My Family Tree

One of the early settlers to Schoharie, arrived with Schaeffers and others in 1718.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nyschoha/chap22.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=lm7gw_fJWlEC&pg=PA368&lpg=PA368&dq=%22Johannes+lawyer%22++illustration&source=bl&ots=RSDFIGXRgP&sig=jYXRQ8sZK2z3KUqVjWo8e9aYpXY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Qn8qUNbhIYXRyQGF-ICQDA&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Johannes%20lawyer%22%20%20illustration&f=false
"...all trace their lineage to Lawyer of Schoharie. The progenitor of the family was Johannes Lawyer, a merchant of New York City, who came here as an Indian trader, and was commissioned to survey and do business for the Germans. The first notice of him in the valley was in 1720. He was a German, coming from some place along the Rhine, and emigrated about the year 1710...."
[see Johannes Lawyer.png]

great thread on genforum -
"wars in question were the 30 Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession. Louis and Richelieu had it in for Rhine-Palatine because of its Calvinist history and because many Huguenots had fled there after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. The war of Spanish Succession in particular caused a general depopulation of Rhine-Palatine. Our lot, which had asked Queen Anne for succor, arrived in New York on 10 June, 1710. My sources do not say what ship. (History lesson from Encyclopedia Brittanica; Arrival date from Roscoe)" http://genforum.genealogy.com/lawyer/messages/36.html

from public member Hardacre McCormick Family Tree on ancestry.com
" Johannes Lawyer was a merchant in New York City who settled in Schoharie County, NY as an Indian trader and was commissioned to survey and to do business for the Germans. His was one of the first famlies to settle the area. With his son Johannes, Jr. and Johannes Scefferby 1753 owned 1500 acres of land.
In 1754 the Mohawks sold pasture land to Johannes. However, the survery recorded more land than the Indians had agreed to sell. When they discovered how they had been cheated,, they complained to Gov. Hardy of New York. As then politics required to keep on good terms witht he Five Nations of Indiansm the matter was so adjusted to the satisfaction of all. The Indians realted to Sir William Johnson, the celebrated Indaian Commissioner "We are come. they say, to acquaint you with an extraordinary affair. It is concerning the land we sold, when the Governor was at your house last fall for the use of Hannes Lawyer and friends, from whom we then received the full consideration agreed upon, but now we understand that Lawyer and his friends are to have but one-half of it. To us, such doing appear strange, and we believe, you would think hard of us, were we to act so. We can not, therefore, in justice to these people, who have long about that tract and at a good deal of expense besides the purchase money, allow the landto be surveyed for people, with whom we are not acquainted, neither did we hear of the least intention they had in purchasing these lands. And if they had applied we could not think of letting them or any other set of people have the land, which we had so long ago promised to Lawyer and Friends, as you may remember." The matter was finally settled by the Governor. "