Palatine Evangelical Lutheran Church, one of the oldest churches in the Mohawk Valley, was built in 1770 by Lutheran Palatine Germans using limestone from a nearby creek, with funding donated primarily by the Wagner, Nellis, Reber, and Hess families; the spire was funded entirely by six members of the Nellis family, who also gave the gilded bronze rooster on top. In October 1780, during John Johnson's devastating British Loyalist raid across the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys, all the farms along this road were burned, and legend holds that the church was about to be set on fire as well until a British officer stopped it because he had promised his friend Henry Nellis to protect it. Hendrick W. (Henry) Nellis donated the land for the church, but he and his son Robert remained loyal to the British government and fled to Canada, where Henry, who served in the British army throughout the Revolution, settled permanently with many other Loyalists from the area. Their experience reflected the Mohawk Valley's deep divisions during the American Revolution, when families and neighbors were often split as in a civil war. In 1870, when the church was restored for its centennial, workmen found a rare thirteen star American flag in the building, now on display, and today descendants from both sides of the American border gather there to celebrate their faith and common heritage.