Our enigmatic and revered Youker Family matriarch of long ago conjures our imagination during our America 250 patriotic celebration. What we know about her is little, but enough to elicit a vivid vision of patriotic service and support while George Youker was away fighting for our newly declared nation.
Elizabeth Schall lived with her family on the Van Horne Patent in the Mohawk Valley before and during the Revolutionary War, as did the Youker family. The community was already engaged in organizing against the heavily loyalist countryside as early as 1774. Surely the women were internally preparing for what might come. If the men were preparing for battle, then the women could not stand idly by.
While the men were gathering weapons and strategy, the women were likely gathering clothing, food storage, and supplies for the men to take, as well as their own emergency supplies should they need them, if there was enough. The atmosphere in the Mohawk region was becoming tense with suspicion, with many loyalist neighbors around them. Suddenly, your old neighbor, whom you once talked to and laughed with, might be your enemy, ready to see you dead in an instant.
As the war gained momentum, it was clear to the Tryon County Militia that they would need to defend themselves with more than the current fortifications. Fort Plank was established in 1776 by the local militiamen. It was a 5-sided fort on the south side of the river across from Fort Plain and served not only as a military outpost but also as a defense for the inhabitants of the Van Horne Patent. By August of 1777, the British had besieged Fort Stanwix, and a bloody neighbor-against-neighbor battle ensued in the Battle of Oriskany on August 6th. From that point on, the Mohawk Valley descended into a devastating battleground with raids upon the German settlers by the Loyalist & Indigenous Raids of 1777-1780. The Schall brothers moved their family into the fort in the spring of 1778, as the fighting was all around them. Three of those Schall brothers were captured in November of 1778 when leaving the fort to tend to their farmland for harvest.
The conditions in the fort were harsh, and supplies were sparse; only hard work from everyone would make it function. Families often snuck out if they thought they might be safe to gather goods from home. Sometimes the outcome was capture, scalping, or death. Staying alive and keeping the militia men strong and able was a constant struggle. The women were the backbone of caring for everyone in the fort. When there was no longer an abundance of food, they had to rely on rations provided by the army and make that work. They tended to children, the elderly, and the wounded men who came back from battle while sentries guarded the fort. There were times when no sentries were there to protect them, and they took up arms themselves.
Through it all, Elizabeth Schall and George Youker found time and the desire to marry smack dab in the middle of this war in January of 1780. Elizabeth was now a soldier’s wife, and the struggle was not to be eased for years to come.
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