Driving north through the town of Florida toward Amsterdam on Route 30, motorists notice the windmill barn, a tribute to Dutch settlers. Amsterdam’s city seal also shows a windmill.

Historian Barbara Spraker of Canajoharie would like to see a windmill rebuilt in Amsterdam that would be visible as motorists arrive from the Thruway. The Junior Chamber of Commerce built such a windmill decades ago but it was destroyed in an arson fire.

The windmill has been used to symbolize Amsterdam through the years. A 1925 Progress Exhibition at Ross’ Flats in the East End, sponsored by the Board of Trade, had a windmill constructed as the entrance to a series of huge tents that contained more than a hundred booths where manufacturers and businessmen showed their wares.

Amsterdam was a late arrival in the Mohawk Valley. When William Johnson constructed Fort Johnson in 1749, he built on the west shore of the Kayadoroseros Creek with good reason. The land to the east of the creek, including the present city of Amsterdam, was part of a contested land patent or grant, according to Old Fort Johnson site manager Scott Haefner. The Kayadoroseros Patent supposedly contained 700,000 acres and was acquired from the provincial government by “some gentlemen of Albany” in 1708.

“The (land patent) system invited speculation by those with governmental influence, and colonial officialdom cut itself in on many shady deals,” historian Hugh Donlon wrote. The Mohawk Indians refused to allow European settlement in the disputed area for 60 years.

William Johnson negotiated a deal with the Mohawks in 1768 that cut down the size of the disputed land grant and provided five thousand pounds for the tribe. Some Europeans started moving in. Within a few years, the political landscape changed drastically as the Mohawks and Johnson’s descendants fled the valley during the Revolutionary War.

The first settlements inside what would become the city of Amsterdam were made by Joseph Hagaman and Albert Vedder around 1783. Hagaman arrived first and marked his claim by leaving a load of stone next to the North Chuctanunda Creek, returning to Dutchess County for his family. When Hagaman came back, Haefner said, Vedder was occupying the location. Hagaman went four miles up the creek to found Hagaman’s Mills.

Vedder had served in the Tryon County militia in the Revolution and was the first tenant shown living in Old Fort Johnson after the war, around the time he was building on the North Chuctanunda.

Vedder built a sawmill and gristmill. The settlement that grew there was first called Vedder’s Mills and in 1794 was renamed Veddersburg. Some people started calling the hamlet Amsterdam, the same name as the surrounding township, which was created in 1793.

Sometime between 1804 and 1808, the hamlet’s name was changed from Veddersburg to Amsterdam at a town meeting. Local lore has it that the meeting took place at town supervisor James Allen’s inn on what is now Route 30, land that was to become Stephen Sanford’s horse farm. Supposedly Allen cast the deciding vote when the original ballot ended in a tie.

Historians differ on whether this meeting took place in 1804 or 1808. Haefner cited documentary evidence to back 1808. The 1808 Amsterdam town meeting was to be held in the church at Veddersburg. In 1809, however, the town meeting was scheduled for the hamlet of Amsterdam.

What do you suppose Vedder thought of the name change? According to Haefner, Vedder was still alive as late as 1833, receiving a military pension from New York State at the age of 73. Amsterdam officially incorporated as a village in 1830 and became a city in 1885.