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- News Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Man views ancestor's grave - under church
By JOE PARMON - Telegram Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 10:53 AM CDT
UNDER THE CHURCH - Ilion native Rudyard Edick recently went underneath the historic Fort Herkimer Church to take photographs of the grave of his ancestor, Michael Ittig (Edick), the progenitor of all Edicks in America. Michael died in 1733 and the church was built over his grave more than 20 years later. Edick said the stones under the church, shown below, are in excellent condition with inscriptions clearly visible. Photo submitted
MOHAWK - Ilion native Rudyard Edick got married in the historic Fort Herkimer Church, one of his ancestors helped build the church, and Edick recently came full circle and found himself below the church.
Edick, now living in Albany, recently crawled underneath the church to take photos of the grave of the original ancestor to all Edicks living in the valley and America underneath the structure.
Born in Germany, Michael Ittig (Edick) and his family migrated to the Mohawk Valley around 1725 along with many other Palatine families and was granted land on the south side of the Mohawk River in the present day town of German Flatts. Michael, who was born in 1668, died in 1733 and the church was built over his grave in 1756.
“All Edicks in America descended from this man and his two sons, because the Edicks centered in this area originally,” said Edick, a 1983 graduate of Ilion High School.
With his family's storied past rousing his curiosity, Edick's love of genealogy was further instilled in him by his grandfather, and one day it dawned on him that he had never seen a quality photograph of Michael Edick's grave. So Edick got permission to search the space underneath the church from Donald Fenner, whom Rudyard had gotten to know prior to his wedding four years ago. Fenner had actually handled the backbone of Michael Edick when the grave was dug up in the 1970s during a church renovation project.
Fenner showed Edick a trap door leading to the graves, with Edick slithering through a cramped space to an area underneath the church pulpit. Edick's background in spelunking no doubt helped a bit.
“I had done some caving in the past, so I decided to try it. It was a very tight space underneath. I had to crawl a considerable way to get to the graves,” said Edick.
Edick was surprised to find the footstone and headstone bearing the initials “M.I.” in excellent condition, further astonished that the distance between the two stones was exactly 56 inches - or roughly Edick's height.
“It's very unusual to find graves that old that are in that good a condition, and it was exposed to the elements for about 20 years before the church was built. They were pristine. You could see the chisel-work clearly on that grave,” remarked Edick.
At Fenner's request, Edick also did some house-keeping work while underneath the church, checking on the vapor barrier that helps prevent moisture from seeping up into the church.
The Edick family originated in Switzerland but members were driven out of the country during a period of intense religious conflict. They were Anabaptists - a Protestant sect of a radical movement arising in the 16th century and advocating the baptism and church membership of adult believers only, nonresistance and the separation of church and state. They found shelter in the Palatinate region of Germany in the 17th century, only to become refugees again due to the 30 years of continuous conflict at the end of the 17th century.
Michael Edick's grandson, Christian Edick, born in 1736, was a Revolutionary War veteran and he and his son Jacob fought side by side at the burning of the mills at Little Falls during the war.
Rudyard and his wife, Darina, named their son, Christian, born 2005, after his ancestor.
Rudyard is a major in the New York Air National Guard serving at the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome. He is currently on a military recall from full-time employment with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
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