History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 4

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438

USA > Pennsylvania > Monroe County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 4
USA > Pennsylvania > Pike County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 4
USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania > Part 4

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" At the venerable Samuel Depuis' (an error: Nicholas Depui was the person meant, unless

2 They were originally contributed to Hazard's Register, and dated Stockport, June 6th and 14th, 1828.

SETTLEMENT OF LOWER MINISINK BY THE DUTCH.

indeed the visit was at a much later date than is represented), they found great hospitality and plenty of the necessaries of life. John Lukens said that the first thing that struck his admira- tion was a grove of apple trees, of size far be- yond any near Philadelphia. That N. Scull and himself examined the banks, and were fully of the opinion that all those flats had at some former age been a deep lake, before the river broke through the mountain, and that the best interpretation they could make of Minisink, was the water is gone.

" That S. Depuis told them that when the river was frozen he had a good road to Esopus from the Mine Holes, in the Mine Road, some hundred miles. That he took his wheat and cider there ; and did not appear to have any idea where the river ran, of Philadelphia market or of being in the Government of Penn- sylvania.

" They were of the opinion that the first settlements of Hollanders in Minisink were many years older than William Penn's charter; and as S. Depuis had treated them so well they concluded to make a survey of his property or claim, in order to befriend him if necessary. When they began to survey the Indians gathered around, and one old Indian laid his hand on Scull's shoulder and said, 'Put up iron string and go home.' They then quit and returned.

"I had it in charge, from John Lukens, to learn more particulars respecting the Mine road to Esopus, etc. I found Nicholas Depuis, Esq., son of Samuel, living in a spacious stone liouse in great plenty and affluence. The old Mine Holes were a few miles above, on the Jersey side of the river by the lower point of Pahaquarry Flat; that the Minisink settlement extended

forty miles or more on both sides of the river. That he had well known the Mine Road to Esopus, and used, before he opened the boat- channel through Foul Rift, to drive on it, sev- eral times, every winter with loads of wheat and cider, as also did his neighbors, to purchase his salt and necessities, in Esopus,1 having then

1 The Mine road was repaired from time to time and served the settlers along its line through New Jersey and New York, as well as those of the lower Minisink, as an outlet to the market on the Hudson River. The road very

no other market or knowledge where the river run to ; that after a navigable channel was opened through Foul Rift they generally took to boating and most of the settlement turned their trade down stream, the mine road bc came less and less traveled.

" This interview with the amiable Nicholas Depui was in June, 1787. He then appeared about sixty years of age. I interrogated as to the particulars of what he knew, as to when and by whom the Mine road was made, and what was the ore they dug and hauled on it, what was the date and from whence or how came the first settlers of Minisink in such great numbers as to take up all the flats on both sides of the river for forty miles. He could only give traditionary accounts of what he had heard from older people, without date, in substance as follows :

" That in some former age there came a com- pany of miners from Holland; supposed from the great labor expended in making that road, about one hundred miles, that they were very rich or great people, in working the two mines -one on tlie Delaware, where the mountain nearly approaches the lower point of Paaquarry Flat-the other at the north foot of the same mountain, near half way from the Delaware and Esopus. He ever understood that abund- ance of ore had been hauled on that road, but never could learn whether lead or silver ; That the first settlers came from Holland to seek a place of quiet, being persecuted for their relig-

early elaimed the attention of the provincial authorities of New York. That some work of repairing had been done prior to 1734, and that further work was contemplated is indicated by the following extract from the records of the General Assembly of New York :

"General Assembly, Die Sabbati, May 11th, 1734.

"The petition of Jacobus Swartwout, William Provost, William Cool and others, freeholders and inhabitants, re- siding and living in Minisink, in the County of Orange and Ulster, was presented to the house, &e., setting forth that several persons in West Jersey and Pennsylvania hav- ing no other way to transport their produee than through the Minisink, and there was but about 40 miles more to repair before they come to Esopus, &c., that they be com- pelled to work on said road and assist in repairing it, to the house of Egbert Dewitt, in the town of Rochester in the County of Ulster.

" Resolved, That leave be given to bring in a bill accord- ing to the prayer of the Petition."

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

ion. I believe they were Armenians.1 They followed the Mine road to the large flats on the Delaware ; that smooth, cleared land suited their views; that they bona fide bought the improvements of the native Indians, most of whom then moved to the Susquehanna ; that with such as remained there was peace until 1755. I then went to view the Paaquarry Mine holes. There appeared to have been a great abundance of labor done there at some former time, but the mouths of these holes were caved full and overgrown with bushes. I concluded to myself if there ever was a rich mine under that mountain it must be there yet, in close con- finement. The other old men I conversed with gave their traditions similar to Nicholas Depui, and they all appeared to be grandsons of the first settlers, and very ignorant as to the dates and things relating to chronology.

" In the summer of 1789 I began to build on this place ;2 then came two venerable gentlemen on a surveying expedition. They were the late General James Clinton, the father of the late De Witt Clinton, and Christopher Tappan, Esq., Clerk and Recorder of Ulster County (N. Y.). For many years before they had both been sur- veyors under General Clinton's father, when he was Surveyor-General. In order to learn some history from gentlemen of their general knowl- edge, I accompanied then in the woods. They both well knew the mine holes, mine road, &c., and as there were no kind of documents or records thereof, united in the opinion that it was a work transacted while the State of New York belonged to the Government of Holland; that it fell to the English in 1664; and that the change of government stopped the mining business, and that road must have been made years before such digging could have been done. That it undoubtedly must have been the first good road of that extent made in any part of the United States."

The Van Campens settled about the same time as the Depuis, but five miles above theni and on the Jersey side of the river. They did not come to the west shore until many years later. Just who followed the Depuis on the Pennsylvania side of the river can not now be told, but it seems probable that the stream may have been crossed at various places be- tween Port Jervis and the Water Gap within a few years after 1727. Andrew Dingman, of Kinderhook, is known to have settled on the west side of the river, at "Dingman Choice " (Dingman's Ferry, in what is now Delaware township, Pike County) in 1735, and he had near neighbors very soon after that date, if not at once. Another important settlement the date of which is well authenticated was that of Daniel Brodhead, made in 1737, on Analom- ing creek (afterward called Brodheads), where East Stroudsburg now is. His settlement was called Dansbury, and became noted, during the Indian War beginning in 1755, and the family became one of the most prominent in the whole Minisink country 1 Scull says that in 1730 there were settlements upon both sides of the river for a distance of more than forty miles, and yet his testimony on that point has little value for there is no reason to believe he ascended the valley above Depui's, and he mentions no names of people on either side of the river, although he speaks of "other old men "-all of whom, for anything he says to the contrary may have been upon the Jersey side. Smith in his History of New Jersey says that in 1756 the settlements were far more numerous on the east than on the west shore of the river. That the former was especially well peopled in what is now the northern part of Sussex County, New Jersey, as early as 1739, we have documentary proof. This region from the vicinity of Port Jervis down to a point about opposite the site of Milford was, as here- tofore explained, constituted "the Minisink pre- cinct " of Orange County, N. J. In 1739 the inhabitants of this precincts were taxed to assist in the building of the first county " goal " or

1 An evident confusion. The Depuis were French and did leave their country because of religious persecution, but the Holland Dutch, who formed the greater part of the early population of the Minisink, did not leave for such reason.

2 Stockport, on the Delaware, Buckingham township, Wayne County.

1 See chapter on Smithfield township, in Monroe County History.

SETTLEMENT OF LOWER MINISINK BY THE DUTCH.

jail of Goshen. The original tax warrant issued under the seals of the several justices of tlie peace of tlie county of Orange, among them being that of Anthony Westbrook,1 of Minisink, is still in existence, and shows just who, in 1739, were the taxable inhabitants of that part of the Minisink. It will be noted that the names of very many are the same which are to be found in the records of a later period pertaining to the Pennsylvania side of the river. Following are the names as given iu the return testified to by Johancs Westbrook :

Samuel Swartwout,

Solomon Davis,

William Codebek,

Jacobis Codébek,

Gerardis Van Minwege,

Johanis Hoogtyling, Stifanis Tietsoort,

Pieter Gemaer,

Jacobis Swartwout,

Lambart Brink,

Klaes Westfael,

Adries Decker,

Cornelis de Duyster,

Huge Puge, Allebert Van Garden,

Jacobis Decker,

Hermanus Van Gorden,

Thomas Schoonoven,

Hendrik Decker,

Isaak Van Aken,

Samuel Provost,

Cornelis Brink,

Evert Horinbeck,

Gysbert Van Garden,

Johanis Westbrook, Jnier, Ary Cortregt,

Antye Decker, Antony Westbrook, Cornelis Crom,

Barint Mollin,

Petris Decker,

Thomas Decker,

Jacob Decker,

Hendrik se Cortregt.

Abraham Van Aken,

Abraham Cortregt,

William Cool,

Cornelis Cuykundal,

Peter Cuykindal,

Terins Davin,

Hendrik Cuykindal,

Johanis Westfael,

De Staet Van Hillitge Martye Westfael, Conner, Johanis Westbroek,

Johanise Jacobse Decker, Willem Cortregt,

Jan Van Vliet,

Casparis Cimber,

Jacob Westfael,

David Cooll,

Hendrik Cortregt, Abraham Louw.

As to the inhabitants of the Pennsylvania Minisink (in the region now included in Mon- roe and Pike Counties), there exists document- ary proof that there were a considerable number

as early as 1746. In that year was taken the first action of which there is any record, for the formation of Smithfield township, the first municipal division north of the Blue Moun- tains. The petition of the settlers for the set- ting off of a township in this region contains the names of twenty-seven persons, all doubt- less landholders, and nearly all presumably the heads of families. Thus we know that, besides Nicholas Depui and the Brodheads, there were living here prior to the middle of the eight- eenth century Christopher Denmark, Bernard Stroud, Piatro J. Westbrook, James Hyndshaw, Daniel and Aaron Depui, John Courtright, Rudolphus Schoonover, Beama Scoonmaker (Shoemaker), John Decker, Patt Ker, William McNab, Abram Clark, John Pierce, Robert Hannah, Samuel Vanaroun, Valentine Snyder, John Boss, Jonathan Gerenly, Isaac Tak, Jo- seph Savin, Richard Howell, Lambert Bush, John Riley, John Honog and Thomas Herson.2

The foregoing did not, by any means, include all of the taxable inhabitants. A petition, dated only two years later (1748), contains the addi- tional names of Adam Snell, John Baker, Sam- uel Drake, John Teed, John Garliughouse, Edward Halley, John McDowell, Samuel Holmes, Joshua Parker, Benjamin Teed, Wil- liam Macknot, James Powell, Andrew Robin- son, James Phillips, Elisha Johnson, Johnson Decker, Samuel Barber, Jonathan Barber, Ben- jamin Barber, James Carle, Aia Clark, David Teed, Daniel Roberts, John McMichel, John Hilliman, - Seitz, - Jennings, Edward Snell, Thomas Hill and John Brink.

A document of 1753 gives other names, viz. : Daniel Shoemaker, Danicl Zaner, Honre Zaner,. Samuel Goodrich, Ephraim Culver, Joseph Soely, Edward Botts. None of these lists con- tain the names of the Van Campens, Quicks, Overfields, Bossarts, Dingmans, Van Vliets, Van Ettens, Van Akens and others, nearly all of whom are known to have been in the terri- tory prior to the time of the circulation of the petition last cited. Some of them, however, lived so far distant (above the Bushkill) from

" 1 Anthony Westbrook, of Minisink precinct, County of Orange and Provinee of New York," lived in what is now Montague, Sussex County, N. J., opposite the place where Milford, the county seat of Pike, was afterwards built, and he and Peter Lambartus Boniek, owned the Jersey flats adjoining and a large tract of country extending back upon the mountains. He was of the same family afterwards, and to this day numerous in Pike and Monroe Counties. 2

2 These names are, for the most part, spelled as found in the original petition. See Smithfield township.

Jacob Bogert,

Willem Tietsoort,

Jacob Decker, Junier, Dirik Quik,

Willem Provost,

Peter Lameose Brink,

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA

the main body of the settlers, that their influ- ence was not sought in aid of the measures which the petitioners advocated.

In 1752 when Northampton County was set off from Bucks, the township of Smithfield, which was supposed to include all of the settle- ments of the country north of the mountains, was accredited with a population of five hun- dred, the whole territory of the new county (in- cluding not only its present territory but all of Lehigh, Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne and parts of Luzerne and Schuylkill), being estimated to contain a few less than six thousand people.1

By the year 1742 four churches had been built conjointly by the settlers in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Minisink. Only one, of them was upon the Pennsylvania side, and that was located at Shawnee, two miles above Dupui's, in Smithfield. The others were the " Machakomach, near the site of Port Jervis, N. Y., the "Minisink " at Montague, and the third at Walpack. The movement toward their establishment began as early as 1737. The Rev. Johannes Casparus Freyenmoet was sent as a young man to Holland, to be educated for the ministry, and on his return took charge of all four churches in 1742.

The effect of the settlement of the territory now included in Northampton County (Bucks until 1752) must not be forgotten. That region was settled, though sparsely, before the first authenticated, permanent settlements were made in the Minisink. The current set in, slowly at first, but with constantly increasing volume, from Philadelphia and Bucks County, but the tide did not rise and flow over the mountains to mingle with the Dutch population in what is now Monroe County in appreciable strength until about 1780.

The population of that portion of northern Bucks, which became Northampton, was almost from the beginning a mixed one, containing Irish, Scotch-Irish, English and German bloods, all varying in customs, habits of thought and religious creed as they did in nationality. The

faiths of the Presbyterian, the Lutheran, the Mennonite, the Dunker, the Schwenkfelder, the Reformer, and last but not least, the lowly Moravian, all flourished upon the soil of North- ampton County before it came into organized existence as such.

In a report made to the Legislature about the time that Northampton County was erected it is asserted that as early as 1723 the settle- ments extended above Durham. John Apple, a German, is known to have located in what is now Lower Saucon, just below the Lehigh, in 1726. The first settlement, however, established in numbers sufficient to deserve the name, was that planted in 1728 within the present limits of Allen township (midway between Allentown and the Blue Mountains) by Scotch-Irish Pres- byterians, among whom were Thomas Craig, William Craig, Neigal Gray, John Boyd, Hugh Wilson and Samuel Brown. Then followed, in 1730, a colony of the same element, led by Alexander Hunter, and consisting of about thirty families,-the Moodys, Brittons, Rays, Arrisons, Lyles, Moores and others. These located at three different points well up towards the Blue Mountains and the present boundary of Monroe County, in what afterwards became the township of Mount Bethel.

The Germans did not lag far behind the Scotch-Irish. They entered the county at its south part, coming from the region round about Philadelphia, and located on the south bank of the Lehigh. Among the first were George Hess, Adam Schaus (Shouse), Isaac Martens Ysselstein, (a relative of Daniel Brodhead, of Dansbury) and Conrad Reutschi, (a Swiss). The lands were placed regularly in the market in 1735, and they pushed rapidly northward to occupy them, reaching a point (now Lehigh town- ship) near the mountains in 1736, and spread- ing soon afterwards eastward and westward.

A small but historically important element of population was added to, or rather imbedded in this heterogeneous mass of people, when the humble, unworldly, unselfish, devotedly benevo- lent Moravians 2 entered the region in 1741.

1 For a further and detailed account of the settlements in the Minisink see chapters on Smithfield and other old townships in Monroe and Pike counties.

2 The Moravians were so called because in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Moravia, a province of the Aus- trian Empire, was a principal seat of their church. In the

SETTLEMENT OF LOWER MINISINK BY THE DUTCH.

Early in that year seventeen of these people, led by Peter Bohler, bought four thousand, one hundred acres of land on that point on the Lehigh River where the Monockasy pours its tributary waters into that stream. By Christ- mas Eve of the same year they had built a house and a stable, and were entertaining Count Zinzendorf and his daughter, when the " blessed season " commemorated suggested the name Bethlehem as one appropriate to the settlement, and it was adopted. The first house was of logs, one story in height, with attic rooms. Other buildings were soon erected including a chapel for an Indian congregation worshipping at Nain, three miles distant. When, in 1765, the Indians left Nain, the chapel was removed to Bethlehem.

early part of the eighteenth century refugees from Moravia fled from that country into Saxony. The official name of this people is the United Brethren, and their archives show that they originated not only in Moravia, but also in Bohemia. As far back as the ninth century these two countries werc converted to Christianity. A Pro- testant movement traceable from the beginning, or nearly so, resulted in the Bohemian Reformation, and the execu- tion of John Huss.

This event took place in 1415, and in 1457 some of his fol- lowers founded the Church of the United Brethren, on the estate of Lititz, about one hundred miles east of Prague, on the confines of Silesia. The church numbered about two hundred thousand persons by the year 1517. It rapidly extended, and in 1557, its Polish parishes were constituted a distinct ecclesiastical province. In 1609 it was legally acknowledged as one of the churches of Bohe- mia and Moravia.

The church was subsequently crushed and had no visi- ble organization, but in 1722 some of its survivors went into Saxony, where they began to build the town of Herrnhut, on the cstate of Count Zinzendorf, who had offered them an asylum. He afterward became the leading Bishop of the revived church, and introduced on the con- tinent of Europe, Great Britain, and in America, exclu- sively Moravian settlements.

The members undertook extensive missions in heathen lands, and work among members of State churches in Europe which excluded proselytism. There are eighty thousand Moravian converts now in Europe who belong to other churches.

Exclusive settlements disappeared from this continent in 1856, fourteen years after that at Bethlehem was given up. What is known as the American Province of the church and the British and the German provinces form one organic whole throughout the world.

There are about seventeen thousand Moravians on this continent, including children, of whom about two thousand resi le in Bethlehem.

The Moravians immediately began a system- atized and zealous missionary work among the Indians throughout Eastern Pennsylvania, ulti- mately extending it to Ohio and other fields. They occupied a peculiar position in the auton- omy of Provincial Pennsylvania, exercised a potent influence in the affairs of state, and ex- erted a vast power for good in a num- ber of public measures. Their rigid adherence to the system of keeping records has preserved an immense amount of valuable materials for the historian, and to the various works com- piled from those records we are indebted for facts which appear on hundreds of pages in the present volume. Holding this fact in view, and also the very intimate relation between these people and various occurrences in the re- gion of which we treat, we deem no apology necessary for the extended observations on the Moravians which are here and elsewhere intro- duced. The country immediately north of the Blue Mountains was in a historical sense as closely identified with Bethlehem and Nazareth as with the seat of justice-Easton-to which it was tributary, during the momentous latter half of the eighteenth century.

There were always existing intimate relations between the Moravians and the cis-montane in- habitants of Northampton, and when the hor- rors of Indian war were experienced by the latter, the settlements of the former became their refuge and asylum.

It was for the use of the Moravian missiona- ries that Daniel Brodhead built a little mission house upon his Dansbury lands (very near the west end of the iron bridge over the Analom- ing, or Brodhead's Creek, between Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg), which was the second house of worship erected north of the moun- tains-the Shawnee Church heretofore alluded to being the first. Here Zinzendorf and other Moravian missionaries visited and preached- some of them before the chapel was built, for we are told it was not dedicated until May 19, 1753-and here was organized a little Moravian society, which, in 1747, according to the records of the sect,1 consisted of the following " persons

1 Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. I., p. 414.

WAYNE, PIKE AND MONROE COUNTIES, PENNSYLVANIA.

attached to the Moravian Church," viz .: Daniel and Esther Brodhead, John Baker, John and Catharine Hillman, Joseph and Helen Haines, Edward and Catherine Holly, Francis and Rebecca Jones, William and Mary Clark, John and Hannah McMichael, Daniel Roberts, George and Mary Salathe-in all eighteen persons. The church was burned by the Indians in 1755, and the mission was abandoned. The Moravians had also at the same period missions at Walpack and Pawlin's Kill in the Jersey Minisink.

Some interesting glimpses of the condition of that part of Northampton County, now Monroe, during the period prior to the Indian war, and while the region was jointly occupied by people of the savage and civilized races, are afforded in the journals of the missionaries, who, in 1742, and subsequent years, toiled over the mountains, penetrated the almost unbroken forests, and vis- ited the few squalid Indian villages and isolated settlements of the whites. Count Zinzendorf was the pioneer of these zealous men, who car- ried the Gospel into " the wilderness and the savage place." Of his three journeys through the region we give an account, which is princi- pally from the pen of Luke W. Brodhead :

" Count Zinzendorf landed at New York on 2nd Dec., 1741; on the 10th he reached Phila- delphia; on the 24th he visited the settlement in the Forks of the Delaware and named it Bethlehem, and then returned and preached for some time in Philadelphia and Germantown. On the 20th June following he again repaired to Bethlehem, and having organized the Breth- ren there into a congregation, completed arrange- ments for his contemplated visit to the Mora- vian Mission at Shecomeco, N. Y., and for his tour of exploration into the Indian country.

"On the 24th July, 1742, he set out on his visit to the Indians residing in the first main valley north of the Blue Mountain. He was accompanied by his daughter, the Countess Benigna (then in her seventeenth year), Anton Seyfert, Andrew Eschenback, Jacob Lischey, Henry Muller, William and Johanna Zander (most of whom were missionaries) and an In-

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History of Wayne, Pike, and Monroe counties, Pennsylvania, Part 4

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co. Number of Pages: 1438

Author: Mathews, Alfred, 1852-1904. 4n
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : R.T. Peck & Co.
Number of Pages: 1438