My thanks to Jean-Pierre Moreau for sending me a copy of this
history of the Onteora area. It was apparently written in 1967 by the Assistant
Reservation Director, Ralph Foster.
WALKING THROUGH TIME
By R.M. Foster
The Scouts who pitch their tents in the "Land in the
Sky" have from the very beginning traditionally been hikers. In their travels through
the hills and forests they regularly pass artifacts and signs of the people who have gone
before - fascinating indicators of mans struggle with these same hills and forests, and
with other men. This history of the Onteora country is written as an aid to staff and
leaders in helping the young ones better read the signs of these struggles. It is to be
hoped that many a campfire and trail will be richer from the narrations that occur as a
result of this material.
In 1609 Henry Hudson sailed up the river which now bears his
name. He sailed to a creek which history has not been able to identify. It seems to have
been either the present day Rondout or Esophus.
Hudson bestowed the name Kaatskills and again the name is
shrouded in uncertainty. Historians today argue vehemently as to its meaning, either
Wildcat Creek or Catskill Mountains. At any rate the name stuck and today Onteora is
located in what is known as the southern tier (level or layer) of the Catskill Mountains.
Before even the days of Hudson and the coming of white man, a
trail ran from the Indian village of Oquaga on the Susquehanna River near the present city
of Binghamton, New York, to Kingston, New York, on the Hudson River. It was called the Sun
Trail by the Indians who so named it because it went from the setting to the rising sun
(West to East). It was the principal route of the Leni Lenapes of’ the Sophus tribe
who lived at Oquago with their agricultural grounds in the fertile valley of the upper
Roundout Creek.
In the East, it started at Wawasing (now spelled Warwarsing)
and followed Westward up the Rondout Kill through what is now Grahamsville, over Wyman
Hill, across the Neversink at Halls Mills and continuing westward through the Willowemoc
to Brown’s Settlement on the hills east of the fish hatchery. From there it crossed
Mongaup Creek, continuing across the full width of Onteora to the Beaverkill where it
joins Shin Creek. The settlement there known as Shin Creek is today Lew Beach known as the
summer home of Irving Berlin.
The Indians of Oquoga made the mistake of choosing the side
of the British in the Revolutionary War and in 1779 Col. Butler of Fort Shandakan (today
known as Kingston) destroyed the village.
Although white men came to the foothills of the dreaded
mountains soon after settling in New Amsterdam (New York City) in 1613 to establish a
trading post at the junction of the Rondout and the Hudson, it was 175 years before a
settler began clearing ground and building a cabin in the Beaverkill valley.
In 1808 Queen Anne granted to Johannas Hardenburg and his
associates, the Hardenburg Patent, a tract of land of approximately 2,000,000 acres. Some
of the holders of considerable acreage within the patent were Robinson, Verplank, Allen,
R.L. and Johanna Livingston, and John Hunter. Alder Lake, which is in the present day town
of Hardenburg, was in the Robinson tract and was bounded on the north by the
Verplank-Allen tract. The Livingstons established their manor on the Willowemoc at today's
village of Livingston Manor.
Into this land, across the Sun Trail in 1789 came Jojeil
Stewart, the first white settler into the Beaverkill Valley.
Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War the owners
of these large tracts of land began advertising and offering acreage for sale or lease.
Most of the lands in Alder Lake and Beaverkill were offered for 75 cents per acre or
leased on terms similar to those contained in an advertisement by John B. Livingston which
read "To be leased for 3 levels on the following terms, viz. three years next after
date of the lease, free - the fourth year the rate of 5 bushels of wheat per 100 acres;
fifth year, 10 bushels per 100 acres; after which and during the continuance of the lease,
bushels per 100 acres." This meant that $5.25 per year would pay the purchase money
interest on 100 acres at first but that after five years, the interest would amount to $20
per year.
Demand for acreage grew ad rent terms became more unequal.
The hardships of the renters to meet the rent grew by the year and gradually solidified
into resentment against the old patroon system of the Netherlands.
James Debroosess owned 60,000 acres of Great Lot # 5 of the
Hardenburg Patent. At his death the land went equally to his daughters Elizabeth
Debroosses and Charlotte Overing. Elizabeth married John Hunter and in 1811 the sisters
deeded their lands to their respective husbands which was the custom. Soon after John
Hunter hired Able Sprague to clear a road eastward along the Sun Trail, free of stumps and
rocks starting at Shin Crock (Lew Beach).
This road, cut in 1815, jointed up at Grahamsville with
another road which ran to Warwarsing the eastern end of the Sun Trail. This road cut on
the orders of John Hunter became known as the Hunter Road and today at Onteora is the
southern side of the Yellow Trail east of the bridge at the lake and is the Blue Trail to
the Beaverkill Road west of the bridge.
This road, built right after the War of 1812, opened the
territory to the migration of people which seems to occur after every war.
The people whose resentment had been steadily growing against
what was termed absentee landlords and high rents erupted in 1838 in Van Rensselaer
County. There began a movement of the tenants known as the Anti Rent War. Soon the news
spread to the Beaverkill Valley and both the non-renters and the renters organized into a
group known as the antirenters and refused to meet the terms of their leases.
At Browns Settlement, in the Church and in the Karst Home,
which is now the site of one of our overnight campsites, the anti renters of the upper
Beaverkill and Willowemoc Valleys held their meetings and formulated their program of
resistance against the legal actions to come from the landlords. In this war there were
two factions, one which sought to prove that perpetual rent was a bad and illegal thing
and the other which said we have no more allegiance to the king since we have won our
independence therefore his laws are no longer in effect so we don't pay rent.
The anti renters had a newspaper at Delhi called the Voice
of the People. They favored peaceful means but pressed the cause with vigor and made
strong demands to be given a chance to purchase their land in fee simple (out right).
Disguised as Indians, organized bands of tenant farmers went
to the aid of their neighbors when the sheriff came to dispossess them. These disguises
featured grotesque masks and calico clothes. They were known as Sheepskin Indians.
After the killing of Under Sheriff Steele of Delaware County,
when he undertook to seize the cattle of Moses Earle of Andes to satisfy a landlord’s
claim for rent, the governor took notice of the seriousness of the situation and the
constitution of New York State was amended in 1846 making perpetual rent illegal and
providing a way for all tenants to eventually acquire a title to their land.
The industries of the Catskills have changed with the
destroying of its natural resources and the invasion of its wilderness by roads and
railroads.
The hide tanning industry which began after the war of 1812
resulted in the "Bark Peelers", men who removed the bark from hemlock trees for
the tannin used in tanning leather. This industry held sway as the main industry of the
Catskills until the Civil War in 1865. The first authentic record of a tannery in the
mountains is for one built by Palen in 1817 near the present village of Palenville in the
northern Catskills. 100 trees were needed to tan one cow hide and in 1865, the final year
of the Civil War with its demand for soldiers boots, 150,000 skins were tanned in Sullivan
County; the county in which Onteora is located. Remains of these giant trees left to rot
with only the bark removed can still be found on the Onteora property today as long piles
of decaying red brown wood.
The water operated mill industries - saw mills and grain
mills - held sway from 1830 to 1890. Smith Mill, a water wheel operated saw mill was on
Alder Creek just below the big house on the Alder Lake property. The foundation of another
mill can still be seen at the falls on Mongaup Creek on our Yellow Trail.
With the end of the tanning industry well into the
1880’s, lumbering became the area’s prime industry. Rafting, a skill of the
river lumberman, held prestige as "colts" or small rafts of logs were floated
down the Beaverkill to be made into big rafts at East Branch and Hancock on the Delaware.
The steam engine and circular saws came in 1860 and the
railroad to Rockland in 1875 marked the end of the rafting and lumbering industries which
moved to New York City.
Blue Stone Quarrying which started in 1840 at Kingston hit
its peak as a source of materials for roads in the 1880’s as Portland cement,
invented a few years previously gradually replacing it.
Another industry which held considerable sway in the middle
1800’s starting at about the same time as the Blue Stone and hardwood lumbering was
the Scoop and Hoop Makers. This industry came in after the destruction of the hemlock
forests when the hardwoods of today began to take over. These were skilled workers who
made wooden scoops and wooden hoops for barrels. The buildings at Turnwood where the Alder
Lake Trail crosses the Beaverkill was one of these factories. The Catskill industry was
gradually squeezed out by the same industry in the mid west around 1890 and the whole
wooden hoop industry was eventually wiped out with the development of the metal hoop.
In 1890-1915 the tourists came to the Beaverkill Valley and
Catskills in general.
That's the end of this history lesson, so, when you're
ready, please head back to the Onteora history page or the main Onteora page. |