This district of territory which the small town of Deerpark now
embraces, when the Indians were its sole proprietors, was a very
plentiful place for Indian life when first discovered by Europeans.
The fiats, covered with a tall grass from four to six feet high, and
the same and surrounding woods, often burned over, abounded with
numerous deer, bears, raccoons, and many smaller animals suitable for
the sustenance of men, also with turkeys, ducks, partridges and other
birds suitable for man's diet. Generally in the spring of the year
vast numbers of pigeons passed over here to the northeast, vast
flocks of which generally lighted on the trees and ground to get
food, which gave opportunities of killing some of them. The rivers
and brooks teemed with different kinds of fishes, such as trout,
pike, chubs, suckers, sunfish, catfish and eels, and numerous shad in
the spring season in both the Delaware and the Neversink rivers, in
the latter of which they ran up about five miles, which distance then
generally was deep water and extended to where David Swartwout now
lives; [FN] these fish were caught by bush seines, and in the Delaware
river were also many rockfish, which were taken in the fall of the
year by means of eel-weirs and bush seines, some of which were the
largest fish in this part of that river. Also, there were, and still
are, different kinds of nuts, such as white walnuts, hickory nuts,
chestnuts, butternuts, hazelnuts; also various kinds of fruit and
berries, to wit: large and small grapes, plums, black and red wild
cherries, huckleberries, strawberries, black and red raspberries,
blackberries of two or more kinds, and wintergreen berries. Such was
this district of country and its productions when our forefathers
came here, so that they could obtain a plentiful supply of the best
of wild meats of animals, fowls and fishes, and, by the cultivation
of small portions of their lands, they could obtain a supply of
grain, roots and other vegetables. They could not do much at farming
before the children of these first families became able to assist in
that business. At this early period of their settlement they pounded
their grain for such bread, cakes and soups as they made in those
times, for doing which they procured pounding stones from the
Indians, who manufactured them, and made or obtained from the Indians
pounding blocks from one and a half to two and a half feet long, and
about ten inches in diameter, in one end of which a suitable round
cavity was burned in which to pound their grain, coarse salt, &c. The
Indians manufactured both the stones and blocks in good style.
* * * * *
[FN] Now (1889) the residence of Peter D. Swartwout.
Jacob Cuddeback built a small mill on a spring brook near his
residence. How it answered the purpose of grinding is not known. One
of the stones in my possession (now broken) was about two feet in
diameter and about two inches thick. It was found in a cellar of an
old house which stood near Cuddeback's first residence.
The animals, fowls and fishes probably did not diminish whilst the
Indians were the only inhabitants of this part of the country. The
increase of these people was slow. A married couple generally did not
have more than two or three children, in consequence of which they
did not become more thickly populated than to consume only a small
proportion of the abundance of wild meat this part of the country
continued to produce, and they, not having the means we have to kill
and get the wild animals, fowls and fishes, often suffered in
consequence of not being enabled to kill as many as they wanted for
their support. The most dexterous of them could generally get a
plentiful supply, but those who were inactive had sometimes to be
assisted by the others, especially in the cold season of the year.