Book 1 Update, November 18, 2009

by Louise Smith Posted on November 18, 2009

You may be wondering when/if Book I will be published this year. I know I am.

Book I is in Book Limbo at present. Gary has done some awesome maps that will be so helpful as you read the story. But then life took over, so the book is on hold.

By “life taking over,” I mean things like:

    • the continual remodeling of our home, of which the kitchen is now done except lighting, and currently the raising of the living room floor. There are a couple other possible projects, then hopefully the inside will be done.

    • the rebooting and/or formatting (or whatever it is called) of my computer which likes to crash—today for the third time.

    • most importantly, there has been paying work, and that is a plus as I (we) have a bad habit of liking to eat and to have a place to be shielded from the elements.

At this point, it would seem the earliest The Mill on Halfway Brook could realistically be available would be the end of December. Hopefully, at least by mid-January. This seems to be the book which is always two months away. Continue reading →

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Lord and Taylor 1826

by Louise Smith Posted on November 15, 2009

Lord & Taylor, based in New York City, New York, is the oldest upscale department store chain in the United States.

Lord and Taylor began in New York in 1826, as a small dry goods store owned by cousins Samuel Lord and George Washington Taylor, immigrants to New York. They located their store near the North River waterfront in New York’s Greenwich Village.

The store later moved to a place uptown on the Ladies’ Mile, which catered to the wealthier clientele of the “carriage trade.” The enterprise became a major fashion retailer, and the first major store on Fifth Avenue.

Note: George Washington Taylor was the half-brother of Elizabeth Lazerlier Van Pelt, my great-great-great-grandmother. George Washington Taylor Myers was the grandson of Elizabeth Lazerlier Van Pelt. It would seem his parents, Martin D. and Jane Ann Van Pelt Myers named him after his Grandmother Elizabeth’s younger half-brother.

Lord and Taylor History

Lord and Taylor History

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School 1825

by Louise Smith Posted on November 14, 2009

Sears Gardner was the Town of Lumberland’s supervisor in 1825, when a school was started for children in the area of Halfway Brook Village and Barryville. James Eldred, was the Town Clerk, Commissioner of Highways, and in July, Town Marshall.

The community felt a school was needed, and as was done in those times, a subscription paper was circulated to see if there was enough interest to start a school.

Francis Quick circulated the subscription document which stated that school would be for three months of the year at a time, and would be taught every week day, and on alternate Saturdays. People were to add their signatures and the number of children they were responsible for if they were committed to supporting the school.

Nine parents signed up twenty-eight students. The Francis Quick family, and the Van Tuyl family (Daniel and Rebecca), each had five children. The Calvin Crane family had four as did Jane Johnston, the widowed mother of John W. Johnston. The Levi Middaugh Family had three; so did James and Almira Hooker. Daniel Pool had two children. The Nicholas Morris Family and David Quick’s Family each had one. Continue reading →

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1805 to 1830 Where to buy food & dry goods

by Louise Smith Posted on November 10, 2009

Getting food and necessities for living was quite challenging in Lumberland’s early days. Needed items were purchased from the Village of Newburgh—about sixty miles from Lumberland. The round trip on the Newburgh-Cochecton Turnpike took a week.

Farm produce, cattle, and wood products were transported from Newburgh west on the Turnpike. Items the settlers wanted to sell were sent to Newburgh, and from there, transported by boat to New York City, another 65 miles away.

A bit later, but still early on, food and dry goods came from Carpenter’s Point (Port Jervis, roughly 20 miles away). At Carpenter’s Point, grain could also be ground into flour. In the winter, when the Delaware River was frozen, goods were hauled on the ice from Carpenter’s Point to Lumberland.

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Grandmother and the Bear

by Louise Smith Posted on November 3, 2009

Many wild animals still roamed the forest, in the 1820s, including bears. Years later, Jacob Stage’s wife, Martha Carmichael, told a story about her grandmother as a young mother.

The menfolk had gone some distance to hunt and left Grandmother alone with her children in a recently built house with only a curtain for a door.

When a bear appeared at the door wanting something to eat, Grandmother hid the children under the bed, and beat off the bear with anything she could grab.

From then on, Martha’s Grandmother refused to stay alone when the men were away. Do you blame her?

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1824: Shohola, Pennsylvania and Lumbering

by Louise Smith Posted on November 2, 2009

In late 1824, Garrett Wilson and three other men purchased Shohola Lumber property in Shohola, Pennsylvania, across from what was then called the River Settlement, now Barryville.

Mr. Wilson became the sole manager, and the company was
“…constantly engaged in cutting logs, drawing and placing them in the Shohola Brook where they lay until the water of the brook became sufficient to float them to the mill pond.

“That was the process by which all the timber of the large tract was made to reach the mill—logs cut and drawn by the teams to the nearest point of the brook and there deposited, either in the water or upon the immediate shore.

“…[Mr. Wilson] with 12 or 15 men, mechanics and laborers, removed the old saw mill, erected a new and larger mill with two saw gates, renewed and raised the dam increasing the water power…”—Johnston, Reminiscences p. 305, 7

“Lumbering was the only business of the section, cutting and drawing logs, sawing and hauling boards, rafting and running lumber down the stream…”
—Johnston, Reminiscences, p. 293

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Town of Lumberland 1816

by Louise Smith Posted on October 28, 2009

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my great-great-grandfather, James Eldred and his family, wife Polly, and children, twelve-year-old Amelia, ten-year-old Sarah, five-year-old Eliza, Abraham Mulford nine, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (CCP) seven, and Grandmother (his mother, Mary Hulse Eldred Forgeson, 61), arrived two days before 1816, in what was then the Town of Lumberland.

J W Johnston in his book, Reminiscences, tells us about the year 1816.

Oliver Calkins was Supervisor of the town of Lumberland which had four frame houses, nine frame barns, and a gristmill owned by Jeremiah Barnes.

James Eldred owned one of the eight saw mills, and one of three watches. Jacob Manney furnished the clock time for the town since he had a clock.

Animals included 19 horses, thirty-four oxen, and as many cows. There were ten wagons. Continue reading →

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Some Upper Delaware River Cities

by Louise Smith Posted on October 23, 2009

Cochecton
In 1754, Connecticut Yankees established Cushetunk and claimed the Delaware River’s west bank for the Colony of Connecticut.

Cochecton, (cuh-SHEK-ton), means low land; also called the flats. The land is rich and fertile and full of fish and game.

Narrowsburg
Narrowsburg has the narrowest and deepest points on the upper Delaware River.

Tusten (Ten Mile River)
Tusten at the mouth of the Ten Mile River, was first called the Ten Mile River Settlement, and grew up around 1751. Tusten was named for the Revolutionary hero, Dr. Tusten.

Ten Mile River is the site of a large summer camp maintained by the Boy Scouts of America.

Shehola, Shohola
Shohola/Shehola is Lenape for “slow waters where the geese rest.” Shohola the town in Pennsylvania, is on the Shohola River, and directly across from Barryville, NY.

Barryville was called, “the River”, until 1831, though according to my information, it continued to be called the River for some time.

Mongaup
Mongaup is a small, quiet hamlet at the mouth of the Mongaup River, which is still the eastern border of Lumberland.

Sparrowbush
Sparrowbush was named for H.L. Sparrow, a dealer in ship-knee timber, who rafted down the Delaware River in the early 1800s.

The land was originally named Sparrow’s Bosh. Bosh was a sloping thicket or woods.

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River Rafting

by Louise Smith Posted on October 22, 2009

In 1800, Lumberland (then two years old), had a population of 733, most of whom had lumber-related jobs. Saw-mills operated on various streams. Halfway Brook was said to have had ten sawmills on its nine miles.

Enormous amounts of lumber were made into rafts and floated down one of the many rivers or brooks in the area that fed into the Delaware River. The Delaware River flowed to Carpenter’s Point (Port Jervis) and on south to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the lumber could be sold.

It was around 1764, the year after the French and Indian War, when Daniel Skinner made a 15 foot by 80 foot raft from six felled pine trees. Daniel ingeniously lashed these logs (masts for boats), together, added a rudder,
and floated the raft down the river—Timber Rafting it was called.

Leaving Cushetunk/Cochecton where he lived, Daniel and two others (one drowned) rafted about 200 miles down the Delaware River, past the settlements at Narrowsburgh, Ten Mile River, Shohola and the River, Pond Eddy, Mongaup, and Carpenter’s Point, and headed southeast to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Skinner was paid twenty-four pounds—four pounds per mast.

For further reading:
Skinner’s Falls/Milanville Bridge

Rafting on the Delaware (scroll down)

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Halfway Brook Village and Brook

by Louise Smith Posted on October 20, 2009

The Halfway Brook (there is another one in New York) I write about, is in a most gorgeous area called the Upper Delaware River Region, in New York State. This Halfway Brook was the name of a nine-mile stream, before it became the name of the Village which is now Eldred.

Halfway Brook flowed through an ocean of large old magnificent trees in the town appropriately named Lumberland, in late 1815, when my great-great-grandfather James Eldred and his family settled in the area.

There were several nearby settlements in the area when the Eldred family arrived. At the mouth of Halfway Brook on the Delaware River was The River settlement, which became Barryville.

Northwest of The River, also on the Delaware River, was the Ten Mile River Settlement (later Tusten) on the Ten Mile River. And to the southeast of the River was/is Mongaup on the, guess the name—Mongaup River.

The mouth of Halfway Brook is halfway between the Ten Mile River and the Mongaup Settlements, hence the name. Or that is what I read.

I also read that what became the location of Halfway Brook Village was at one time midway on an ancient path that went from the Mongaup Settlement to the Ten Mile Settlement. Halfway Brook Village grew up about four miles north of “The River”, and slightly to the east, near the middle of Halfway Brook.

That is where James and Polly Eldred, their five children—Amelia, Sarah, Eliza, Abraham Mulford, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Eldred, and possibly Mary Hulse Eldred Forgeson (mother of James—hence my 3G-grandmother [no not an iphone]—settled a couple days before the end of the year 1815—according to the family story.

The Mill on Halfway Brook follows the lives of the Eldred family (Polly Eldred died, and James then marries Hannah Hickok, who was my 2G grandmother), their neighbors, and my relatives as they move into the Village, Town of Lumberland, which later became Eldred in the town of Highland.

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