Halfway Brook

Blind Pond Brook (above) is on the west side of Eldred in the Town of
Highland New York. Halfway Brook is to the East. You can see their
location on the 1870 map in the Chapter 4 post.
Thank you to my cousin Cynthia for the Blind Pond Brook photos
and to Kelly for the Blind Pond [...]

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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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You ask the probable amount we would raise per Sabbath. I think we could raise $5 dollars per Sabbath for a season amongst ourselves…
At the place in which we live there is a school house in which we hold our meetings on every Sabbath on Halfway Brook, four miles from the Delaware and Hudson Canal. [...]

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Sixty years ago in December just closed, Grandfather Eldred came to this neighborhood. At that time it was called Lumberland. Uncle C.C.P. Eldred was a little over seven years old. Came from Orange County, Wallkill Township to Halfway Brook on the old Cochecton Road.
Here they found a sawmill and log house. No other building [...]

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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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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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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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“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 [...]

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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 [...]

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