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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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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