Halfway Brook

The Delaware River Gap was a large break in the Appalachian Mountains. It was one of the very scenic places viewed by timber rafters as they floated their rafts to market on the Delaware River. Postcard of Aida Austin.
The Delaware River near Narrowsburg, New York, had originally been so narrow and with such a sharp [...]

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Photo of ice breaking up under the Barryville-Shohola Bridge with a middle support. Photo courtesy of M.B. Austin.
One very cold morning, about the first of January 1865, three teams of horses and mules were crossing the Barryville-Shohola bridge with two heavy loads
of wood.
The upper cable of the bridge (completed in 1856) parted near the center [...]

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This letter was written to Mary Ann Austin in Eldred, New York, from her niece, Addie Austin who lived in New York City. The bridge referred to is the Barryville-Shohola Bridge over the Delaware River, shown in the posts before and after this one.
New York, March 18, 1865
Dear Aunt Mary,
We have all been sick again [...]

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During the winter, large quantities of lumber from the Halfway Brook mills were drawn to Barryville, made into rafts, then taken to Handsome Eddy, two or three miles further down the river. There they waited for the spring freshets.
At Handsome Eddy, considered a safe place for rafts no matter what the water level, the rafts [...]

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It was the beginning of December 1815. A lone log house and sawmill stood silently on almost two acres of cleared land near the middle of Halfway Brook, in the Town of Lumberland, New York. There were no other buildings around for a mile in any direction.
So starts Chapter One in The Mill on Halfway [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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