He was made nationally famous by Walter D. Edmonds' popular 1936 novel Drums Along the Mohawk with its depiction of "Adam Helmer's Run" of September 16, 1778, to warn the people of German Flatts of the approach of Joseph Brant and his company of Indians and Tories.

G.F. Helmer emigrated to America sometime before 1710 and eventually settled in one of the numerous Palatine farming communities on the south side of the Mohawk River in central New York.

As late as 1774, this Palatine district and others in the area widely supported British control, but with the death of the powerful loyalist Mohawk Valley landowner Sir William Johnson and news of the Declaration of Rights by the Continental Congress, anti-British sentiments began to surface and a Tryon County Committee of Safety was organized.

This and the news of Continental Army resistance at the Battle of Lexington and Concord encouraged the remaining Johnson family and other loyalists to fortify their properties and to recruit Iroquois to side with the British.

During the summer of 1776 Colonel Herkimer allowed his regular militia to return to their farms; however, about one out of every fifteen soldiers, including Lieutenant Adam Helmer, was assigned to ranger duty.

While passing through a ravine, they were ambushed by British regulars, Tories, and Indians under the command of Joseph Brant and John Butler, thus starting what would become known as the Battle of Oriskany, Adam Helmer lost his brother, Capt.

Helmer, the fittest of the three scouts, reached Fort Stanwix with the message ahead of the other two, having traversed swampy terrain and floated down river when a severe storm flooded his route.

Helmer took off running to the north-east, through the hills, toward Schuyler Lake and then north to Andrustown (near present-day Jordanville, New York) where he warned his sister's family of the impending raid and obtained fresh footwear.

The total loss of property in the raid was reported as: 63 houses, 59 barns, full of grain, 3 grist mills, 235 horses, 229 horned cattle, 279 sheep, and 93 oxen.