* * * * *
It has been my pleasure and diversion during a period of many years
to collect and tabulate data concerning the descendants of Jacques
Caudebec.
This has led to a study of the almost interminable network of
relationship existing between the old families throughout the
Minisink region; to the tracing of the immigration from this region
into many of the states, and the development of families in almost
every State in the Union.
The emigrant and the frontiersman of the early generations have been
succeeded by the farmer, the merchant and the mechanic; later, by
those in every branch of human activity and industry. A people of
high ideals, honest, intelligent, home-making and law abiding, have
ever been exerting an influence uplifting and for the preservation of
liberty and freedom.
Much of this early history is derived from the writings of Peter E.
Gumaer. Much of the subsequent history was given me by my father,
Elting Cuddeback, whose remembrance of these people was accurate,
extensive and reaching back to the times of Peter E. Gumaer. Local
records have been searched. Also those in Kingston, Albany and New
York and Central New York counties. Records have been obtained from
the writings of W. H. Nearpass, while extensive family records have
been furnished by Mrs. Jennie Titsworth Wright of Sussex, N. J., Mrs.
Mary V. Lawton of Skaneateles, N. Y., Mrs. Jane Cuddeback Johnson of
Port Jervis, N. Y., Dr. Samuel Outwater of Lockport, N. Y., Mrs.
Simeon Cuddeback of Milford, Pa., Mr. and Mrs. Egbert Cuddeback of
Skaneateles, N. Y., and Mrs. Martha M. Griswold of Adrian, Michigan.
I deem myself fortunate to have known and learned from those of
earlier generations many facts pertaining to the early history of the
family. A physician comes to know the country, the people and the
families with an intimacy unknown in other relations.
Forty-one years of the practice of my profession among neighbors,
relatives and friends of my boyhood have impressed me with the
desirability of a record of our people and of our family. Families
scatter. Homes disintegrate. Houses disappear. Among the saddest of
my experiences are visits to localities where there is now little or
no vestige of the lives or of the drama of life enacted in the old
homesteads of bygone years. Many, many times in this study, I have
been impressed with the truth of the verses, Psalms 103, verses
15 and 16: "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the
field, so he flourisheth: For the wind passeth over it, and it is
gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more."
As a heritage for those who may hereafter bear the name Cuddeback,
for allied families, and for all who may note the development of
American families, this ideal development of free men in a free
country is presented. These interminglings of people of various
nationalities--these Americans, will everywhere be a mighty force for
the uplifting of the nation.
That such a people may be enabled to turn to a record of ancestors,
and to delight to know from whence they came is sufficient
compensation for many hours and days of investigation and
collaboration.
William L. Cuddeback, M.D.
Port Jervis, N. Y.