USA > New York > Ulster County > New Paltz > History of New Paltz, New York and its old families (from 1678 to 1820) : including the Huguenot pioneers and others who settled in New Paltz previous to the revolution, 2nd ed > Part 13
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The Indians of the Atlantic States raised corn, beans and pumpkins and the savages who came on board the vessel of Hendrick Hudson as he sailed up the North River traded with the crew for corn and beans. Do any of my readers as they make or eat the soup of sweet corn usually called "ogreeches" ever consider the origin of the word? It is not English or Dutch or French. But undoubtedly both the name and the dish itself were from the Indians. We have not found any one outside of Ulster county who knows what ogreeches means.
In the grant of the patent of New Paltz by Gov. Edmund Andross we find that he required from the patentees the pay- ment of an annual rental of "five bushels of wheat, payable at the Redoubt at Esopus to such officers as shall have power to receive it." Wheat, then, was the staple product of the early settlers. One of the first sales of land in this vicinity, of which we have any record was in 1699, when Antoine Crispell, one of the Paltz Patentees sold to Louis Bevier, another of the Patentees, his share (one twelfth part) of the land already divided in the immediate vicinity of this village. The price paid was 140 schepels of wheat. Wheat then was not only
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the staple crop but, to some extent, the substitute for money in commercial transactions.
In another sale of land at New Paltz in 1693 we find the payment made partly in wheat and partly in flax seed.
The annual rental of five bushels of wheat for the tract of about 36,000 acres, included in the Paltz Patent, was, we are told, always paid promptly and it is related that the Freers for paying the rent, one year, without help from the other mem- bers of the little colony, received a tract of land at Mud Hook in the north-west bounds of the patent. Even this small mat- ter of five bushels of wheat may have seemed no trifle to the handful of settlers during the first few years, when but a small clearing had been opened in the wilderness.
The progress of agriculture and the growth in population was very slow in the century that elapsed from the first settle- ment until the time of the Revolution. Here and there, along the streams, the sons and grandsons of the early settlers, at Kingston and New Paltz located and opened clearings.
About 1720 Jacob Freer, Hendrick Deyo and Isaac LeFevre, son of Simon LeFever the Patentee, located some 4 or 5 miles north of this village in the neighborhood still called Bontecoe. Abraham Freer, son of Hugo, located there previous to 1705. The land in that locality was famous, in those days, for the production of wheat.
The land at the first settlement was of course, all owned in common. There were divisions of land, in the Patent, at several different times.
There was little sale of land in those old colonial days and the price was almost nominal. When Matthew LeFever moved from this village and located at Bloomingdale, in the present town of Rosendale, about 1740, he paid $700 for 700 acres of land. The farm lately owned by Abm. V. N. Eltinge along
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the turnpike, directly east of this village, was purchased by his great-grandfather, Roelif J. Elting, about the time of the Revo- lution, for $2.50 an acre, and tradition still preserves the fact that he thought he was compelled to pay an exorbitant price. In the early part of the present century, good upland in the towns of Marbletown and Rochester has been sold at less than IO cents per acre. About 1830 good lowland in this county was worth $50 an acre. The farm of Lewis H. Woolsey consisting of 180 acres was purchased by his father about 1820 for $4000 -that is about $22 an acre. In the old days, shortly after the Revolution, there was little buying or selling of land or any thing else. The people manufactured their own clothing, out of flax and wool of their own raising, made shoes ( few boots were worn) out of leather, tanned, to a great extent, by them- selves, out of the hides of their own cattle. They raised their own grain. One of the chief employments of the young women was spinning. Agricultural implements were few in number as compared with the present day.
We must confess that as a general rule, the old people were not, apparently, inclined to over work themselves. Had they been bent in that direction the cellars of the old houses might have been dug deeper so that one would not have been obliged to stoop so much in entering them. To clear up a piece of forest to obtain a new field for planting, was quite an under- taking in the old days and an old story is still related that the owners of a clearing at the little falls in the Wallkill, about half a mile above our village, would bravely resolve, year after year, to clear up another patch of forest for planting but that finally they would give up the undertaking and again. "plant the Voltje" (as the old field was called), which passed into a sort of proverb.
With the early settlers game and fish formed a considerable
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part of the means of subsistence and the remains of some 1/2 a dozen ell-weirs are to be seen, in the Wallkill, between this village and Libertyville.
Slavery as it existed here and at the south in the old times doubtless prevented the whites from exerting themselves as they do at the present day. In 1755 there were 80 slaves, above the age of 14, owned in the precinct of New Paltz and Solomon DuBois and Abram Hardenbergh, who were the largest slave owners, each owned 7 slaves. The author's father-in-law, Dr. Jas. Oliver, relates that his grand-father had about 20 slaves and that they did not do any more work than a few persons would do at the present day. It is related, that when the slaves became free in 1827 and the farmers' sons had to do the hard work themselves, which the slaves had formerly done at New Paltz, some of them died, as was thought from overwork, to which they had not been brought up.
Let us picture a farm scene at New Paltz in the colonial days, just before the Revolution. The farmer with his sons, and one or two of his daughters has been in the field husking corn, for it is an October day and the sun is setting, as the farmer jogs along homeward with his load of husked corn. and yoke of oxen, which his negro slave is driving. On the way they have taken good notice whether the colts and young cattle were to be seen, for in those days the stock was branded and ran at large in the woods and particularly good care must be taken of the sheep for up to the time of the digging of the D. & H. Canal, in 1826, the wolves would come on their long, stealthy marches from the wilds of Sullivan and work havoc among the flocks in the valley of the Wallkill. But our farmer is unloading his corn, which is carried up the stairs to the loft of the dwelling, which in the olden times served as a granary, and night settles down on the quiet scene.
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THE POOR SOIL OF KETTLEBOROUGH
The traditions all agree that when the first settlers, Abram and Andries LeFevre, first located at Kettleborough, about 1740, the gravelly soil of that locality was considered very poor. But a new era was brought about in Ulster county about the time of Revolution, when the ravages of the Hessian fly made wheat growing unprofitable and corn became the popular crop. The corn from the valley of the Wallkili was marketed at Capt. Swart's, on the Strand, now called Rondout.
CLOVER AND PLASTER THE FIRST COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS
The introduction of clover and plaster formed a great event in the history of farming in this region. This must have been very soon after the Revolutionary war, and they were first introduced in Kettleborough. The story goes that the sons of Abm. LeFever one of the two pioneer brothers in that locality bought the plaster at the Strand (Rondout) at the extraordi- nary price of $30 a ton and the clover seed at Newburgh at the high rate of $20 a bushel. But the investment proved a good one. The result was marvelous. People came a distance of over 20 miles to see the clover. Andries LeFever, the pioneer of Kettleborough, then a very old man, had not approved the large expenditure by his nephews in their new fangled farm- ing, but when he came and gazed on the clover, he said that "now the reproach would be taken away from Kettleborough" and so it was. From that day to this Kettleborough soil has been considered as good as any in the county.
ANCIENT NAMES OF CLEARINGS ON THE WALLKILL
At the close of the Revolutionary war very little of the up- land in this town was cleared. The place had been settled over
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a century but the woodman's ax had found no sufficient incen- tive to destroy the forests except upon the lowland, along the Wallkill. One of the peculiarities of the old people was to give names to the small tracts of cleared land. These names were handed down from father to son and have only died out in the common speech of the people during the present genera- tion. A very few can still tell the names of these tracts. The piece of lowland, just across the Wallkill from our village, on the left hand side from the present highway was called Pashe- moy. This we believe included two fields, as the fences were of late. The piece of lowland just across the Wallkill on the right was called Pashecanoe. The lot on the left of the high- way near Perry Deyo's was called Tri Cor. The tract on the other side of Tri Cor was called A venyear. Where the road forks to go to Butterville another tract of three or four fields was called Rumpause.
Up the stream, where the little falls still is, a cleared field on the east side was called the Falls. On the east side of the Wallkill, a short distance above the mouth of the Plattekill an old clearing is still called Yonkers Hook. On the west side of the creek the place where Mr. Blake now resides was called Poughwaughononk. A little farther up, the next clearing, near where Libertyville now is was called Nescatock. Still farther up the Wallkill the next settlement, where the Hasbroucks located at an early date, was called Guilford, which name it still bears. Going down the stream again, the lot where the Normal School building stood, was called by the old people Kill Bo- gert, or Creek Orchard. West of the Church in this village, a tract was called Ver Maucoslandt. A tract of about 30 acres on the west side of the Wallkill near what is now the Jonas F. Atkins place was called by the old people Humpho, a name still applied to the brook, near by. Still farther down the stream
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four different tracts of good land in the bends of the Wallkill were called Bontecoe, Klina Bontecoe, Grote Bontecoe and Bontecoe in Haning. Still farther down, near Mud Hook, a tract was called Sponsa Zee, or Spanish Sea. Again farther down the Wallkill, about one-fourth of a mile above Perrine's Bridge, a tract of about ten acres of very fertile lowland is called the Half Moon in a document dated 1705. This tract is still known as the Half Moon. It was owned by the Ean family from about 1705 until almost the present time.
RACING HORSES
In the beginning of the last century fine horses were raised in this vicinity. These horses were, to a great extent, of Diomed, Durock and Messenger stock and were noted for their endurance as well as speed. An old gentleman, lately living in this village, at the age of 86, tells us that when he was a young man, he, with three others, raced their horses, all the way from this village to Perrine's Bridge and back by the Springtown road, a distance of over 12 miles. The Paltz Plains, which were in those days, unfenced and lying in com- mon were the favorite racing grounds for young men, and ยท many were the contests of speed, especially on election day.
DEPRESSION AMONG THE FARMERS
The war of 1812 was followed by a long period of great de- pression in farming. In an inventory taken about 1830 we find the highest price for a horse $80, the next highest $50 and a two year old colt $30. A yoke of oxen was valued at $40. The best cows at $15, other cows from $10 to $14. 28 sheep and lambs were inventoried at $35. Such were the prices in those days.
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THE IMPLEMENTS USED BY OUR FOREFATHERS
The tools used by the farmers in the old times were black- smith made, or made by the farmers themselves. The plows used by the old people had wooden mouldboards with steel shares. The harrows had wooden teeth. The introduction of the iron mouldboard plow marked quite an era in the his- tory of farming, in Ulster county. But at first, this innovation was looked on with suspicion and the story is told that the farmers feared that the iron mouldboard plows would hurt their land. A Marbletown man tells a good story of the purchase of an iron mouldboard plow by a farmer and the interest with which its work was watched by a neighbor as it smoothly turned over the furrow of Marbletown low- land. The neighbor gazed and scratched his head, then ex- claimed "Jakey, Jakey, do you think it will be good." Then continued, "Jakey, Jakey, don't you think it will hurt the wheat." Such was the distrust with which the iron mould- board plow was greeted, and coming down to our own time, we may note that the introduction of the mowing machine, about 1855, was likewise viewed with apprehension, on the ground that it would injure the roots of the grass.
THE NEW PALTZ TURNPIKE
The New Paltz Turnpike was constructed, about 1830, and proved a great blessing to the farmers of the Wallkill Valley. Capt. Abram Elting was, at that time, and had been for some years previous, running a sloop from New Paltz Landing to New York. With the greatly improved facilities for getting produce to the landing as soon as the turnpike was built, the farmers, in all this region, became more prosperous. In those days flax seed was one of the chief articles, sent to New York
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by the farmers in this section. But the culture of flax was gradually abandoned. Dairying came to the front and the shipment of butter, calves, poultry and pork to New York became the leading industries with the farmers.
The building of the D. & H. Canal in 1826 made a fine market for oats. The culture of wheat had been abandoned long before; rye had take its place, and rye bread was used altogether in farmers' families. It is within the memory of men now living when the first barrel of wheat flour was sold by a village merchant in this place.
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CHAPTER XXI
NEW PALTZ VILLAGE AND TOWN IN 1820
There were in the village in 1820 twenty dwellings, two stores, two hotels, two cake and beer shops, one blacksmith shop, one schoolhouse and one church.
Commencing on the northern limits of the village the house now owned and occupied by Abm. M. Hasbrouck, was owned by his grandfather Jacob J. Hasbrouck, who at about this time gave up this house and farm to his son Maurice and moved to Bontecoe, where he built a brick house and spent the re- mainder of his days on the farm now owned by his grandson Luther Hasbrouck. Coming on toward the village the stone house of Philip D. Elting was occupied by Roelif Elting, father of Ezekiel and Brodhead Elting, who lived and died at Port Ewen, and Daniel Elting, late of Ellenville. The parsonage was occupied by Dominie Bogardus. Where now is Hugue- not Hall stood a house, part stone and part frame, occupied by Jeremy Low. Just north of the churchyard, as it is at present, was the blacksmith shop of Mr. Kilby, father of Jas. and Eb. Kilby. In the northernmost of the old stone houses on Huguenot street Mr. Selleck had a harness shop at about this time. Directly across the street in the north part of the present church yard stood an old stone house, owned and occu- pied by Andries DuBois. This was the original LeFevre house and was torn down when the brick church was built. The old stone church then occupied nearly the site of the present church, which was built in 1839. The stone house of Isaiah
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Hasbrouck directly across the street from the church was owned and occupied by his grandmother. "Mowche" Has- brouck, who was a widow. The house next the churchyard on the south was occupied by Mrs. Lucas Van Wagenen, a widow, mother of Benj. Van Wagenen and great grandmother of Easton Van Wagenen. She sold cake and temperance drink. The Mary DuBois Barry place was owned and occupied by her father Daniel DuBois. The old stone house directly across the street was owned by Ezekiel Elting, and occupied by his son Jacob Elting, who afterwards moved to Clintondale. The house of Abm. D. Brodhead was owned by his great-grand- father Judge Abram A. Deyo, and occupied by Richard Har- denbergh, who leased the farm. His son Jacob, afterwards one of the most distinguished men in the state, was born in this house at about this time.
A few yards farther south, on the corner of the street, a shoemaker's shop and a harnessmaker's shop were located. There has been no building there for many years.
Across the street the building of Mrs. S. A. LeFevre, still sometimes called the "white store," was occupied for mercantile purposes by Cornelius Bruyn who afterwards went to Kingston and was for a long time the head of the Ulster County Bank .. His brother DuBois Bruyn was with him in the store a portion of the time. Josiah DuBois, grandfather of William E. DuBois, lived directly across the street, in what is now the Memorial House. In this building he had formerly kept a store with his father-in-law, Col. Josiah Hasbrouck. Col. Hasbrouck had removed to the Plattekill. Mr. DuBois had given up the mer- cantile business and was occupying the building simply as a dwelling. Shortly afterwards Mr. DuBois removed to Pough- woughtenonk and built the brick house, now occupied by Capt. W. H. D. Blake, where he resided until his death. Passing by
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the old graveyard the stone house with a brick front now owned by Jesse M. Elting, was occupied as a residence by Ezekiel Elting, grandfather of Jesse Elting. The north room was used as a store. This building was erected in 1800.
Ezekiel Elting was probably the most extensive man of busi- ness in this place in 1820. He carried on the mercantile busi- ness in this building in partnership with his brother-in-law, Philip Elting, and in partnership with another brother-in-law, Peter LeFevre of Bontecoe he built the grist mill at Dashville in which his daughter, Mrs. Dinah Brodhead, carried on busi- ness for a long, long time afterwards. Geo. D. Freer of Lib- ertyville has told us that, about 1825, when he was a small boy and lived with his father near Perrine's Bridge, he would drive the cows to pasture on a lot which his father owned a short distance north of the Simon LeFevre farm. Sometimes he would see Ezekiel Elting, then an old man, going with his team of gray horses from his residence at New Paltz to the mill at Dashville. He would take grain sometimes for the farmers to accommodate them and occasionally would deliver the flour, when on his return.
Across the street, lived a Mr. Jackson ,who employed two or three men in the business of making hats in a shop a little nearer the Wallkill. The Academy was not built until about 13 years afterwards. Just below the Academy grounds were the remains of the old bridge across the Wallkill, but at that time a scow was the only means of transportation across the stream. Not long afterwards the bridge was erected at its present location. Passing on to the locust grove, near the pres- ent bridge, Dr. Jacob Wurts lived in the house torn down about 1875. The next house farther south was that in which the Wurts family lately lived, which was occupied by tenants.
Going on still south there was no house until the Plains were
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reached. There Nathaniel LeFevre lived in the stone house torn down about 1885 by A. V. N. Elting. . The Plains were all unfenced, lying in commons.
Coming back to the village Main street was not yet laid out. People crossing the Wallkill came around by the "white store" and up North Front street. The hotel property, corner of North Front and Chestnut streets, was occupied then and for a long time before and afterwards as a hotel by Samuel Budd, who likewise carried on the wagon making business. About 1858 this old building was replaced by the present structure. Chestnut street was not laid out until many years afterwards, when Solomon Elting, father of A. V. N. Elting, bought the "scaup way," sheep pasture, and laid out the present street, and also the street that divides the property of J. J. Hasbrouck and Abner DuBois.
The old stone building now occupied by John Drake as a residence, was a school building then, as it continued to be until a recent date. The school at that time was taught by Moses Dewitt, father of D. M. Dewitt of Kingston. About the same time Burr Dewitt, a brother of Moses, also presided as a peda- gogue and taught the young idea how to shoot. Adjoining the school house on the east, "Cookey John" Freer lived in the house torn down about 1880. "Cookey John" sold cakes, cider, etc. On the other side of the street was a frame tenant house.
Passing up the street where Mrs. Oscar C. Hasbrouck now lives, Jacob Terwilliger, an uncle of Nelson, resided. He. afterwards moved to Ohio. There was no other building in this part of the village except what is now the Steen hotel property. Here a hotel was kept by Angevine Latten. Mr. Latten or his wife owned the land in the vicinity of the Hugue- not Bank. Where Elias Coe's tenant house now stands in the rear of the trolley depot were several tall hickory trees.
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SPRINGTOWN IN 1820
In 1820 Springtown was about as much of a village as New Paltz, each numbering about 20 houses. In those days the main thoroughfare from north to south ran through Spring- town and this gave. it great advantage over New Paltz. The stage line, which before the day of railroads, was a very important interest, ran on the west side of the Wallkill and stopped at Springtown. Here lived Judge Jonathan DuBois, who was county judge in 1821 and probably the most promi- nent man in the town at the time. At Springtown there was a scow and directly across the Wallkill, perhaps 100 yards from the railroad bridge, was a tannery carried on by Wm. McDonald. From this a road ran eastward and intersected the Middletown road near the Ean residence. About 1820 Ulster county had an agricultural society, of which - De- Witt, of Rochester, was President, and at least one fair was held at Springtown.
In those days many droves of cattle and sheep and some horses would come from the north and the region about Lake Champlain and would pass through Springtown on their way to the New York or Philadelphia market. There was no ferry at Kingston or Poughkeepsie large enough to take droves of cattle across the river. The Poughkeepsie ferryboat was so small that a farmer going to that place had to unhitch his horses from the wagon. When the wind was not favorable the ferryman had to depend on his oars for motive power. This was before the days of the horse boat.
But to return to Springtown. Of course the numerous droves of stock made considerable business for the people along the line, in feeding man and beast. Accordingly we find no less than six houses of entertainment or taverns, between New
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Paltz and Rosendale, by the Springtown road, as follows: Frederick Stokes at what is now the Beaver place, Roelif Has- brouck, Ezekiel Low and Abm. Traphagan, in Springtown; Abm. DuBois in the old stone house about two miles north of Springtown and Wm. Delamater at this end of the Rosendale Plains. From this to Rosendale there were no houses.
HOUSES NORTH OF OUR VILLAGE IN 1820
Going north from the present corporate bounds of our vil- lage the first place was that of Philip Elting, who owned the place now the residence of his grandson Sol. L. F. Elting. Philip Elting was a man of extensive means and beside farm- ing carried on the mercantile business in this village in partner- ship with Ezekiel Elting, who was his double brother-in-law, each having married the other's sister. The next place on the present highway was that of Elias Freer, who left a numerous family of children, the last survivor of whom in this vicinity was Peter W. A. Freer. Elias' father Jonas lived on the eastern end of the same tract at Shivertown, in a stone house, occupied in our day by his grandson Stephen Freer. Next to the Elias Freer place came the farm of Joseph DuBois, after- ward the Moses P. LeFevre farm. Next on the north came the brick house now owned by the Terpenings. This is by far the oldest brick house in the town. It was built in 1786 by Josiah Elting, brother of Philip, and in 1820 was occupied by Abm. J. Elting, son of Josiah. Near the house stood a saw mill, which was taken down about 1870. Going on to the north we come next to the Ean place, still owned in the family. The old stone house, still occupied as a residence, has on its corner stone the initials E. E. (Elias Ean) and R. H. B. (Roelif Hasbrouck) also the date of building, 1789. From
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