Hemlock Trees

by Louise Smith Posted on October 19, 2009

The bark of the hemlock tree was used in the many tanneries of the area in the nineteenth century. Tannin found in Hemlock bark stops the natural decay and makes the leather flexible and durable, preserving the hide.

Hemlock bark was removed from trees, stacked and dried, and then ground into powder for use in the tanning process.

Animal hides were repeatedly soaked in the bark from the Hemlock tree (or Chestnut Oak), and mixed with other ingredients. An acidic chemical reaction slowly changed the hide into leather.

Millions of hemlock trees, after the bark was removed for the tanneries, were left to decay.—http://www.minisink.org/hisdoor.html

When I was a boy, I could walk to town and never touch the ground by hopping from hemlock tree to hemlock tree that were laying on the ground.
—Garfield Leavenworth, born 1882

The hemlock trees were cut down for the bark, which was peeled and used in the leather tanning process. There was a tanning mill in Sparrowbush. In fact, they recently put up a marker sign where the mill was on route 97.
—Kevin Marrinan

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Did you know?

by Louise Smith Posted on October 16, 2009

Kill
Kill or kille is Dutch for a creek as in Wallkill or Beaver Kill.

Callicoon Creek
Dutch hunters named the area Kollikoonkill because there were so many Kollikoon or wild turkeys.

Delaware
In 1610, as Captain Samuel Argall named both the Lenape River, and the people living on its banks, the Delaware in honor of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, his patron, a British nobleman and Virginia’s first colonial governor.

The Largest Raft
A Mr. Barnes took a 85 feet wide, 215 feet long raft, loaded with 120,000 feet of lumber down the Delaware River.—minisink.org

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Final, Final Edit October 14, 2009

by Louise Smith Posted on October 14, 2009

Dear Cousins and Friends,

I am happy to announce that The Mill on Halfway Brook is ready for its final edit. This means my husband Gary, who designs book covers and book interiors for clients (as well as a number of other design related projects), will now take over the process and make the book print ready, and create a cover.

I don’t know how long that will take. You might recall, he is still renovating our house. The kitchen is now only missing a countertop, but there is still a pantry to tile, cabinets to put up in the half bath and a floor to be raised 9 inches or so in the living room.

Ever your cousin,
Louise

Gary’s sites
Performance Design
Dean’s Garage automobile design, history, racing, and nostalgia

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Eel Weirs

by Louise Smith Posted on October 4, 2009

Fish and eel were plentiful in the Delaware River. The Van Tuyl, Middaugh, Hooker families and others kept a barrel of salted eels for winter meals. Each child’s dinner would be a boiled eel and four buckwheat pancakes. Other families in the area spread rye bread with butter or grease from pork for their dinner.
—from Johnston, Reminiscences

I was quite interested to know that 180 years or so later, eels are still trapped in eel weirs near Pond Eddy, on the Delaware.

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Whortleberrying by Hagan Pond 1850s

by Louise Smith Posted on September 28, 2009

Today, while working on chapter 7 for at least the 4th time, I read the answer to my question regarding if there were cranberries by Highland Lake in the 1850s.

In 1850, Highland Lake was called Hagan Pond. What follows is a letter from George W. Eldred, to Stephen St. John Gardner.

Both young men are a part of the story I am writing, and both are grandsons of James Eldred who arrived with his wife Polly Mulford and five children, including CCP Eldred (George W.’s father) and Eliza Eldred Gardner (Stephen’s mother), in what became Halfway Brook Village at the end of 1815.

I saw several definitions of whortleberry. I went with the definition that included mountain cranberry and lowbush cranberry.

I learned that Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines…with slender, wiry stems that are not thickly woody and have small evergreen leaves. The flowers are dark pink…The fruit is initially white, but turns a deep red when fully ripe. It is edible, with an acidic taste that can overwhelm its sweetness.

George W. Eldred, Halfway Brook Village, 1850ish
To: Cousin Stephen St. John Gardner, U.of NE Pennsylvania, Bethany, PA

A friend and I went to Hagan whortleberrying yesterday. Got half a bushel, and no mistake. We got nicely [out] of the marsh, when it began to rain right along. We had the misfortune to spill about a peck of our berries and did not get more than half of them.

I know of nothing else to write only Oliver Calkins was here today and Oh! what a nice shower we had. He stopped and bunked in with us till most 6, when he gave out, and put for home, thinking it never would quit raining.

Grandfather [James Eldred] is well as common today, so are all the rest, except Palmer who had an attack of cholera morbus last even, but is coming up again.
—Eldred, Richard O. The Eldred Family, p. 73

March 23/2010 Update: There are both blueberries and cranberries in the area.

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Arrival in Halfway Brook

by Louise Smith Posted on September 26, 2009

Since the story of my Austin/Leavenworth ancestors, took place in the same location for almost 140 years, I began searching to find out the arrival of each family. The following timeline (give or take a couple years in some instances) seems to be correct.

Note: If you are wondering about your ancestors and they were in the area by 1855, check the New York State Census for that year. Halfway Brook Village was in the town of Highland by 1855, so that was where I found quite a bit of info.

1811
Asa and Esther Hinman Hickok and family, including Hannah Hickok, who would be the second wife of James Eldred, as Polly died young. Hannah was my great great grandmother.

1815
James and Polly Mulford Eldred and five children and probably James’s mother (my triple great grandmother) Mary Hulse Eldred Forgeson.

1834
Sherman Buckley and Charlotte Ingram Leavenworth (possibly earlier). This is a longer story that you can read about in the book.

1839
Ralph and Fanny Knapp Austin and my great grandfather, William Henry.

1852
Martin D. and Jane Ann Van Pelt Myers. Possibly my great great great grandmother, Elizabeth Lazerlier Van Pelt.

Continue reading →

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Cranberries by Highland Lake?

by Louise Smith Posted on September 24, 2009

One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to share the excitement of new information that I get—often via my ace information gathering specialist, Cousin Cynthia.

Cynthia’s recent photo and information find came from a gracious couple, Mr. and Mrs. R.

Mrs. R remembers cranberries growing in the swampy part of land under the “thumb” of Highland Lake, as well as all along Highland Lake. I think it was in the 1930s or 1940s that Mrs. R. said they would pick the cranberries while they were green and lay them out in big pans from the boarding house and by Thanksgiving they would be red and ripe and they would make their own cranberry sauce.

My question is, does anyone know if in the mid-1800s there were cranberry bogs in the area by what was then Hagan Pond?

I hope someone reading this knows. I checked Quinlan and Child, but did not find any reference to cranberries.

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Narrows Burgh, March 1848

by Louise Smith Posted on September 24, 2009

Note: I don’t know who wrote the following letter. “fs” is read as “ss”.

Narrows Burgh, March 1848
To Mifs Mary A. Eldred, Lumberland
My dear Friend,
I thought I would spend a few moments this day noon in writing to my long cherished friend. The scholars are playing outdoors and I am left alone in the schoolhouse. So my thoughts naturally run on home to home friends. This is a beautiful day, and this is a very pleasant place.

The school house is pleasantly situated a short distance from the river on a hill. How I wish you and Hezekiah would come up here; it would just be a pleasant ride for you when it is good going. But the traveling is very bad at present.

I should like to go home and make a visit, but am afraid if I go now, I shall mifs seeing the river break up. They say it is quite a curiosity to see the ice go through the eddy.

I like it here very much so far, and I like the people. I meet with some once-in-a-while that inquire all about Mr. Eldred and his family and some that used to be acquainted with my father…

I have just returned from a walk…it is another damp dark day…the lady that was with me gave an account of the Big Eddy bridge going off last spring and of a number of accidents that have happened.

Near the bank of the river where we were walking is a large hill which they roll their lumber down and has caused many accidents. It is called Peggy’s Runway. It derived its name from an old woman who lived at the foot of the hill many years ago, when it was thick swamp. To go upon this hill and take a view you can see a great distance off, is delightful.

How I wish you were here…I think of going home on a raft as far as Barryville. There will be a number of rafts going from here and I wish you would come up to go down with me…

PS Please direct your letter to Narrows Burgh, Sullivan Co., NY. The post office is acrofs the river. We have to travel over a large new bridge to get there and people have to pay three cents for walking over, but I can go free—good says I.

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Freshet

by Louise Smith Posted on September 24, 2009

“A freshet is a sudden rise in the level of a stream, or a flood, caused by heavy rains or the rapid melting of snow and ice.” I dutifully copied the dictionary definition well over a year ago, when first starting the narrative of this book.

The resources I had been reading talked about both the necessity of “freshets”—a term I had never heard—to float the rafts of lumber to market, and the devastation a freshet could cause.

…in the days of plentiful lumber, the surface of the Delaware was literally covered at the time of raging freshets and the consequent catastrophes to the rafts and lumber piles.
—Johnston, Reminiscences, p. 253

So wasn’t I excited when my mother sent me a third box of “treasures” that included an 1845 letter to my great Grandmother Mary Ann Eldred (before she married Henry Austin), from her half sister Phoebe Maria Eldred Austin, which talked about the freshet in Halfway Brook.

Here is an excerpt from that letter:

Lumberland, July 13, 1845
To: Mifs Mary A. Eldred, Middletown
Dear Sister,
I have delayed writing longer than I intended, but these lines will inform that we are well at present and I hope they will find you the same.

There’s been a freshet in the Halfway Brook. It has done much damage. There is not a bridge or dam left between here and Barryville. It has damaged us more than fifty dollars.

The Mongaup was very high. There was a young man drowned in that stream. It was James White and old Mrs. Skinner was buried last Thursday. Mifs Margette West has been married…

The children are all sleepy and make such a noise, I must say good night. From your affectionate sister, P. M. Austin

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Sawmills in Lumberland

by Louise Smith Posted on September 22, 2009

In 1798 when it was created, the Town of Lumberland was a rugged wilderness with 300,000 acres of continuous forests, interspersed with ponds, lakes and streams. The brooks and streams flowed into the Delaware River, which was the southwest border between New York and Pennsylvania.

A number of sawmills were built on the streams which flowed into the Delaware River. Streams with such names as Ten Mile River, Mongaup, Beaver Brook, and of course Halfway Brook. I have read that there were 8 or nine sawmills on Halfway Brook.

So which mill is The Mill on Halfway Brook talking about? Well, that will be a question that will be answered in the book, which I hope will be published in a couple months.

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