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Deerpark and Mount Hope

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James Finch, Jr., his son, of the last generation, was born July 25, 1768. This gentleman was well known, both at home and abroad. He came into public life when young, and held the office of Justice of the Peace from about 1798 to 1830, excepting the time he acted as Judge of the county. In 1831 Coe Finch, his son was elected a Justice of the Peace in his place. He held the Supervisorship of his town for twelve years in succession, and served as a member in the State Legislature thirteen sessions. We think he was first elected in 1802, and served his last term in 1832. Early in life he became a member of the Baptist Church, and died in the faith of his fathers on the 7th day of December, 1843, aged seventy-five years.

He married in 1794, and had ten children, nine of whom lived to be twenty four years of age. We give a copy of the family record:

NAMES.		BIRTH.	DEATH.
James Finch,	Father,	July 25, 1768,	December 7, 1843.
Sarah,	Mother	September 23, 1772,	December 1, 1843.
Zophar,		May 20, 1795.
Catharine,		May 1, 1797,	December 30, 1843.
Margaret,		September 10, 1799,	February 12, 1807.
P. G.,		February 28, 1802.
Coe,		April 30, 1804,	September 12, 1832.
Julia,		November 20, 1806.
Jesse,		January 24, 1809,	November 23, 1843.
James M.		April 11, 1811,	February 4, 1844.
John,		June 28, 1813,	December 9, 1843.
Sarah,		August 9, 1819,	December 2, 1843.

Sarah, the mother, and Sarah, the youngest daughter, it will be seen died on the same day, and were buried in one grave, not separated in life or death.

The disease of which the members of this family died was a bilious congestive fever ending in typhoid. P.G. Finch, the son of Zophar Finch, was first seized with it in September, 1843, and did not fully recover his health till January, 1844. It would appear from the statement of the several cases, that this one formed the basis of all the rest. He was visited, nursed and taken care of by others of the family, and some one of them took the disease in return, and thus it proceeded till almost all the members of the family and relatives living at a distance—even in New Jersey—who had been in a situation exposed in any way to its contaminating and deadly influence, suffered the danger and violence of an attack.— The abode of this aged patriot was high and upon the most elevated lands of the county, swept over and daily fanned by the mountain winds, and without any neighboring locality to generate disease or pestilence: still they stalked around his dwelling at midnight, and entered its secret recesses at noonday. The affliction of this family is almost without a parallel in so healthy a district of country, at a season whet no general disease prevailed throughout the land.

We are indebted to Mr. Zophar Finch of Finchville for the facts which compose the history of this ancient family.

Shawangunk Kill.—This stream runs from South to North through the central portion of the town, but furnishes no hydraulic power, and is the only one worth naming. No town in the county, unless it be Goshen, is so destitute of brooks and ponds. The etymology of Shawangunk has been given.