies with another large scale Indian war led to the release of John Van Gilder and his son Matthew.

John Van Gilder suffered and survived a smallpox epidemic but grew frail in jail, released by May 10, 1757. He died before September 12, 1757. Going against English practice, he deeded all land to his wife Mary. She later shared land out among their children and grandchildren. Several years later the region again was in turmoil when local families sent men in a request for arms at the very beginning of the American Revolution. Many Karner, Van Gilder and Winchell men served in the American Revolution. Twenty‐one of the Van Gilders and their Winchell cousins served on the Patriot side during the American Revolution, seven in the Battles of Saratoga. Twelve served in the Continental Army, but none in the Indian company, later called the Stockbridge Regiment, formed by their cousins Daniel Nimham and his son Abraham. At least three of the family served in the Green Mountain Boys of the Continental Army.

Most of the Native Van Gilders and Winchells sold their land left the Egremont area after the American Revolution. Many left for Vermont. There is a story in Vermont, yet to be proven, that the Allen family gave the Van Gilders land to settle on. Eliakim Winchell was the only male Van Gilder descendant who tried to keep his land in the area. He later moved to land in Mount Washington deeded to him by his mother Catherine Van Gilder Winchell. This land was lost to his descendants after his death because he died intestate and all his assets were sold to satisfy creditors.

Eliakim Winchell Sr. was the ancestor of many people in Berkshire County, and adjacent Vermont, New York and Connecticut. His son Eliakim Jr. moved to Madison County, New York. His daughter Clarissa first married a Brasie, then she married John Woodbeck or Whitbeck. Their family lived in the Sheffield area. Her sister Debrah married Anthony Brasie, and they have numerous descendants in Berkshire County. Sister Margaret married John Van Valkenburgh and many of their descendants lived in Connecticut.

Most of Eliakim’s grandchildren through George Winchell and his wife Sarah Livingston moved to Housatonic, Massachusetts. The exceptions were granddaughters Mary Lucinda and Georgiana. Mary Lucinda married Rev. Ira N. Pardee. Georgiana went to live with them after her father died from typhoid fever. Both sisters settled down in western Iowa.

John L. Winchell, his brothers‐in‐law Isaac Strong and Uriah Surriner, nephew Nathaniel Warner and sons Daniel, Robert and Henry all lived near each other in Housatonic and worked as carpenters. Henry was on the construction crew for Searles Castle and others from his family may have been, too. Brother Daniel died young from epilepsy, leaving his wife and daughter. Robert and his family moved to Springfield, Mass., and later to Waterbury, CT. Except for a brief time in Shelton, CT, Henry remained in Housatonic, eventually working in the local mills. His sisters Ada and Rachel also worked in the mills as young teenagers.

They eventually succumbed to tuberculosis. All the families lost children to childhood disease or tuberculosis.

The Winchell family had several ministers in it, either directly or by marriage. Rachel Winchell, daughter of George and Sarah, married William F. Boyes, who became a Methodist minister. The next Methodist minister was the aforementioned Ira N. Pardee. George Franklin Snyder was the great‐grandson of George and Sarah, also ordained by the same church and served in the Hudson Valley, retiring from Fordham Methodist Church in the Bronx. In the same vein, William Henry Winchell, the son of Robert Winchell and Ellen Palmer, also became a Methodist minister, as well as his son Clarence Charles Winchell. Clarence lost one church in Albany, NY, when it was razed to build the Empire State Plaza there. He and his father both served mainly in the Hudson Valley. Their families settled in the Schoharie area, Hamilton County, and in the Hudson Valley.

The family included notable businessmen. Nathaniel Warner eventually became a principal of the Housatonic Bank. Ellis Winchell, son of Henry and Alice Snyder, moved around the country working in the insurance field and eventually became a top executive for the western division of his company, buying a house in San Francisco. Carl W. Snyder, son of George Franklin Snyder and Lillian Warner, became a top executive with New York Telephone, headquartered at the Schenectady, New York, office. In central New York, Frank Boyce became a printer and eventually the owner of his own newspaper. John L. Winchell and Winifred Ashley’s son John J. Winchell moved to Pittsfield, Mass., and became an architect there. Later his nephew Chester Winchell, son of Henry and Cora Thatcher, would move there and become a plumber working for a paper company.

Carl W. Snyder’s son Richard C. Snyder became an expert on foreign policy decision‐making and chairman of the political science department at Northwestern University, revitalizing its graduate program. He wrote an influential text still used today. His uncle Frederick M. Snyder was a publicist and a popular public speaker whose topics on politics and public affairs were heard across the country. He was also a member of the U.S. Olympics Committee from 1918 until at least 1977. He was active in one of the first attempts to reinstate and return medals to athlete Jim Thorpe.

Ellis’ sister Edna Winchell Wylie and her sister Jeannette Winchell Schwab played the piano for the movies shown in the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington. Edna became a musician in her own right. In 1936 she was appointed musical director of the Springfield symphony orchestra. She had her own ten‐piece orchestra that played for special occasions and for dancing at The Barn of Jug End resort on Thursday and Saturday evenings.

When Major Hugh Smiley purchased land in Egremont and formed Jug End Resort, he renamed the Egremont cove “Guilder Hollow” because it sounded more picturesque. Edna was aware of her Native ancestry, but she was probably unaware that she was performing on her ancestral land. Neither did she know that West Sheffield Road running past the Wylies’ Tudor house led to her ancestors’ home site.

After Jug End Resort closed, Guilder Hollow narrowly missed being completely altered by a development of hundreds of houses in the 1980s. Development was halted. Jug End Resort was taken over by the state government and the modern‐day reservation for preservation and recreational use was created. Local resident Mira Bradford deeded considerable land from the original Mohican reserved land adjacent to the former resort to the Egremont Land Trust.

Edna Winchell Wylie was only one of the many descendants who was active in the Berkshire community to form and create it. Her relatives across the country did the same.

Reprinted courtesy of Debra Winchell. Debra Winchell has been researching her family for over twenty years. She is currently writing a Van Gilder genealogy and one on the Winchells of Berkshire County.

•   John Tabor Kempe papers, New‐York Historical Society

•   Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the American Revolution

•   Documentary History of New York State

•   Vital records for Great Barrington, Mount Washington, Sheffield, Pittsfield

•   Berkshire County Probate

•   Springfield Republican Newspaper

•   Berkshire Eagle

•   Other various newspapers

•   Registries of deeds, Pittsfield and Great Barrington

•   Sir William Johnson papers

•   Abraham Yates papers

•   The Munsee Indians, Robert S. Grumet

•   United State Census Records

•   Local directories