USA > New York > Orange County > Deerpark > A history of Deerpark in Orange County, N.Y. > Part 8
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Cuddeback commended Col. Tusten very highly, and said he felt sorry for him when he was wounded ; that when the retreat commenced he was called to where the Col. and other wounded officers and men were collected in the safest place, and was solicited to try and stop the retreat, but that was impossible ; it had become too general. He had to leave them to their fate, or become a sufferer together with them, and made his escape as mentioned. The retreat was caused by a hideous shouting, yelling and firing of guns, which
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had been undertaken by the Indians as a last resort to put their opponents to flight ; and it happened to have the desired effect. Until this occurence, the men who suffered much in different ways from heat, warm cloth- ing, want of water and wounds, wonderfully sustained themselves for militia soldiers against an enemy who had very great advantages in all respects.
Cuddeback, in his domestic concerns, had a great share of indulgence towards his family and domestics, but was uncommonly severe in reproof if any of his children happened to do an act of which he much dis- approved, although these never were of a criminal nature. He had an uncommon gift to stigmatize and reprove a bad action.
Benjamin De Puy, Esquire, was a man of about six feet stature, not as bony, muscular. and strong as the descendants of the first settlers." He was a persever- ing business man, but after he had been a few years in this neighborhood he became too fleshy and fat to perform any labor on his farm himself, but still paid à very strict attention to his farming business, the labor of which he managed to have done by his slaves, and .sons after they became able to work. He became a Justice of the Peace here of the former county of Ulster, and served many years in that office before, in, and after the war. He also served many years as a Supervisor of the old town of Mamakating. In the commencement of the war he was one of the Commit- tee of Safety. He was the greatest supporter of religi- ous worship in the Mahackamack congregation. He was tender and humane to his wife,children and slaves, and provided a very plentiful living for all of them, in respect to diet and the necessities of life, even to ex-
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cess. He had a strong memory and retained much of what had transpired throughout this valley from here to Kingston.
Depuy was a heavy load on a horse and had about as good luck as Alexander the Great had in obtaining a suitable riding horse for him. This great conqueror had one to carry him safely in his great battles and extensive conquests, and De Puy had one which car- ried hm safely for many years and on many bad roads until age rendered him unable to continue his services. The former built a city and named it Bucephala, after the name of his great war horse " Bucephalus," and the latter continued to feed and nourish his horse as long as it lived, and even sometimes with bread. I happened to come to his house at one time just after he had given his horse some bread. He then told me that this horse had never fallen with him in all his travels. He related to me that at a certain time he and some other gentlemen went on a very rough, stony road along Basha's Kill in great haste to arrive in time at a certain meeting ; that some of the horses did often stumble, and in one or two instances fell, and that his horse traveled over it without making a single blunder. All his travels on this horse must have amounted to some thousands of miles distance. About one half of his farm was between one and two miles distant from his house, and whenever his laborers worked on those lands he generally went to them on this horse once or twice a day. He had to go every year twice or oftener to Esopus, 50 miles distant, to perform his official duties and to many other places where his civil and church offices called him. The horse was strongly built for carrying, had a slow, easy pace, and was very
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kind. The continual exercise De Puy had on his horse and sometimes in the wagon and sleigh for do- ing his business at the mill, stores, blacksmith's, &c., had a tendency to keep him healthy, yet he had a few short, hard sicknessess, but continued to live to a good old age, and in the last part of his life sold the part of his farm which he had retained and was re- moved by his sons to the town of Owasco, where, and in that part of New York, all his sons and daughters, excepting two, had previously. settled, and there his mortal life was ended.
Philip Swartwout was a large, strong man, upward's of six feet in stature, portly and likely. Captain Cud- deback, who had seen General Washington at. Fort Montgomery, said he had never seen a man who re- sembled Washington as much as Esquire Swartwout ; the features of his face, his eyes, forehead, size and form of his body, all he said, had a great resemblance to those of Washington.
· Swartwout in his business transactions was very per- severing and honest. In his public acts he was also honest and persevering to obtain the objects of jus- tice between individuals, and also to promote the wel- fare of the public. He was a Justice of the Peace of the former county of Ulster before the Revolutionary War commenced, and in its commencement became one of the Committee of Safety. After the decease of his father, August 21st, 1756, he became heir to his estate, which consisted of a good farm, but was so much encumbered by the debts of his father, that he concluded to let the creditors take it. These were relatives of his, who resided at Rochester, in Ulster county. They advised Swartwout to take the farm
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and they would give him his own time to pay the debts, -in consequence of which he obligated himself to pay the debts and took the farm. His oldest boys must have been about 10 or 12 years old at this time. He had one man slave and an insane man lived with him, who remained in the family during life. With this help he commenced to work the farm, and, after his son James became old enough to learn the blacksmith trade, he built a shop, got a blacksmith, who, together with James, pursued that business, and the father, with his other sons and slave,. worked the farm and made money fast, so that he paid all his debts, and had money standing out at interest when the war com- ¿menced.
. Swartwout, as well as Depuy, was a great supporter of religious worship, and paid a strict attention to the preaching of the gospel.
Anthony Van Etten, Esquire, was from Rochester or its vicinity, where he had received a good educa- tion for his time. . His visage and bodily form and size were said to have resembled his youngest son Anthony .Van Etten, who was a man of about 5 feet 10 inches stature, and about 160 lbs. weight .: He was a black- smith by trade and became married to Hannah "Decker, daughter of Thomas Decker, in 1750, and ob- tained from him a piece of land, on which he built a house and shop, and entered into the business of his trade, and got an apprentice to assist him. He soon received a great amount of work from the farmers and made money fast. He built the stone house in which his son, Captain Henry Van Etten, formerly lived, and. as he became enabled, bought land and obtained the old Van Etten farm, which consisted of some of the
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best land in this town. He and Esq. Swartwout, who were contemporary, both commenced business with small means, and became the most thriving business men in this town. Van Etten became a Justice of the Peace of the old county of Orange at an early period of his residence in this town, in which he officiated to the end of his life in 1778. His widow survived him many years. She was a short, strong woman of a good constitution, an affectionate mother and agreeable. neighbor, sociable and much addicted to humorous conversation, and often told funny occurrences of former times. *
Cornelius Van Inwegen was a man of about 5 feet 8 inches stature, and about 170 or 180 pounds weight. In his boyhood, after he was able to handle a gun, he
* Anthony Van Etten, was a son of Jacob Van Etten, and Antie Westbrook, who were married at Kingston, Ulster county, New York, April 22d, 1719, they both being residents of that county at the time. They had a large family and came with them to the Delaware valley about 1730, taking up a residence at Namenoch, opposite the island in the Delaware now so called, on the New Jersey side. Their oldest daughter, Magdelena, married Rev. Johan. Casp. Fryenmuth. From their sons are descended the various Van Etten families of Orange county, N. Y., Pike county, Pa., and Sussex county, N. J.
Anthony was born about 1726 at Napenoch, Ulster county, and bap. tized at Kingston Ref. D. Church, June 12, 1726, At the time of his mar- riage, August 3d, 1750, he resided at Namenoch, but thereafter with his wife located in what is now the town of Deerpark.
The baptismal records of the Maghachemech Church furnish the names of most of their large family of children as follows :
Thomas, bap. Sept. 8, 1751 ; Antie, bap. Jan. 14, 1753 ; Janneke, bap. April 28, 1754 ; Margarieta, bap. Feb. 13, 1756 ; Levi, bap. Feb. 12, 1758 ; Alida, bap. Aug. 19, 1759 ; Hendricus, bap. June 14, 1761 ; Blandina, bap. Sept. 4, 1763 ; Maria, bap. Nov. 11, 1765 ; Thomas, bap. Oct. 16, 1768 ; Jacob, 1774; Anthony, bap. Oct. 29, 1780.
Of their sons, Levi married Grannetje Westbrook, and from them are descended most of the families now in Deerpark. Anthony, Jr., married Jemmia Cuddeback, and located in central New York. A. V. E., Jr.
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became very fond of hunting, and he and Capt. Cud- deback, when boys, generally hunted together, and both became well skilled therein ; which the latter partially quit when he arrived to manhood, but Van Inwegen continued to follow it through life and killed more deer, bears, and other wild animals and wild fowls, than any other individual of this town ever did since he became a hunter. No family in the neighbor- hood enjoyed as plentiful a supply of the best of wild meats as his family, and, being liberal therewith, he often contributed some to my father's family and to Capt. Cuddeback's, who were his nearest neighbors. The numerous skins of deers which he acquired were valuable for himself and family, and for all his neigh- bors. In his time the men and boys all wore short leather breeches of deerskin, and some of the men had leather coats to put on in dry weather to perform rough and dirty work, and in the latter part of his life some individuals wore leather frocks in which to perform such work. Moccasins of deerskin leather were also much worn in winter. Deerskin leather was valuable for the inhabitants of this town in the time of the war, in consequence of the inconvenience of manufacturing cloth during that time. In those cheap times, when rye and corn were only four shillings a bushel, a good buckskin was allowed to be worth from twenty shillings to three dollars before dressed.
Now, these characters, which differed very widely, were all necessary for the general welfare of the com- munity. . The other inhabitants of the second gener- ation, and their contemporaries in the lower neighbor- hood as well as those mentioned, were useful members of society, and each did more or less contribute
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towards the welfare of others. They were generally an industrious, honest, prudent and economizing peo- ple, who obtained their living by the sweat of their brow, and had to manage their business suitable to their circumstances and means of procuring a liveli- hood.
Men in a state of nature, like the wild animals, gen- erally live on the spontaneous productions of the earth, and each has to procure its own food after the parent's help becomes unnecessary. The first settlers here were nearly in the same self-procuring situation, and only had a few manufactured implements in advance of the naked-handed Indians.
By the introduction of scientific knowledge men have become dependent on each other, and thereby enabled advantageously to cultivate the earth and provide for a very numerous population, and also create enjoy- ments far beyond what the unimproved races of man- kind can realize. The numerous branches of mechan- ical and scientific works and occupations employ millions of people, who obtain a living thereby. Eachı of these produce materials and literary works whereby others become interested, all of which create an exten- sive social intercourse which reaches all the civilized and manufacturing nations of the earth ; and, even in a small degree, some of the unimproved races of man- kind.
All this beautiful order among men, for which they are formed, suitable in body and mind, if the same could be sustained without imposition and unerring conduct in all respects, might render man very happy, but destruction has been the fate of the ancient civi- lized nations who had, in a greater or less degree, be-
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come an improved and scientific people, and good reasons must have existed for producing this extin- guishment.
In the year 1792, I was constable and collector of the old town of Mamakating, in Ulster county, which then extended from the old county line near the pres- ent dwelling house of Philip Swartwout, Esquire, and son, about 20 miles northeasterly, and from Shawan- gunk Kill northwesterly about forty-five miles to or beyond Cochecton, and included part of the present towns of Deerpark, Mount Hope, Mamakating, Forest- burgh, Lumberland and Cochecton. The town was divided into two collector's districts, of which mine was the largest, and the amount of tax I had to collect was £15 0s. 6d., ($37.56).
The highest taxpayer on the list was Esquire Depuy, whose tax was seven shillings, ten pence, one farthing, and the whole number of persons taxed in my district, 45 miles long and part of it about 12 miles wide, was 182. From this neighborhood to Co- checton, (40 miles distant) there was only a foot path through the woods on which I traveled on foot and carried a knapsack, in consequence of the scarcity of horse feed and provisions along it. Rafting masts, spars, logs, and a few boards had previously com- menced. The timber at that time was principally got from the sides of the mountains and hills bordering on the river, under great disadvantages, for want of teams and a road, until one was made with the State funds from the residence or grist mill of Captain William Rose to Cochecton, about the year 1803. After this the lumber business increased rapidly and became very great, whereby the inhabitants of this town became
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greatly benefitted, both by the market it made for their produce and the money some individuals made by that business. At the close of the war Orange County was very thinly settled, and most of the land unimproved.
Low as the taxes were in 1792, I found several un- able to pay a few pence, and thereby lost about the amount of my fees.
GREAT CHANGES IN AGRICULTURE, MANU- FACTURES, TRAVEL AND IMPROVE- MENTS OF EVERY KIND.
We of the third generation of the first four families and our contemporaries in the lower neighborhood, have passed through a period of time in which greater improvements have been made in our country than ever has been made within such a space of time in any country. Its equal, probably, wiil never again occur ; yet we know not to what state of improvement men will arrive.
The arts and sciences have been stretched far beyond their former bounds, and gigantic and minor produc- tions have been brought to view by the labor and in- genuity our countrymen have displayed, and great are the benefits mankind have derived from their labors.
Some rulers of nations and great generals of ancient times have been highly honored for acts of murder and plunder to aggrandize themselves, who, instead of ren- dering benefits, were a nuisance in the world. Not so with our scientific men. They crave not the loud ap- plause of the multitude, but their general welfare and their labors have created benefits far beyond what we
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can calculate, and all are more or less benefitted from the results of their labors.
We have been spectators of the great changes men- tioned and have seen the time when the red men were yet among us, and were often refreshed and cheered by their white neighbors with something to eat and a drink of ciler ; and the time, when they disappeared and a great revolution commenced, and the effects of the war it created, the restoration of peace and the times when the constitutions of the several States, and of the United States, were, from time to time, formed and become established, and the effects of the laws which have from time to time been passed under those constitutions, and the great benefits which have re- sulted therefrom ; also the career of our first and greatest statesmen, who exerted their powers for the good of their country.
And here let us not forget that in the days of our boyhood we have seen the time in which the military forces of our country, under great sufferings and priva- tions, nobly sustained their country's cause to obtain an independent government, and have been spectators of its achievement and the great results which have emanated therefrom ; in respect to which I will here give a very faint view of what has transpired in rela- tion to the improvements our countrymen have made during the time of our life's journey, to wit :
We have seen the time of the commencement of the printing of newspapers in this part of our country after the war ended, and the rapid increase and vast extent to which that important business has arrived, whereby every citizen with small means can now have informa- tion of the acts of our legislatures and more than he
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can read of what continually transpires both in our own and other countries.
· We have seen the time when schools were in their infancy in this part of our country, their progress and the vast extent to which they became multiplied, even so that almost every citizen of this State, and generally of the other states, has the opportunity of having his children educated according to and even beyond his
pecuniary means. We have seen the time when there was not a minister of the gospel, lawyer or physician, within 20 miles distance from our present town, and have seen the continual increase of those professional men until every town in our county had more or less of them, and the increase of education, so that it reached nearly all the citizens, few of whom do not acquire enough to read and write, and a very great proportion have reached the higher branches of learn- ing, and become fitted for all the different business transactions of our country.
We have been spectators of the time when all trans- portation on the Hudson river was done in vessels, whose speed depended on the winds which impelled them, and of the time when the ingenuity of Fulton, with the help of Chancellor Livingston, produced a steamboat wherewith the Hudson river was navigated, and, when thereafter others from time to time were built, until all the navigable waters with such boats in our country were therewith navigated, and even the Atlantic Ocean crossed to and from England and other places, and the time when other machineries began to be impelled by steam power and their increase until thousands got into operation.
We have been travelers on the early rough and
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stony roads in Orange County and have seen the first construction of turnpikes in our county, and the great improvement of our highways, and at last have beheld the gigantic works of canals and railroads, on which the value of millions of property is annually trans- ported to and from all parts of our country, and thous- ands of people are continually enjoying the easy and speedy travel thereby furnished.
We have been co-operators with our respective parents in producing all the articles of food and raiment for our own subsistence, and when we wanted a few arti- cles we could not make, such as salt, iron, &c., we had to travel to the store of Nathaniel Owen, 22 miles dis- tant or to the store of Cornelius Wynkoop, 40 miles distant, to procure the same. After this the ingenuity of some of our citizens produced machinery for manu- facturing all the cloth we wanted for our use with much less cost and labor than what we could formerly manu- facture the same ; and these are now so abundantly transported into all parts of our country, that our little town of Deerpark now has more stores in it than the whole county of Orange had at the close of the Revo- lutionary War, and probably as many as there were in both the counties of Orange and Ulster. These goods, by an exchange of commodities for the same, can now be procured so much easier than formerly that our former apparatus for manufacturing flax, wool and cotton into cloth has become useless. And these stores now contain such a variety of articles, that as a cer- tain man once said " Many necessaries unnecessary.
We have taken wheat, rye and corn to New Windsor and Newburgh when these were very small places and when Goshen was a very small village,and have passed
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through the time in which all the other villages in Orange County had their origin and growth and in which the whole country west of the valley in which we reside, has become numerously populated through- out its present settled parts, in which many handsome and magnificent villages and cities have been built and now adorn those parts which, in our early days, were a vast wilderness.
We have seen the time when news traveled from the printing presses to us on horseback, and when the same became conveyed in light one and two horse wagons, and in progressing, stage wagons and steam boats became the swiftest carrier of news, and after the meridian of our lives the swiftest traveler ever before known came into operation, in which news, passen- gers and different commodities were conveyed to and from distant parts of our country, and in the last part of our life's journey originated the wonderful discovery of giving instantaneous information of any matter or occurrence for any distance to which telegraph wires can be extended.
We have been farmers and inured to all the different kinds of labor thereunto appertaining. We have in early life ploughed with wooden ploughs, to which a wrought share and coulter were fastened, sowed all our grain by hand, harrowed the ground with square iron teeth harrows, cut all our grain with scythe and cradle, threshed all our grain with hand flails, mowed all our grass with scythes, and raked our hay together with hand rakes, and commenced tillage when the soil of our river lands was reduced to its lowest state of nutrition since the time their cultivation was first con-
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menced. In progressing from the beginning of our business transactions, we became ploughers with patent ploughs, constructed of wood and iron castings, on which many improvements were, from time to time, made and have passed through the time of the intro- duction of different kinds of cultivators to cultivate ploughed ground, and of sowing machines, reaping machines, threshing machines of different kinds, and different kinds of horse power to impel the same, mow- ing machines to cut grass, and different kinds of horse rakes to gather hay, and different kinds of corn shell- ers, cutting benches, churning machines, &c., &c. We have observed a slow improvement of the lands in this town, which commenced about the year 1810, and pro- gressed very slow at first, but increased in rapidity until the present time, 1858, and lands in this town now produce about double what they did in their low- est state of cultivation. We have seen the time when society here was in the lowest and most degraded state in which it has ever been in this valley, and have seen its rise and progress from that state to its present good and moral behavior.
Now all these works, which are of inestimable bene- fit, are only a small part of the discoveries and im- provements made by our countrymen in our time of life. We do not claim to have stood alone as observ- ers, not that other countries have been idlers in respect to inventions and improvements, but that all our con- temporaries, both in our own and other countries, have passed through a period of time which has pro- duced greater and more wonderful discoveries than that of any other like term of years.
Our travel on this great highway of research is yet
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rapidly advancing, and to what extent men will arrive is best known to the Great Architect who fills the uni- verse with his works.
In consequence of the improvements mentioned and the great prosperity of our country, we also became spectators of their results in our manner of living, and although we have comparatively with others remained in humble walks of life, yet we have made great strides from our early habits, which, in the days of our youth, were governed by destitution and want of means to expand and gratify our desires. The greatest com- plaint, however, in those anterior times, was the bur- den of labor which all had to endure with greater or less perseverance, much of which has now been done away with by means of machinery.
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