The Savior of Fort Herkimer. Adam Helmer.

Lieutenant Adam Frederick Helmer (around 1754 – April 9, 1830), also known as John Adam Frederick Helmer and Hans Adam Friedrich Helmer, was a hero from the American Revolutionary War, especially recognized in the Mohawk Valley and nearby areas in New York State. He became widely known thanks to Walter D. Edmonds' popular 1936 novel "Drums Along the Mohawk," which featured his famous escape on September 16, 1778, to alert the folks in German Flatts about the approach of Joseph Brant and his group of Indians and Tories.

Adam Helmer was born in German Flatts, New York, to Maria Barbara Kast and George Frederick Helmer, who was born on June 9, 1706, in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, a city in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of southwestern Germany. His dad moved to America before 1710 and eventually settled in one of the many Palatine farming communities on the south side of the Mohawk River in central New York.

Adam fought in the Battle of Oriskany in 1777, where his brother, Capt. John Frederick Helmer, was killed, and another brother, Lt. George Frederick Helmer II, got seriously hurt.

In September 1778, Lt. Helmer and eight scouts he led were sent to the Unadilla River Valley to keep an eye on Joseph Brant's group, who were camped at Unadilla near where the Unadilla and Susquehanna Rivers meet. They were worried that Brant might send a raiding party north to the Mohawk Valley during harvest time to take supplies for the winter. When Helmer's scouts got to Edmeston Manor, the farm of Percifer Carr, just north of what’s now South Edmeston, they were ambushed by a big group of Brant's men, likely part of that feared raiding party heading north. Several scouts were killed, but Helmer managed to get away.

He ran northeast through the hills toward Schuyler Lake and then north to Andrustown (close to present-day Jordanville, New York) to warn his sister's family about the raid and get some fresh shoes. He also warned settlers at Columbia and Petrie's Corners, most of whom then fled to safety at Fort Dayton. When Helmer arrived at the fort, pretty beat up from his run, he told Colonel Peter Bellinger, the fort's commander, that he had seen at least 200 attackers heading to the valley. The straight-line distance from Carr's farm to Fort Dayton is about thirty miles, but Helmer's route was far from direct, winding through hills. It’s said that he then crashed and slept for 36 hours straight. While he was sleeping, on September 17, 1778, Brant's raid destroyed the farms in the area. The reported losses included: 63 houses, 59 barns full of grain, 3 grist mills, 235 horses, 229 cattle, 279 sheep, and 93 oxen. Only two men were reported killed during the attack, one of whom refused to leave his home when warned.

Three days later, Helmer led another group of militia back to the Carr farm on the Unadilla, found the bodies of three of his scouts, and buried them there. The fate of the other five scouts is still unknown.

Helmer also served in the New York State Levies under Colonel Lewis DuBois.