Bartholomew Pickard, Jr. (1676-1742)

Bartholomew Pickard was born on Septemebr 18, 1676 in Leicestershire, England to Bartholomew Pickard and Dorothy. He was baptized at St. Martin's Church on September 18, 1676. In 1697, Bartholomew joined His Majesty's Army and was shipped out with three companies of troops consisting of two hundred men to Albany, New York. They were deployed to protect the Northern Frontier from raids by the French and their Indian allies. He was transferred to Schenectady near the end of 1698. It was here that he met and married a Dutch girl, Eechje (Eva) Claes on November 12, 1698. They were members of the Reformed Church of Schenectady. Their first three children were baptized there. About 1706, they moved to Albany, where Bartholomew was a Grenadier in Colonel Richard Ingoldsby's Company until sometime after 1713. He was granted a lot for a farm about six miles west of Albany on the King's Highway on January 15, 1717. He farmed there until 1723, when he was granted a patent at Stone Arabia for 940 acres. His neighbors were the Palatines who had come over in 1709, and were finally receiving some land of their own. Since the record keepers were most likely German or at least expected all the local inhabitants to be German, it may explain why Bartholomew was recorded as Pikkert rather than Pickard. He is even described in one source as one of the distressed Palatines who came in 1709. Bartholomew and Eechje acquired property on the east side of Canajoharie about 1731. It was supposedly a gift to them by the Mohawks and had been confirmed by a "Moonlight survey." Apparently Eva Pikkert and Sir William Johnson were at odds about the legality of this gift. She is mentioned in more than one letter in the Jonhson Papers. Bartholomew died in New York, in 1742. He may have been buried on his farm. Eva died when she was about eighty-five years old, shortly after she and her grandson Jacobus Mabie were evicted by Sir William Johnson from this property in 1767.

Children

 * Nicholas Pickard (1700-?)
 * William Pickard