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A HISTORY
OF
DEERPARK IN
ORANGE COUNTY, N. Y.
By PETER E. GUMAER. 11
VALLEY
HISTORI
KRIBUS
ET
ICAL
ORG. 1889
NISININ
SOCIETY
WITH PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR AND CUT OF HOUSE IN WHICH HE LIVED.
PUBLISHED BY THE MINISINK VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
1 890.
PORT. JERVIS UNION PRINTI
Copy To
ET PATA
POSTERITAT!
F129 II=69
APR 15 1919
WITHDRAWN NOV 1 2 1918
PUBLIC LIBRARY WASHINGTON, - D. C.
Fublic Library. WASHINGTON, D. C. RECEIVED
PREFACE.
Having been solicited by certain individuals of the first settlers in the neighborhood of my residence, in the town of Deerpark, for a written information in relation to their respective ancestry, both of those who now reside in this town and of those residing in other parts of our country, and feeling desirous to gratify their wishes and save from oblivion the knowledge I possess relative to their forefathers, I have thought proper to make out a small work of the same and get it printed, so that all who shall be desirous of such information can obtain the same, which undoubtedly must be a great satisfaction to many who have not had the opportunity of becoming informed in relation thereto, especially the descendants of those whose parents at an early day of the settlement of our western country emigrated into it. The general topics of con- versation have changed much in this vicinity within my time of life. At the termination of the Revolutionary war this change commenced. The attention of the young people was generally directed towards the pass- ing scenes of their time, and they remained ignorant of what had transpired during the lives of their fore- fathers. In the early part of my life some of the old people, whenever they came together, generally intro-
8
PREFACE.
duced the occurrences of former times, in relation to the ancient inhabitants of this valley, who inhabited it for a distance of eighty miles. From these discourses and my own observations and researches, I have be- come enabled to write this history. Capt. Cuddeback, Esq. Depuy and my own mother were the greatest his- torians. Of what had materially transpired through- out this valley from the first and last of these I have had my greatest source of information.
INTRODUCTION.
The most interesting subjects in relation to the town of Deerpark are contained in Eager's "History of Orange County." These are not embraced in this work, excepting a few articles for making a connection of certain matters therein contained, with additional materials herein introduced.
All mankind generally are desirous to possess a knowledge of their ancestry, their characters, occupa- tions, manner and circumstances of life, the lineal descent of the most anterior of them, the different scenes through which the successive generations have passed, &c. All of which is embraced in this small work, as far as my information and knowledge in rela- tion thereto extends ; and, being an old man, and hav- ing in early life had great opportunities to become in- formed in respect to the early settlement of this town and of the people, who, from time to time settled in it, and their descendants from generation to generation, down to the parentage of the fourth of those who first settled in Peenpack, and of the third who settled in the lower neighborhood. I, myself, have also been a
12
INTRODUCTION.
spectator of the transpiring occurrences from the com- mencement of the Revolutionary war until the present time.
Very different have been the scenes of life through which the successive generations have passed, and, considering myself to possess the greatest fund of knowledge relating to the same, I have viewed it as in- cumbent on me to write this history and save from oblivion the matter therein contained, in such manner as the incompetency of my abilities will admit, which, even if not in the best manner, still comprehend the sub- stance I deemed necessary to be embodied in it, with much diffidence, however, in respect to some parts of the same, in which I have been too lavish in intro- ducing unnecessary matter. But as this work is only intended for the present and future descendants of the first pioneers in the district of the present town of Deerpark, I have thought proper to enter some minute matters to inform the readers how their forefathers have progressed through life. They came here poor and ventured their lives among the Indians to enjoy the lands they took in possession and afterwards bought.
The materials furnished in this work are the follow- ing : My views relative to an alteration supposed to have, in very remote times, occurred in this valley and created the formation of it, so as our forefathers found it; also the time they settled here and the inhabitants who then occupied it ; their manner of life and means of supporting themselves, and other different matters and conjectures in relation to them ; also the wild ani- mals, fowls and fishes which were in this part of the
13
INTRODUCTION.
country ; the names of the first seven settlers, and the time they procured a patent for the land they intended to occupy ; also the names of those who first settled in the lower neighborhood, and, as near as can be ascertained, the time they settled there and the places where all of both neighborhoods severally located ; also the names of their respective descendants to the third generation of the Peenpack neighborhood, their inarriages and manner of living, and the ages to which they respectively arrived, as near as I could ascertain the same. Also certain matters in relation to a late emigration into this town of inhabitants who have built up the village of Port Jervis, which commenced about the year 1827 ; the great diminution of birds, snakes. frogs and toads, within the last thirty years ; also the commencement and continuance from time to time of religious worship, and the first introduction of Justices of the Peace, &c .; the anterior prices of farmers' productions, and of wages, together with some speculative and interesting matters in relation to the same.
NOTE .- There were some members of families in both neighborhoods whose names I did not know, and have left blanks for the same, so that the purchaser of a book can write the names of his respective relatives, omitted in the blanks left for that purpose.
[The committee on publication have supplied these names, so far as they have been able, and have included them in brackets in their proper places.]
The "History of Deerpark " was written by Mr. Gumaer between the years of 1858 and 1862 from ma- terials collected by him during many years of close observation and after much diligence and painstaking
.
14
INTRODUCTION.
in the collection of facts derived from frequent inter- course with others. It is safe to say that no other per- son in the town of Deerpark, within the last fifteen years, has been so well qualified by the possession of historical facts and other considerations to write its history as was Mr. Gumaer. Samuel W. Eager, in his history of Orange county, published in 1846 and 1847, says that he is more indebted to Mr. Gumaer than to any one person in the county for his " good will and assistance " in preparing his history. This work, pre- pared with so much care, has been very generously do- nated by his son, Peter L. Gumaer, to the Minisink Val- ley Historical Society, who have deemed it of sufficient . value to publish, and appointed a committee to super- intend its publication. This committee have found it necessary to make a few changes in the correction of dates, which have been found to be erroneous, as also in a few instances in the names of persons and of places occupied by them. Where blanks have been left by the author in the names of families, to which he alludes in his introduction, the committee have en- deavored to fill them, so far as they have been able, from church records and other 'sources. Where any blanks remain unfilled, or where there may be any errors in the filling up, or in the original, the commit- tee will esteem it a favor to be informed of the same. The changes that have been thus made are indicated either by the names being inclosed in brackets or by explanatory notes at the bottom of the page. As the history was written about thirty years ago, Mr. Gumaer designates particular places by their then owners and occupants. As these have, in many instances, under-
15
INTRODUCTION.
gone changes by death and removal, the committee have added notes indicating the present owners and occupants. With these exceptions and an occasional word or two, the history is published as originally written.
The committee close this statement with a brief sketch of the author :
Peter E. Gumaer was born in the town of Deerpark, at or near Fort Gumaer, May 28, 1771, and died De- cember 18, 1869, at the age of 98 years, 6 months and 20 days. His parents were Ezekiel Gumaer and Naomi Low. He was a descendant of the French Huguenots, who fled from France at the time of their persecution. His father, being a farmer, he inherited the business and also learned the art of surveying, which he followed for more than fifty years. He . surveyed most of the lands in the town of Deerpark, and also of adjoining towns. He was plain and unassuming in manner and deportment, much attached to his home and family, and, during his whole lifetime, lived in the town of Deer- park, having never visited the city of New York. In his principles he was regarded as a man of great integrity, always manifesting a conscientious regard for right, and nothing but strict and exact justice would satisfy him. His habits of living were extremely tem- perate, using but little animal food and no stimulants, except tea. He was a man of great industry, never idle and never seeking pleasure or enjoyment outside of business or study. He was of a literary turn of mind, and devoted as much of his time to reading and study as his pursuits would allow. He took great de-
16
INTRODUCTION.
light in the study of astronomy and philosophy. He was especially interested in Sir Isaac Newton's theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies, and said if it was correct, perpetual motion was possible and sought for a long time to demonstrate it practically. In 1851 he published a small volume upon astronomy. During his life he held many positions of public trust, which were filled with credit to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. It is said that among the many instruments of writing drawn by him not one was ever broken in a court of law, nor were any of his surveys of land found to be incorrect.
He held in high esteem his ancestry, whose remains are buried in the Gumaer Cemetery, and a few years previous to his death, as a token of regard for them, he erected monuments to their memory with appropri- ate inscriptions.
In his early life it was customary for the ministers in the Reformed Dutch Church, which he attended, to preach in the Holland (Dutch) and English languages on alternate Sabbaths, and so familiar was he with the former that upon returning home he was at a loss to say, when asked, in which language the services had been held. A bit of romance has been related con- cerning his marriage. It is said that when he was a young man he visited the house of his future mother- in-law, and that she had a little child in the cradle which she was rocking, and that she said to him : " Peter, I want you to rock the cradle, and when this child grows up to be a young woman you may have her for a wife." It so proved that he married this same child that he had thus rocked in the cradle.
17
INTRODUCTION.
The names and ages of Mr. Gumaer's children are as follows :
Morgan, born January 27th, 1815, and died July 5th, 1855.
Ezekiel P., born May 10th, 1817, and died June 25th, 1877.
Jacob C. E., born October 18th, 1820, living at Ovid, Mich.
Peter L., born January 29th, 1827, living at Guy- mard, N. Y.
Naomi, born January 20th, 1830, and died May 2d, 1862.
Andrew J., born November 4th, 1833, living at Guy- mard, N. Y.
Esther Harriet, born August 30th, 1835, living at Brooklyn, N. Y., widow of Isaac Mulock.
..
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
GEOGRAPHICAL FORMATION OF THE VALLEY.
Before entering into a detail relative to the settle- ment of this town by Europeans, the causes of their emigration from the fatherland, their manner of life in this then wilderness part of our country, &c., &c., I will give my views of what I consider to have been an- teriorly the geographical face of this district of terri- tory, its productions an lits native inhabitants.
The present form of the surface of the earth teaches us that there has been a time when it was in many places very different from what it is at this day. This appears to be the case wherever there are rivers and streams of water ; and we have reason to think that many lakes and ponds have been drained by the action of streams of water issuing therefrom. It must be the case that there was a time when the surface of the
20
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
ground in the valley along the Neversink and Dela- ware rivers in this town, together with that part of it which extends southwest to the gap of the mountain, where the Delaware passes through it, and northeast to the North river, &c., laid below the bottom of a lake of water. This opinion has been formed previous to my contemplations respecting it. Eager gives some account of this in his " History of Orange County," pages 407 and 408, and sufficiently establishes the fact from Indian tradition, &c.
Not only does the gap of the mountain, where the river passes through it, exhibit strong reasons of a passage being worn through it by the action of the water of a lake in this valley, but the knolls and low hills in this valley show that they have undergone much washing of water ; and, what appears somewhat mys- terious, hills thirty and forty feet higher than the sur- face of the river flats are all composed of ground, gravel, sand and such smooth stones as are in the bot- toms of rivers, from which it appears that not only the surface of those hills, but that all the materials of which they are composed. have for some length of time been water-washed. We find in them some places of clear sand, not mixed with the other materials mentioned, such as is in river sand banks ; from which we have reason to conjecture that after the water received a passage through the mountain it created a current in the lake towards it, and as that passage enlarged and wore down, the water in the lake drew off and the cur- rent of its stream increased and washed the highest parts of its bottom down into the hollows, where the water was deep, and thereby run down gradually large
21
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
bodies of water-washed stones, gravel, sand and ground from the highest elevations of the bottom surface into its lowest parts, many of which have remained where they have been carried by the waters, and the adjoin- ing ground, which first was highest, has run down the stream and continued to be moved down until a gradual descent of the rivers was formed, on a bottom of smooth water-washed stones, gravel and sand, which now lie at different depths below the surface of the river flats, viz. : from about four to seven and eight feet below that of the lands along the Neversink river, and at greater depths along the surface of the Delaware river flats.
After a river bottom was formed where the flats now are, the stream creating meandering channels through those river bottom flats would contain the water of the rivers when low, but in freshets, overflow the flat bot- toms, whereby in every freshet a part of the ground which the water carried down in such times, lodged on the surface of those flats, which, continuing to accumu- late in this way for a great length of time, raised the surface so high that the freshets did not overflow it, unless partially in uncommon high water; and as the waters became more and more confined in stationary channels, the bottoms of these wore down by the action and weight of the water. In this manner undoubtedly was formed the soil of our river lands. In the vicinity of the gap of the Shawangunk mountain, through which the New York & Erie Railroad passes, are indi- cations in some places on the east side of the moun- tain of the surface of the ground having in a very re- mote period of time been under water, when I contem-
22
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
plate it ran through this gap into the valley west of the mountain into a lake which has been mentioned.
All rivers and streams have formed the grade of their bottoms from their smmmits toward the ocean according to their magnitude, and the original forma- tion of the respective districts of country through which they pass.
The river flats, amounting to about three or four thousand acres, was nearly all the land in this town which the first pioneers considered to be of any value for agricultural purposes, the residue being generally mountainous, rough, stony land, was by them consid- ered to be of no value for farming purposes.
PLENTIFUL SUPPLY OF GAME, FISH, FRUIT, ETC.
This district of territory which the small town of Deerpark now embraces, when the Indians were its sole proprietors, was a very plentiful place for Indian life when first discovered by Europeans. The flats, covered with a tall grass from four to six feet high, and the same and surrounding woods, often burned over, abounded with numerous deer, bears, raccoons, and many smaller animals suitable for the sustenance of man, also with turkeys, ducks, partridges and other birds suitable for man's diet. Generally in the spring of the year vast numbers of pigeons passed over here to the northeast, vast flocks of which generally lighted on the trees and ground to get food, which gave opportunities of killing some of them. The rivers and brooks teemed with different kinds of fishes, such as trout, pike, chubs, suckers, sunfish, catfish and eels, and numerous shad in the spring season in both the Delaware and the Neversink rivers, in the latter of
23
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
which they ran up about five miles, which distance then generally was deep water and extended to where David Swartwout now lives *; these fish were caught by bush seines, and in the Delaware river were also many rockfish, which were taken in the fall of the year by means of eel-weirs and bush seines, some of which were the largest fish in this part of that river. Also, there were, and still are, different kinds of nuts, such as white walnuts, hickory nuts, chestnuts, butternuts hazelnuts ; also various kinds of fruit and berries, to wit : large and small grapes, plums, black and red wild cherries, huckleberries, strawberries, black and red raspberries, blackberries of two or more kinds, and wintergreen berries. Such was this district of country and its productions when our forefathers came here, so that they could obtain a plentiful supply of the best of wild meats of animals, fowls and fishes, and, by the cultivation of small portions of their lands, they could obtain a supply of grain, roots and other vegetables. They could not do much at farming before the children of these first families became able to assist in that business. At this early period of their settlement they pounded their grain for such bread, cakes and soups as they made in those times, for doing which they procured pounding stones from the Indians, who man- ufactured them, and made or obtained from the In- dians pounding blocks from one and a half to two and a half feet long, and about ten inches in diameter, in one end of which a suitable round cavity was burned in which to pound their grain, coarse salt, &c. The Indians manufactured both the stones and blocks in good style.
* Now (1889) the residence of Peter D. Swartwout.
24
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
Jacob Cuddeback built a small mill on a spring brook near his residence. How it answered the pur- pose of grinding is not known. One of the stones in my possession (now broken) was about two feet in diameter and about two inches thick. It was found in a cellar of an old house which stood near Cuddeback's first residence.
The animals, fowls and fishes probably did not di- minish whilst the Indians were the only inhabitants of this part of the country. The increase of these peo- ple was slow. A married couple generally did not have more than two or three children, in consequence of which they did not become more thickly populated than to consume only a small proportion of the abund- ance of wild meat this part of the country continued to produce, and they, not having the means we have to kill and get the wild animals, fowls and fishes, often suffered in consequence of not being enabled to kill as many as they wanted for their support. The most dexterous of them could generally get a plentiful sup- ply, but those who were inactive had sometimes to be assisted by the others, especially in thecold season of the year.
INDIANS.
When we take a view of the difference between the acquirements of the Indian race of people and those of our own nation, and the European and other en- lightened nations of the world, we behold an endless acquisition which the industry and perseverance of the latter have brought into their possession, whilst the former have scarcely made a remove from a state of ·
25
.
HISTORY OF DEERPARK.
infancy in respect to improvements. This we cannot so much ascribe to their mental abilities as to their in- dolence and distaste of the pursuits of our people, preferring their own mode of life to that of ours. They were in a state of great destitution before their inter- course with Europeans for want of such materials as they were enabled to procure after Europeans settled among them, from whom they could obtain such mate- rials as were necessary for their livelihood, guns, traps, hatchets, knives, blankets, and other articles of which they stood in need, whereby their condition of life was much improved ; and these advantages which they de- rived and which their descendants still continue to ob- tain as mentioned, were, and continue to be of greater benefit to these people than the territories which they abandoned; for they now have the means of obtaining a more comfortable living than what they had before Europeans came into this country. Yet we must ad- mit that it was a disagreeable and melancholy trial for them to leave their native places ; but for these sacri- fices they have received and continue to receive a good reward, of which they would have remained destitute if they had remained alone in this country. It is the lot of mankind to undergo such changes. Thousands of foreigners and our own citizens are continually mi- grating from place to place to advance their interest and better their condition in life. Before Europeans came into this country, stone, wood and clay were the only materials of which they manufactured any imple- ments for their use ; and stone axes, bows and arrows were the most valuable articles they manufactured. The stone axe was made of a solid stone, about six
26
HISTORY DEERPARK.
inches long and two thick, one end round and the other flattened with a rounding towards its edge, which was made as sharp as the nature of the stone would bear for its intended use. With these they would get. bark from trees to cover their wigwams, and made other shelters under which to evade the inclemency of storms of snow and rain, night air, &c .; also to get bark for canoes, and girdle trees to kill them, so that the bark and limbs would fall for fuel. And with these axes in a slow operation they could cut and split small saplings for bows, and with these and other sharp stones and bones could scrape them off to a required thickness. Arrow heads (generally called harpoons in this section) were made of different kinds of flint stones, from three to about four inches long, one inch wide at the large end, and tapering from that to the small end. They were flat and rounding towards each side for sharpening the edges ; a notch was worked into each side of the big end to fasten it into the ar- row. These appear to have been made by knocking off small scales, whereby their surfaces, were left un- even. .
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